Found this on mgoblue.com today (there’s also an older piece from the Free Press). During his days in Oakland, Heisman trophy winner Charles Woodson apparently befriended someone at wine maker Robert Mondavi not too long ago and was inspired to deliver his own vintage. He calls it TwentyFour: Do you want to try it? Here’s the details on a tasting coming up: ….the Michigan debut of TwentyFour will take place with a wine tasting on Friday (July 18) at the Chop House in Ann Arbor. The event will be held from 6:30-8:30 p.m. with tickets available for $75 per person. A portion of the evening’s proceeds will benefit the Mott’s Children’s Hospital and Woodson will donate $10 from each bottle sold to the hospital. I was getting sick of everyone’s definition of a Michigan Renaissance man starting and ending with Dhani Jones and his bowties. This is pretty cool – good for Chuck. What’s not so cool? One of Michigan’s greatest football players of all time feeling ok about this sweater, yikes: Update: A few folks indicate the wine is very good: a little Woody with a Chucky aftertaste. You can see more photos and learn more about Woodson’s wine at Twentyfourwine.com, official site.
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Chuck Woodson: Enter Michigan’s Valhalla
Yes, if you crush Ohio State, win the Heisman and then the national championship you’ve secured your place in Michigan football lore. But to no one’s criticism he left school early to pursue the NFL and that took something away from his standing amongst Michigan’s all-time greats. Now we learn that Woodson decided set up a scholarship for students needing financial assistance. Providing these scholarships puts #2 back up a notch in my book. What’s $150,000 to a guy who’s had a long career in the NFL? A lot. How many other guys have stepped up? To care enough to set this up is a huge move and just like Jalen, he’s showing the traits of a true role model.
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Amani Toomer’s Table for One
I’ve heard Amani Toomer speak in the media and always considered him a good M man and certainly never heard of any rift between he and the program. That changed today. Check out this interview the Detroit Free Press did with former Michigan receiver. Here’s the section that threw me back a bit: Did you hear from any of your former U-M teammates or Lloyd Carr after the win? No. The last time I heard a word from Lloyd was when I was playing in a (Michigan) game; it was my last play of my senior year. I caught a touchdown from Brian Griese, and I was walking off the field and Lloyd looks at me, looks at Griese, looks at me again, and goes, “Good throw, Brian.” And that’s the last thing he ever said in my direction. Did you have a good relationship with Carr while at U-M? I thought we did, but I guess we didn’t. So I don’t know. I wasn’t too upset to see the whole regime change. So I read the answer to the first question above and I’m thinking, well that’s odd. That’s definitely not what you hear from most players. Then you read the next part about how he “thought” he and Carr had a good relationship but wasn’t too upset to…
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Larry Foote on WDFN (2 audio clips)
Former M linebacker Larry Foote sat in on WDFN 1130AM’s Stoney and Wojo show yesterday. You can listen to the all nine segments here. I’ve got the last two segments below where Foote talks about Michigan football including some smack talk directed toward East Lansing and takes on Terrelle Pryor: [display_podcast] Elsewhere. A Maize Rager made SI.com’s Student Photo of the Day:
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The Biggest Losers
Sports Illustrated ran a factoid this week [Defeat Don’t Fail Me Now – Sports’ Biggest Losers] that listed the players with the worst winnings percentages in games which they’ve appeared. Heading up the NBA and NFL are Michigan grads: Jamal Crawford [Michigan ’00] leads this painful category in the NBA with a .303 winning percentage over his career, nearly thirty points lower than his closest rival. He’s played for the Bulls when they sucked, and now is on the freakshow that is Isiah Thomas’s Knicks. James Hall’s [Michigan ’99] really been on the losing end. He of course been with the NFL’s worst in the Detroit Lions for several years and lately caught on with lowly St. Louis. He’s walked off a loser in nearly 75% of the games he’s played, “tops” in the NFL. Yikes. Don’t cry too much for these guys. The fact that they even qualified for this thing means they’ve been in professionals at the highest level for quite a while, and played in a bunch of games. At the time of the piece, Crawford had played in 461 NBA games; Hall in 99 NFL contests.
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An M Man is Hit (Man)
Did you catch the news that David Harris made a couple plays for the Jets this weekend? Yep, in his first start of his career Harris rung up 17 tackles in week 8 and TWENTY-FOUR (!) tackles last week against the Skins. He’s been hailed as “Harris The Hit Man” by the New York Post. He’s fourth in the AFC in tackles right now, one more than Ray Freakin’ Lewis. This despite not starting until a couple weeks ago – WOW. Along with Chuck Woodson’s big day and the other quarterback who helped his team win their 8th straight by tossing two fourth quarter TD passes all the while playing for a coach wearing a sweatshirt, it was a big day for former M men in the NFL.
