I just found your favorite episode of Jeopardy, apparently from December last year. Michigan SuperFan’s site provided this gem. Yes, ‘University of Michigan Football’ was a category on this edition of Jeopardy. There’s was definitely some Wolverine love during that episode, as the category next to M Football was titled, ‘Hail to the Victors’, unfortunately the Victors category contained no Michigan-related answers. Click here for the video stream. I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day as I crushed that category.
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To Hell with Notre Dame…in 2032
Our great departed leader Bo Schembechler felt that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish broke a gentleman's agreement with Michigan to make the M vs. ND game the first of each season. Bo was all miffed at the Domers for rebuffing overtures to join the Big Ten. He felt that Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue should each drop the ND from the schedule immediately. Summarizing his feelings on the Irish Bo told anyone who'd listen, "To Hell with Notre Dame".
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McGuffie and Recruiting
You’ll notice this site doesn’t spend any time on recruiting – those of you that are recruitniks pepper sites like GoBlueWolverine, mlive.com, etc. or go right to the great mgoblog for Brian’s frequent updates on the matter. I don’t get too excited about recruiting. Of course I like to see Michigan in the top 5-10 each year and I think it is one of those things for which Lloyd Carr deserves a lot credit, but other than that, don’t really care. I remember when Michigan hoops got a commitment from Jerod Ward. He was shooting and making three pointers in one of the high school All-Star games with his left. While injury was a key factor in his troubles at Michigan, you can safely say Ward’s jersey isn’t going to be hanging from the rafters at Crisler or anywhere else. According to Wikipedia, Ward now plays for a team in Lebanon. Yes, that Lebanon. But I have to mention Sam McGuffie. The #1 running back out of a Texas committed to Michigan yesterday and the guy looks pretty incredible. As pointed out by Sam Webb of GoBlueWolverine and WTKA this morning, there is another reason he’s getting a lot of attention: Sam McGuffie is white. If nothing else it makes this unique. So much for not touting people before they…
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Assessing Shand vs. Martin
I’ve read the federal complaint filed by former WTKA morning host Dave Shand against Michigan AD Bill Martin. The MVictors legal team consulted on the matter over a few beers at Fraser’s Pub in Ann Arbor & here’s the assessment: One of the factors that makes this case difficult is that Shand’s employment relationship with WTKA presumably was at-will, meaning he could have quit, or WTKA could have fired him, at any time for no reason. There is somewhat of a split in Michigan over whether a former employee can sue another person for interfering with an at-will employment relationship, but recent case law suggests that the at-will nature alone does not invalidate a claim – that is, we have an expectation that our at-will employment relationship with our employer will not be wrongfully undermined by an outsider. More importantly, the at-will nature of the relationship makes it difficult to prove damages and this issue would likely be hotly contested by the parties just to determine whether the case should even go to a jury. Martin would argue that the damages are overly speculative so the case shouldn’t go to a jury, while Shand would have to argue that there is a reasonable basis to compute his damages. Another point that Martin’s side might argue is that he had a…
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Harmon vs. the Drunk makes AOL
The folks at AOL Fanhouse came across this old piece on Tom Harmon vs. the Drunk. They thought enough of it to republish the YouTube ditty we pulled together on the 1940 Life Magazine piece that covered the encounter. AOL added it as part of their “Old School” series – here’s a link to their piece.
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Shand vs. Bill Martin: Complete Federal Complaint
MVictors obtained a copy of the complaint filed yesterday in federal court against Michigan athletic director Bill Martin. Here’s a full version of the complaint in .pdf format we requested and received from Shand’s legal team. MVictors.com exclusive legal correspondent from the firm of Charleys, Ricks and Frasers is reviewing the complaint right now and we’ll be posting a few comments soon. Here’s an excerpt from the complaint, where things get interesting: 19. This relationship [between WTKA and Michigan athletics] became threatened when defendant Martin became increasingly irritated with plaintiff’s occasional outspoken criticisms of the UM athletic program, and possibly other on-air comments. 20. On April 19, 2007, Martin communicated both indirectly and directly with Bolak and Cowen, and informed them that he would not allow WTKA to participate in a planned coverage of a UM charity golf event if they permitted plaintiff to broadcast it. 21. Martin further indicated that he wanted the station to fire the plaintiff, and stated that if they did not, he would no longer allow WTKA to carry University of Michigan football games. 22. Martin had no supervisory authority whatsoever over WTKA, Bolak, Cowen or plaintiff, and he and the UM Athletic Department were completely independent of the radio station except for the license to broadcast football games and related programming. 23. Martin’s interference…
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Shand Won’t Surrender: Files Suit on Bill Martin
MVictors.com just learned that recently fired WTKA morning show host Dave Shand has decided to take on Bill Martin. Shand emailed the MVictors: “We filed a federal suit this morning against Bill Martin. Just wanted to let you know.” I guess Dave doesn’t plan on renewing his football or hockey tickets anytime in the next century. Developing. We requested more info on the suit, we’ll post updates here as we get them. For all the history on the Shand dismissal, including MVictors exclusive quotes from Shand, click here. UPDATE 6pm: The Ann Arbor News is on the story, just posted on MLive.com, more to come in tomorrow’s paper: Fired radio host sues Michigan athletic director Posted by Sports reporter John Heuser July 24, 2007 17:39PM Categories: Breaking News Former Ann Arbor sports radio host Dave Shand has sued University of Michigan athletic director Bill Martin, claiming that Martin “essentially used economic blackmail” to force his firing. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Ann Arbor, alleged that Martin told Shand’s bosses at WTKA-AM (1050) that station would lose its rights to broadcast Michigan football unless it dismissed Shand. “Either way you slice it, it’s illegal for Bill Martin to interfere in Dave’s private employment contract,” said Nicholas Roumel, Shand’s attorney. When Shand was fired in April, the…
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Irish Schedules Neutral Site Games
From the Associated Press, looks like Notre Dame will be playing a to-be-named opponent at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando in 2011 and 2014. AD Kevin said this was another step in getting back to Notre Dame’s independent roots. It’s safe to say that the Irish football team won’t be joining your Big Ten anytime soon and that’s fine. My question: will the Irish play 8 home games and 1 ‘neutral’ game in these years? Leaving just 3 games on an opponent’s home field? Or does the neutral site game take away from one of the home games?
