A consideration for your Super Bowl pregame activities, turns out U-M legend and Saginaw native LaMarr Woodley will burn a few frames Sunday at 2pm EST on ESPN. From the press release: NEW ORLEANS, La. (Feb. 1, 2010) – With the help of four Lumber Liquidators Professional Bowlers Association Tour stars and a star-studded lineup of celebrities, New Orleans Hornets All-Star point guard and avid bowler Chris Paul will again highlight his “second-favorite sport” in the second annual Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational which airs Sunday at 2 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Celebrity icons Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Bowl wide receiver Hines Ward and linebacker LaMarr Woodley along with Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio teamed with PBA stars Pete Weber, Norm Duke, Wes Malott and Jason Belmonte in a unique doubles competition to benefit Paul’s CP3 Foundation. The folks managing the event even shot me over this beauty of a photo, feature Wood about to crush pins: Any avid bowlers out there? Is it me, or does Woodley look like a bit of a trainwreck on the lane? Appears he’s about to tip over, his wrist looks funny, eyes closed? And everyone apparently chuckling in the background isn’t hurting my analysis. (P.S. Love the Heisman-esque bowling trophy). Check him out Sunday at 2pm. More here:
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Rodriguez addresses Dorsey Questions (Press conference audio)
Audio split out from the press conference yesterday of Rodriguez addressing questions from Dave Birkett of AnnArbor.com and Drew Sharp regarding the recruitment of Demar Dorsey: [display_podcast] Related: * Signing Day Rundown
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Signing Day Rundown
A few thoughts on the press conference and media activities down at the Junge Center outside the Big House tonight: RR getting a bit thin up front, might need to go tight like the Webmaster To start things off a frog throated Rich Rod, suffering from both the recruiting and flu seasons, gushed about the 27 commitments to the class and identified those responsible in the recruiting process. Speaking of his voice, ironically an illin’ RichRod sounds very much like a healthy, wolf-strangling Mike Barwis. Then came the general media Q&A and things got interesting, and you’ll have much more tonight/tomorrow from the writers. Dave Birkett of AnnArbor.com and Drew Sharp hit Rodriguez hard on recruiting Demar Dorsey, who was acquitted of some serious legal issues, as summarized by AnnArbor.com: Dorsey, ranked the No. 2 safety and No. 12 player in the country by ESPN.com, was charged with two felonies while in high school, according to court records in Broward County, Fla. He was acquitted by a jury on a 2008 charge of robbery with a deadly weapon, and had an earlier charge of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling dismissed. Dave Ablauf had to step in and request the media move on, Rich Rod suggested people didn’t have the entire picture and then urged people to be positive. Sharp wasn’t…
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Bo Seals the Deal with Mark Messner
Today is a good chance to recall a piece from a favorite interview of mine, Michigan legend Mark Messner. I pick it up, Messner just had the time of his life on a recruiting trip at UCLA, and he already told then-coach Terry Donahue that he was a Bruin. Then this happened: But Coach Moeller and Coach Bo knew UCLA was my last visit. So when my parents and I pulled up the house on the way back from the airport, there was this Delta 88 by the side of the driveway. It was like 9 o’clock at night and getting dark. It’s January or December. Both doors open up and out stepped Moeller and Bo. Bo walks over, just hands me a tape and says [Messner in perfect Bo voice]: “You’re a Michigan man and you belong at Michigan.” And got back in the car. That was it. He didn’t come in the house, they just took off. I couldn’t believe he came back up there. Mark Messner interview: Part I: Posted on these pages, Messner talks about his recruiting process, Bo and more. Part II: Mark Messner Interview (extended version)
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Sam Webb Interview Part 4 – Radio and Rivals
Continuing my interview with Sam Webb, managing editor of GoBlueWolverine, Detroit News Columnist and WTKA 1050AM morning show host. This time we take a look at Sam’s take on the morning show, what works and what doesn’t. We then talk about Sam’s perspective of the rivalry between Webb’s GoBlueWolverine and The Wolverine, their competition. You can also check out Part I, Part II, and Part III here. MVictors: How are the ratings for the morning show on WTKA?Sam Webb: I haven’t seen a [ratings] book since Andy left. They changed the way they do ratings, it used to be with Arbitron and I haven’t seen anything since all that changed. The last book I saw, it might have been a few months before Andy left, we were actually the top morning show in this building. MVictors: So are Cumulus and folks in this building happy with you and [WTKA morning co-host] Ira [Weintraub]?Sam Webb: You know and if they aren’t, I haven’t heard about it yet [laughs]. When I first started the morning show one of the major things I was interested in, because I was not a radio guy by trade, was getting the best opportunity to be good. Just give me an opportunity for it to work. I think when we first started, with my first…
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Tom Izzo dials up Jim Rome (1/29 audio) plus asides
The Spartan hoops head coach joined Jim Rome in the second hour today, talked about the state of his team of course, but also reflected on the early days of the Michigan rivalry, much about the new Spartan logo, and finally on kicking Kalin Lucas out of practice. Audio, approximately 11 mins: [display_podcast] Izzo joked that the 2000 NCAA title seems like it occurred “100 years ago” Admits he was “Too fixated” on Michigan basketball in his early days. “To this day I still love Chris [Webber].” On the “uproar” [Rome’s words] on the new MSU logo. “We didn’t get a chance to sell the whole package [because the logo leaked out].” Izzo admits is that it was frustrating swapping logos/emblems over the past several years. On the resistance to the logo: “I was shocked…I could hardly tell the difference.” Izzo mentioned that several folks have likened the change to changing the U-M helmet, which Izzo dismissed because the winged helmet’s been around for many years [Izzo said “90 years”, technically it’s been 71 – history nerd!] and the Spartans have changed their logo several times over the years. We all recall when Tom Goss tried to put ‘Hail to the Victors’ inside the maize wings of the winged helmet, but Jon Falk thankfully nixed it. Rome emailer Stu from…
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Death March Madness II
In November 2007 I launched Death March Madness, a bracket-style attempt to waste energy while Bill Martin worked on finding Rich Rod. I’ll steal the description from DMM I: So continues the non-stop parade of radio talk show hosts & callers, pundits, bloggers, journalists and anyone else with a pulse that will speculate on a replacement. This death march will drag Michigan fans through the holidays and most likely beyond the BCS Championship in early January. The beauty in all this is that no one really will have a clue what’s actually going on inside Dave Brandon’s head until we get close, and maybe not even then. Have fun with those out of town relatives peppering you with takes on this. Prepare yourself man. To combat the stupidity of the next few months I’ve decided to fight fire with fire: a tired old radio show stunt to determine the next coach. It’ll be fought out in the blogosphere amongst my fellow nerds, which is where it belongs. The results will be as meaningless as the opinions of the talk show callers (except for maybe ‘Linda from Grand Blanc). Should you chose to participate in Death March Madness you may actually feel yourself getting dumber as a result. Jon Gruden won the event in 2007, edging out Brian Kelly by…
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Cold War On
Per the Detroit News, the Cold War deal is done between MSU and Michigan and will be Saturday December 11th at 3pm. Earlier this month Rick Comley made some snarky remarks about assuming the game wouldn’t happen, but as I mentioned in that post I thought this was merely Comley taking a pot shot at U-M on local radio. Given that this is going to happen, I restate my plea to Marty Bodnar and the ticket office: Take care of the hockey season ticket holders. There are obviously plenty of seats to go around.
