Ohio State To Donate Baseball Home Opener Gate To Bus Wreck Funds

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) _ Ohio State University will donate gate proceeds from Wednesday's baseball home opener to funds to help Bluffton University's team after the bus wreck that killed five players

Monday, March 26th 2007, 8:13 pm

By: News On 6

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) _ Ohio State University will donate gate proceeds from Wednesday's baseball home opener to funds to help Bluffton University's team after the bus wreck that killed five players in Atlanta earlier this month, the Ohio State athletic department said Monday.

One fund is to benefit the students involved in the crash and their families, and the other is toward building a memorial on the campus in northwest Ohio.

``I've been in the front seat of a bus many times, and it easily could have been me and Ohio State,'' Buckeyes' coach Bob Todd said in a release. ``Anything we can do at all to try and help ease the pain is the right thing to do.''

The Buckeyes host Toledo at 2 p.m.

The charter bus was taking the Bluffton team to Florida for spring games when the driver apparently mistook a left-hand freeway exit for the commuter lane on I-75, went up the ramp to an overpass and plunged off it back to the highway. The bus driver and his wife were killed along with the five players.

The coach and several players were injured, and one player remains hospitalized in Atlanta.