Perspective

I was set to write a post about the Purdue game, about how the decent offense, no-defense, series of near misses and what-ifs in the game were just a microcosm of the year, and of the entire RR-era, and about how more than likely it was now a matter of when (probably two years from now), not if Rich Rod leaves when we were thrown a gigantic curve ball, the type of life-altering moment that punches you in the gut, and leaves you in a heap on the floor, an emotional cripple.

Everything that was on-going, work, school, blog, sports, AG, got set aside for a week or so, and only things that dealt with the crisis were attended to. Gone was any thoughts of bubble screens, defensive play calling, or coaches buyouts. To say that things were put into perspective is both incredibly cliche and an understatement of Weisian proportions.

This is not to say that football and other sports don't matter anymore, they do. You don't spend as much money on tickets, and as much time thinking, talking, and in some cases, writing (if that's what you want to call this) about something that isn't important. But it's little I important. It's the type of thing that belongs in conversations that start, "Hey, what's up", or "How about that game last night?" Big I important is what friends, relatives, and casual acquaintances read about you in a two paragraph summary of your life in the local paper. Big I important is what people think about as they stand above you saying their goodbyes. Big I important is making sure that the people who surround you and depend on you everyday are taken care of, and making sure that they know, and hear, how you feel about them.

Little I important things are there to entertain us, and distract us from drowning in the flood of emotions that come with a Big I important moment. So that's what we are here for today. To soldier on, to endure, and to think of all the positive moments that have come before, and not just on the pain that has recently been inflicted upon us. That's true for the Big I world, where we have to go back to work, back to school, and back to as much of a regular routine as we can to try and get used to the new reality, and it's true for the little I important world, where we should remember that this is supposed to be fun, and sometimes we just have to wait out the bad stuff to get to the good moments.

So, I'll get up the Golden Rankings soon, and will have some thoughts on the impending doom this weekend at the hands of Lord Saur-, er, uh, Tressel and his minions, and will get back to doing things like getting overly upset at the inability of our freshman walk-on safeties and linebackers to cover a simple crossing route or deep post.

Passing the Torch

Things I'll Miss:
- The comfort of knowing what the first play will be. Like that old version of Madden you still play every once in a while, even though the graphics and computer AI are hopeless outdated, because you know the offense backwards and forwards.
- The pro-style quarterback who can throw a tomato through a brick wall if you need him to
- A four-yard Mike Hart run that really should have been a two yard loss
- The waggle
- Erik Campbell, Ron English, and Scott Loeffler
- A coach who breaks the stereotype of coaches as glorified gym teachers by quoting Kipling in press conferences or talking about the Man of La Mancha with his team.
- The Lloyd Carr scoring offense that came out when we were down late or against high scoring opponents
- The Rasputin-like quality of Lloyd Carr teams


Things I won't miss:
- Punting on 4th and one from the opponents 38 while up by four points with 2:30 to go in the fourth.
- The frustration of knowing that not only do you know what play is coming, so do the defenders. Like trying to run the plays from that old Madden game in the new, more complex and realistic game.
- The shuffling fullback that tipped off the already predictable play
- The blocking TE that never catches any passes
- A lack of halftime adjustments
- An aversion to trying any new wrinkles in big games
- Andy Moeller, Mike Debord, and Mike Gittleson
- Fort Schembechler and press conferences that contain no new information
- The Lloyd Carr ball control offense, and the fact that we almost never saw the scoring offense
- Mediocre special teams

Goodbye Old Friend

DSC00340
Originally uploaded by Credit812

When we would approach the point where 75 merged with 96, I would scoot forward in my seat so that I could get a better look out the front window. As we made the broad wide turn toward downtown, it would appear, rising above the city like the western mountains rising above the plains. As we would approach, it shown like a battleship, large and foreboding and full of angles and sharp metal, with its flags flying several stories above sea level. When you got out of the car, you could smell the peanuts from two blocks away. The stadium seemed to grow in size as you quickly closed the distance between the car and the game. To a young kid, the metal seemed to scrape the sky. When you got to the park, you had to walk around the stadium on impossibly narrow sidewalks, underneath an overhang from the upper deck. Each corner had it's own entrance, and they were connected to each other on the inside of the stadium by skinny hallways that were always crammed with people five wide. Once you made it through the seemingly endless maze of byways and ramps, you would travel down a long walkway that extended over the lower deck. At the end of the walkway, you passed into the sunshine. Opening up beneath you was a sea of grass that glowed bright. In contrast to the huge metal of the stadium, the field seem out of place, a green oasis in an urban desert. As the game started, and rolled on, the white uniforms of the tigers on the green field against a backdrop of bright orange and blue seats held your attention and the outside world melted away.

When they finished the next to last game there, I stood at the fence of the bleacher section, trying to hold back the flood of emotion. When I pulled my eyes away from that green field, I noticed that to my left and right stood dozens of men about my age, all staring at the field and trying to soak up as many memories as possible.

I went down to take one last visit to the Corner of Michigan and Trumball today. It looked as if someone had taken a slice out of the stadium and removed it, like a stolen piece of cake. Around every side of the stadium were people with cameras, each trying to capture an image or two that would crystallize the rapidly fading memories of their childhood. My photos are linked above. i hope they spark some memories for you.