Photos From The Fire Dave Brandon Rally
What started with a message board post became a law student wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt in protest:
This and all following photos: Ace Anbender/MGoBlog
While at first it appeared the media members would outnumber the protestors, that changed in a hurry, with the assembled crowd alternating chants of "Fire Brandon," "We Want Harbaugh," and "Down With Dave."
A little while in, a small group chanted "Schlissel's House!" Lo and behold, a few minutes later, the protest had moved to the university president's front lawn:
“I’m proud of our history. I’m not proud of Dave Brandon being a part of that history.”
The guy with the megaphone—I didn't catch who he was, but since he was interviewed by several media outlets, I'm sure it'll get out there—spoke for a while about his pride in the University's athletic history, his support of the students and athletes, and the failure of Dave Brandon to protect either. The rally ended with a mocking "Dave Sucks" chant and a rendition of The Victors. A certain blogger may or may not have been interviewed on live television.
The full set of photos from the rally is embedded below. I'd estimate the turnout ended up at somewhere around 400-500 people—not bad for something that started just hours earlier on a message board...
September 30th, 2014 at 10:55 PM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 11:32 PM ^
Again, it was one play later that Hoke pulled him, and it wasn't "blatantly obvious" to everyone that Morris had a concussion. Nobody ignored the issue then, and the aren't ignoring it now. For all the straw people that I've been accused of creating and burning down, it annoys me to no end this argument being put forth that there was some cover-up or knowing violation of a player's well-being by Hoke. By all meaningful accounts, there was a communication breakdown that led to Hoke and co. leaving Morris out there, and that is unacceptable at this level. But it wasn't more than that, and this attempt to make it a moral referendum on Hoke and this staff is a disservice to everyone involved.
And just for the record, the argument that "No one shoots themselves in the chest at 50 from an old foot fracture" isn't true. I had a family friend who injured himself as a voluneer fireman in such a way that a foot injury led to chronic pain in his back. Nearly drank/pilled himself to death a couple of times to deal with it. I know it is an extreme example, but players getting injured in this sport should apply to everyone and to every type of injury, not just the one that gets the big media attention. All injuries follow you around, and that's a part of the sport. People should be pissed Morris was still out there, I just think most weren't nearly as angry about him playing before that hit than afterwards.
October 1st, 2014 at 12:22 AM ^
Am I madder than I'd be if we were 5-0? Probably. But we're not 5-0 - this comes after a series of incompetence and treating fans like idiots. Anger is additive, and we started from a high baseline anger level. We already wanted Hoke and Brandon gone - the only place to go is to want them gone sooner. I really don't see why this is so hard to accept. "You're madder than you'd be if everything else was perfect!" Why do you think this is such a scathingly effective argument?
I also don't see why it's so hard to accept that head injuries are especially bad, and not just because the media says they are. We've gotten pretty good at fixing musculoskeletal stuff. We're still pretty clueless about fixing long term brain damage and mental illness.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:44 PM ^
I don't see what that has to do with any of this. Broken foot != concussion
Ruben Riley played OG with two freaking broken thumbs back in '95. Casts on both hands.
EDIT: 2005. Derp.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:52 PM ^
Devin Gardner and Molk knew their feet were FUBAR, were aware of the risks (Molk said he was aware his NFL career was on the line) and in fact Molk started the game on the sideline. They both made conscious decisions to play. Molk in particular refused painkillers because he wanted to "feel what I was doing to my foot". In these cases I can respect their decisions as adults.
The problem with Morris is that he was HIT IN THE HEAD. He was INCAPABLE of making decisions for himself, which is why every goddamn concussion policy in the country takes that decision OUT of the player's hands. Which is why the coaches' use of Morris waving them off is so unacceptable it's basically a confession that they were grossly negligent. It's as damning as, "Well, Your Honor, I didn't kill that person. I just held up the gun, aimed it and pulled the trigger."
Furthermore, there's one other huge difference between feet and brains you're not addressing: We can fix feet. We literally played athletes who have fully recovered from foot and leg injuries, including but not limited to: ankle sprains, broken feet, torn ACLs, broken legs. We have no established treatment for brain trauma. None. It's something we can't fix. If we had those nifty medical pods in "Elysium" frankly I wouldn't care if Morris' brain was mashed into goo because we could always rebuild him ("we have the technology") but we DON'T have the technology.
October 1st, 2014 at 9:02 AM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 10:30 PM ^
Let's not go overboard here. Gardner hurt his foot during the game, and no one knew it was a fracture at the time. They don't take X-rays right on the sidelines. It's not uncommon for guys to play through pain in their lower body. Comparing that to a head injury is apples and oranges.
September 30th, 2014 at 11:13 PM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
It's too bad he's not as good at coaching football as he is at leading the program
September 30th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^
But caring is only half the battle. It doesn't matter how much he cares if he's too stubborn to do the most basic things to protect his players and put them in the best position to succeed.
I believe Denard, but I think he's missing the point. There are plenty of accusations of malice but the calls to fire Hoke really don't care if he's evil or stupid -- it's based on the results.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:59 PM ^
October 1st, 2014 at 10:36 AM ^
All time records you say? Hmmm...
September 30th, 2014 at 11:28 PM ^
That's why there has to be checks and balances. I coach youth football, the parents say "listen to coach" - they hear this for years... it's a lot of power and you are a father figure.
Denard probably loves the guy, and many of you love your father - but it is hard to call your own father out.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:12 PM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 9:15 PM ^
The "We Want Harbaugh" chants make me uneasy about this whole thing. I think that what Brandon and Hoke have done in terms of disregaurd for player saftey is reprehensible and forcing the university to come to address this issue is admirable. For many people this seems to be THE issue. But, for other individuals (as evidence of the chant), I'm concerned that they are using it as oppurtunistic leverage to get a football coach that will win more games. And that if it is true or even percieved to be true, is much more problematic. I'm concerned that this can dilute the original message of "the athletic department should protect athletes especially from brain trauma." There's a reason this message resonated enough to be covered by Al Jazeera and NYT and it's beyond W's and L's.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^
There was also a much louder "Protect Our Players" chant. Some people in the crowd were likely doing exactly as you said, but I think the majority had the right idea. That was my take from being there, anyway.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:31 PM ^
Do they really? If they did why aren't they arguing that the sport of tackle football should be banished and that the act of "heading" soccer balls be a foul akin to the use of hands?
September 30th, 2014 at 9:32 PM ^
Yeah, that's totally the same thing. Nice straw man.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:43 PM ^
There are an increasing number of high schools that have shut down their football programs and are prohibiting the act of "heading" in soccer.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
October 1st, 2014 at 9:03 AM ^
October 2nd, 2014 at 9:15 PM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 9:21 PM ^
Well, let's be real here. If the football team were winning, there wouldn't have been national news stories about a possible concussion or a protest with hundreds of people.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:28 PM ^
This can't be proven and is being used to undermine the fans' concerns.
I've heard barely a peep about the goddamn game and Michigan just got manhandled by Minnesota. No, wait, I've heard some people talk about it. . . like that asshole on Deadspin who claims we're ONLY complaining about Morris' concussion because the team sucks. That's who's talking about the game.
This is the most asinine thing I've ever heard. If we wanted to complain about the team sucking, we'd just complain about it. We have been for weeks now. What excuse do we need?
September 30th, 2014 at 9:44 PM ^
Of course it can't be proven, but use some common sense. Can you think of one example of a fanbase raising hell because of an ethical issue like this where the coach was successful? I can only think of one: Joe Pa, in which the moral failure was magnitudes worse than this one, and the fanbase STILL largely supported the coach until he was literally impossible to defend. And I can think of many, many cases where fanbases have let morally shady actions comepletely slide because of a coach's success. You don't see a lot of Alabama and LSU protests about oversigning and cutting players, do you?
September 30th, 2014 at 9:55 PM ^
We're not Alabama, LSU or Penn State. You're free to be a cynic in your own head but when you post about it you're making a baseless allegation.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:09 PM ^
If you really think this fanbase is so different--unique compared to every other one in the country, more power to you. I am skeptical, based on every other similar situation I have ever seen.
September 30th, 2014 at 11:04 PM ^
October 1st, 2014 at 12:08 AM ^
Let's imagine 2 different drivers are pulled over for speeding by the same police officer on the same road going the same speed. One has a clean record, immediately takes responsibility and commits to ensuring it doesn't happen again. The other has a record of multiple traffic violations, reacts defensively to the officer, and insists that it was the passenger's responsibility to keep an eye on the speedometer.
While both drivers might receive speeding tickets, we can understand if the officer chooses to issue a warning to the first driver, or if the court applies a more lenient sentence to the first driver.
Context does matter, and it's unfair to the protesters to insist that they should always treat each event in isolation and ignore the context.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:27 PM ^
Well, the problem is that it is so obviously the case that the losses are what is driving this, not concern about player safety.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
Because, you know, it's just been so hard to actually complain about the losses that we have to make shit up to complain about the losses.
I'm not sure you understand how free speech works.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:38 PM ^
Of course I understand how free speech works. But I think you're in la la land if you think the response to this would be remotely similar had Hoke won the B1G last year. Where was the "protect student safety" outrage over the Gibbons debacle? It didn't exist, because the fans didn't yet want Hoke and Brandon ousted based on performance. Now that everyone already wants them gone, it's easy to interpret every aspect of Morris-gate in the light least favorable to Hoke, becuase it leads everyone to the outcome they already want, based on what they really care about: winning games.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:00 PM ^
We didn't have visibility into the Gibbons debacle. It was all handled behind closed doors. EVERYONE saw what happened on Saturday, so we don't even care what was decided in the closed-door meetings.
Again, if you think this is all just a show, fine. But baseless allegation is baseless.
Trolls are out in full force tonight. I guess it's due to the media attention, so it's to be expected.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:01 PM ^
There was fairly widespread outrage about the Gibbons thing. Though it was caught up in various unsavory elements of American culture. And also highly relevantly, we had very little idea what happened. We have the police report, which I definitely think points in a certain direcition, but evidence was never presented publicly and there was no charge filed. So there's wiggle room.
With Shane Morris we all saw exactly what happened. Makes it very hard to lie. Which they did.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:30 PM ^
Another factor involved was that the actual incident occurred under RR and had this weird dormancy during which Title IX changes required a second review. Had it all occurred under Hoke, perhaps the outrage would have been different. And, sadly, as we've seen with guys like Winston, football and sex can be a very divisive mix.
I do take issue with the idea that Morris's situation was as black-and-white in the moment as people are making it out to be in retrospect; the outrage seems mostly to be with how Brandon and Hoke handled it in the press afterwards, coupled with a healthy dose of online/media vigilantism. I've always said Hoke and Brandon should be gone because both are bad at their jobs, but I maintain that the idea they are lying/covering up for something is the Occam's Razor argument when the much more obvious answer is that both of them are just incompetent.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:40 PM ^
It was pretty black and white that we played a kid who might have a concussion which is pretty serious in the current environment.
September 30th, 2014 at 11:20 PM ^
I'm not going to get too into this because neither side is going to budge, but the simple fact that you couched your claim with "probably" shows the uncertainty that surrounded that whole situation when it was happening in real time. Hindsight and all, but I had a much bigger issue with Hoke failing to get Morris out of there when he was clearly limping around with an ankle injury than for how quickly he pulled Morris out after that hit. The prior goes to his pigheadishness in keeping true to a bad decision; the latter is more a systemic failure on Michigan's sideline than Hoke somehow knowingly (or at least negligently) risking a player's health because of a potential concussion that nobody handled all that well.
September 30th, 2014 at 11:23 PM ^
You are right in that IF everything else were running as it should, then this incident wouldn't have become such a shit-storm. That's not the point. Herbstreit & Howard are making the same mistake.
The Morris incident, while very important on its own, is also a symptom of larger problems of leadership and organization in the football program and athletic department.
Students and alumni treated as customers & gouged for money rather than valued members of the Michigan family.
Questionable search practice for Hoke. (search may have been rigged, best people for the job not offered, etc...)
Suspicion, reports and observations of inappropriate involvement of Brandon in micromanaging the football program ((Hoke is more of a figurehead?)
Lies and obfuscation rather than truth and transparency in dealing with the concussion issue.
Policies resulting in lack of interest in game attendance.
Zero player development
Mounting player injuries
Uninspired play
No observable leadership on or off the field...
A lot of this stuff is difficult to fully define, but we know it all smells rotten...We know something is deeply wrong in the athletic department. The Morris incident is just the most recent, most egregious and easiest to define.
September 30th, 2014 at 11:37 PM ^
Yeah, how can these commenters be claiming player safety is their #1 priority? They must be lying or stupid. I mean, we need to hold internet comments to a certain standard.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:17 PM ^
I'm proud of the student activism. If they don't fire Brandon tonight, I hope 5000 show up tomorrow.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
it was BAMN and real life issues... now we have protests to fire coaches/Athletic directors?
lame.
I get it, people had fun, but seriously there is so much more important stuff going on out there that for 500 people to get together and not address something of substance is a little bit of an insult to our storied history of defiance.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:00 PM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 10:03 PM ^
I didn't realize that protests could only be held for whatever YOU deem worthy.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:04 PM ^
I see you're on here voicing your superior opinion rather than out fixing the world yourself.
If it makes any difference, last week I donated one-third of my take-home pay to charity. But you see, my daily activities aren't limited to one thing.
September 30th, 2014 at 10:49 PM ^
September 30th, 2014 at 11:06 PM ^
October 1st, 2014 at 5:08 AM ^
October 1st, 2014 at 7:05 AM ^
October 1st, 2014 at 9:26 AM ^
I protested in that very same spot when Nixon fired Elliot Richardson. The next few years they protested apartheid there.
There's only a thousand of them. That's probably the same thousand that show up on time.
The guy on the front page of MGBlog is wearing OSU garb.
Right or wrong, the AD's actions that affected this group was a reaction to their own apathy.
Very credible.
September 30th, 2014 at 9:17 PM ^
First World problems.
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