A couple shots from a quick visit with the ESPN GameDay crew. They were on campus prepping today and took a few minutes to meet with the media. The man of the hour, Desmond Howard, seemed a tad bit tired but flash that smile a few times: He’s got a lot of family in town so he has no plans to tour the town with rest of the GameDay crew tonight. Herby and Erin Andrews answered a few questions as well: Erin looks surprised – she couldn’t believe how cool the local media was.
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Desmond on Strike
Photo: Brian Masck A nice interview with Desmond in the Daily. Of note: TMD: How much do you get approached about the Heisman pose you struck in 1991? Howard: Oh wow, you can’t measure it. It’s the No. 1 thing people ask when they see me. ‘Oh, wow, do the Heisman pose.’ It just bothers me. I don’t do it anymore because everywhere I go people ask me to do it. And if I do it, then it cheapens that moment. So I just refuse to do it now. And just leave it for those who experienced it in Ann Arbor. I get that. At some point you turn into a clown that does a funny trick. On retiring his number: TMD: Dave Brandon said the other day your number probably won’t be retired. Have you come to terms with that fact? Would you like for it to be retired? Howard: I think that what they do have in store (for Saturday), it’ll show you why we’re Michigan. It’s, ‘The Michigan Difference.’ So stay tuned. To be honest with you, there’s two sides. As a player, you feel as though retiring your number is the biggest honor. But when you do what I do, and you see guy’s numbers who are retired who haven’t accomplished half of what you’ve accomplished,…
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Night Moves: Michigan’s First Night Game (1944)
While Notre Dame will be Michigan’s guest for the first night game at the Big House, did you know it was Bo Schembechler’s 1982 Wolverines who played in the inaugural battle under the lights in South Bend? The Irish upset the 10th-ranked Wolverines 23-17 on that historic evening in front of 59,000 fans at Notre Dame Stadium. But that ’82 game wasn’t the first time the Wolverines played at night, as that tradition started nearly 70 years ago. On September 23, 1944, Fritz Crisler’s Wolverines traveled to Wisconsin to play The Hilltoppers of Marquette in a game that kicked off at 7 p.m. As part of the war effort, Michigan had several players on the roster as part of the Navy’s “V-12” training program. To enhance the supply of college-educated officers, the Navy rolled out V-12 in 131 U.S. schools. Those enrolled were considered active-duty personnel, required to adhere to strict military rules and discipline. One of those rules prevented any member to be away from the “base” (the campus, in this case) for more than 48 hours. To accommodate the 48-hour rule and to play a game on the road as far as Milwaukee, Fritz Crisler’s crew left Ann Arbor at around 1:30pm Friday afternoon and arrived at Marquette that evening. Crisler held a brief practice under the lights…
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Hoisting A Legend
Author Bill Roose was kind enough to send along an excerpt from his new book on Desmond Howard titled, “I Wore 21: The Legend of Desmond Howard”. The book is dropping this week around Ann Arbor and will be available at the game on Saturday. While we’ve all seen the famous photo of Desmond making ‘The Catch’, how about this shot from page 69 of I Wore 21 of Howard celebrating with the lineman and the madness over in the student section? Look at the faces of the guys running up to him: Side note: I’m probably in that photo somewhere, over to the left. It’s up there with Woodson’s 1997 interception in East Lansing as the greatest Michigan catch I’ve witnessed. Here’s a clip from chapter two, Grbac talking about the play: Quarterback Elvis Grbac is still amazed by what Howard did that day. “I threw the ball up and it was really incomplete, to tell you the truth,” Grbac said. “Then at about the 5-yard line, Des looks up and he goes into another gear and absolutely runs by the corner and there are not too many guys who can do that. “That was a catch that just propelled him through the entire season, because now once we got inside the 20-yard line, people were like, ‘OK, what’s…
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The Eleven Jugsmen
From reader Daniel: I love reading the posts about custom Brown Jugs that readers make. In an awesome twist of fate, I found myself as the owner of a replica mini Brown Jug. Actually 11 of us did. One of my good friends got married in August. As a gift for all the guys who stood up, ushered, etc…he had replica Brown Jugs made. I had to pass these photos along. Right on, brother. Best wedding photo EVER: Like those guys didn’t get action that night. Check out these beauties: One disappointment: As an ordained minister in Jugology, I feel like I should have officiated this wedding. I case you are wondering, yes, all the scores are on there and it has the two spots awaiting the 2011 and 2012 games. Nicely done, gents! Consider yourselves in the Jug Brotherhood, Local 1903 along with: Brian Snider – 2011 post Eric Mierzwiak – 2009 post Mark Foster – 2010 post Dennis Dail – Post from earlier this year Related: Little Brown Jug Lore
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Team 132 and The History of Michigan Helmet Decals/Stickers
IIRC I saw these earlier in the year on the seniors but I haven’t seen a good pic so here’s one. The Brandon Herron edition: Elsewhere…Brady Hoke explained that each game the regular captains will be joined by a senior honorary captain. In week one it was Ryan Van Bergen, who found out on Friday night. I asked Van Bergen if he know if Hoke had created any other individual honors or awards, including the helmet stickers. RVB said Hoke isn’t big on the individual awards and wasn’t aware of anything Hoke planned to do. [Insert mandatory decal recap, via Dr. Sap]:
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Now That’s What I Call Art
What we have here is an incredible piece by artist Robert Marshall (still WIP) that depicts the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry.
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Denard Goes Schutt
Nice try, Denard. I’ve got uniform spies everywhere but even I caught this one. This season Denard switched from a Riddell helmet, used the past two seasons, to a Schutt model this year. Here he is in 2009 with the Riddell: And yesterday (from the nice photo gallery put together by Brad at MnB Nation), here’s the Schutt. A quick text to uniform guru Steve Sapardanis confirmed the switch. Sap checked his notes and verified that indeed, Denard wore Riddell in the Gator Bowl but trotted out a Schutt at the Spring game and at the Under the Lights press conference. As I wrote last season, I’m partial to Schutt. These are the helmets that are reconditioned and painted in Oxford, Ohio each year by a man named Russ Hawkins at a company called Capitol Varsity Sports. More from my 2010 post: This May I asked Falk about how Michigan hooked up with Capitol Varsity and Hawkins and he told me relationship goes back to the mid-1960s. Falk was the manager for his high school team in Oxford and naturally they used the local company for their reconditioning services. This relationship followed Falk to college at Miami, OH when he handled the equipment under Redskins head coach Bo Schembechler. When he was reunited with Bo up in Ann Arbor in…
