Michigan Thursday

Irish fans,  

We're almost to the Michigan game.  Meanwhile, a few words on the Michigan series and our opposite numbers for Saturday's game.  

After a very long hiatus, Notre Dame and Michigan finally resumed regular play in the 1970s, leading to wonderful gridiron moments such as this:

Below, I have a photo for those of you currently at work.  

Like a true Michigan Man(tm) Bo Schembechler took the loss like a champ.  Just kidding.  He waged a successful year-long campaign to have Mr.Crable's maneuver banned from college football. 

The next year, positions reversed, and Notre Dame had a chance to win on a field goal from Cincinnati's Harry Oliver.

For the Michigan version of the radio call, please enjoy the following clip:

The kicking game continued to frustrate Michigan into the late 1980s, when Mr. Schembechler decided to show no fear and kick directly to Notre Dame's dangerous return man, Raghib "Rocket" Ismail.

Later in the game, the special teams coach wanted to avoid Rocket by kicking out of bounds.  Bo overruled him, roaring "kick it to him again"!

By this point, it seemed Notre Dame could score at will on Michigan, even if Notre Dame's players weren't conscious.  So Reggie Brooks did so. 

But don't discount Michigan!  Their team plays hard, fighting up to and after the whistle (Hat Tip to Mr. Cantu).

And sometimes even after the game is over, fighting pesky rape allegations.

Now, some of you, your correspondent included, will be going up to Ann Arbor.  Where we will meet numerous Michigan Men(tm).  Now, what is a Michigan Man(tm) like?  Well, there's this guy:

And whoever got caught doing this:

Oh wait.  That was a Michigan WR

  And there'll be about 100,000 others, currently in the grip of Hokemania, a dedication to the powers of coach Hoke, who has a talent at pointing at things: 

Not Coach Hoke.  But the resemblance is uncanny.

He had a ten win season last year, and he looks mighty like the person in the last photo, Kent Dorfman, aka "Flounder", of Delta Tau Chi at Faber College, aka Animal House.  This is, of course, when he is not on the recruiting trail

"Excuse me, can I interest you in being my free safety and/or my lunch?"

Or giving deep, thought provoking, interviews:

ROLL TAPE!

Michigan Men also have a long and storied history of going on to further notoriety.  Michigan Men of the past include such luminaries as both Leopold AND Loeb the famous child murderers

Whose crime, while sensational, could not hold a candle to the body of work of fellow Michigan alumnus H.H. Holmes

Better known as the Devil in the White City, presumed to have killed over a hundred people.

Or Dr. Jack Kevorkian, also known as Doctor Death, the assisted suicide expert.

Or Francois Papa Doc Duvalier, who used the education he received at the University of Michigan to run the nation of Haiti straight into the ground. 

Or Michigan president C.C. Little, who managed to be President of both the Univ. of Michigan and the American Eugenics Society.  Sadly, events beyond Mr. Little's control, occurring in Europe in the late 30s and early 40s, discredited his work.  Despite his cachet as the head of the best university in the state of Michigan, the discovery of the Nazi death camps left people . . . disinclined to follow Mr. Little's ideas on eugenics.

"a number of the interesting criminal and near-criminal cases that we find ... represent the results of a not very strict standard of mental selection in our present methods of civilization."

More here, from his address to the Second International Conference on Eugenics.

  But as I said, he ended up moving on from Eugenics.  He moved on to taking millions of dollars in grants from tobacco companies, and ran studies finding that there was no causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer.  He died in the 1970s, and didn't even have the decency to ironically die of lung cancer. 

Michigan also has notable living alumni, such as the author of the famous 35,000 word thesis Industrial Society and Its Future, which was published in both the Washington Post and the New York Times.  Sadly, Michigan alumnus Ted Kaczynski, who will not be able to attend Saturday's game due to his current incarceration in Colorado. 

However, Michigan alumnus Michael Newdow is alive, not in prison, and may be in attendance. As is Ann Coulter, his classmate and a former editor of the Michigan Law Review.  And Allison Benedikt, Michigan alumna and author of the hair-pulling If you send your kids to private school, you're a bad person article, which spread across the internet like an infectious disease from the Slate magazine website.  A full rebuttal can be read here, written by the capable John V. Gerardi.    

And of course there's Fred Wilpon, owner of the Mets, and architect of the notorious Bobby Bonilla deal, described in full here.  

Long story short, Michigan Man Wilpon, owner of the Mets, owed Bobby Bonilla, an outfielder on the verge of retirement, 5.9 million dollars.  But Mr. Wilpon got Bonilla to agree to a brilliant plan.  In 2000, Wilpon and the Mets agreed to defer the payments they owed Mr. Bonilla to 2011, with interest.  The Mets would then pay Mr. Bonilla $1,200,000 per year for twenty five years.  Why did they think this would be a good idea?  Well, Wilpon had taken the original 5.9 million and invested it at a high rate of return.  The Mets would make money off the deal!  And all thanks to Mr. Wilpon and his ability to get in tight with one of the best NYC financial gurus, Mr. Bern-

Oops.  There goes the Mets payroll

Mr. Wilpon may or may not be at Saturday's game.  But who will certainly be there is Stephen Ross who just gave Two hundred million dollars (that's 33.89 Bonillas) to Michigan while seeking the same amount from Miami taxpayers for his football team, the Miami Dolphins.  And really, haven't the Dolphins suffered enough?

Of course, there is one Michigan Man of renown who did not appear in today's email.  More on him tomorrow.  

Backer Song of the Day: