Game will make for a third straight three-day weekend in central Ohio

Good luck getting anything done Monday night. Or Tuesday, for that matter.

Central Ohio is shutting down to watch Ohio State take on the Florida Gators in the national-championship game Monday in Glendale, Ariz.

Government and social-club meetings have been scrapped. Fans have scheduled vacation days to recover from the game, and Tuesday-morning hangovers wait in the wings to distract those who show up for work.

Beyond that, thousands of central Ohioans, including many professionals and business folks, won't even be here -- they'll be living it up in University of Phoenix Stadium.

Bill Kotys, a Powell medicalsupply salesman, is taking a common approach: He has postponed a business trip until Wednesday so he can bounce back.

"I'm not a big party animal or anything, but I'm going to take it easy Tuesday," he said.

With so many people shuffling their schedules to accommodate the big game, Monday and Tuesday have become something close to unofficial holidays in central Ohio.

OSU outpatient centers recognized the pending problem in November and stopped scheduling patients after 5 p.m. on game day. The one person who already had an appointment rescheduled.

During Monday's second shift at Honda's Marysville plant, the company will broadcast game scores on a closed-circuit television network usually reserved for news and weather.

The list of Monday-night cancellations is too lengthy to tackle. Grandview Heights High School and Village Academy in Powell postponed basketball games because they fell close to game time. Discover Christian Church in Dublin rescheduled its monthly supper for new members, and the city's Recreation and Parks Department delayed the start of some sports leagues.

After all, "This isn't a bowl game; this is the championship game," said Terri Leist, assistant director of recreation and parks.

Suburban city councils can't compete with the Buckeyes -- Gahanna and Reynoldsburg canceled Monday meetings, although Reynoldsburg Councilwoman Antoinette Newman quipped that it was in honor of Elvis Presley's birthday, also on Monday.

The game's effect on central Ohio doesn't surprise Kirk Wakefield, an expert on sports fan behavior at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

"Missing out is hard for sports fans, because sports are a shared social experience," he said. "If you missed the game and your friends are talking about a great play, you're an outcast; you're left out of the dialogue.

"It's almost considered an embarrassment among sports fans to miss the big game."

But most of the impact will be felt Tuesday, said Robert Heneman, an OSU professor who specializes in human resources.

"A lot of people will have the football flu on Tuesday morning," he said.

Kathryn Stough, who does accounting work at the Defense Supply Center, plans to test the federal government's flex-time policy. She'll leave work early Monday and probably will go in late on Tuesday, but only after "a couple of Excedrin to ward off those nasty post-game headaches."

Gators fan Chris Cargill is taking a vacation day Tuesday. Unfortunately, that will delay his bragging rights, he said. "Of course, if the Gators lose, it allows me to delay the heckling of my co-workers."

Those who do go to work Tuesday will be standing around the water cooler rehashing the game, Wakefield said.

It's not a formula for getting a lot of work done, said Laura Rees, past president of the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio. "But whether you like it or not, people are going to go crazy for the Buckeyes, so companies might as well embrace it."

Some fans will be left out of the party, given no reprieve from responsibility because of commitments that can't be postponed.

Meredith Logsdon is presiding over the Ohio Fairs queen ceremony, one of two fairrelated events to be held Monday night at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

"I want to watch the game, but I've devoted a whole year to (being queen) and I have a responsibility to be there," said the reigning Ohio Fairs queen, an OSU junior. "Of all nights for Ohio State to play for the title."

Plenty of other people will also miss the game.

For everyone from Alcoholics Anonymous members to students at the Oriental Martial Arts College in Reynoldsburg, Monday night will be business as usual.

Time Warner Cable isn't letting employees off the hook. Instead, the company is putting more of them on call to make sure the cable doesn't go out in the middle of the game. About 1,100 OSU students enrolled in evening classes Monday are also expected to be in their seats, ready to learn.