Another follow-up to my May 20th eBay Watch post on the 1986 Rose Bowl ring, and the follow-up post that uncovered the likely original owner. Proving once again that while the Michigan football family is vast, it’s a tight group and word gets around pretty quick, here you go: * I was contacted by member of the 1985-6 Wolverines. He called Allen Bishop and they eventually got on a three way call with Garland Rivers and talked about my post, the ring and lord knows what else. * He confirmed that this was Bishop’s ring but the circumstances of how it ended up out of Bishop’s possession and eventually on eBay were not disclosed. * I was informed that former players and coaches can actually order replacement rings from Jostens as all the original specs are on file. A few takeaways here: – I respect Bishop for not wanting to get into details on how the ring ended up on eBay. The possibilities are endless and I know that many players give their rings to family/friends especially if they have rings from other seasons. All in all it’s really none of anyone’s business but Bishop’s as to how it may have got here and if he doesn’t want to disclose that’s cool. – I’m going to send Coach McCartney’s wife…
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eBay Watch: The 1954 Bust
There’s a bevy of legendary former coaches and players descending on Ann Arbor for the 2008 Griese/Hutchinson Champions for Children’s Hearts Celebrity Golf Tournament (Sunday) as well as the Swing to Cure Diabetes (Monday) both at the M Course. This provides a nice opportunity to take a look at another item in the eBay Watch series, this time a signed program from the 1954 post-season football Bust autographed by the team and many of the greatest names in Michigan football history. Check it out: Coach Bennie Oosterbaan’s ’54 Wolverines finished just 6-3, certainly nothing too special but there were some notable wins. Anchored by All Big Ten quarterback Ron Kramer and All American tackle Art Walker, Michigan upset #4 Iowa and #8 Minnesota at home but fell 21-7 in the season finale to Woody Hayes and his #1 Buckeyes. The AP slotted the Wolverines at #15 in the final poll and Dr. StrangeHayes and the Bucks ended up sharing the national title after downing Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl. The 1954 season holds a special place in Buckeye lore. Obviously the national championship cements this distinction but this is in essence the year Woody Hayes deflected his critics and became a legend. I could go on about the ’54 version of ‘The Game’ but since my team lost, I…
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Not again! Another Rose Bowl ring auctioned
Come on former Wolverines, these rings need to stop ending up on the eBay! This one’s priced at $3000 take it or leave it, Coach Bill McCartney’s 1980 ring sold for just over $2000 last year. This one isn’t quite as pretty as the 1980/81 version although it appears as though the top is a likeness of old Michigan stadium, press box and all, although it could be the Rose Bowl as well as there’s no tunnel. On the downside, the designer dropped the ball on one side deciding to go with a cute bear sitting on top of Jan Stenerud’s helmet.
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1933 and the Dickinson Formula
Michigan’s 1932 and 1933 national titles were determined by the most widely recognized method at the time: the Dickinson System. Illinois economics professor Frank Dickinson developed a formula used to rank college teams based upon the quality of their results factoring for the strength of their opponent. The formula was pretty simple. Each game outcome (win, loss or tie) earned a score based on the quality of the opponent. The total of points for a season was then divided by the number of games to arrive at a common rating metric. Dickinson added a factor to adjust for games that involved teams from different parts of the country, which contained a heavy “Middlewest” bias: “differential points” would be factored in for an “intersectional game”, with ratings of 0.00 for East schools, higher points for “Middlewest” (+4.77) and Southwest (+1.36), negatives for the South (-2.59), the Big Six (2.60) and the Pacific Coast (-2.71). The strength of your opponent was a huge factor in the Dickinson system. A loss against a ‘first division’ team earned you 15 points, while a win against a ‘second division’ team earned you just 20. Michigan actually earned more points for tying Minnesota than did Princeton for pummeling Amherst 45-0. I mention the Tigers as they were the only unbeaten, untied team but only received sparse…
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Yost Wants a Real Wolverine, Dead or Alive
Fielding H. Yost's search for a real, live, wolverine mascot was a success. Well, kind of.
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eBay Watch items fetching Righteous Bucks
Two recently profiled eBay auctions are fetching some serious cash, check it out: – The auction for the 1904 sheet music of ‘The Victors’ closed. This beauty sold for $90 despite all of us learning last week that portions of the song were swiped. – That alleged 1930 “”authentic” Michigan football jersey. Well, at least a few folks are sold that it’s the really deal. It’s still up and bidding has exceeded $800.
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1930 Michigan Football Jersey
In February 2008, an item claimed by its seller to be an actual 1930 Wolverine jersey came up for bid on eBay. The description said that the jersey was previously owned by Francis Cornwell, the right guard on coach Harry Kipke’s squad (see lead photo).
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1969 Michigan-Vanderbilt Stub, Bo’s First Game
An interesting item popped up on eBay in the past week. It’s a torn ticket stub from the 1969 Michigan-Vanderbilt game held on September 20, 1969. Normally a non-conference game against Vanderbilt wouldn’t spark much intrigue but this one is special: it was Bo Schembechler’s first game as head coach. You don’t see a lot of 1960s era Michigan items up on eBay. Michigan football was a bit down, folks didn’t hold onto stuff back then and certainly, fans didn’t realize quite yet that they had a legend standing on the sideline. But some cool items have survived like the Vandy stub and memorabilia like this vintage ’69 pocket schedule with a great photo of young general Bo: As far as the game that day, Bo’s not-so-mellow men came out firing as the unranked Wolverines put a 42-14 beat down on the Commodores in front of 70,000 curious fans. The game was the first played on the artificial turf that new AD Don Canham used to carpet the gridiron, but I suspect that most fans wanted to get a good look at this guy “Bo”. Apparently, they saw enough as only 49,000 showed up the following week against Washington. The holder of this ticket stub didn’t get the best view of Bo as he was seated in row 88 on…
