A short edition of eBay Watch, this installment featuring this beautiful American made Chevy 4×4 with a limited edition paint job: Thanks to Matthew for forwarding this link. Right now this chick magnet has no bids with a starting price of $999.99. Here’s the full auction. My only beef? I would have insisted on the winged helmet design at least on the front of this sled, but I’m a romantic. If you hurry, you can test out this beauty at one of the biggest tailgating venues on the planet, the NASCAR race down tomorrow down at Michigan International Speedway just 40 or so miles from Ann Arbor. And speaking of the Sprint Cup series, did you know that current points leader Kyle Busch is a Michigan football fan? I did; I remember the piece they ran on ESPN or somewhere showing his tour of the Big House last year. Busch describes how it started in USA Today this week: Although he is from Las Vegas, young Busch is a big University of Michigan football fan. U of M is about 40 minutes away from MIS in Ann Arbor, Mich. “My brother (Kurt) moved up to Michigan years ago to run in the Craftsman Truck series and he went to a Michigan game,” Kyle recalled. “He bought me a Michigan sweatshirt…
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Bo’s Helmet Stickers
Despite being nearly a decade and a half since the winged helmet was adorned with these appendages, the topic of the helmet stickers, decals, or “achievement awards” still comes up on occasion. Despite some claims that Woody Hayes started the tradition in Columbus, this is not so. Bo Schembechler actually launched this tradition in the mid-1960s at Miami of Ohio. He used little hatchets. He continued the tradition at Michigan when he joined the Wolverines. Here’s a look at Don Moorhead‘s “Riddell TK-2 impregnated sunflower gold-colored shell” helmet compliments of umichfootball.com: Nice pass Don, here’s another lemon for you Moeller continued the tradition but Lloyd nixed it. Why did they stop? No, I don’t think it was “Just to keep a clean look” as asked by mgoblog user Casa Grande. It’s also not true that Carr thought the decals were “lame” as I’ve seen on a message board or two. More likely is that Carr dropped the stickers to take the emphasis off of individual achievement and onto the team concept. Related: No, I’m not going into an investigation on who originally owned this helmet. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Garland Rivers. Also Related: Looks like the Buckeye Blog ‘Eleven Warriors‘ has pimped my eBay Watch idea. It’ll be a regular feature on the site. He did give proper credit…
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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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Making the Buckeyes Sick in 1907
Check out this century-old postcard depicting the faces of each member of Fielding Yost's 1907 Michigan football squad. The original owner scribbled this note on the front, "10/25/07 These are the boys who will make O.S.U. look sick on Saturday."
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Tom Harmon Goes for Schlitz Gusto
I love this ad from LIFE Magazine in the days leading up to the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics featuring Michigan Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon. Old 98 is featured as an NBC broadcaster who likes his Schlitz beer with a little extra gusto.
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Michigan vs. Lehigh Program (1896)
A likely one-of-a-kind piece of Michigan football history popped up this week on eBay: a program from the Michigan vs. Lehigh game held October 31, 1896, in Detroit. It’s incredible and you can see the full auction here. The item is owned by Brian who runs umichfootball.com, a site dedicated to Michigan Memorabilia. Definitely check it out. Brian bought this beauty from an antiques dealer in Michigan and he’s listing it for a cool $4,000. I’d love to know how much he paid for it! Whether someone buys it this week or not, he must be making out pretty good here. As for the game itself, the Victors-to-be prevailed 40-0. Chicago Tribune described the game as such: Michigan was nervous in the first half, and three times lost the ball on fumbles, once when it was but three yards from the Lehigh goal. After the men got warmed up, however, they played without blunder and had the Lehigh line practically at their mercy. You can read the full Tribune article here, as usual, there’s always something special about these ancient sports articles. Michigan had an exceptional season in 1896 as Michigan’s win against Lehigh continued an undefeated run. The week later the Wolverines edged Minnesota (pre-Little Brown Jug) 6-4. Home wins over Oberlin and Wittenberg set up a showdown with…
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eBay Watch: Righteous Docs
I mentioned last time that the memorabilia auction action has picked up a bit. There’s been so many one-of-a-kind items lately that I feel an obligation to get them out there. Here you go, apologies for the dump: 1. Bo and Woody’s Notes. An incredible item. The seller claims the following: In 1969, the University of Wisconsin requested that all Big 10 coaches send to them a sampling of plays and words of wisdom that they kept in the athletic department for 35 years. They auctioned off all of it a few years ago and I was given chance to pick up 2 of the items.. Here’s a look at what Bo submitted: his eleven thoughts on “Basic Offensive Thinking”: Woody Hayes diagrammed a few plays which are also included in the auction. Again, from the description: The Ohio State University coach Woody Hayes diagram of 4 plays a Trap, 14 pass, 14 sweep and 98 Jet Pass(all hand diagramed by Woody). He also has notes on here like “”QB Look deep as you come out” Funny thing is that he chose 2 passes which was 2 more than he would be willing to run. Here’s a link to the auction. It was bid up to just under $1,000 but did not meet the seller’s reserve. 2. Game Contract between…
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Bloggers Done Good (Again)
Go now – get your copy of Brian Cook’s Hail to the Victors 2008 – An Annual Guide to Michigan Wolverines Football. And not just because there’s an article by yours truly in there. I finished it up this weekend. Last year was the inaugural issue for the guide and it was very well done [MVictors review] and a fine read – this year’s edition is outstanding. The analysis of each unit is sharp, detailed and offers another feature you won’t get in the typical preseason guides- some solid laughs. (Cook prescribes a having a glove handy if you are watching the Sam McGuffie mixtape for the first time “so you can be slapped out of your hysteria”.) A sampling: – “[TE Carson] Butler is one of those guys who creates a mismatch as soon as he walks on the field, but that mismatch is only in favor of Michigan if he goes out in a pass pattern.” – “Junior LaTerryal Savoy’s sell-by- date has expired.” – HTTV ’07 dropped this on Morgan Trent: “In two years of playing time he’s yet to make a great break on the ball to disrupt a pass.” Cook summarizes Trent’s improvement in this year’s guide, “Teams actually avoided him [last season].” – On Donovan Warren: “He’s a split second here and there from…
