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Ohio State catches ‘Glee’ fever with flash mob

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Leave it to the largest university in the nation to pull off one of the most impressive “Glee” flash mobs we’ve seen.

To promote a sprawling student union that recently opened, a gang of Ohio State students and staff, clad in the customary scarlet and gray took on the Fox hit’s signature song, “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” on Monday.

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In the You Tube video, which has gotten nearly 600,000 hits, the crowd cheered on the students — and dedicated staffers — who danced in the great hall as more poured in from the balcony. University President Gordon Gee and school mascot Brutus Buckeye even got in on the action.

Billy Ashley, editorial assistant for the Office of the President, who was one about 70 dancers in the video, said pulling off the video was a process.

He said they split up into four groups, with the first group of dancers starting rehearsals in February, with more added over time

Full disclosure, this loyal “Glee” Show Tracker is also an OSU alum and visited the campus late Sunday night. Ashley confirmed the students I spotted in the building in the early hours of Monday were indeed doing a midnight rehearsal.

At a school as big as OSU, it’s pretty tough to keep anything a secret, so they troop. Taylor Candella, a senior in construction management and one of the organizers, said they practiced in secret around campus once a week.

“It was weird. I live with 10 other guys, every Thursday and Sunday they’d be like, ‘Where are you going?’ I’d have to make up excuses for the last two and a half months,” Candella said. “It was definitely hard. We wanted to tell people to show up. I was getting antsy. But it was worth it, you know, just seeing their reactions.”

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Jordan Davis, a fourth-year student in political science and leadership studies, choreographed the number and pitched the idea to the director of the union, which opened in late March. She said she picked the “Glee” track for a few obvious reasons.

“They are supposed to be from Lima, Ohio. There is no better school to represent Ohio pride than OSU (the school has a regional campus in Lima). ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ ’’ is something that could encompass what the new union was about. There are a lot of traditions here, but also a lot of change.”

Davis said she was pleased they were able to pull it off — they even had a code word handy.

“We were Team Schuester. That was the code word,” Davis said. “If someone new came in, we’d ask them what they were here for. If you knew Schuester, we knew you were a part of the club.”

— Gerrick D. Kennedy (Follow me on Twitter @GerrickKennedy) Related: Complete Showtracker coverage of ‘Glee’

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