• Worshipping the Varsity Man

    Check out the latest edition of Michigan Today for James Tobin’s piece on the Yost’s fight to build Michigan Stadium.  It narrows in on a few folks that represented the opposition to not only the new stadium but the culture of football itself during the period.   We’re talking the mid-1920s during the first major football arms race (when giant stadiums were popping up all over the place), and some struggled with the newfound popularity (and off-field revelry) that followed the growth of the sport. A few choice quotes – starting with Robert C. Angell, one of the leaders of the opposition: As for the players themselves, Angell said, only a few did more in class than maintain their eligibility. Nearly all their time and energy went to the sport. “Their diplomas cover a multitude of intellectual sins.” But the athletes were only “a few drops in the bucket of university life.” What harm could football possibly do to the thousands of other students who simply showed up to cheer? Well, said Angell, every autumn, football became a kind of addiction for students, “many but mildly, some seriously.” The sport seized “a monopoly of undergraduate conversation… A scientific theory or a piece of fine poetry has not a chance to squeeze in edgewise. “Around the dinner table, in one another’s rooms,…