[Ed. Here’s another great Bo-era story from the mind of Dr. Sap.] Guest Post by Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis After Bo Schembechler left U-M to become the president of the Detroit Tigers he met Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley. Finley liked to dabble in the unique as he was the inventor of the high visibility yellow baseball as well as the green and gold tunics the A’s wore in the ‘70s. The two talked about Finley’s new football invention – the reverse dimple football. Its enhanced grip was supposed to improve the accuracy of throws and increase the distance it was kicked. [more on the patent here.] The grip enhancement looked much like a golf ball’s surface and the leather looked something like this: Bo was intrigued and told Finley to go see U-M equipment manager Jon Falk in Ann Arbor…and that’s exactly what he did in the spring of 1990. The two hit it off and Falk agreed to try the new ball that Rawlings now dubbed the “Double Grip Football” with the 1990 Wolverines. Everybody liked it. The quarterbacks liked the grip and felt more accurate throwing it. The receivers liked the tackiness and the kickers felt it sailed longer when booted. Falk wanted to use the new pigskin against Notre Dame to start the 1990 season, but…
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Michigan Football Traditions – The List
~Michigan Football Traditions~ Scroll down for a list and classification (and grouped by importance) of each Michigan Football tradition, originally drafted in 2013. See the Guidelines at the bottom of the page for more context. Note that traditions grouped within a particular class are not ranked against each other in importance, the rankings only apply to the order of the classes themselves (e.g., Yost Class – these are the most sacred Michigan Football traditions, Schembechler Class the next, and so on.) Yost Class: Schembechler Class: Crisler Class: Oosterbaan Class: Bump Class: Under Further Review/Bull Pen: Guidelines: Thanks for all the input from Craig Barker of The Hoover Street Rag, David Durham of @mgoshoe and the readers of this site.
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Depth Perception (Nebraska 23, Michigan 9 2012)
When the trainers were attending to Denard in the first half I wasn’t concerned. Probably for the first time in the many, many times he’s gone down in the middle of a game I wasn’t worried. It didn’t look like there was any serious impact to his arm and we’ve seen him so many times miss a series or two before returning seemingly full strength. Turns out both my skull and Denard’s right arm went numb about the same time and that was that. As Denard sat there watching the game it looked like Bob Lopez and a couple of other guys on the staff actually got him to laugh—but he must have been dying inside. The team has repeated over and over that every game is a championship game but that was as close as U-M has actually seen this year. The captain and 101% of the offense had to sit and watch his boys get crushed. You watched the second half perhaps with some hope that Spring Game Bellomy would emerge but save for a few late first downs it wasn’t really even close. I swear I caught Jeremy Gallon staring off into space after the RS freshman was calling a pass play early in the second half and remember thinking, “Gallon knows this ain’t happening…” That…
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From Tingley to Ann Arbor to Nashville: Coach Dan McGugin’s Friendship with Fielding Yost
A wonderful account of Vanderbilt's Dan McGugin and his relationship and history with Michigan's Fielding H. Yost.
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Meeemmmmorieees
The crew and UMGoBlog interviewed me prior to the season, asking for a few of my favorites memories. You can check out what I came up with here. A snapshot: 2008 Spring game at Saline (really) 1990 and 2003 Ohio State games Getting to know the Little Brown Jug 2004 Michigan-Michigan State game The 1998 Rose Bowl experience including Morris Day, JMJ, Run DMC, and Chuck Wood. Here’s the full post.
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eBay Watch: Bid on Michigan Media Avalanche, Cure Cancer
Thanks to a tip from loyal reader James Joseph, check out this pile of Michigan and college-football related material (programs, media guides, books and more) currently up for bid on eBay. Better yet—the proceeds from the auction go directly to support the Cancer Kicker himself—the great Phil Brabbs. Editorial: Dude, I know it’s to cure cancer, but selling your copies of Natural Enemies and Bo’s Lasting Lessons? Those books are sacred! Here’s the full lot of items:
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Tear up your Tickets
Not cool man! Not. Cool. According to AnnArbor.com, 95 of parking tickets dished out during last Saturday’s Spring game were voided after fans went berserk. There are special rules enforced on home game Saturdays each fall and cops applied this policy last weekend. Via Ryan Stanton’s piece on A2.com: Several cars parked on the side streets near Michigan Stadium were ticketed for being in areas where parking is prohibited on game days. Whether the spring game was considered a football game was up for debate, and city officials agreed after some protest that the city didn’t make clear how it would enforce parking this past Saturday, [city administrator Roger] Fraser said. The city said it’s “likely” to enforce the gameday rules next Spring game and will work to communicate the policy a little better. Based on this comment from supervisor Mike Rankin, they’ve got some work to do: …it’s important to enforce no-parking restrictions on side streets around Allmendinger Park because it’s a residential area, and problems have occurred in the past due to the size of the crowd. Also, team buses need to get through the area. Team buses for the Spring Game? Umm, maybe he means the tailgate buses?: Often the comments on the sports posts on A2.com are horrible (Rich Rod sucks! / You’re no fan!) but…
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The Sheets
I’ve that had a little more access to the football team this season. I’ve made it to my share of press conferences, a few practices (before we were booted) and even on the field & press box for a couple games. It’s a nice privilege, but while the performance on the field the past several weeks has been beyond tough, watching all this crap go down behind the scenes all season has been brutal. Blabbering about it on these pages isn’t really a ball either as I’d rather blabber about old ticket stubs and the like. Nonetheless, a couple thoughts about the Detroit News report that football failed to keep the practice logs that would (help) demonstrate the team’s compliance with NCAA practice regulations: -> Since U-M’s audit and findings came out well ahead of the Free Press practicegate story, is it safe to assume that a Deepthroat inside either leaked the report or more likely, nudged Rosenberg and crew to dig around on this topic? Viva la conspiracy! -> Next, I’m not sure who I’m mad at here. It bugs me that this was allowed to go on as long as it did. "All other varsity sports submitted their CARA forms timely,” according to the July 24 letter sent to Rodriguez. The football program probably has the most complicated…
