I don’t if Harry Kipke liked to be photographed, or whether the press chased him around a lot but, brother, there are always a lot of interesting photos of the former Michigan All-American player and coach. Just right now you can find photos of Kipke in scenes that have nothing to do with football—[left to right above] on vacation with his wife in Florida chilling in a bathrobe, hanging out with golfing legend Gene Sarazen, and most frequently, Kipke on his boat sailing or hanging out with other people who love to sail. I don’t know if there are any Kipke family historians out there, but I’m guessing you can piece together Kipke’s life (certainly in the 1930s and 1940s) through solely the lens of newspaper wire photos that pop up on eBay. Here’s my favorite and this might end up in my man cave. Taken in May 1935 (notably after the horrific ‘34 season), on the left that’s Kipke’s son holding what you have to assume is a leather Michigan helmet. Kipke is kneeling in a sharp 3-piece suit with a flower tie as he tangles with two baby lions at his feet. Harry’s no fool—note the protective oven mitts. So what’s the deal with all of this? First, chalk this up to a day in the life of…
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1930s Michigan Football Video?
Thanks to Jim for passing this along. Up on AnnArbor.com now, writer Nathan Bomey explains how a old home video of what appears to be a 1930s-era Michigan football game at the Big House surfaced: The startup, Priceless Photo Preservation, restored a home movie featuring “field-level footage of a Michigan football game inside the newly built (and nearly empty) Michigan Stadium,” co-founder Rob Hoffman said in an email. The video owner, Ann Arbor native Susan Pearlman, said her grandfather, Ovid Weldon, shot the film, which shows extensive action featuring the Michigan football team, marching band and several views of the crowd. Two punts are clearly visible. Pearlman believes that her grandfather, who earned a degree in landscape architecture from U-M in the late 1920s, shot the film sometime between 1931 and 1935 because other footage on the reel shows her father or uncle as a toddler. Her uncle was born in 1928, and her father was born in 1932. She said no one had seen the video since at least 1960, when her grandfather died. Here’s the video: It’s definitely the Big House of course, but there’s not enough data offhand for me to place the year or the opponent for that matter. The uniforms look very similar to the footage that’s in the Black and Blue documentary on…
