Much has been written on these pages about what happened in the days, years and decades following the famous October 31, 1903 Michigan-Minnesota game. Here are a few details that describe what was going on just before the game, thanks to a few newspaper clippings uncovered by Stagg vs. Yost author John Kryk.
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Jug 401: Did Yost really want the Little Brown Jug returned?
In this short video, I take a look at the origin story involving Michigan's coach Fielding H. Yost asking for the return of the jug after the 1903 game. I also take a look at the alleged the response from Minnesota that he and Michigan would need "to WIN it back." This story is important to origin story of college football oldest rivalry trophy tradition, but is it really what happened? I examine some of the problems with and much more in this video.
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The Poison Water Myth
The next nugget of Jug Lore gets into why U-M bought the jug in the first place. Did Michigan and Fielding H. Yost actually fear that Minnesota might taint or poison the Wolverine water supply? Is that really why they bought the jug – to control the source of Willie Heston’s water? Let’s examine this: If you dig this videos, like/subscribe/share/comment. As always, get all of your Little Brown Jug Lore here…
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Jug Stolen! On Michigan’s Watch (1931-1933)
Latest from the socially distant MVictors History Show, a short video about the when the Little Brown Jug went missing in 1931: If you dig this videos, like/subscribe/share/comment. As always, get all of your Little Brown Jug Lore here…
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Electrifying Game
We know the October 31, 1903 game Michigan played at Northrop Field in Minnesota spawned the Little Brown Jug rivalry. It was also the hottest ticket in town. The accepted attendance is an even 20,000, although Northrop Field only sat 8,000 in its 33 row grandstand. That doesn’t include the short stands in the end zone but that doesn’t explain how an extra 12,000 got their peepers on the famous 6-6 tie. Thanks to this shot the folks at Minnesota media relations forwarded over to me tonight, you get a sense for the lengths folks went to see this one: I think I need that on my office wall. Righteous Stub So we know approximately 20,000 witnessed the famous clash and we do know that the gross receipts for the game were precisely $30,933.50 (with the Wolverines netting a $13K cut). Assuming the ducats, based on others from that year, were probably about two bucks, it’s fair to assume Doc Cooke’s athletic department produced somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 tickets. This leads to one missing piece of Jug Lore—I’ve never seen a ticket stub to the 1903 Minnesota-Michigan game. I polled a couple of the most famous U-M memorabilia collectors. Jack Briegel, who owns a ticket to every game played in Michigan Stadium and many more emailed me confirming that…
