Weekend Roundup, More Roundups Than You Can Shake A Stick At Edition: June 9, 2008

​There are a lot of roundups out there. So many that it's tough to have a unique roundup...but I'm trying. MGoBlog has a plan in place where he just continuously picks posts and adds them to his del.icio.us account and they appear in the sidebar of the site. I'm thinking of going that way soon. The problem is that in this arduous off-season, the roundup holds a prominent position. Enough babble... on to what you missed while you spent your weekend booing Kwame.

** Michigan may have long since lost it's hold on being the Wolverine state, but now we can add Ohio to the list of states with unfit nicknames. 

The Buckeye State no longer has the largest Buckeye tree.

They apparently track and score these things. The Ohio entrant that held the title for 11 years and is actually taller by 4 feet. Girth matters, though, as the McDonald's/Illinois competitor is thicker and wider overall. It outscored the Ohio based tree 266-233.

Which reminds me of last season when Illinois beat Ohio State 28-21.

** This is pretty much being plastered all over the Michigan Blogosphere, but allow me to also throw my support behind the "Michigan Family" with a big middle finger to Justin Boren and his overrated brother by pointing you to MVictors and their pic of RichRod's new t-shirt.

** Because there is nothing else to do in Indiana, each year they make provisions for "no school this small" to ALWAYS find their way in to a state championship by reenacting the final game from the movie Hoosiers. Embarrassing? Yes. However, this year's editionincluded Michigan bound Zack Novak...who went all Jimmy Chitwood...

The University of Michigan recruit got three good looks from beyond the 3-point line. With his usual long-range acumen, Novak drained all three. He was chased by Butler University recruit Garrett Butcher during his time on the floor.

If I get tickets...Novak stays. He goes...I go.

** Phil Steele was on WTKA, and put Michigan in a fourth place tie in the Big Ten for the preseason. This is pretty much in line with the rest of the preseason mags, which you can see a summary of at stassen. Of note...not a single mag has us in the top 25. We fail to appear even in the "other's receiving votes" category.

** Somebody buy one of these for The Godfather. Can we utilize this technology at the tailgate?

** Mike Garrison has resigned. He was the President of West Virginia University, a job he won by taking 3rd in the log rolling event in the 2007 Great Outdoor Games. He was certainly a commander-in-brief, only holding the job since October 2007. Best known for handing out a degree to the daughter of the governor, he also was deeply involved in the RichRod buyout case. Oh, and the governor, he's the same asshole that took time out from his busy schedule trying to manage the booming economy of West Virginia to say this:

But, unfortunately, over the last two years, I have seen Rich become a victim of a college coaching system driven by high-priced agents that has turned those dreams into just another back-room business deal. Something is wrong with the profession of college coaching today when a leader’s word is no longer his bond, and it does not bode well for the student-athletes who entrust these coaches with their futures.

Yes, yes...back-room deals...like "give my daughter an MBA. I'm guessing all of this is good for the Rodriguez legal team.

Tubatorial: What's Your Fancy?

​by Robert Haddad

The summer months, and for that matter most of winter and spring, are affectionately known on this site as "the off-season." And despite the valiant efforts of our non-revenue sports like baseball, softball, track and field etc...it will take a rejuvenation of our hoops team for that to change. So what do you do in the off-season? Undoubtedly this year has been different than most because of the change in coaching staff. The football team has clearly stayed in the news longer this off-season than in most. After the '09 class was announced in February and the spring game came and went, there were discussions on culture, family and organizational change as well as the pontifications of position starters most intriguingly at quarterback and running back.

And yet here we are in June, seemingly at the same place we would have been if we had finished 10-2 under Lloyd with a loss in the Rose Bowl. College football can be analyzed for only so long until the saturation starts to drown us. Naturally we push to the surface in an effort to grasp for air. We need some occasional breathing room from the game we love. Much the same as anything that demands the attention of tailgating and college football.

So we arrive at a historical distraction. And it doesn't involve donations or jerseys. It's simply an opportunity to honor one of the greatest athletes of this generation. Ken Griffey Jr is approaching a historic landmark this year. His next home run will give him 600 for his career. He has six on the year, in this is 20th season. At one point Nike suggested we "vote for Griffey" in 1996. An obvious indication of his popularity in the 90's. At that point he had finished his seventh season in the league and was widely regarded as the best player since Mays. In fact, he often made it into our baseball discussions when talking about the best player of our generation and the best player to ever play the game. By 1999 Hank Aaron had declared Junior as the front runner to break his esteemed career home run mark now held by Barry Bonds. A record that used to roll off the tongues of every mother, father and child in this country, 755. That same year as Aaron's proclamation, Junior was voted to the All-Cenutry team ahead of Bonds and Roberto Clemente (neither made the fan voted team). "The Kid" wasbaseball even in the midst of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's assault on the long standing single season record of 61 home runs in 1998. 

The game might not light your fire anymore. It may never have. But its' records are the foundation of its' tradition much like the winged helmets (and not the "one" jersey) are the foundation of Michigan football. When Ken Griffey Jr hits his 600th there will be little celebration. I suspect because of the cloud of suspicion the game is still under and partly because Junior doesn't seek the attention some athletes demand. But when he hits 600, he will be one of the last to do so. Alex Rodriguez is on his way but the others on the list are closer to retirement than they are 600. And if you take into consideration the games he lost to injury, we could be talking about his 700th instead.

Our games change. Our teams change. Our opinions of both constantly change. And as we continue our transition to the new let us take a brief moment to celebrate our past by continuing to succeed in the present and the future.

Very Belated Announcement

​My deepest apologies for how late this announcement is, but we have a couple of tailgaters that have decided to go ahead and take the plunge, committing themselves to spending the remainder of their days together in sickness and in health, whether it be a Rose Bowl season or an Insight.com Bowl season, 'til death by alcohol do they part.

Being inappropriately groped in the above picture by yours truly is Michelle, affectionately known around the tailgate as "Tailgate Girl." She has been a fixture of the tailgate since we recruited her out of section 30 as a freshman. Her appearances were scattered throughout her college career as she managed her own UMTailgate spinoff at our rainout location.

Prior to last season, she finished her education, and appeared at the golf course in a full time capacity. At her side was her longtime boyfriend Kevin, who divides his time between earning multiple engineering bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees (now all completed...congrats!) and building Michigan themed grills in a machine shop. He became my right hand man for the 2007 season, a tailgate sous-chef if you will, and I wouldn't have made it through the season without him.

Just a few weeks ago, Kevin popped the question, which is of course, "Will you marry mego to all of the Michigan games with me?" Tailgate Girl accepted, and Kevin will take her last name...the couple will become Dr. and Mrs. Tailgate Girl.

Congrats to them both!

Who's in on a Suite?

​Varsity Blue has published a brochure that details what it takes from a cash perspective to get your name on a piece of the new stadium. You can get it on a concourse. You can put it on a lobby. You can even put it on the President's suite...or the Athletic director's suite. Wait a sec. They both get suites? They can't share a suite?

We've come a long way from a $50 brick. Slapping your John Hancock on the stadium is going to run you anywhere from $5K to $2.5 Million.

But there are some deals to be had here folks...namely the suites. If you go low end, a suite is $55,000 and includes seating for 16. That's $3437.50 per season, per seat. But bear with me here folks. 80% of that is tax deductible. With some crafty gorilla math, and depending on your tax bracket, you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $1700-$1900 per season ticket....which is not that far from the $350-$400 plus $500 seat license you might already be paying. Basically, for twice the price, you can have a suite. But as Varsity Blue points out, there is one huge caveat: Despite premium food and beverage service in the suites...alcohol is not permitted or served.

Doh!

Section 30 is looking more and more comfortable everyday. There might not be as much room...there might not be as much glamor...but there is certainly more spirit...

...and there's usually someone serving alcohol.

Weekend Roundup, Dodging Bullets Edition: June 1, 2008

• Utah, who is our first opponent in the RichRod era, already has a non-conference schedule set for 2013. Meanwhile, we don't know who we are playing next year.


• Two high school dropouts, obviously fed up with waiting around for the Big Ten Network, hacked Comcast's website. What did you accomplish this week?


• Columbus, Ohio is a hotspot for the budget traveller! The writer says that the following five words alone are worth a trip to Columbus: salty, caramel-almond ice cream. How about these five words... Columbus is full of pedophiles.


• Time for you to catch up on basketball recruiting. Why? Because Michigan baseball and softball have been eliminated.


• It's never too early to start increasing your tolerance for the upcoming season. Beer.


• Everything you wanted to know about Kevin Porter, Hobey Baker award winner. His favorite actor is Nicolas Cage, and his favorite actress is Angelina Jolie. That means the pinnacle of his existence is the movie "Gone In 60 Seconds," though he doesn't list it as a favorite.