It's just a jump to the left...

Saturday's game at Purdue felt so much like something out of the mid-90s that I almost checked at halftime to make sure I had a tape in the VCR recording the game: Maddening offense that alternated between effective, and bleech; defense that looked adequate against a Purdue offense that couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat; bad weather that chased most of the normally sparse Boilermaker crowd; a gaggle of turnovers for both teams; and just enough points to win an ugly, ugly game. It was definitely not a thing of beauty, but given the way the last three years have gone, we'll take any win we can get.
- It was nice to see the defense play well, but I'm not sure we can read anything into this game, it looked like Purdue shot itself in the foot time and time again. I'm not sure they had a QB on the roster who could throw the ball more than 20 yards. The next two(three) offenses will face will bear no resemblance to this one.
-Denard is continuing to make bad decisions in the passing game. It's funny that a guy who is such a good runner seems unwilling to tuck it and run instead of trying to force a pass.
-Had an interesting conversation with my 8-year old son during the game. After Michigan scored late to go up 11, he announced, "We can't lose this game now, we're gonna win." Being a grizzled college football I get superstitious about things like that, so I said, "I wish you hadn't said that"
"Why Not?"
"Because you could jinx us"
"But we're still going to win aren't we?"
"Well, you never know what's going to happen, so you don't announce that we're going to win until it's a sure thing"
"But I'm sure we're going to win."

I guess he's just have to suffer some sort of catastrophic loss to understand the superstition of a veteran fan.
-Weird day in the Pac Ten - Cal almost beats Oregon, ASU almost beat Stanford, and Washington State wins their first conference road game since 2007.
-There is probably gonna be a few people who will get unfairly punished in the whole Cam Newton saga. None of them are from Auburn. Based on what we've heard, I tend to think that Newton was probably bought and paid for. I don't think Miss. State would've reported any of this if they didn't feel they had to protect their interests. That suggests that some, if not all of what they are reporting is true. I don't buy the idea that Newton (or his dad, or a representative for his family) would have asked MSU for money, and not Auburn. Even if they didn't ask Auburn for money, there is no way that Auburn would have taken a kid kicked out of Florida (how bad do you have to fuck up to get kicked off a Gator team that is considering replacing their defensive coordinator with a defense counsel?) without learning absolutely everything about him. Auburn probably knew Newton was looking for a handout and knew that would make him ineligible. They probably knew about his academic cheating episodes at UF. That alone would have made him untouchable at any school where the idea of a student athlete is not a joke. They choose to take him anyway, and probably paid to do so. They and Newton deserve any punishment they get.
-Another interesting item about the Newton thing is the reports of the FBI being involved. I don't think the FBI would get involved unless there were some more serious crimes involved. The FBI was involved in the Michigan basketball thing ten years ago because the main figure in the whole affair was running an illegal numbers scam at an area Ford plant. I wonder if Auburn uber-booster / trustee Bobby Lowder is being investigated for something more serious. If so, Cam Newton's eligibility might be the least of Auburn's worries.
-Gotta admire the consistency of the Grambling Tigers. Their last five games they've scored 38, 35, 35, 35, and 34 points. Unfortunately in that last game they gave up 41 to Texas Southern, which cost them the SWAC title.
-The FCS playoffs expanded to 20 teams this year. There are 123 FCS teams, and several leagues (SWAC, Pioneer, Ivy) that don't participate in the playoffs. There are 120 FBS teams. If the NCAA were to sponsor a playoff for the top division of college football, the likelihood that it would be limited to four, eight or 12 teams seem slim. Just like the basketball tournament, it would eventually expand to the max allowable size.

Things have changed

For the last 40+ years with Michigan football, there have been a lot that you could count on - basic offense, solid defense, 8 or 9 wins most seasons, a team that improved as the season progressed, a bowl game every year, and being the better program than Michigan State. Sure there were years that MSU beat us, but we almost always finished with a better record, and only most ardent spartan supporter would argue that MSU was gonna be the better team in any given year. All of that has changed. Not only was MSU the better team on Saturday, it's clear now that they've become the better program. They've become the team that seems to be greater than the sum of its parts, while we've become the team that can't get out of its own way.
Now the spartanistas have been telling us since the day before Lloyd Carr retired that "things had changed", but you'll have to forgive wolverine fans who had seen the sun set in the west all their life if they had a hard time believing it was going to start setting in the east. Now after watching our team get depantsed three straight years, we're starting to get it.
How did this happen? Some credit goes to Mark Dantonio who has done a decent Jim Tressel impersonation by focusing on a rivalry game, simplifying the offense, recruiting the state of ohio hard, and conveniently ignoring criminal activity from key players (I kid, I kid). But mostly this is a case of Michigan's program falling to new found depths and continuing to look unlike anything we've ever seen in the winged helmets. As time goes on, it's getting harder and harder to excuse Michigan's poor defense as an accident or as an unfortunate set of circumstances. And as time goes on without any apparent improvement it getting harder and harder to believe that all it will take for improvement is time or more in-game experience.
Where does this game leave us from a season perspective? Well, the wild dreams of a big ten title are gone. A win over a good Iowa team might revive thoughts of a New Year's Day bowl, but likely this is still a 7-5 team that will have to fight to make it to a bowl. The good news is that they might not face another offense as balanced as MSU all year. Of course, it doesn't take much offense to beat our defense to a bloody pulp, and five of the six remaining teams have defenses that are statistically better than States. The season, I think, will come down to a three game stretch - at Penn State, Illinois, at Purdue. 3-0 or 2-1 they go bowling, 1-2 or 0-3, they stay home, and the search for a new coach likely begins.

To Hell with Notre Dame!

On the eve of the Notre Dame game, some random memories from the series:

I saw my first Michigan - Notre Dame series in person in 1979, a year after the series returned from a 36 year hiatus. My only memory of that game is Notre Dame lineman Bob Crable standing on the back of a Michigan offensive lineman to block what would have been the game winning kick. I'm sure the fact that this was blatantly illegal at the time didn't matter one bit to the Notre Dame team or fans, who probably feel that only God's rules are worthy of following.

Since that time I have witnessed 8 Michigan wins and 7 losses. Four of those loses came when I was an undergrad, with two trips to South Bend which may qualify as two of the most heart wrenching losses I ever seen. In 1988, I was standing on the field, behind the back of the endzone, waiting to run onto the field as Mike Gillette lined up to kick the game winning 42 yard field goal. We watched the kick to see if it had enough distance and raced into the back of the endzone heading for the Michigan team. We were at the goal line before we realized he had missed wide to the other side of the goal post. In 1990, we were walking through the parking lot after a come from ahead loss in Gary Moeller's first game as head coach when a particularly clever Notre Dame fan shouted to all the Michigan fans who were within earshot, "See you later Miss Again!" After four straight losses to Lou Holtz's teams, that one was particularly painful.

So of course, the 1991 game, with the famous catch pictured above came as a huge relief. Despite Desmond's Heisman launching catch, the game itself was quite mundane. We simply squeezed the life out of Notre Dame, possessing the ball for almost 45 minutes. This was just one of a number of games where Michigan has just outclassed Notre Dame. 1981 and 1985 were pretty comfortable wins, and the 2003 and 2007 matching 38-0 wins were two of the more delightful days I've spent at the corner of Stadium and Main. That 2007 Notre Dame team was probably the worst rivalry team I've ever seen Michigan play, and that's saying a lot since I witnesses the Bobby Williams and Muddy Waters coaching eras up in East Lansing. In fact it seems like in this rivalry, Michigan wins more of the lopsided games, whereas Notre Dame wins the close ones.

Of course there are exceptions to the that rule, and those games are my favorite Notre Dame- Michigan memories. The three straight defensive stops in 1997, the frantic closing minutes of the 1999 game, with time running out on the Irish just 40 yards away from the endzone, and Tate Forcier's heroics last year are all-time classics that I never pass up a chance to watch when they show up on BTN or ESPN Classic.

'Twas The Night Before Football

One of my favorite passages from the legendary Bob Ufer, he read the following prior to a Michigan game at California sometime in the mid 60s. It's a little dated, but the general themes still hold true to this day.

It's only September, but as we look down and daydream, we can't help but notice that the field is green, tinged with brown and a white chalk line laces it together. The athletes have been practicing gingerly, packed firmly in dashing uniforms where padding and muscle meet. The stands offer a stage for fashion. Men in short sleeves and colorful jackets, the ladies all lovely, a combination of soft curves and bright hats. There are the program hawkers, the deep-voiced peddler with his hot dogs, the soft drink boy making change, and the smiling cheerleaders. There are uniform men in striped shirts, and of course, a dog.
What is it? It's Football. Yes sir there are five seasons across this country every year, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Football. Football season makes the barber cut hair just a little bit better, and it makes the butcher slice the steak a trifle thicker. The shoeshine boy pops the rag with more gusto, the landlord doesn't mention the overdue rent.
The pilgrimage is on. Old cars, new cars and motorbikes are jammed with riders wheeling for the stadium from North, East, South, and West and the back roads are jam filled. The gentleman steers with one arm, explaining a forward pass with the other. Ladies think about their figure, and men compromise that it will only be for one the weekend. So, stop the car get some hot dogs and drinks from the roadside stand.
On grassy lots and asphalt sidings, high school lawns and golf greens, the cars line up with the hood ornaments pointing towards the main gate. Trunk compartments fly up to supply sandwiches, sliced cake and pickles and a few pints after touchdowns, even though the game hasn't started yet. The insurance man waves and doesn't mention his newest policy, rather wants to know who's favored. Old friends are greeted, and new friends are introduced between bites. The old grad may look older, but he's beginning to feel younger than his freshman year. There's the band with the drum major, and maybe they have 76 trombones, and maybe they don't, but the music sound good, and if you're walking, the steps come quicker. The ex-halfback tells himself he could pull a helmet over that bald spot and look as good as any of those college boys, the bad knee feels like new.
There are folks seated on the 50 yard line, and they have that little edge in prestige, because there aren't many such seats available. They really can't see the game any better, but it's a symbol of success, and football games are social games as well. There are the loyal and the disloyal, and the fellow who really doesn't care who wins, but wants to see some action.
There's something in football for everyone. Some can cheer the players, some can second guess the coach. Some can listen to radios and see how wrong we radio announcers can be. While some just enjoy the ballet of young bulls in battle.
There's a beauty of sound in a punt, and a spine chill from the thud of a fullback being hit head on by a red-dogging linebacker. There's magic on the campus sprawling beyond the boundaries of the stadium. There's a pleasant emotional letdown after a game is over: a tired by happy feeling for the winner, a tired, but resolute challenge to avenge for the losers. The stands empty, and the fog of battle lifts, and there's a stillness, and a grandeur, and a look to the future.
No sir, there's nothing like college football, and it happens all over the country. It's happening here in Berkley this afternoon, it happened in little old Ann Arbor last Saturday, as once again small college towns across the country become part of the big collegiate football scene.

They're Gonna Wave Him In!

Some catching up on a few items:

-I was in the middle of setting up an Awards Ceremony at the Academic Games State tournament as Michigan was playing Clemson in the first round of the NCAAs. As I was unpacking trophies, setting up microphones, and moving chairs, people would shout the score to me from across the banquet hall, where they were watching it on ESPN gametracker or a shitty CBS March Madnees On-Demand video feed, while at the same time monitoring middle school students playing Presidents. When the game finally ended, my son called me with the score. Needless to say, I didn't really get much chance to break down the game, and I still haven't watched it in its entirety. But over the next few days, whenever I had a moment to think. I found myself repeating the results over and over, "We won a game in the Big Dance, we won a game in the Big Dance!" I am ecstatic with the season, and think John Beilein did a whale of a job making the tourney with two walk-ons at point, and one player over 6-8 in the rotation. He certainly deserved some Coach of the Year consideration in the Big Ten (Izzo winning that award was an absolute joke). I know that the step for a program from bad to mediocre or from mediocre to good is ten times easier than the step from good to great, or great to elite, but I have confidence that Beilein will take us there eventually. If Manny and Pedi Sims come back (cross your fingers), top 3 or 4 in the league, a single digit seed, and a sweet sixteen birth are not unreasonable expectations for next year.
-I'm not an NFL draft expert by any stretch of the imagination, and any time spent thinking about the Lions is wasted time, but it seems to me that a Jay Cutler for the Lions second first round pick (#20) is an obvious deal that would help both the Lions and Denver.
-What the heck is Kentucky thinking? You gotta give a coach at least three years, barring any wrongdoing (like the Kelvin Sampson stuff at IU). I don't know why any established coach without prior connections there would want that job knowing they've run off two pretty decent coaches in the last three years. They just moved up a few spots on my "Teams to root against" list.
-TO in Buffalo?!?! Seriously, that's a joke isn't it? That's like saying that Dennis Leary has been selected as the next Pope, or Rush Limbaugh is the new head of the ACLU. Some things just don't belong together.
-The passing of George Kell earlier this week made me feel really old (and really melancholy). Along with Bob Ufer, Ernie Harwell, and to a lesser extent Sid Abel, Kell was the voice of my sports childhood. You could hear one word from him and you knew who you were listening to. Close your eyes and listen to a few more words and you could see the upper deck in rightfield hanging over the field. You could see the flagpole in deep, deep centerfield in front of the rowdy bleacher creatures. He came from an era when announcers didn't just read the score or the pitch count, but actually painted a picture complete with all the little details that were periphery to the game. His Arkansas drawl was so unique to this area that everyone had their own imitation of it. He was a connection to the Golden Age of baseball for my generation of fans.

Welcome Back!

I remember exactly where and when I last cared as much about Michigan basketball as I do right now. It was the morning of October 11, 1997 and my dad and I were on our way to Michigan Stadium to see the 4-0 Michigan football team play Northwestern, a team that had beaten them two years in a row. The pregame show on the radio announced that Steve Fisher had been fired as Men's basketball coach, just a few weeks before practices were to begin, because of the investigation into the activities of one Ed Martin At the time I was furious at the lack of loyalty shown by the University towards the man who had brought them their only national championship, and had brought in the Fab 5. All through the football game, all we talked about was Fisher, Martin, and the basketball team.

Of course, as more info came out, my opinion on Steve Fisher changed. And although I remained a Michigan basketball fan, my interest began to wane on that day. I watched Brian Ellerbee run a talented team into the ground by recruiting deadbeats, projects no one else wanted, and Webster look-a-likes. I cursed the TV when Tom Izzo left his starters in and ran up the score on a hapless Michigan team. I died a little with each late season choke job by Amker's teams, and with each recruiting near-miss. I prayed for years that they would get rid of Ellerbee, waited a few years, and then prayed a few more for them to do the same to Amaker. And little by little, my passion for basketball died. Although I would still watch the games and would check the scores, I never expected much, except to be disappointed if I allowed myself to believe anything positive could happen.

All that changed at about 11:30pm last night when Anthony Wright fed a perfect backdoor pass to a cutting DeShawn Sims who slammed it home emphatically for his seventeenth and eighteenth points of the night to give Michigan a four point lead over the #4 team in the country with :34 seconds to go in the game. I jumped off the coach and screamed at the top of my lungs, probably causing my brother in Austin, with whom I was on the phone, to go temporarily deaf in his left ear. I ran around the room pumping my fist not holding the phone in the air while my phone exploded with text messages from all of my friends who were still up doing the same thing as I was: Watching a game with no expectation of victory, just a slight sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe we could see some progress from last year.

Now this win doesn't make us a top ten team, it doesn't even make us a tournament team. There are bound to be ups and downs throughout the season and into the future. But it does mean that we are on the right track, and the light we see at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train. For the first time in a decade, that little part of me that had been slowly fading away bit by bit has returned. It's the part of me that used to idolize Ricky Green almost as much as I idolized Ricky Leach. It's the part of me that remembers walking up the driveway, reading the paper that the Judge, Antoine Joubert had signed with Michigan. It's the part of me that would go crazy when Steve Stokyo would enter the game, because he was the original human victory cigar. It's the part of me that would yell "Hell ya" with every Loy Vaught rebound, every Gary Grant Steal, and every Glen Rice triple. It's the part of me that danced in the light rain on South University with 10,000 other kids when Rumeal Robinson sunk two free throws to give us our basketball championship.

God, it's good to have a basketball program we can be proud of again.

Free at Last, Free at Last

I've tried to keep this blog politics free, despite the remarkable campaign taking place this year. I cannot let last night go by without some comment however.

As a history student (and educator at times), I have been, from a young age, aware of the fundamental dichotomy of American history, the gulf between the core ideals of America and the harsh realities of its history. A literature class I had as an undergrad summed it up in its title, "American Dream / American Nightmare"

The American experiment was founded by a group of wealthy, educated farmers who cobbled together a number of somewhat obscure theories from European philosophers of the prior century into a quasi-coherent system of government. The core principles were radical to say the least, and represented a dramatic departure from the governments of the previous two millennia. In putting these ideas down on paper and creating a society based, at least in theory, on those ideals, the founding fathers created a paradigm that was to be copied, sought and held up as the last best hope of earth for generations.

But for most of its history, the grasp of the American people has not met the reach of the founding fathers. Time after time, we as a people have failed to live up to the lofty standards that were set out for us when we began this trial. Slavery, internment, lynching, Jim Crow, religious persecution, domestic slavery of women, and a permanently impoverished class, to name a few. To be a student of American history is be aware of the horrible crimes that have been committed in the name of America at the same time you are aware of the great promise that this land holds.

Yes we have progressed throughout our history towards that more perfect union. Many of our greatest heroes come from those times of progress. But that progress has been slow and halting, often interrupted by intense periods of regression. To those who have struggled, it has seemed as if change would never come.

But the events of last night, and really of the this entire campaign showed that we have changed, and we are on the way towards fulfilling that promissory note that the founding fathers gave to us. From a practical standpoint, the election of one person over another for president might not make much of a difference in the daily lives of most citizens, and many will see the implementation of one party's policies over another as a step backwards. But no American, Black or White, Male or Female, Democrat or Republican, Jew or Gentile, can deny the symbolism of a country that once legally counted African-Americans as 3/5 of a person being led by a black man. No one can look at the fact that in exit polls people who viewed race as a factor voted in the same way as people who didn't view it as a factor and not see it as a sign that we are moving ever closer to the day when a man is judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin. In short, last night made it clear that although we still have a ways to go, we are closer to the American Dream than we have ever been.

Among a flood of unbelievable images and poignant moments from Grant Park, I was struck by the figure of Jesse Jackson. Seemingly alone in the middle of this massive crowd, he stood straight up, a good foot taller than all who stood around him. He clutched an American flag in his right hand, and with his left hand he pressed his index finger against his lips, trying to maintain his composure while tears streamed down his cheek. You could only imagine what was going through the mind of this 67 year old preacher, who had fought the battles of the civil rights movement, and who was on the balcony of that Memphis hotel on that horrible April day so many years ago. Perhaps it was the realization that after generations of struggle, we can finally see a world where the dreams of his friend and mentor are in sight.

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.

Graduate Memories

A great post on MGoBlog about graffiti in a UofM Library copy of a book about OSU football reminded me about a unique feature of the graduate library on campus. When I was an undergrad, I would always go to the grad library as someplace quiet to study and get work done. On the south side of the upper floors of library the stacks were surrounded by these little study rooms that were not more than 5'x5'. They included a desk, a small shelf above the desk, one chair, a window just large enough to see the weather outside, and a heater vent underneath the window. The heater vent included slats that were just wide enough and were angled in such a way that you could write a few words on them. In every cubicle, people had written short, pithy snippets of many of the slats, most of which included the date it was written. So you would get things like:
8-9-74: Nixon Resigns
10-22-83: Beat Iowa 16-13
4-14-87: 72 degrees!!
It was a great piece of living history, and I would find myself drifting back to those dates and imagining what it must have been like for the people who were holed up inside on those dates just as I was.

Unfortunately before my senior year the library went through and repainted the interiors of all the cubicles, wiping out that small piece of history.