The Fog is Getting Thicker...and Michigan is Getting Larger

The Only Thing Getting Bigger Faster Than Our Tickets is Our Coaches

The long wait is almost over.  It's a just a month until two propane tanks will fire up the 12 burner monstrosity we call a grill, just a month until the first beer is cracked as the sun struggles to rise, just a month until Coke and Captain hit large glass mugs filled with ice.

The sizzle.  The fizz.  A couple guys putting up tents.  And lots and lots of hugs welcoming everyone home to The Cove.

I got my tickets today, much earlier than I remember them arriving in the past...and let me tell you, they're huge.  Enormous.  Remember the souvenir ticket for the rededication game from last year?  Well, they're all that big.  They've also got face values to match.  The five "crappy" games have a face value of $70.  Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Ohio State are branded with a daunting $85 price tag.  Michigan Football is not-so-slowly but surely moving towards a "profit at all costs" model.  Stub-Hub has been named the official scalper, Adidas pours money into the coffers and offers a product that after three years pales in comparison to the cool shit (of a higher quality) we used to get from Nike, and Admiral Brandon has no problem making it clear that when you've got 113,000 seats, a home-at-home series outside of South Bend is not going to be a possibility.  In other words, more money and less fun.

And he'll get away with it, because you'll still be there.  Because you believe.  You believe that there is a happy place, somewhere between Carr and Rodriguez.  A place where offensive innovation is not lost, and defenses are not porous.  Where the guy at the podium doesn't recite Chaucer, nor does he have a drawl of an inbred.  Where really old traditions are kept, and new traditions are embraced no matter who brought them here.

And in this magical place...we also have a kicker.  And we win all of our games, just because This Is Michigan.

The Ties That Bind

We've all got our favorite memories.  We've all got that that moment that morphed us from fans into fanatics.  It's that play, or that game, or that player, or that celebration...the one we point to when a lesser fan inquires about our passion, when they wonder why when the boys run out to touch the banner, there's only one place we can be.  We use that moment to try to impart our passion on to them.  We invite them to games, hoping that they will experience something that will become their moment.  Because we are always looking for others to share in our bliss as well as our burden.

I attended my first game 27 years ago.  It was against Northwestern.  I don't remember much about it, other than we killed them.  I was 8, which in our group of tailgaters makes me a late bloomer.  In our group, you will usually see Michigan take the field before you're baptized.  At the time, the only sports team I cared about was the Detroit Tigers.  The next day, the Tigers won the World Series, and I remember running out in to the street in front of my grandmother's house in Wyandotte, yelling and cheering.  I had kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings spanning from spring training to the clincher, cutting out every box score and every article.  I was hooked.  And I remain a fan to this day.  There's a game on in the background as I type this right now.

Fast forward to 22 years later (to the day), and the Tigers had, against all odds, clawed their way back into the postseason and were facing the Oakland A's.  It was the first time any of us had faced the scheduling conundrum that occurs when your baseball team is in the playoffs, and your life's passion is playing regular season football games.  We were at Penn State for game 4 of the ALCS.  We were tailgating, watching sporadically on the RV television's poor signal.  We left the tailgate and were walking to the stadium when Magglio sent the Tigers to the World Series with his walk off 3-run homer.  One of the greatest moments in Detroit sports history, and I didn't even see a replay until Monday.  But Michigan beat Penn State 17-10, and in our world, Michigan victories are all that matter.  The win moved us to 7-0, on the way to 11-0 before The Game of the Century and the Rose Bowl debacle left us at 11-2.  The win also bumped us from #4 to #2 in the country, eerily similar to the way the 1997 victory in Happy Valley did. 

That game from 1997 is my moment.  Beaver Stadium, empty other than the Maize and Blue faithful that had made the long drive to the middle of nowhere.  Empty cement seats providing reverb of the small pack of us chanting "it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine."  So much buildup, so much hype, and perhaps the only time I can remember when Michigan entered a big time game, in a big time situation, and just absolutely dominated their opponent.

Dominating victories bring us together.  Close victories bring us together.  Comeback victories bring us together.  But the truth is, it is our defeats that define us.  College Football is the number one purveyor of "misery loves company."  And when your team has a storied history, when it has reached the pinnacle of the college football world, when it is looked at as "elite," misery is what you can expect to experience before season's end.  Only one team will end this season happy.  There's a lot of great programs out there, programs with huge, loyal and passionate fanbases, and they are all going to be disappointed.  Yep.  We're probably going to lose to somebody we shouldn't have, and it's going to ruin everything, and you're going to be pissed all week.  And then you'll be back on Saturday, ready to do it all over again.

You'll do it because you're waiting for the game they win over a better team, for the victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.  You'll do it to see Denard, or the next Denard.  You'll do it because the tailgate is your support system, the stadium is your basilica, The Victors is your battle hymn.  You'll do it because Desmond posed, Woodson pointed, and Daydrion Taylor left it all on the field.

It doesn't matter who the coach is.  It doesn't matter who the players are.  It doesn't matter if we're running the spread or shotgun or I-formation or the 4-3 or 3-4 or 3-3-5.  All that matters is Michigan.  All that matters is winning.

We're all here, together, just waiting for the next one...that next moment.

This season,  Tailgater Stephen will be attending his 175th consecutive Michigan game...home, away and bowl.  Bubba has missed only one in that same stretch, and I will be crossing the 150-game milestone.  Crazy?  Perhaps.  

I'd skip game 7 of the World Series to see Michigan play Rice.

Go Blue!

On Tuesdays, Those Who Can't Do, Link...7-18-2011

• Tomorrow, the guy you would have sold your soul to get to lead us is going to be featured on HBO's Real Sports talking about the coming NFL season and skipping over us to face off against his brother Thanksgiving weekend...the same weekend we play the cheaters.  It airs at 10pm on Tuesday.  AnnArbor.com
• Oh Jim, it seems they always knew you weren't on the up and up.  Someone's got to pay for this...and you know who I think it will be?  Every single last one of you cheating bastards.  The hammer is coming.  Washington Post
• And in traditional Ohio fashion, the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association are banding together to wear white shirts and ties for the first game of the season (USAToday Link).  What a tremendous message this will send to the youth.  It seems they want to honor Jim for all of the great things he did for Ohio football.  Somehow, they have taken his obvious ploy to get a leg up in recruiting as some type of philanthropy.  And I am so sick of hearing about all the great charitable things he's done.  He's supposed to do that.  He's basically a lotto winner.  Just know that he has never given like Glick, Lloyd or Charles, or even Braylon. 
• The battle isn't over for Austin Hatch, so keep him in your prayers.
• There's a great article in the freep on former Michigan basketball player Chris Young.  Chris is an amazing guy that I was lucky enough to spend some time with during his time here at Michigan.  He worked hard and played hard on and off the court.  Absolute class guy.  Also, best bachelor party I've been to (aside from maybe Bubba's).

Foreward Forward

Fall camp starts in three weeks.  Real stuff.  Lost in the shuffle of all of us lining up, puckered up, to smooch the ass of the new man in charge (and yes I am every bit as guilty as anyone),  is the fact that there will be games this year.  THIS year.  And while it seems that Coach Hoke and our assistants have a knack for recruiting, it's important to remember that not one of those players will be participating in the inaugural season of "meet the new boss, same as the 2007 boss."  

But ya, the future, at least on paper (provided by some dudes that like to rate young boys on a scale from one to five) is bright from an incoming talent perspective.  

In addition, as I've indicated before, Hoke looks like Michigan football, Hoke talks like Michigan football, I'm guessing he even has the smell of Michigan football on him, which I imagine as a cross between musty leather helmet and wet Wolverine fur.  He also points very well.  In short, he is a great figurehead for the program.  In many ways, he has already won.  From SI...

Brady Hoke has yet to coach his first game at Michigan, but so far he can seemingly do no wrong. Over the past several months, the Wolverines' maize-and-blue-bleeding coach has won over a whole bunch of initial skeptics by hiring an acclaimed coaching staff and dominating the recruiting trail. Unlike doomed predecessor Rich Rodriguez, who engendered a whirl of controversy before he ever coached a game at Michigan, the former Lloyd Carr assistant has said all the right things at all the right press conferences and alumni functions.

With a very moderate amount of success, Hoke would quickly become the face and voice of this program, something that RR's slight southern twang would have never allowed.  So the question, the one that will remain unanswered until the boys touch the banner, is "if it recruits like a coach, points like a coach, talks like a coach, and looks like a coach...can it coach?"

I hope so.  

I hope a lot of things.  

I hope that Hoke is an absolute football genius...Mattison too.  It's going to take a genius to sort out this mess of players and systems.  

I hope that we aren't returning to a time where the finest athletes arrive on campus, get a step slower every year, and leave without ever reaching their potential.  

I hope that we don't sit on 10 point leads in the 3rd quarter with ball-control three-and-outs just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I hope we find a kicker.  Hoke promised Bubba personally that we'd have a kicker, and that it wouldn't be Denard.

Hope.  Hoke.  Now go make some puns.

Tailgate stuff started today, which means I've begun the slow and deliberate process of turning my family room and kitchen into a garage and catering venue.  I've been working on the themes (yes, this is a dictatorship now), but there are still some kinks to work out, namely with the Notre Dame game.  How do you have a theme that is prolific enough to last 13 hours?  And while were at it....how are any of us going to last 13 hours?  I'm taking suggestions / requests / etc...and yes I'm just humoring most of you and making you feel like you're involved.

All of that being said, Western Michigan, the first game of the season and the first tailgate of the season, will be The Luau.  

Western Michigan, September 3rd 2011, 3:30pm: The Luau

There we go, you're good until September 10th now.

Also, I'd be remiss not to congratulate Desmond on his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.  A much deserved honor for one of the classiest guys around.

More coming?  More coming.  We're back I swear.

GO BLUE! 

A Worthy Adversary, A Hated Rival...A Cheating, Two-Faced, Classless Asshole

Jim Tressel arrived in Columbus with a bang, levying the halftime of a basketball game to present a prognostication.  A prognostication that we as Michigan fans scoffed at.  We owned them then.  No 1AA coach was going to come in here, incite us, point at us, guarantee a win a year in advance, and pretend to understand this rivalry.  But he did.  He understood what Michigan vs. Ohio State was all about.

And he won...often.

I remember 2002 vividly, the first loss I experienced live in Columbus, as John Navarre turned it over twice in the final minute and the Scarlet and Grey clad fans rushed the horseshoe field.  And I watched a month later as they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (with a little help from the refs) against a far superior Miami squad, claiming a National Championship, and anointing Maurice Clarett as a hero.

Maurice Clarett was the cornerstone of that team.  He also made quite possibly the most important play of that National Championship game, forcing a turnover as a defender after an interception.  

But Maurice Clarett was ineligible that season.  That's a fact I have believed for a long time.  With the current allegations, I don't believe that is a question anymore.  And he's the one we know about.  What about the others?  In a November 2004 ESPN the magazine article, Clarett claimed he got free use of cars, bogus grades, no-show jobs, and cash from boosters.  His claims were dismissed by OSU.  They used the fact that Clarett was unstable (which he certainly was) and untrustworthy to counterattack his claims.  But what about now?  Clarett said Tressel made the requests to the car dealers to give him the loaners he drove around campus.  Are we still supposed to dismiss these claims?  

This is a man that according to a former assistant rigged raffles to get bigger recruits all the prizes at camps.  A man that not only knew about the trading of memorabilia for cash and tattoos, but actually signed an item that was used in such a deal.

In 2006, Michigan and Ohio State played in Columbus, ranked #1 and #2, both undefeated.  Bo Schembechler passed away the night before.  It was an emotionally charged day for everyone.  I remember the fans being nice to us on the road for the first time, though I later found out it took a million dollar public service campaign to remind them to stop being assholes.  I remember losing.  I remember crying.  I remember the sea of scarlet filling the field again.  And now I wonder how many players were on the field for the Buckeyes that drove home that night in "loaner" cars.  How many of them had sold things?  How many of them traded "stuff" for tattoos? 

How many of them were ineligible?

It's not fair.  It can never be fixed.  You can't restore what we lost that night, or over that decade.  You can't give us that shot at Florida in the National Championship game.  You can't fix what you tarnished, the disrespect you showed college football, the disrespect you showed Bo.  It can't be remedied through petty sanctions, bowl probation, or lost scholarships.  

And the way they dominated us the past few contests, using a quarterback that I wanted to wear maize and blue, a quarterback that is now under personal investigation and has likely put on a Buckeye uniform for the last time...

You owe ME.  I left my heart and soul in Columbus so many times.  Its almost as if there should be a class-action lawsuit for pain and suffering.

Everything you have accomplished is in question.  And while I would appreciate it if they took everything away from you on paper, that won't be enough.  The punishment will never fit the crime.  Even now, after a couple of days pass, people will forget about the SI article, and we won't hear about this again until the August report from the NCAA.  Time will fix this for YOU, but not for ME.

But I will take solace in the fact that win or lose, we did it right, and we have brought in someone that is the definition of integrity to continue that tradition.

Woody Hayes went out in a horrible fashion, striking an opposing team's player after he made an interception.  But that was Woody.  A short-tempered crazy football genius whose emotions got the best of him on the playing field.  At least you knew what you were getting with Woody.

Tressel used philanthropy as a cover up.  He was portraying a completely different persona to the public.  In the media's eyes he was the senator, the sweatervest, the classy coach from Columbus, molding men, being a father figure to those who needed it, giving back to the community, Ohio's greatest son.  But behind the scenes he was a "win at all costs" kind of guy.   A shady, back-door dealing scheister, cheating kids, cheating the system, and cheating history.  

Says the former colleague, who asked not to be identified because he still has ties to the Ohio State community, "In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That's Jim Tressel."

Was he a good coach?  Probably, but he always had the best players...the best that money could buy.  And that will be his legacy, at least for a while.