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”.
-
-
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…
-
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.
-
Super Drew Thanksgiving!
Michigan faithful, don’t be such jive turkeys! Keep the faith and give thanks. Go Lions and go Super Drew Henson!
-
Ripped Ohio, (Cont.)
Thanks to the readers of this site for the great comments as of late. Check out the thread on the Dantonio Imbroglio post for a little back and forth between in-state rivals. And readers Chris and Bonus rolled up there sleeves and rolled out some passion-filled thoughts on this season in the days following the Ohio State game. The highlight for me, a former Michigan Marching Band member ‘jeffgoblue’ gave a little inside pool on the history of the MMB creating the script Ohio: I’m a former Michigan Band member (89-92). The first script Ohio has long been a part of MMB lore. Mind you, the ’32 band did not actually perform the cursive writing Script Ohio drill as the OSU band has done since 1936, they just made the formation. In the 1970’s, MMB director George Cavender, charted a Script “State” formation that the band marched to while playing the OSU fight song. The announcer’s script read something along the lines of “We taught you how to spell OHIO, now we’ll teach you how to spell STATE.” Here’s the photo from ABC last Saturday:
-
Hello, I guess, Angelique (WDFN audio)
Ah yes, thanks to WDFN.com, Michigan basketball radio voice Matt Shepard talks with the Angel of the Big House, Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit News. The Angel is on my list for also saying 2008 was the worst season ever in Michigan history without offering up any comparisons. Anyway, here’s the audio from her call:
-
Support Men’s Soccer at NCAAs (2-1 win!)
Update 4pm: Michigan wins 2-1, will play winner of Indiana vs. St. Louis. It’ll be home Sunday if it’s St. Louis. Go Blue!
-
Power Index: Week 14, Season Complete for Big Ten
Following the wrap up of the Big Ten season, week 14 of the Power Index. Notre Dame has some work to do but I’m not sure the USC game will change many views of the struggling Irish. Looking back at the preseason release of the Index, the biggest drop by far belongs of course to preseason #4 Michigan who finish barely in the 10th slot. Teams that exceeded the expectations of the pollsters include the Spartans (from #6 to #3), Minnesota (from #12 to #8) and the team that had some many issues in the off-season but finished pretty strong, Iowa (from #9 to #4). Here’s the final regular season index, we’ll do another after the bowls and perhaps a pre-2009 Index sometime in January. I’m looking for a Notre Dame backer to replace our fallen Shep if you’re interested, drop me a note. Don’t miss the great banter below. Gilliam the Badger “Michigan State’s offensive line looked like they ate a full Thanksgiving dinner before taking the field against Penn State. Stuffed. Wisconsin escaped their Appalachian State because Cal-Poly’s kicker missed 3 PATs. Pardoned. Michigan sets their all-time record with 8 [Ed: actually nine :(] losses, and loses to Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State in the same season for only the second time in history. Rich Rod…
