MGoHall Of Fame: Structure
![BoSchembechler[1]](https://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/HOF-follow-up_13088/BoSchembechler1.jpg "BoSchembechler[1]")
Obligatory Bo shot.
So. That hall of fame that we talked about. I went back and checked everyone's suggestions and have come up with this tentative structure:
Sports. This blog focuses primarily on football, basketball, and hockey, and since the end product here is going to be a career-encompassing column on the site the author of that column has to have experienced the career in question to write on it. Since that's me that unfortunately disqualifies the sports I don't get punched in the heart by.
In the event I or someone else who writes for the site does experience a sporting career outside the Big Three worthy of entry, we will play it by ear.
Eligibility. Anyone whose career finished up in 2005 or later in those three sports. There is no waiting period, but it will be tougher to get in in year one. How tough I can't exactly say. Looking over the list of candidates so far it seems like 2-4 a year across all three sports is about right.
There may be an old-timer's committee at some point to retroactively enroll folks like Charles Woodson. We'll see. Paging Craig Ross.
Entry process. Popular vote on the site. Registered users only to prevent bot spamming, but no point restrictions. Since I'm not entirely sure what the voting patterns are going to be like it's hard to set a definite threshold, but it will be a large supermajority—say 75%. People generally liked the idea of starting off higher and coming down as the player's career gets more distant.
Limits. No one has to get in any year, except this year when I'll declare the top vote-getter in each of the three sports to be an auto-entry.
Entry criteria. At this point in my internet career I know better than to tell the internet what to do, because the internet does not listen. But the end result here should provide some guidance. I can write a really swell career encomium for Zack Novak or Shawn Hunwick or Brandon Graham, but probably not Troy Woolfolk, star-crossed though he is, or Brandon Minor.
Overall greatness is part of the equation, but only part. There's also a heavy component of how misty it gets when player X is announced on senior day, assuming he makes it that far. Time served is necessarily a consideration—Max Pacioretty was pretty great during his one year but his quick exit makes it hard me to think of anything to say about him other than "was pretty great that one year." On the other hand, if Mike Comrie was eligible, hell yes. Woodson ditto. It's about a personal impact on you.
I don't know, man. Just close your eyes and use the Force.
Inaugural class. As previously stated, at least three. To keep the gate high and the candidate pool viable, the inaugural class will be a max of six.
End results. We'll have a page on the site that will serve as a home base; each entry will get a column that will be archived there. Under no circumstances is this to be told to anyone who gets in, and if you do for the love of God please don't tell me about it.
Candidates. To make things simple I am the candidate selection committee, albeit with much input from the crowd. I'll pick ten football, five basketball, and five hockey players from the time period to put up for nomination, put their pros and cons in a few posts, and then let registered folks have at the voting. I'm assuming there will be a bright line between yes and no, but I'll make more definitive calls when I have some data to go on. For now, here's an excellent list of candidates put together by Tom From AA. I'll have hockey up later today.
Photoshoppin'. I have no skills in this department, and this is the kind of thing that seems like it needs both a logo and maybe some special career-summing image leading these posts. Interested? Let me know.
Let's get to it. If there are strenuous objections to any of this, nothing's set in stone. Let me know.
Wouldn't be a fair judgment, but don't you worry that Carr might lose more than 25% of the vote just on protest due to his lousy handling of the RR transition? Maybe Brian should wait to include coaches.
I think this HOF should skew towards the gritty/memorable, and away from the all-time greats. Lots of people and places talk about how amazing (for example) Woodson was; there's not a lot of new ground to cover there. I would love to see an inaugural class of Novak, Hunwick and Kovacs; later classes would fit that mold (JT Floyd?!?). Of course, there is an overlap between the two categories (Molk, Martin, RVB), but if I was the commish I'd think twice about letting in people who look like they may make actual halls of fame.
It should really be both production and the intangibles. Plenty of players fit both criteria.
What's the policy on coaches?
I know there will be some conflict on Lloyd after Three & Out, but I think Red needs to be in the Hall after he retires. Hutchins should probably get in, too, considering the program she runs (compared to all other Big Ten schools) and won a Natty Tit in the MGoBlog era.
Anyone with a Natty Tit should be eligible for automatic enshrinement, IMHE.
all natty tits?
The original Tiny Jesus, Mike Hart, demands your votes.
I seriously cannot think of the essence of MGoBlog without thinking of Mike Hart. Well, Mike Hart and Henri, the Otter of Ennui.
Innovator.
Hobey Baker Award winner for 2008; Kevin Porter. That is all.
This might not be a strenuous objection, but this idea invites mockery, especially as people inevitably start taking Hall status too seriously.
Mockery from who? (Not trying to be a jerk, just an honest question)
People like me. I don't want to read drawn out arguments over the relative merits of Zack Novak or Shawn Hunwick. Their careers are done. They gave us some great memories. What's the point of trying to quantify what they've done or rank them? Aren't our memories enough?
If Brian or someone else wants to do an ongoing series on his favorite players, more power to him. I'll read if he's a good writer (which Brian is). But I couldn't give a shit about what the general collective opinion here is and what the respective arguments are. This thing is setting up to be like talk radio and ESPN sportsnation polls wrapped into one. No thanks.
I mean, how is that any different than 99% of the stuff on the blog, and the board? You've survived this far.
I won't read them and I will survive. But Brian asked if there were any strenuous objections so there it is. I'm generally bewildered by your claim that most content on this blog is already similar.
what the general collective opinion here is and what the respective arguments are
Isn't that what basically the board and comments are all about? If not this, then about recruiting, or upcoming games, or past games, or whatever? Why is past players all that different? That's what I don't get.
I mean, you've posted a long time, so suddenly "I'm only interested in Brian's articles" doesn't seem to mesh. There's no problem with objecting to it. I'm not sure it's the greatest idea since sliced bread since every guy we "like" will probably get in. (I mean Novak's a lock...but does he really belong in "any" HoF?) But in the end...it's an internet page...it's not really hurting anybody. And it's not the "who are the suckiest players to every play for Michigan Hall". Or even "...for OSU." So better to be too nice than too mean.
That's not what I meant. I don't care what the general collective opinion is or what the respective arguments are for things like "where does person X rank in Mgoblog history?" It's in the past so there's no predictive value and if guys like Novak are getting in the criteria we'll be using to debate is as subjective as Apples to Apples.
I can appreciate your opinion. What about looking at it differently - a lot of you all don't know many specifics about the pre-2000 players so, at least for the older players, people might learn something from this exercise. Same goes for players in the 2000s, I guess.
Keep it simple at first. 1) Stick to the three main sports, and 2) hold off on all the old-timers talk for now.
By the way, the first six inductees will be Haglin, Hunwick, M. Harris, Novak, B. Graham and Henne. K. Porter, S. Douglass, Hart, Long and B. Edwards on the bubble.
Also, there's a reason other HoF's have a waiting period. Emotions wear off and only true 'greats' are inducted.
I'm not sure if Kovacs will stand the test of time, but Novaks probably will...
SAM
I strenuously object? Is that how it works? Objection. Overruled. No, no, no, no, I strenuously object. Oh, well if you strenuously object, let me take a moment to reconsider.
JO
I got it on the record.
SAM
You also got it in the jury's head that we're afraid of the doctor. You object once so they can hear you say he's not a criminologist. You keep after it and it looks like this great cross we did was just a bunch of fancy lawyer tricks. It's the difference between paper law and trial--
KAFFEE
Sam--
SAM
Christ, you even had the Judge saying Stone was an expert!
KAFFEE
Sam, she made a mistake. Let's not relive it.
The first MGoBlog Hall of Fame class for football should be made up exclisively of our Heisman winners: Tom Harmon, Desmon Howard, and Charles Woodson. Who is more deserving?
After that there should be a number of years of old timers getting in -- there is a definite backlog -- and I think also we should do a two stage process of nominations then final voting.
How about any player who won the most significant individual award for their sport in a year? You'd be able to toss Brendan Morrison and the (aformentioned) Kevin Porter in there as well. Has a Michigan player ever won the Naismith?
I believe Glen Robinson won that year.
If Wiki can be believed, in '92 Jim Jackson won B10 PotY, and Laettner the Naismith. Fair enough. And in '93 Calbert Cheaney won both (?!?). Glenn did win in '94, but that would have been just been the Jalen and Howard year.
Tiffany Ofili 5 time NCAA champion indoors and outdoors in hurdles.
You joined just to post this? Hmmm... Welcome to the board, Mr. Ofili!
He was a world class Michigan track guy also. Think they just celebrated their 1 year anniversary. Great kids. And either would be tremendous representatives for Michigan.
The MGoBlog HOF needs a wing for special contributors. Like baseball has writers in their HOF. Nominees could include Bob Ufer, Carl Grapentine (the football PA guy), Jim Brandstatter for his radio career and Lloyd Brady. Definitely Lloyd Brady.
That would be an interesting category. Lloyd would get into the HofF for the 2000s and we'd have Superfan (http://www.michigansuperfan.com/) for the 1990s (even though he kind of annoyed me).
I think the Hall of Fame shouldn't be restricted to just players. It should be fun and unique and not taken too seriously. Include some MGoblog universe type of things, like TomVH, Lloyd Brady, the jerseys selling in Ohio thread.
To me, any MGoHOF that doesn't start out by somehow acknowledging with enshrinement the past heisman winners, the big three of coaching (Yost, Crisler, Bo), and those with retired jerseys is. . . dirty. I think the MGoHOF needs to start out with an inaugural class (those old timers above; can't be a currently active coach or Red would be included), plus, say 3 guys from the blog era, and then will admit up to 3 pre-blog players (or 2) per year going forward, and up to 5 blog-era players per year.
But, on the flip side, this is the MGoBlog hall of fame, not the Michigan sports hall of fame generally. So the argument goes that old giants like those you mention could potentially not qualify for the MGoHofF while clearly being first balloters for the general Michigan hall of fame. See the difference?
Yes, I see the difference. I just prefer that it be structured differently, as this blog is the top source for U of M sports news, commentary, and analysis that's in existence or ever has existed (IMO), it should be more broad and nod to tradition and all that. Just preference, I suppose.
+1 for the use of the word "encomium"
Restrict the mgohall completely to players 2005 and on.....
However, kind of like they do on award shows for like a Lifetime Achievement Award we should have a section for pre mgoblog players that are so deserving of being in any kind of Michigan related Hall of Fame that it's criminal to keep them off.
Year one put a lot of candidates for the special section but make it a voting threshold that is very high like 90-95%. Then, only the people that there is almost no debate about make it in (and this can but does not need to include coaches, media, whoever else I would keep it just to players).
Every year after for the special section do a pre vote with a ton of pre 2005 candidates and the top vote getter (or maybe two?) is put up for consideration needing a 80-85% approval to get through.
Also, you could have a section for best idea, concept, mgomeme, etc of the year. Hoke point, Michigan fergodsakes, Lewan tandem bike.
This appeases the older crowd so that our favorites from the 90's and before have a chance to get some recognition but it's still mostly a mgoera hall of fame.
As a student I watched Rick Leach and Rob Lytle play. This is Brian's blog and he is free to set whatever rules he chooses. That said, as much as you young guys want to have your hall of fame start sometime close to when you attended Michigan, there remains some number, perhaps more than you might think, of your members here at MGoBlog whose personal experience stretches back directly to Bo.
If you truly want a hall of fame then you may want to consider allowing us old timers to nominate the guys we watched play. I could argue, despite a lot of push back, that Rick Leach was the catalyst for Bo to start passing on first down.
Back when the HOF was first brought up I suggested that to nominate someone the nomination had to come from someone who watched the nominee play. I'll bet that there are folks here who predate Bo. Probably not by much, but I'm not that old, so my bet is probably pretty safe.
The early part of the Bo era featured some pretty incredible guys. Part of the reason that we love team 132 is that they persevered through two coaching transistions in 4 years. The guys that were on Bo's first team had suffered a lot more disappointment than that. Don't you think there might be a couple of guys on the 69 and/or 70 teams who deserve to be remembered for reestablishing the tradition we all so deeply love?
Anyway as an old guy from the 70s I nominiate Rick Leach and Rob Lytle to the HOF as greats from the ten year war.
If I understand the rules, and the limit is 3 - then Mike Hart, Manny Harris, and Shawn Hunwick.
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