October 10, 1936. That is the precise date when the Ohio State marching band first performed and thus invented their beloved Script Ohio formation. But there's a problem with at part of that. Feel free to inform your friends from Columbus of this fact: Rest assured that the folklore is true, it was indeed the Michigan Marching Band that first performed the ‘Script Ohio’ - four years earlier. Yes, the MMB literally spelled it out for the Ohio Stadium crowd on Michigan's trip to Columbus on October 15, 1932. Feel free to troll your friends from Columbus because of this fact: Rest assured that the folklore is true, it was indeed the Michigan Marching Band that first performed the ‘Script Ohio’ - four years earlier. Yes, the MMB literally spelled it out for the Ohio Stadium crowd on Michigan's trip to Columbus on October 15, 1932.
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The Paul, The George, and The Dickinson System (1892, 1932, 1953) | This Week In Michigan Football History
We jump around a bit in Saturday's edition of TWIMFbH starting with the 1892 match-up between Michigan and Northwestern which featured the first African-American to play for a future conference team - George Jewett. We then fast forward to 1932 and Fritz Crisler's visit to the Big House and how an Illinois Professor devised a system to determine a national champion. Finally, the Paul Bunyan Trophy - we didn't want it, and I don't get it!
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The Dickinson System: How an Econ Prof determined the National Champion
Harry Kipke’s 1932 and 1933 teams were champions not by virtue of a poll of writers or coaches. The two titles were determined by the most widely recognized method at the time: the Dickinson System, a formula devised by Illinois economics professor Frank Dickinson that ranked college teams at the end of each season.
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Michigan captain Whitey Wistert’s ID (1931)
Here’s an auction of the U-M student identification card for the 1931-32 school year for the first of the legendary Wistert brothers: Francis Michael ‘Whitey’ Wistert: As the card indicates, Francis was a Chicago native and after graduating from high school worked in a factory building radios. A decision to tag along with a classmate on a visit to Ann Arbor effectively kicked off the Michigan-Wistert tradition. Several online references claim Whitey had no football background before coming to Michigan, but he is enshrined into his high school Hall of Fame for “Baseball and Football”. Oh and yes, he could also play some baseball—he was named Big Ten MVP his senior season. Whitey anchored the line for Harry Kipke’s back-to-back national championship squads in 1932-1933, and the 6-2, 210-pound stapping lad was named All-American in ‘33: I’ve written on the Wistert Trio before but in a nutshell, each played football for Michigan of course, each played tackle, each wore 11, all three made it into the college football Hall of Fame and they are the reason you won’t ever see another U-M football player wear jersey number eleven. Also included is an ID from 1938 when Wistert returned to assist Harry Kipke and his staff:
