Neil Snow Generates a Fever and a Thirst (1902)

The topic of beer and Michigan football has certainly crossed paths in the past and heck, one of the leaders and best in the U-M blogosphere even adopted a suds-inspired name.   Without a doubt here is the best beer-Michigan football story:

Apparently, the game program to the June 13, 1902, Michigan baseball match against Cornell held in Ann Arbor included an ad that struck a nerve with U-M superstar athlete Neil Snow.   Snow is probably best known for tallying five (5) touchdowns in the first Rose Bowl in 1902. He also was an absolute standout on the track and on the baseball diamond.   Oh and apparently, off the field, he loved himself some of Detroit’s own Koppitz-Melchers Pale Select beer. 

The ad men down at the brewery got word of Snow’s love of their suds.  So they placed an ad in the program that included an endorsement of their beer by the All-American!   

Of course young Neil, still a student at the time, was neither contacted nor consented to this ad and use of his Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL).  So he wrote dropped this wonderful letter on the folks at Koppitz (source: Mark Bomia):

The above transcribed:

Gentlemen: Enclosed I send your ad which appeared in today’s Michigan-Cornell official base-ball score card. I don’t deny the allegation I drink Koppitz-Melchers Pale Select about as often as I can get hold of it.  But there are a lot of people that didn’t know it before. The sensibilities of the more unreasonably puritanical have been shocked and my reputation with them seriously impaired by this same ad. It didn’t do me a bit of good.  It may have done you some.  If you want to make an awful hit with me and a few of my most intimate friends, and do it in a very gracious sort of way, the best way to do would be to send a case or two of that same Pale Select, express prepaid, to the address below.

Very Truly Yours
Neil W. Snow.

556 So. State St.  Ann Arbor

Mark Bomia

So that’s awesome and it gets better.   Here’s the Brewery’s wonderful response to Snow’s idea (again, thanks to Bomia): 

Forget the lawyers – they sent him more beer! 

“We have taken the liberty of expressing you to-day, a case of our celebrated Pale Select (more celebrated than ever), and ask you and your friends to drink a bumper to our success.”

UPDATE 1/10/2020: Thanks to my friends at the U-M Bentley Library, I bring good news.

While the letters between Snow and the brewery are amazing and certainly tell the tale of what happened, one piece was missing. I had never actually seen the beer ad that caused all the fuss. UNTIL NOW!

Thanks, U-M Bentley Historical Library!

From the Bentley archives, that’s the ad Detroit’s Koppitz-Melchers Brewing Company placed – without Neil Snow’s permission – in the baseball game program of the June 13, 1902, Cornell game played at Ferry Field! And here’s the front of the scorecard if you need it!