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Coaching Legends in Atlantic City (1957)
This edition of eBay Watch takes a look at a special pint glass. Like I’ve found with many of these memorabilia auctions the description doesn’t quite make sense and certainly doesn’t do the item justice: Up for bid we are listing 9 vintage football glasses all in mint condition. This one is Herbert ” Fritz ” Crisler from the University of Michigan 1957. The top of the glass reads Atlantic City National Football Clinic. The back lists the Clinic staff members. It measures 5-3/4″ tall. Great piece for the collector. Paypal preferred or money order only. Yes, it’s an old pint glass for a football clinic with famous Michigan coach and athletic director Fritz Crisler on it. That got my attention. But on the back of the glass it lists the rest of the staff for the event and it’s remarkable. Here’s a photo of the piece which recently sold on eBay for $15: Check out some of the legends that attended the conference in the city where the sand turns to gold from March 11-14, 1957: The top of the list of coaches is the great Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, who at the time was still the head man at Texas A&M. 1957 was his final season for the Aggies as his “momma called” him back to Alabama where he…
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Sportsman of the Year
Word.
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Rodriguez’s birthplace sparks a Wikifeudia
In the wake of John Bacon’s Michigan Today article, and my post [Rodriguez of the Midway] noting that RichRod was actually born in Chicago, a few admins at Wikipedia are at odds whether to change the birth place on the coach’s page. It still lists Grant Town, WV as of the writing of this post [12/1/08]. Someone linked to MVictors from one of the open Wikipedia Talk pages, which I gather is like a forum for Wikipedistrators to discuss entries on the open source encyclopedia site, and in particular, to build consensus on things like format, sources and general content. The debate over the Chicago birth “news” thanks to Bacon is pretty heated, you can read the whole thing here, pan down to the Born in Chicago? heading about 1 page down. The Wikipediphites are debating the credibility of Bacon, of his interview, of whether this is enough to make the change in the entry and more. A few selections pulled out from the debate: From user ‘MichiganCharms’: “The article from MichiganToday, while it contains a few errors, is written by John Bacon who is a noted author and a reliable source. But aside from that, Rodriguez himself is the one talking about moving to West Virginia” From user ‘Jnpmd’: “Did you actually witness this interview? Just because it has…
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Lloyd Carr Chuckled at this
Thanks to an October 25, 2007 post on the NY Times sports blog The Quad, we know that Lloyd Carr is a big fan NYT opinion columnist Maureen Dowd. It prompted me to write this post which included this spicy meatball: Well, if Carr isn’t too busy with consulting on the Eastern Michigan coaching search, he read Dowd’s column on Saturday. She was filling in for fellow columnist Frank Rich and scribed a piece on the state of the print news industry, in particular, the trend that some papers are firing staff and outsourcing their news to India. Seriously. Paying by the article, one thousand words for $7.50. Dowd found James Macpherson, the man who runs Pasadena Now, an online news site covering the town where you want to be each January first. Here’s a snip: So, he thought, “Where can I get people who can write the word for less?” In a move that sounded so preposterous it became a Stephen Colbert skit, he put an ad on Craigslist for Indian reporters and got a flood of responses. He fired his seven Pasadena staffers — including five reporters — who were making $600 to $800 a week, and now he and his wife direct six employees all over India on how to write news and features, using telephones, e-mail,…
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Mellencamp, IU end Men’s Soccer season 3-0
A tough end to a great season by Coach Steve Burns and the #14-ranked men’s soccer team, falling in the sweet 16 of the NCAAs to #12 Indiana at Bloomington on Saturday night. Congratulations on an outstanding season for Burnsie & the footballers. The final was 3-0 with the Wolverines managing just a single shot on goal. Check out who tallied the third goal for the Hoosiers: Having spent a couple years at IU I know that the Mellencamp name is pretty big in Bloomington, and I believe the famous rocker still lives outside town–here’s his house; not pink and definitely not little. He’s a big supporter of IU athletics and occasionally was seen court side at basketball games and donated the general purpose indoor practice facility (John Mellencamp Pavilion). While he bears the same birth name, this John Mellencamp is the nephew of the music legend as his IU bio lists him as “born June 3, 1983, to Joe and Lynn Mellencamp” and notes that he hails from Cincinnati. When the less famous John committed to Indiana his old man couldn’t resist dropping in this gem, “I don’t know what it’ll be like to attend a school where they already have a building named after you”.
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Coach Rich Rodriguez: Born in Chicago, IL
John U. Bacon’s fine piece on Rich Rodriguez published in Michigan Today included this: Rodriguez’s grandfather left Spain for the coal mines of West Virginia. Looking for a better life, the family moved to Chicago, where Rich was born. This prompted a few folks to contact Michigan Today and the author to dispute this, citing sources that claim Rich Rodriguez was actually born in Grant Town, West Virginia. Bacon wrote a response to those folks, here’s a portion: No matter how many sources list Grant Town as Rich Rodriguez’s place of birth, he was born in Chicago, and raised there until the middle of second grade. (I’ll take his mom’s word on that.) His family did leave their home late at night, and suddenly, and, as the article says, Rodriguez had not heard of West Virginia until they were leaving for the state that night. Further, the article was accurate in stating that Rodriguez did not visit the campus of West Virginia University until he first arrived there as a freshmen [sic]. In fact, Rodriguez had never seen a Division I football game in person until he was a player on the sidelines for his first game at West Virginia. Whether readers choose to believe Coach Rodriguez is, of course, entirely up to them, but I can see no reasonable…
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Lead Turkey
SI.com started off the non-stop parade of year end lists, starting with its ‘2008 Turkeys of the Year’. The lead bird? Coach Rodriguez: We’re all for moving up. But you signed a long-term deal in West Virginia, bolted for Michigan less than a year later and then tried to back out of paying the price? And now, after the worst year ever in Ann Arbor, you knuckle-slap the fans? Maybe it’s you that ought to be looking for a life, Rich. Again with the worst ever? And the get a life thing is being recklessly run through the media with few bothering to discuss the context and to whom it was directed (ridiculous fans spewing hate who need to get a life). I hear Rich Rod might just clam up next year and not be so open with the media. Would you blame him? Memo to SI: It’s not cool being such a jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.
