It’s Spring Break for many here in Michigan and thus WPW takes the foot off the gas this week, featuring just one shot of General George S. Patton Schembechler: Schembechler Hall was dedicated this past weekend, and of course the centerpiece is the new Bo statue. Details on the 7 1/2 foot bronze Bo features the mandatory ‘M’ hat, sunglasses, a headset (with “BO” in Dymotape label) in his hand, and a Rose Bowl watch on his wrist. The above 35MM shot of Coach Bo looks to be in the ballpark of the era of the pose that was used for the statue, and that looks to be a Rose Bowl watch shining on his left wrist as he calls timeout. You can find that photo on eBay right now. Follow MVictors on Twitter
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WPW | Jimmy Orwig’s Righteous Swig
Hump Day! Wire Photo Wednesday leads with something near and dear to my heart, the Little Brown Jug: A great shot of a few men from Bennie Oosterbaan’s 1957 roster. Left to right I believe you’ve got: Stan Noskin (QB), Dave Brown (QB), ‘57 captain Jim Orwig (LT) taking a pull, Larry Faul (LG) and Jerry Goebel (C). We don’t have a lot of information on this shot, but it looks like it appeared in the Minneapolis Star, making me think it was shot just prior to the ‘57 battle for the Jug. The caption also says that’s a replica – which is looks to be (for starter, there are no scores down the side, at least on the side we can see…). Good news – Orwig took back the real jug after Michigan’s 24-7 victory on October 26, 1957. Fritz: “..and finally, we’re getting new helmets..with yellow wings on them.” [Team breaks out in laughter]Fritz: “Trust me on this one. Wings are the future. Wings I tells ya.” So I’ve seen this shot on eBay before but never noticed the significance of the date it was taken. This is actually a pretty historically significant shot from March 28th—the start of Spring football back then. This is probably one of, if not the first, published photo with Fritz Crisler…
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Wire Photo Wednesday Cries Wolverbear!
WPW keeps rolling with a great shot that sheds some light on uniform history: First up, this isn’t a wire photo but something a little cleaner: it’s a 35MM negative from the 1962 game in East Lansing that is incredibly crisp. In the U-M lily whites you’ve got a wincing Tom Prichard (21) backed up by a flying Ron Kocan (88). The Spartans snuck by 28-0. More importantly, this slide appears to have solved a little uniform riddle that has bugged me and the illustrious Dr. Sap for a while. We had seen some photos from this era of players wearing what seemed to be a circular patch on their jerseys…but couldn’t confirm what it was. Sap dug an old shot with the mystery patch that we mulled over a year or 2 back (also obviously from the ‘62 State game as well, featuring Prichard, could be the same play): The first shot clearly confirms what is chilling on the left shoulder…the wolverbear ! </insert Happy Valley roar sound, slightly higher pitch> Viva the sailor wolverbear! Here’s more on the U-M logo history via my man Craig at HSR. Here’s the auction for the 35MM slide. Here’s another shot from the 1962 game via my friends at The Only Colors. Oh, and the Uniform Timeline is now updated…scroll down to…
