The Free Press is now saying that word that Greg Paulus visited Michigan yesterday and is considering playing for Rich Rodriguez is a April Fools joke? On April 14th? Really funny. The original Freep headline read: ‘Ex-Duke Point Guard Paulus may play football at Michigan’. The new headline reads: ‘Greg Paulus’ Michigan football workout reported as April Fool’s Joke’ and includes this: Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Fox Sports as an April Fool’s joke. We apologize for the mistake. Hilarious. What’s odd about the Free Press retraction is that there’s no retraction on the FoxSports.com piece that broke the story, at least not yet. This rumor spread like wild fire, boiling all the way up to Dan Patrick’s tired radio show prompting a poll question: What a circus, man. Update (a few minutes after posting this): My nerves, now the Free Press is retracting the retraction, going back to the original heading with the following note: Editor’s note: We have talked with an editor at Foxsports.com and have learned this story is true as reported. Again, apologize for the mistake. Update #2, around 12:30pm: Freep has now pulled the retraction editorial note with this: Editor’s note: Story updated at 11:31 a.m. Already busted, homes. Related: Carty weighs in on this, including the eligibility rules. One more take…
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FOUR-see-eh, FOUR-sear, FOUR-see-er
Can someone clear up the pronunciation of Tate Forcier’s last name? I thought fans and media settled nicely on the French-ish “FOUR-see-eh”, which is backed up by the pronunciation guide listing for his brother Jason in the 2006 Weekly Releases: But then I heard the podcast of former AA News columnist Jim Carty (who probably takes such things seriously and must have bumped into brother Jason on his beat) who on WTKA Monday referred to Tate as “FOUR-sear”. Ben Holden did the same today on WTKA’s Big Show. Then I stumbled onto this on mgoblog, where Brian’s uber-assistant Tom VanHaaren recently was asked this question in the comments of a blog post. Clear as mud: User ‘MH20’: ..BTW, did you ask Tate off the record how his last name is pronounced? TomVH: Yea I actually did, and it didn’t settle anything. He said it’s either For-see-ay, or For-see-er. He said either pronunciation is fine. I think he says For-see-er though, FWIW. That’s how I’ve been pronouncing it when I read it to myself on here.
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The Vague Anxiety and Bill Frieder
That's that alpha and omega of my recollection, so thankfully I have a copy Craig Ross's tome, Obscene Diaries of a Michigan Fan, published in 2006. If you enjoy the tone, feel and prose of blogs like mgoblog and even this site, I suggest you get a copy of this book. I had a chance to meet Ross, a local attorney, author and raconteur, for lunch in December. I'm a good way through it and it's fabulous. Ross takes a good portion of chapter four in discussing cheating in college hoops in general, and takes a look at Johnny Orr, Bill Frieder, Ed Martin and Steve Fisher through this lens.
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Scuttlebutt: Big Will Campbell enrolled
Hat tip to Michigan Sports Center, the Michigan Daily performed some umich directory stalking and found that a William Campbell was added to the university directory yesterday. A couple commenters on the Daily post criticized writer Dan Feldman for his snooping here, suggesting that if true, Big Will should have been allowed to make the announcement on his terms. ***NERD ALERT – warning, if you read below this line it may confirm that I’m a geek*** 1. By posting this you can guess that I don’t have an issue with what Feldman did. I’m sure the university has ways of hiding LDAP directory listings–the U-M should know how to do that since the directory protocol has its roots at Michigan. 2. Other potential William Campbells that may have enrolled for next semester include one of the grandchildren of actor William Campbell, of Star Trek fame amongst my fellow studs, from Wikipedia: Campbell has also obtained cult status for his guest starring roles on Star Trek, appearing first as the mischievous super-being Trelane (in part a parody of Liberace, whom Campbell resembled), in an episode of the original Star Trek series called “The Squire of Gothos”. Campbell also appeared three times as the Klingon Captain Koloth. Campbell first played Koloth on the original Star Trek series in the classic episode “The…
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eBay Watch: Blue Get Bombed in the Bronx
1950 was a special season in Michigan football history. Many M historians know this is the year that the Wolverines defeated Ohio State 9-3 in the epic Snow Bowl. That classic win earned the Blue a trip to Pasadena where they defeated Cal 14-6 on two late touchdowns. All’s well that ends well, but things didn’t start well and included a trip to New York. The next edition of eBay Watch features this ticket stub from the Army-Michigan game held October 14, 1950 at Yankee Stadium: You can see the full auction here. Army was riding a twenty-two game winning streak heading into the game and dropped the Wolverines 27-6 in front of 67,076 fans including General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Gazing soley at the boxscore you might have figured the Victors prevailed or at least kept the score respectable: The New York Times commended the Wolverines effort that day and reported that Oosterbaan’s men put a bit of a scare into the Black Knights, scoring early and threatening often. In the end Army was too tough, capitalizing when they needed to pull safely away. Army’s streak eventually ended later that season in a 14-2 loss to Navy. While the football squad took a bit of a beating in a hard fought battle, the Michigan Marching Band made a few headlines…
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TP a Buckeye
Take? – Expected it, never felt like it was a realistic possibility given Michigan was late in the game – I’m not too worked up over this – I’ve seen too many can’t miss players miss to be too concerned – I think Rodriguez will get his offense going one way or another – Not going to start calling the kid a criminal/loser because he didn’t come to Michigan
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Jalen Rose on WTKA (full audio .mp3)
It was great to hear Jalen talk a little bit about the Fab Five, their legacy and even about a certain football recruit this morning on the Michigan Insider with Sam Webb on 1050AM WTKA. He’s in Ann Arbor this weekend to be honored at Saturday’s hoops tilt against Illinois and says this is a tremendous moment for him [my thoughts on this]. Rose also talked about his thoughts on the University one day having the entire Fab 5 back on campus, the day he hopes happens before he, Ray, Jimmy, Chris and Juwan are using “canes and wheelchairs”. Here’s the full audio of the interview: [display_podcast] Jalen even gave an unsolicited plea for Terrelle Pryor to make the right decision and come to Michigan. Sweet Jesus, I thought the coaching search was a Death March! That said, it’s great to know that busy guys like Jalen are concerned enough about the school (and a sport they didn’t even play) to chime in. He clearly also follows the basketball team and likes what Beilein is doing so far. UPDATE: Check out Eric Lacy’s piece and interview on Jalen in the Detroit News. And a take from Rosenberg.
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Rodriguez radio blitz Part II: WTKA 2/15 (full audio)
More Rodriguez, this time on WTKA today. Pretty good quote on Tiller situation. Rodriguez said he “didn’t get the memo” regarding the gentleman’s agreement not to recruit committed guys. “We had to recruit Sam McGuffie until 9 o’clock that night because my good buddy Jeff Tedford at Cal was working him pretty good…I’m not mad at Jeff about it. That’s the business.” And he again confessed there’s no wizard hat nor is there snake oil. Also, he didn’t rule out having a night game. As far as the Spring game, he wants to have it April 12th and Ford Field is not an option. He did mention EMU’s Rynearson stadium is being discussed. (take: would love to have it there) [display_podcast] And in case you missed it, check out mgoblog’s post on the stealth open football try-outs for Michigan students held at Schembechler Hall this week. Very good stuff.
