HOLD ON TO YOUR MAIZE AND BLUE FEDORAS! For the Under the Lights II edition of This Week in Michigan Football History we take a double dip to the opening game of two Heisman winning seasons: Tom Harmon’s trip to Cal in 1940, and Desmond Howard trek to Boston College in 1991. Each man delivered two of the greatest performances in Wolverine history, accounting for 9 touchdowns between this. And Harmon had to outduel 12 men on one play, as my man Bud Brennan hopped on the field and tried to bring down Terrible Tommy. Without further ado: [display_podcast] For more on the 1940 Cal game and much, much more on Tommy Harmon, grab Saturday’s commemorative game program and support U-M efforts to archive these men and these eras. Oh, and sponsor note. You know I recorded TWIMFbH in style by rocking my Michigan Game Changer from MaraWatch, don’t you? That’s it on the left with Ira manning the 1s and 2s in the background in studio at WTKA. Remember: You can catch all of the This Week in Michigan Football History clips here. Listen to it live tomorrow on the KeyBank Countdown to kick-off on WTKA 1050AM or catch it live inside the Bud Light Victors Lounge. Follow MVictors on Twitter script: For this Prime Time…
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Harmon of Michigan–on DVD? Indeed.
Tip of the hat to reader Jeff for this tip. You may have seen this movie poster around town or on this site or on eBay: Well, it actually is a real film from 1941 featuring Tom Harmon himself and even 1940 team captain Forest Evashevski. Summary: A football coach, riding high and feeling bulletproof, begins to have his life unravel after a series of his own arrogant blunders. He orders an illegal "flying wedge" formation in a game (which costs him his job) and ruins his marriage over more loutish behavior before coming to his senses. Harmon, the loutish brute. Now for the news–turns out a DVD version of Harmon of Michigan is being released next week and you can order it on Amazon. Looks like it’s a program where they will re-issue old films on demand (they’ll cut and ship the DVDs as folks order them). That’s good by me. Jeff added, “I doubt the film is particularly good, but it’ll be fun to watch Ol’ 98 portray himself.” Yes, I’m guessing this is just about the worst film ever made but it would be interesting to see 98 and Evashevski fumbling around trying to act. You can order it now for $20.95 on Amazon for its December 6 release. Like the movie poster? Pick it up on…
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Old 98 with New 7 (Mark Harmon)? (1972)
Check out this shot of Old 98 Tom Harmon with his son and to-be Hollywood star Mark Harmon, currently up for bid: Mark just finished a Pina Colada at Trader Vic’s The auction also includes these shots of dad donning some wingless “U OF M” headgear alongside son Mark in his UCLA #7 about to toss the rock while simultaneously breaking hearts: The ‘U OF M’-ed helmet didn’t quite stick like the winged helmet, to be certain eBay Watch mavens might recognize the first image. It was used in a 1973 Michigan State-UCLA program that led this January 2008 eBay Watch post. As noted back then, the younger Harmon’s Bruins faced Michigan in Pasadena (’72 regular season) and MSU in East Lansing (’73). There were a couple storylines leading into the Wolverines trip to Los Angeles in 1972. The week prior UCLA started their brutal schedule with a huge win over #1 Nebraska, snapping the Huskers’ 32 game winning streak. It was Harmon’s first game for the Bruins, and a wishbone offense was installed to suit the new quarterback. Mark was named the MVP of the game and finished with 71 rushing. A headline in Sports Illustrated that week declared, “YOUNG HARMON MAKES HIS MARK: From Out of Hollywood Comes the Saga of Mark Harmon, Handsome, Articulate, the Son of…
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Harmon Takes a Sip, Chicago Quits (1939)
Check out this great shot of Old 98, Tom Harmon, on the sideline grabbing a drink. No, it wasn’t from a water jug or even from a cup. It’s 1939 and you got your drink from a ladle dipped from a trough LIKE A MAN: This was shot during the game against once great rival Chicago in 1939, a game in which Michigan won 85-0 in front of a sparse crowd of 5,000, no doubt mostly Michigan fans. The hapless Maroons were pummeled all season, losing to Ohio State 61-0, Illinois 47-0, Harvard 61-0, Virginia 47-0, and were even shut out by tiny Beloit College 6-0. Those are the kind of beatdowns that force you to think about the direction of a program, and the Maroons did some hard, hard thinking after the 1939 season concluded. In December it was announced the once-splendid Chicago would cease fielding a football team. This concluded a 15-year deemphasis on our beloved pigskin: Stagg was of course the first man to defeat a Fielding Yost-led Wolverine team at the conclusion of the Point-A-Minute era from 1901-1905. Chicago was Michigan’s first true rival and U-M’s 1898 victory in the Windy City inspired Louis Elbel to write The Victors, in turn inspiring a blogger to name his website MVictors. Complete withdrawal from the conference for the…
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eBay Watch: Tommy’s the BMOC (1939)
98 headed right to the Yspi-Arbor bowl right after class This eBay Watch takes a look at a 1939 photo of Heisman winner Tom Harmon. Old 98 is seated in history class flanked by a few lovely co-eds. It’s not clear why someone scribbled the lines on the photo. The original owner saved the caption from somewhere the photo appeared on October 19, 1939. The headline under the photo reads, “Higher Scorer, Good Scholar!” and offers that “Tommy knows all the answers on the football field and also does a pretty good job in the classroom.” Perhaps adjectives like great! and excellent! were offered sparingly in 1939 but either way the caption writer didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for Harmon’s studies. That said, based on the gals flanked around him in history class, it looks like Harmon was more than “pretty good” with other activities around campus [wink, nudge]. Tommy’s luck with the ladies extended beyond Ann Arbor as years later he married actress Elyse Knox, a real knock-out of a dame: Knox and Harmon’s son Mark is of course well known for his role on CBS’ NCIS and his movie career. The highlight? Coincidently it was when the younger Harmon held court in the classroom like his old man….in 1987’s Summer School: Mr. Shoop, can I get your…
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Harmon Bio in the works, Military record discussed
Writer Fredric Alan Maxwell is pulling together a biography of Michigan legend Tom Harmon titled, ‘The Late Great 98’. Michigan Today released an excerpt of the book that will be released chapter by chapter over time in a unique format, and will eventually result in a hard copy book. Details are found on tomharmonbio.com: The Late Great 98 is the Tom Harmon Biography-in-progress that is being published on an advanced subscription basis. People who purchase reduced-rate advance copies will be e-mailed Harmon stories and chapters as they are written, which they can review and comment on, thus becoming part of the editorial process. Hard cover books containing the final draft will be printed and delivered by mail to subscribers before they are sold in bookstores. Maxwell’s book intro discusses some of the controversies around Harmon’s military service in World War II. There were accusations out there discrediting Harmon’s military service, summarized below: …very persistent rumor is afloat to the effect that Tom Harmon, when he crashed in South America was yellow, that he, contrary to all traditions and rules of the Air Service (sic), bailed out first whereas it is the duty of the pilot to be the last to jump. Rumor has it that that was the reason that Tom was the only one to survive that crash. It…
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Mark Harmon Faces Michigan, MSU
With the rumors that have Ryan Mallett and quarterbacks coach Scott Loeffler heading to UCLA, it’s a good time to look at the next item in the eBay watch series. Many of you know that Michigan legend Tom Harmon is the father of actor Mark Harmon and that the younger Harmon played quarterback at UCLA. What you may not know is that Mark’s Bruins actually faced his old man’s team in the early seventies and they both returned to Michigan the following year to battle the Spartans. Here are the programs for each game that were recently auctioned on eBay: There were a couple of storylines leading into the Wolverines trip to Los Angeles in 1972. The week prior UCLA started their brutal schedule with a huge win over #1 Nebraska, snapping the Huskers’ 32-game winning streak. It was Harmon’s first game for the Bruins, and a wishbone offense was installed to suit the new quarterback. Mark was named the MVP of the game and finished with 71 rushing yards. A headline in Sports Illustrated that week declared, “YOUNG HARMON MAKES HIS MARK: From Out of Hollywood Comes the Saga of Mark Harmon, Handsome, Articulate, the Son of Old No. 98”. Geez SI, take a cold shower. The other storyline for the game was of course the son playing his legendary…
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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.
