The End of an Era

I will be graduating from the University of Michigan this Saturday, fulfilling the lifelong goal of graduating and the lifelong dream of becoming a Michigan grad. I arrived in September of 2007 and I will graduate, in the Big House, this Saturday, only no game will be played. That time has passed, and my allotted four years of undergraduate football are up. I saw the end of Carr, the beginning and end of Rich Rodriguez, and the vague beginnings of Brady Hoke in my four years; three unique individuals, football coaches, men. I guess you could say that, despite it all, I saw a lot. Some of it good, some of it bad. But, in the end, I'd rather witness Michigan's worst day than anybody's else's best, and I say that without reservation or qualification.

The Appalachian State debacle was my third day on campus. My freshman tickets sat me in Section 16, far away from my fellow students. I sat next to a white-haired old man--whose natural hair color might've been blue--and his son each week. My enduring memories of that first game are conveniently sparse; my first memory is of Chad Henne zipping a passing to Mike Massey in the opening drive. I saw it all from my bird's eye seat in Row 96 of Section 16; it was perfect and logical, a rational manifestation of our pre-season top 5 ranking. Then, the defense took the field.


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I remember sneaking into the student section before the beginning of the second half. I was worried that I wouldn't get in, being a naive freshman and whatnot. I didn't know what was what. I got in, flashing my ticket and walking through the throng of students, using them like a Dustin Byfuglien screen on Roberto Luongo as I scooted past the ushers. I shouldn't have been there, but eventually I made my way into the student section. I sat by people I didn't know. When Mike Hart began to take over in the fourth quarter, I experienced my first encounter with Michigan Stadium ecstasy an as undergrad. I had experienced it before (most recently at the 2004 Homecoming game, which ended with a game-winning drive and a Tyler Ecker romp to the endzone), but it wasn't like this. I high-fived random strangers and tried to fit in as a student, despite the fact that I in fact was one, and no fitting in should have been needed. I had been a Michigan fan my entire life, and had attended many Michigan games (home and away) before my matriculation to Michigan, but once I entered that student section for the first time, I was just another person is a sea of maize, hoping that Mike Hart would save us from ultimate shame. Amidst the noise and the fretting, I worried that my former neighbors--the old man and his middle-aged son--thought I had left the game at halftime. Even now, I think on that moment when I stood there, actually concerned that someone somewhere was questioning my fandom. It was all so absurd and irrationally self-critical; but I suppose that's what being a fan really is.

(HT: Mike DeSimone)

The moments leading up to that final kick, after the hope-inducing heave from Henne to Manningham, are perhaps most indicative of my experience of a fan as a whole. Do you know that feeling, when a player that you root for and hope succeeds--whether a basketball player at the line in the final seconds, a baseball player at the plate with a 3-2 count in a one-run game, a hockey team faced with a one-goal deficit with two minutes to go--is asked to perform in a moment of ostensibly supreme significance? A miss means a loss to Appalachian State, a make represents a small victory, an escape from eternal shame. Nothing in sports is as black and white as it was that moment. In some cases, a player can make a play despite the failure of others, as Mike Hart showed throughout his career; whether or not Adam Kraus or Jake Long made an effective block on the now infamous zone left play, Mike managed to gain at least 4 yards every time by virtue of his power of will and raison d'etre, which said that you must move forward until you cannot do so anymore. Unfortunately, the circumstances of the game of football don't always manifest themselves so conveniently, and sometimes the men that don the maize and blue are asked to perform coldly and alone.

But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. 

Jason Gingell lined up for a kick that I, the random strangers to the left and right of me, and everybody in the stadium knew he would miss. I watched him line up, and no inkling of a Phillipp Brabbs-esque circa 2002 miracle crossed my mind. It was like watching somebody else quite literally kick your goals and self-esteem into a far away ocean. I watched everything unfold, not even knowing at the time that Crable had blocked the outside man instead of Corey Lynch. The kick went up and was batted down to the ground unceremoniously, along with all the hopes and dreams and pre-conceived notions of dominance that I and everybody else came into the season believing in so adamantly. Corey Lynch ran the other way with the ball like a scalp from some grim McCarthyian passage, in the opposite direction of all of Michigan's hopes and dreams. Appalachian State's fight song pierced the dull roar, which I'm convinced came partly from ASU fans but mostly from the suppressed angst of the Michigan fans in the stadium, a feeling which had built up gradually and violently once the end result became a distinct possibility. It was long, slow stadium-wide release, a mass exhalation of barely audible but palpable defeat.

I could do nothing but sit. I couldn't think about anything, and when I try to recall distinct memories about that point, I come up blank. For an event so cataclysmic and important to me, I can’t recall as many details about the game itself as I can of the minutiae of my experience that day. I’ve seen videos of that blocked kick, read articles, listened to other people talk about it, and yet, when I draw upon my own memory, everything is reminiscent of a dream, and perhaps that is a subconscious coping mechanism. As time has gone on, that September day becomes more and more vague, to the point that only the contours of the memory are there, like a cloud shaped like something distinct, yet could in fact be anything else. Even after the end of the season, a season salvaged by a valiant middle and a triumphant ending, all thoughts go back to that one game and that one moment. I sat in my seat for what felt like half an hour, until most of the student section had emptied out and the giant maize M on the seats across the way was visible, like a reminder of what was and what was lost. It was rock bottom; it changed everything. 


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It hasn't all been bad, and even when it has it hasn't been that bad. Michigan won some games that they probably shouldn't have, like the 2008 Wisconsin game. Of course, they lost many more throughout the Rich Rodriguez era. As a football fan, it was crushing and ruined many weekends. In that respect, I am jealous of all those that came before me who have experienced better times. Yet, as I sit on the precipice of graduation and leaving Ann Arbor, I find myself not as upset as I was yesterday, or the day before, or in November when we lost to Ohio State once again and it was clear that Rich Rodriguez's time in this down was gone like the wind. Even after I sat through the 2008 Northwestern game, the 2010 MSU-Iowa-Wisconsin triumverate, and countless others, I find myself appreciative of the mere opportunity to be a part of it all. I wish things had gone a different way, but they didn't. I wish that Rich Rodriguez had made some better decisions and won some more games because I liked the guy and thought he was, all things considered, an excellent football coach, but he didn't. I wish that I had more time to spend in Ann Arbor, to spend the rest of my days eating Cottage Inn Pizza, walking to class in the snow, religiously not stepping on the M in the Diag, and all the countless things that make Ann Arbor what it is. 


The roar of the Big House crowd is what I will miss the most, levels of unadulterated noise that were only amplified by their relative scarcity (whether due to the performance on the field or the notorious key-jingling propensity of the fans that filled it). Denard's touchdown against Western, Greg Mathews's touchdown at the end of the '09 ND game, John Thompson's interception against Wisconsin...the list goes on and on, each one bound to the others in a fraternity of moments that I will never forget and can never be replicated. Each moment was unique and will never happen again, even if the same exact plays occur in the same exact manner in the future, which they surely will. The names on the backs of the jerseys will change, the head coach will be a different man, and the fans will all be different people; older, wiser, disillusioned, happier, sadder, sick, healthy, grateful, down, lucky. That is the beauty and the sadness of everything in life; everything only happens once in one specific, irreproducible way. If you miss it, you miss it, and that's that. 


While I wish that graduation and many difficult decisions weren't upon me, I look at everything that has happened fondly. It didn't work out perfectly, but I enjoyed my Michigan experience (football and otherwise) and I look forward to taking it out into the world. Many people go through life without loving anything, people or things, and so I'm lucky to say that I've found at least once such thing in Michigan. I am utterly grateful for my chance to witness history, to be able to say that I was there, like people talk about the '69 OSU game or the 1950 Snow Bowl. I was there when we lost to Appalachian State, I was there when Rich Rodriguez spoke at halftime of a basketball game against OSU, I was there when Steven Threet ran much farther than he probably should have, I was there when Michigan scored 67 points, I was there when Brock Mealer touched the banner, I was there when Coach Hoke got the nod. I was there and I will be there forever, whether I'm in Ann Arbor or not. That's all you can ask for. 

West Lafayette

Back in the day, when Lloyd Carr was the head coach at Michigan, I would visit Ross-Ade Stadium once a year to take in a Purdue football game. As I remember it, some guy in my Dad's company was a Purdue guy, and every year the company took a bus down to West Lafayette for a game. Even then, at the tender age of 7, living in the suburbs of Chicago amongst a conglomerate of Spartans, Buckeyes, Illini and Notre Dame fans, I knew what I was. I was a Michigan fan, and would be till the End of Time. I knew this, at the age of 7, without even knowing that attending the University of Michigan 11 years later was an inevitable fact.

Over the years, I saw the Boilermakers face off against the likes of Penn State, Notre Dame, and Illinois, and, of course, Michigan too. I remember vaguely rooting for Purdue in 1999 as they launched a last ditch Hail Mary against Penn State. I even remember actively rooting against Notre Dame one year after coming to the realization that the Notre Dame fan with the glabrous head and  a propensity for jingling his key* (which I didn't even understand but intuitively despised even then) was, quite frankly, irritating. I wanted his team to lose, but they didn't. I remember, despite going to Purdue football games, that I wore my Michigan gear with the impudent pride that only a child has. When I wear any adorned with the Block M at away games these days, it is an affirmation of my resolve; Michigan is here. Tremble. But then, it was much different. I wore a probably oversized Michigan hat, as if to say hey this is Purdue but don't forget about Michigan because we're the best. Again, I was but a kid.

Finally, I made the trip down to West Lafayette to see Purdue play Michigan; rather, to see Michigan play Purdue. I remember talking smack to people thirty, forty years older than me (I was usually the one person under 40 on those trips). There's no way you can beat us! We have Drew Henson! To this, most replied with light-hearted jokes, most of them probably drenched in apathy, given that most of the people on those trips had no affiliation with Purdue whatsoever outside of the fact that they worked at a company that took annual trips to West Lafayette for nebulous reasons. That apathy, in the end, made it even worse; nobody even had the decency to say anything to me on the ride home. I slept all the way home, my Michigan hat over my face, as the bus sped on in the cold Midwestern darkness. We were up by 18 at the half, and everything seemed so good until Drew Brees happened and then it wasn't.

                                                       (HT: Mike Desimone)
The next trip, in 2002, was decidedly unsatisfying, even though we won. John Navarre and Co. stumbled to an unimpressive 23-21 victory over a vastly inferior Purdue squad, a result that didn't match up with the 12 year-old smack I had engaged in on the bus ride to WL. But, at least we won. On the ride home, all I heard was statements like "You won, but you guys didn't look too good" or "What till you play somebody better." The next week, Brad Banks came into Ann Arbor and turned these frustratingly impartial folks into soothsayers.

My last visit to WL took me to see the Wolverines play a much improved Purdue team in 2004, led by Kyle Orton and the speedy Dorien Bryant. Having moving to the Deep South, the trip was different this time; it was just my Dad, my sister, and I, in a car, driving all the way from north Alabama to West Lafayette one Saturday to watch that team of precocious virtuosos play. All I really remember--without belaboring the point--is that it was close throughout. I wasn't sure that we were going to win this time. This time, the lead-up to the game was decidedly more discomfiting. I was older now, and the some of the less tactful Purdue faithful didn't hold anything back when it came to letting me know what they felt about me having the gall to wear a Michigan sweatshirt. I was worried. A long touchdown reception by Dorien Bryant, speeding past the hardly fleet of foot Scott McClintock, put me well on the way to the exit to Hyperventilation Highway.

Even then, I felt like I knew what i was talking about when it came to the ins and outs of Michigan football. Most of my peers could name the starting quarterback, runningback, and various other prominent position players; I could name every player of varying import on the roster, including incoming recruits and players that existed well before my time. Nothing about that has really changed. But, as I watched the plays unfold, the only thing that gave me comfort was the Michigan couple sitting in front of us, who I would engage in the type of useless, petty banter that people engage in at football games between plays when they're in an unfamiliar place.

Big play here. 


Defense has got to hold.


Man, he sure can make the easy catches look tough. 


Everything in my memory is vague and tenuous; that is, until this happened:

                                                                  (HT: Mike Desimone)

In one fell swoop worthy of the stage, it was over. Fade to black. Exeunt. Nothing more needs to be said.

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As I prepare to head down to West Lafayette for this year's game, I wonder what game I'll get to see this time. The circumstances most closely resemble (although not perfectly) the 2002 game; a powerful Michigan team (yes, I know...the defense) facing an overmatched Purdue team with nothing to lose.


Either way, whatever happens, I'll run across some ghosts, some subtle tracks from my past visits from unfathomably different epochs, under different circumstances: different coach, different team, different people coming with me to see it all happen. I want to beat them more than I've ever wanted to beat Purdue before. Seven is better than six. Momentum into the Wisconsin-Ohio State part of the schedule. Danny Hope being Danny Hope. But, I have no control over anything; in fact, I have even less control than I might have if the game were in Ann Arbor. I'll be a visitor in a hostile land, subject to the whims of West Lafayette and its inhabitants.

Even so, it's the memories that count, the people you meet and the people you remember along the way, as I've said before and will continue to say. In my mind, college football is so vastly superior to the NFL. As chaotic and sometimes irrational as the world of amateur athletics can be, it is unmatched in its ability to bring us into its sphere of influence, whether we want it or not, like the tantalizing Siren's song. Will we win? I believe so. We are better. But it doesn't always work that way. I guess we'll just have to find out on Saturday.

If you're going to West Lafayette this weekend (or even if you're not), I encourage you to stop for a moment, at some point, to take it all in and listen. Before, during, or after the game (Joe Pa!), it doesn't really matter. Burden yourself with the task of remembering one thing, anything, that doesn't involve a box score, a thing that will fade away anyway as the years quietly go by, regardless of the outcome. You won't regret it.

                                                          (HT: Mike Desimone)


* I. HATE. KEY. JINGLING!

Little Boston

The times have made us crazy. We want wins, conferences titles, national titles; we want them now now now. We want the program to just start blowing gold all over the place. Sometimes it's not that easy.

Sometimes you've just got to let it all burn. Watch it billow up into the sky, marvel at its destructive power and note that such a force could only have been necessary to destroy an equally awesome structure. Watch it burn because it is the only thing you can do. Watch it carefully and calmly, letting the ashes settle so that you can finally see everything that is and everything that needs to be done to fix it. Woe is us, for now. We're all trying to drink from the same milkshake; the only certain conclusion is that, amidst the shouting, the contents of that cup containing said milkshake will find its way to the floor, decorating it in a sad display, prompting the purchase of a new milkshake without ever having even enjoyed the first one.

But don't let the flames and the smoke infiltrate your mind. We must not allow the the plumes of darkness to slither in between the synapses that allow us to make decisions that don't fill us with regret and shame.

We all want this. We all want the wins. We all want to be the favored son. We all want the major media outlets to praise Michigan while we currently despise the network's kowtowing to the Standard Oil's of the world.

That's okay. The words ring hollow now, as I say them aloud: we will be back. Say it to yourself. Say it again and again. Forget about Rich Rodriguez. Forget about 3-9 and 5-7. Forget about minor violations and lawsuits and defections and non-qualifiers and everything else. Just think about Michigan.

Whether you support him or not (and for the record, I do...but that's not the point) just think about Michigan. Think about what is good for Michigan. Think about what it could be if given time to rebuild. If we continue to raise our voices, screaming across the room, spittle and words flying like poison-tipped arrowheads, we will all become deaf.

I'm telling you to remain calm, and maybe you don't need such advice. But, if you do, listen: wait. As hard as it is to do, as unsatisfying as it may be, wait. Tune out the world if you have to, for the world is not as understanding as we would hope. The world sees numbers and headlines when we see lackluster depth charts and injuries and a coach that can do the job if given a little time, as he's proven in the past. We must retreat into The Fort and examine ourselves before we say "But what about USC?" That's not to say that we've done anything worse than USC, but, in the end, who cares about them?

I'll be honest when I say that the total sum of the Michigan fanbase worries me. The booing during the 2008 Wisconsin game was a moment that shook me. Michigan completed one of the greatest comebacks in Michigan history, and I forgot about the booing for a while. But it happened, and it still simmers under the surface, living in my subconscious like a subtle reminder that maybe things could in fact collapse. I can only imagine how the players felt. I understand that playing and watching football often involves primal, knee-jerk reactions. I've been there. After The Horror, I said some things that I wish I hadn't. But that day against Wisconsin, amongst the litany of potential reasons supporting the idea that this center cannot hold, reigns supreme; that moment, as the team ran into the locker room, showed me that even the ostensibly key jinglin', down-in-front Michigan fanbase has a little Plainview in 'em. Perhaps it was one instance that thousands of people regret today in retrospect; maybe they don't regret it at all. It's likely that many do not. I am not against criticism. But that...that was something foul, something objectionable.

Don't let the end make you crazy. Don't let the goal fray the neurons that make you sane. Absord the pangs of defeat like a haymaker to the chin. Let it sting and pain you. Allow the wounds to scar over and become immortal reminders of where we've come from. College football fandom is sadistic in this way. But it is also glorious when the time comes for it to be so.

All I know is there's oil under there somewhere. We just have to wait and be honest to ourselves and those that strive to make the program better the best way they know how. They feel like we do. Indeed, they feel more than we ever could.