And talks about you-know-what. Worth a listen, about 13 minutes of audio: [display_podcast] HT: mgoblog user UMICH1606
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The Pro
There weren’t many lighter moments during the presser; this was one. In business school I took an excellent course that included a segment on crisis management. We did an exercise where each person in the class played a CEO addressing a crisis in front of a staged media who were firing difficult questions. The whole thing was videotaped so you could watch how goofy you looked facing the pressure. I was at Indiana at the time so during my turn at the podium I’m pretty sure I tossed a chair in frustration and maybe as a salute to Coach Knight. Anyway, I have to offer up a real salute to Dave Brandon for how this was handled today. From the top down he’s a complete pro. You know you’re witnessing pure gold when a guy who wasn’t around at the time takes full responsibility for the NCAA infractions and it doesn’t prompt a follow-up question. After I chuckled I found myself kind of believing him. Another moment for me was when Mitch Albom offered up a couple questions via teleconference. They were pretty bad questions and his first (asking if probation would be involved) demonstrated he hadn’t reviewed the materials or even read a tweet for that matter. Brandon handled it like a champ. He respectfully addressed his questions and…
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(Not) Throwing In the Towel
The response to the NCAA is released and folks are poring through it right now in anticipation of the 11am EDT media teleconference. Included are a few key emails, voicemail and conference call transcriptions relevant to the response. Here’s an exchange from September of last year between the NCAA’s Jackie Thurnes and coach Rodriguez regarding the proper use of a makeshift summertime pigskin from Exhibit 2: I’m not sure who transcribed this but the “Mm-hmm”s and the “Uh-huh”s evoke scenes from Slingblade. Elsewhere: One of the exhibits included a piece from Dave Birkett in AnnArbor.com discussing quality control, and the portion that was submitted to the NCAA included a few of the reader comments. Next thing you know, the tiresome snark of A2.com commenter ‘Theo212’ gets immortalized as part of the permanent record: Happy Responstivus!
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Winged Helmet T (As in Trouble)
Michigan is set to release their self-imposed sanctions in about 30 minutes. File this under FWIW, but despite what some maintain it’s not the first time Michigan has been mixed up with serious off-the-field issues. I’ve covered a couple of these incidents on these pages and beyond, but thought it’d be a good time to review.
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Jalen joins Rome (5-21 audio)
Former Fab-Fiver and NBA analyst Jalen Rose joined Jim Rome Friday to talk NBA playoffs and more. Two clips of note for you. First, Rose is talking about about the emergence of the Celtics Rajon Rondo which prompts Rome to ask him about the leadership on the Fab 5. In the second clip, Jalen talks a little bit about his future in basketball: [display_podcast] Related: Emotional night for Jalen Your favorite Fab 5 Story
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Intrepidus, Michigan’s Last Living Wolverine (1939)
Check out (above) this excellent wire photo of a live mascot wolverine. The auction description says it dates to October 13, 1939 and was retrieved from the archives of Sport Magazine. The beast just might have been trotted out before the Michigan-Iowa match the next day, a game in which Tom Harmon dominated everyone including Iowa’s great Nile Kinnick. Here's the story of Michigan's attempt to have actual live mascots on campus:
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Troughs Pee, Stalls and Splash
Various parts of Michigan Stadium are being overhauled as part of the stadium renovation. Last season I heard that some of the troughs in the men’s bathrooms were replaced with traditional urinals with dividers. For the ladies, the above photo is a decent representation of what we’re dealing with and they cover just about every wall and along with a few traditional stalls. As I understand it, the remaining troughs will be replaced this summer. This topic came up on the WTKA 1050AM morning show and Sam expressed his disdain for the community drains, citing the hazards involved when adjacent streams go astray. I’m not with Sam on this. For me, anytime I have to leave my stadium seat I’ve got one mission: return as quickly as I can. Unless they expand the size of the bathrooms there’s no way you can achieve the throughput the troughs provide with stalls or urinals with dividers. If I recall correctly, years ago legendary AD Don Canham removed the mirrors in the women’s bathrooms to get ladies in and out quicker. Let’s hope that there are enough new bathrooms to avoid the bottlenecks. As far as Sam’s fear of getting hit with the occasional errant trickle, that’s certainly a risk with the troughs but in my experience, you rarely end up elbow-to-elbow, even…
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Dufek’s Homer – The Call (audio)
Love this photo – mgoblue.com Certainly by now you’ve heard of Michigan’s epic comeback from down 14 runs to Northwestern this weekend on Senior Day. The story made it to SportsCenter and prompted ESPN to ask, ‘Are you Serious?’ WTKA’s Ira Weintraub called the game on the radio and was kind enough to forward over a clip of his call the Dufek’s bomb. Per Ira, “Not a great call, but not bad for a guy who has now called 8 baseball games in the last 10 years!!” Not to bad indeed, and note Weintraub using the Harwell technique of letting the crowd and band paint the scene after the blast: [display_podcast] . For more, check out frequent mgoblog diarist FormerlyAnonymous who gave his account of the game. (HT: Ace @ TWB) And speaking of WKTA 1050AM, Rich Maloney’s call into Sam and Ira this morning is worth a listen. Maloney effectively acknowledged the was over at 13-0, telling his players that no team of his has ever quit during a game, and it wouldn’t be happening today. That said, he did tell the guys that the wind was blowing out and their pitching was a bit depleted. Who knew? Unfortunately I don’t see the podcast up there yet; it is comes up I’ll toss up a link.
