Above, take a look at this wire photo from the 1938 version of "The Game" - Michigan vs. Ohio State.
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Won’t Get Fooled Again–The U-M History Calendar (beta)
So I’m listening to the WTKA ‘Fantastic Friday’ broadcast prior to the Alabama beat down. Former U-M kicker Phil Brabbs took a break from kicking cancer’s ass & called into the show. Naturally the topic of his splendid game-winning kick against Washington in 2002 came up. Then this happened: someone on Twitter pointed out that it was the 10th anniversary off that kick. After the obligatory sadness (I’m getting old) I realized that there’s really no reason that such dates and anniversaries should be sneaking up and biting us. So this week I pinged the brilliant Craig Barker of The Hoover Street Rag for help and away we went on this concept. We started plugging in key dates in the history of the football program – the good, the bad, birthdays, deaths, special anniversaries and milestones. It’s a publicly available Google Calendar and I’ll keep it as a page in the tabs above, and post the upcoming events on my sidebar (scroll down). Again, we have just started (177+ entries, some need tweaks) but I like what we have so far. And thanks to Craig – your entries are spot on and yes, I love this one. Check it out. For starters – Did you know Harry Kipke died on this day 40 years ago? Did you know ‘The Catch’…
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Michigan Records Within Reach
The 2012 football media guide is available for perusal so I perused. Here are a few notable records that could be reached this season. As usual, I don’t think any of the records go much past the mid-1940s, although they list a few of Harmon’s stats in the late 1930s and occasionally offer “pre-modern” data. Some of the defensive records only date to the 1960s. Roy Roundtree has caught a ball in 19 straight games. Braylon has the career record with an impressive 38. Obviously Treezy won’t catch him, but if he runs the season out including the B1G title game and a bowl, he could up 3rd all-time with 33 straight, just ahead up Marquise Walker with 32. U-M tracks plays which I assume are downs in which someone touches the ball. Naturally it’s all quarterbacks. Denard (1126) trails Chad Henne (1567) by 441 but participated in 479 last season and 547 in 2012. If he’s healthy it should happen. Did you know that Will Hagerup’s 2010 effort was second all-time for season punting average? I didn’t. Now, I’d like to see Harry Kipke’s stats in here but nonetheless, assuming Hagerup earns the job back from Matt Wile, you’d have to think that Zoltan Mesko’s season standard of 44.46 yards/punt (left) is obtainable with a good bounce or two. …
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Faster Than Jesse Owens (1935)
A few moments during the film drew a verbal reaction from the crowd (including John U. Bacon’s hilarious description of Henry Ford’s henchman Harry Bennett) but none more poignant than the gasp when it was noted that Willis Ward once defeated the great Jesse Owens on the track.
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Schembechler Snaps!! (Photos)
Photos of Bo Schembechler losing his mind on the sidelines.
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Dr. Sap’s Decals–Illinois
Matt Wile: 5 decals – for 5 Non-Returnable (Aluminum Beer Can) Kickoffs!* Don’t kid yourself at the importance of these kicks – they forced Illinois to drive 80 yards almost all game and that made a HUGE difference! Fitzgerald Toussaint: 3 decals – 1st QTR 65-yard run, 25-yard run, and 4th QTR 27-yard TD run David Molk: 3 decals – seal blocks on Toussaint 65-yard and 25-yard runs in 1st QTR, seal block on Denard 2-yard TD run in 2nd Qtr J.T. Floyd: 4 decals – 1st QTR PBU, 4th QTR INT (would have given one more for a pick-six!), 4th QTR PBU, +1 editor’s choice, for transforming into Chuck Woodson for this game, wow. Ryan Van Bergen: 3 decals – 3rd QTR sack, and two 4th QTR sacks Denard Robinson: 2 decals – 5-yard TD run in 1st QTR, 2-yard TD run in 2nd QTR. Jake Ryan: 2 decals – 1st QTR TFL, 3rd QTR PASTING hit on QB during option-pitch – outstanding! Jordan Kovacs: 3 decals: 1 for forced fumble in 2nd QTR, 1 for TFL in 3rd QTR, and +1 editor’s choice for actually being Zack Novak and fooling us this whole time. Thomas Gordon: 2 decals for fumble recovery in 2nd QTR and PBU in 4th QTR Michael Schofield: 1 decal for seal block on…
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TWIMFbH: Crisler Gets it Back on Track with Winged Helmets and Super Sophs (1938)
Last week we talked about when Fritz Crisler and his Princeton Tigers faced Harry Kipke and his eventual 1932 national championship squad. Flash forward to this week in Michigan football history in 1938, and the two men are involved once again. Kipke is now the disgraced coach who couldn’t score a point against the Buckeye in four seasons and was at the helm when illegal practices and fake jobs for players were abound. Michigan inserted the straight-laced, no-nonsense Fritz Crisler to fix it all. Ironically, it was the boring, business-like Crisler who introduced to Ann Arbor arguably the most recognizable element of any football uniform anywhere—the winged helmet. Here’s this edition of TWIMFbH, as Crisler, his super sophs and those winged helmets faced Penn in the sixth game of the 1938 season. As always, you can listen to it out before the KeyBank Countdown to Kick-off on WTKA 1050AM tomorrow, or click play now: [display_podcast] You can hear all of the This Week… clips here. Related: 1932 –“I thought Crisler was a Violin Player” 1934 – Harry Kipke and the Fall of 1934 1937 – Fritz’s Secret Practice 1938 – Harmon and Old Number..Six? 1938 – Debut of Crisler’s Winged Helmet 1944 – Michigan’s Debut as a Nocturnal Eleven 1945 – Army Program from Yankee Stadium 1947 – 1948 Rose…
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First Look: Black and Blue—Gerald Ford, Willis Ward and the 1934 Georgia Tech Game
This is something I’ve been pining for since at least 2009, here’s proof via this mgo-guest post: Willis Ward: The African-American end and U-M track star was Gerald Ford’s roommate for road games and a member of the ’32 and ’33 national championship squads. This man’s story deserves a full documentary or movie, not a blurb on a blog post, and it’s safe to assume he gave some interesting remarks to the banquet crowd… Blue and Blue is done and it will debut soon. I even contributed to it in a small way (or a big way if you count circumference of head with respect to screen size). I’ve seen the full length version and it is very well done—you can get a copy now (with free shipping for MVictors readers). Another feather in the cap of Buddy and Brian at the Emmy-nominated Stunt3 Multimedia. The film is done in the Ken Burns-style—they tell the story while jumping between the key players & flashing vintage photos, clippings, letters and where available, film footage. You get a feel from the trailer: More later, but a few quick highlights. First, I loved the shots of the actual wires and letters between Georgia Tech and Michigan, along with a few of the letters from U-M fans to Kipke and Yost chiming in…
