“History is written by (The) Victors,” is a line attributed to Winston Churchill. Perhaps he borrowed it.
Someone recently told me they were a little bent after I mentioned that it’s a myth about how & why the Ohio Stadium rotunda was painted with maize and blue flowers. The fun version of the story says that the Buckeyes reluctantly styled it this way because they lost a bet to Michigan in their stadium dedication game. Sorry dude, the design was set well in advance of the game. Here’s another one.
While Alabama’s Bryce Young won the Heisman over Aidan Hutchinson last night, rest assured that Michigan won the battle over historical ownership of the line, “Those Who Stay Will Be Champions.” Today Michigan “owns” the Bo Schembechler-attributed (circa 1969) line, but coincidentally Bo probably borrowed it directly or indirectly from Alabama’s legendary head coach Bear Bryant. Chapter 12 of Bear’s book published in 1960:
The boy who sets his mind to do what is required of him in order to be a winner is not only the type of boy we are looking for, but he will get the most from the program. Those who stay will be champions and will become winners not only on the football field but in life itself.
Building a Championship Football Team, By Paul W. Bryant · 1960
If you are bent out of shape about this, my advice: don’t be. Great organizations take great ideas or concepts and make them better, and sometimes they become legendary. Take the winged helmet. There were a handful of teams including Michigan State and Ohio State that took the 1930s Spalding helmet and painted the “wings” on the front – even before Fritz Crisler’s Princeton teams and especially before he brought it to Ann Arbor in 1938.
I love this shot from 1935 (the same year Crisler adopted it at Princeton). This is the Michigan State Spartan backfield donning the winged-look, with a block S on the forehead. Nicknamed ‘The Mighty Mites’, the backfield featured Jim Brandstatter’s father Art, second from the left:
Michigan made the winged helmet iconic and a bonafide Michigan tradition by, a) sticking with it since 1938, and b) winning a lot of games before and after. Along these lines, give credit to the Ohio State marching band for “borrowing” the concept of the Script Ohio from the MMB in 1932, and making it pretty awesome :)
