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Provided by Bill Burke
1/16/2019
John Rhodes waited silently inside O’Bleness Memorial Hospital on a June day in 2005. Rhodes, then an assistant men’s basketball coach for Ohio, was still in disbelief as he and others who joined him at the hospital tried to grasp news about their friend.
They learned that Dan Lowe, the first leader and loudest member of the “O Zone,” the student cheering section in The Convo, was dead.
Just hours earlier, Rhodes had agreed to Dan’s request: to play basketball one more time in The Convo before he left campus. Dan wanted the pickup game to be his final memory of college.
Now, Rhodes was steadying himself to tell Dan’s parents their son died. The Lowes were driving in from their Canal Fulton home, a three-hour drive to O’Bleness. For everyone awaiting, it felt like an eternity.
When Margaret and Burgess Lowe arrived, Rhodes said his heart sank. He couldn’t dig the words out. He dipped his head, and that’s when the Lowes knew their biggest fear was true.
“It was just tough, because they're looking at you, and they didn't know exactly,” Rhodes said. “There's no words to express how sorry I felt. That was probably the toughest part.”
Dan, 24, died June 24, 2005. He suffered cardiac arrhythmia, an irregular heart beat, after leaping for a rebound and collapsing a few feet away from where he stood in the raucous O Zone crowd at Ohio sporting events.
His death stunned everyone who knew him, but many have found peace with it because of the effect he made on people he met.
"He was always a guy who would do whatever he had to do for someone,” said Rob Metzger, a friend and Dan’s roommate. “He was just very friendly with that. I felt like he grew his faith, like we all did, during his time here.”
Dan connected with everyone through his endless enthusiasm, people said. He wasn’t afraid to stand out — it was hard not to at 6-foot-9 — and he always placed people above himself. When he hung out with others, he didn’t want to be another footnote on their lives; he strived to become a chapter.
“With his enthusiasm and thoughtfulness for other kids,” said Burgess, “he was quite successful in his approach to carry out what he believed.”
Called “D-Lo” by friends, Dan began building friendships around Athens in 1999 when he picked Ohio over Kentucky, his parents’ alma mater and the school that triggered Dan’s love for basketball.
Dan Lowe and some friends take a picture with then-OU president Robert Glidden in the O Zone. Provided by Bill Burke
No one could have imagined the size of the footprint Dan left on Ohio sports. He accomplished much more than building a 1,000-person strong student section that brought together the most passionate Ohio sports fans.
Through the university’s Campus Crusade for Christ, he built his core group of friends. He always offered rides to church, hosted members at his apartment for weekly Bible studies and always split his 20 meal-swipe plan to buy food for friends and members, even if he barely knew them.
"He was so outgoing, and he just knew so many people,” said Bill Burke, one of Dan’s roommates. “He was big, and it made him recognizable to so many people where it made an atmosphere around him where people knew what he was about."
Dan was never afraid to show his personality. It’s what he did when he created a Christian hip-hop group, Eternal Perspective, in his sophomore year, and it’s how he ultimately ensured the O Zone would be vibrant for years.
The CD made from Eternal Perspective. Dan Lowe, wearing an “O Zone” T-shirt, is second on the right. Provided by Rob Metzger.
Many freshmen and sophomores who reserved tickets in the O Zone that first year had heard about the start of the student section from Dan himself. He rolled through dorms and invited underclassmen to join, and he even offered rides to games.
“Because he was so excited, it was contagious,” said Shelley Binegar, Ohio athletics director of ticketing operations from 2000-2004. “He was the one who got the grassroots, the groundswell, from the students up instead of us trying to push it down.”
“That really made all the difference.”
His energy was raw and self-motivated. His chants with the O Zone never included low blows to a player’s personality or personal life, and the energy he radiated — whether it was in The Convo or on Court Street — was wholesome.
“He didn't need alcohol to have a good time,” Metzger recalled. “You would've thought watching us in some games that we would've needed a little help from alcohol, but we didn't. It was just natural fun.”
After he graduated in 2003, Dan continued to hype the O Zone as the promotions coordinator in the athletic department. The Convo was his favorite place to create memories, and his meaning to the arena will never be forgotten.
Anthony Poisal | FOR THE POST
The plaque attached to Row 1, Seat 1 at The Convo in memory of Dan Lowe.
Five months after his death and four years after Dan and his friends began the O Zone, the Ohio Athletic Department posted a gold plaque that reads “Ohio’s #1 Fan” on Row 1, Seat 1 — his reserved O Zone spot.
"If he was to die early, the fact that it happened on a basketball court in a place he loved, that would be the best place it could happen,” Metzger said. “With our faith, we believe God's in control, and whenever it's time, it's time.
“Everything is planned out ahead of time, and we believed that was the plan for him."
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