Ugh. For the record: This day in history – I mentioned to the fellas on air in the Victors Lounge that I’m actually getting crap on Twitter for citing history and historical events. Umm…that’s what I do and almost all I do. It this site’s raison d’être. Needless to say, I march on. So while sadly Saturday was a low point of sorts, November 22 will remain an epic anniversary for Michigan football for decades to come, if for no other reason these two games: Two Hundred. Holy fandom endurance awards, props to uber-fan Mike Khomutin for attending this 200th straight U-M game (yes, that’s home AND away). I believe that dates back to 1998. See Sap’s Decals for your decal. Jake No Patch – Some of you noticed that Jake Ryan didn’t wear his Bennie Oosterbaan Legends patch during the Northwestern game. I’m efforting some details from media relations on why. To my knowledge this hasn’t been addressed by anyone…and if you think this little detail is silly, I’d offer that it’s no sillier than anything else people are writing about this team at this moment. Willie Heston – Yo! My piece short bio piece on Willie Heston appeared in the game program on Saturday (page 4). I’ll repost it here soon and note that historian/pal John Kryk helped…
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Seeing and Hearing Willie Heston
Today marks the 110th anniversary of Willie Heston’s final game at Michigan. Heston was Michigan’s first superstar, a two-time All-American, who scored (somewhere around) 72 touchdowns. From 1901 to 1904, Heston’s teams went 43-0-1 and are credited with four national titles. I’ll have more on Heston later this year. Hearing WillieBack in 2012, I posted a short audio clip of Fielding Yost from the 1940 nationwide radio tribute the man titled, ‘A Toast to Yost from Coast to Coast’. Check it out if you missed it. In that post I promised to share a few more clips, and thanks to the Bentley Historical Library for passing these along. The man who introduced Yost to the crowd in attendance and the radio audience was none other than the great Heston. Here are two clips of the great Willie and in the first, we have a surprise. Before offering up his tribute to his old coach, Heston acknowledges that current student-athletes and national icon Tom Harmon is in the audience. Old 98 shares the mic & even has a little back and forth with Heston that is all in all pretty priceless. The second clip has Heston delivering his testimonial to Yost. Enjoy: As an aside, while I’m sure you’ll be hard-pressed to find another audio clip of the Harmon and Heston…
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How It Started: Minnesota Madmen 6, Michigan Machine 6
One headline in the November 1, 1903 Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Tribune declared, “VICTORY, THOUGH THE SCORE IS TIED." Further down toward the fold it blared, “YOST AND MICHIGAN PRACTICALLY BEATEN.” Here's what happened in the famous 6-6 tie between Michigan and Minnesota in 1903
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Delivering WOW Experiences…since 1954
Check out this item on eBay right now. It’s a promotional packet for season ducats nearly 6 decades ago, implying ticketholders would get a piece of the coveted WOW experience (see above). The 1954 season (6-3 overall, 5-2 conference, #15 ranked) didn’t quite deliver the full punch of a WOW but sitting in the Big House watching #87 Ron Kramer line up against Army, #4 Iowa, #8 Minnesota, and Michigan State must have been pretty cool.
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1902 Usher’s Ribbon (Michigan-Minnesota)
So you don’t see many authentic items on eBay that fall inside the Yost Point-A-Minute era from 1901 to 1905. There’s one up now. So check out this Usher’s ribbon for the Thanksgiving day game held on November 27, 1902. It’s the last game played between the Gophers and Wolverines that didn’t involve a certain water crock. It wasn’t until the following year, 1903, that the Little Brown Jug was purchased in Minneapolis, left behind after the game, and reclaimed by Michigan in 1909…and the rest is college football history. Looking at the Usher’s ribbon, it looks to be authentic, although I’m not suggesting that someone would have the stones to forge such a thing, but you never know. Having written on this stuff for a while now when I first spotted the ribbon I knew I’d seen that font style before. Sure enough, on this vintage MVictors post from 2006, you clearly see the athletic department favored that print type on official materials including this 1901 season athletic pass that I’d give my right pinky to have on my wall. The usher who donned this silk ribbon watched Michigan take down the Gophers 23-6 in the ‘02 season finale. Yost and crew once again ran the table finishing the season a perfect 11-0, outscoring opponents 644-12 to claim the…
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Can you Spot the Ringer? (1899)
Listed on eBay as a 1936 wire pic featuring the great Point-A-Minute back Willie Heston, it’s actually an 1899 team photo of the team from San Jose State: Someone went through a little process of elimination to identify Heston: It’s the first time I’ve seen Heston photographed in his pre-Wolverine days. Arguably the finest back in Michigan history, it’s true that he didn’t start his collegiate days as a Wolverine. He played two seasons in San Jose before following Yost to Ann Arbor. Yost discovered Heston on his short coaching stint in California 1899, where apparently he coached anyone with a pigskin in the gym. As I understand it, Yost not only coached the collegians at Stanford but also helped out on Heston’s San Jose squad, at local Lowell High school and taught the Stanford freshman team as well. Heston wasn’t the only fellow that seemed to have caught Yost’s eye out on the west coast. He also convinced San Jose prep star George Gregory to come to Ann Arbor and some claimed Yost offered Gregory cash, as much as $1500, to come to Michigan. His old boss, Stanford President David Jordan, was the primary accuser and it apparently played out for nearly a decade. Check out this entertaining news clipping from many years later, January 3, 1908, in fact,…
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Forty-Nine More to the Left Column (1939)
Look at this 1939 wire photo of Michigan’s Grand Old Man, Fielding H. “Hurry Up” Yost looking at a team photo of his dominant 1901 squad. Yost is pointing to the great Willie Heston but it’s not clear why: Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a wire shot has shown up on eBay featuring someone holding a photo of Yost’s dominant 1901 squad. Back in March, I did a short post on a Rose Bowl beauty queen from 1938 holding a large photo of the point-a-minute squad: Here’s one thing I didn’t notice in that March post. In the team pic featured in the wire photo of the beauty queen and in today’s auction with Yost, the writing on the ball held by captain Hugh White reads “550-0”. But in the official team photo (obviously the original) at the Bentley Library page for the ’01 squad, that ball reads “501-0” (right): Back in those days, the team gathered for the team photo after the season, to not only take the picture but also to select the captain of next year’s team. Michigan was undefeated and outscored its opposition by the 501 to nothing margin—at least up to that point. So they snapped the photo but they had one more game to play that year and which was…
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Fielding Yost’s New Packard (1927)
Check out this wonderful signed photo of Fielding H. Yost posing next to a vintage car in front of the original Michigan Stadium press box (photo above).
