n 1925 Junior Honor Societies from Illinois and Ohio State were looking to create a trophy to celebrate the anticipated long series between these Big Ten foes. So the groups chose a turtle due to its long life; they went with a live one. Naturally, the turtle died two years later, and both schools decided to replace it with a turtle of the wooden variety. Now, the winning school writes the latest score on the turtle’s shell, and every 10 years or so years – when no room remains for another score – a new trophy is created. Second, only to the Little Brown Jug in age, the Illibuck is another great Big Ten rivalry tradition.
Our Illibuck is 17 inches in length, 10 inches wide, and stands 9.75 inches