Casa Grande

Got home to the land of the Blue Water for a few days!  Whew!  I needed some sun and boating and fishing and all that is the glory of Michigan in the Summer.  Hey, if you haven't taken a little time off, call in sick.  Hit the water.  Enjoy your surroundings.  You won't know how much you miss it if you ever have to leave!   

A few observations: I was surprised at the lack of Media Days coverage on some of the TV newscasts I saw.  It was there it was just short.  Even one local daily paper I read had an AP story from the event instead of a byline from a local writer.  I assume that since it wasn't the Freep or Det News that it was mainly a cost thing. 

I did wonder though if it's really been decided in newsrooms that there are tons of college football websites and stations like BTN and ESPN and any other number of speciality publications so we got to see the simple 45 second story with a soundbite.  Seriously, if I'm a daily with maybe 20,000 readers and I have like 2-3 sports people - do I want to waste time going head to head with MGoBlog?  Nope.  Grab the wire copy and roll the presses! 

Then again the Tigers had a huge series with the Pale Hose and there was a lot of coverage on that.  Too bad they blew it in at least the first two games.  (Haven't checked the scores yet on the Sun game).  I guess that really is a big story.  So much for good pitching beats good hitting all the time.  And of course that's when sports gets ANY time in between Mayor K2's flashbacks to his football days, tossing deputies around like freshman quarterbacks. 

Looking around my part of the Mitten (SE) I saw plenty of Tigers shirts and hats.  Hey, it's baseball season.  I saw one Spartan T-shirt on a kid in a store but any other football stuff I saw was clearly Wolverines material.  To be expected I suppose.  I knew a LOT of State people growing up but they just never seemed to be as rabid and never did any one of them ever "reach out" as in "come to our games!"  "Join us!"  M fans sure did!  Probably why I am the way I am. 

In the meantime I have to say that the roads are as bad as I recall.  I think when the defense stops everything coming it's way we should call it "an I-75 job."  The closures make NO sense.  I guess that shouldn't be a big surprise either.  They direct you on a detour of one Interstate that puts you into a construction zone on another Interstate and the traffic reports on radio "on the 8s" are saying: "Smooth sailing out there."  WTF? 

Drove right through C-Bus on the way back to the Land of Rich, right past their vaunted "horseshoe" which is more like a donut with cracks.  Despite getting a cold chill up the back of my neck, it did send a wave of anticpation across the old brain.  Football is almost here.

Thank goodness I can afford a trip to my homeland every now & then.  Hopefully some time soon it will be with M tix in hand!  :)

GO BLUE!

So I get an email from a buddy today who is perhaps the most rabid, yet sane, WVU fan I've ever met.  He starts into me about the new Addidas uniforms, especially the road unis. 

He starts ripping on them because "they look like WVU's" road togs, and also look like Cal.  He said a few other things of course pertaining to Rich Rodriguez that you could probably figure out. 

Well, I guess this is to be expected.  Of COURSE Rich Rod would want to look JUST LIKE the shop he came from, right?  I mean things went SO well that he can't help but WANT to remember all of that!  And I'm sure he had DIRECT input when these were designed and the contract changed from NIKE to Addidas.  BTW, WVU and Cal use NIKE.  So maybe Addias is guilty of ripping off NIKE!  We have a crime here!!!  Or not.

He even ripped on the home unis, which I can't figure out since they look pretty much the same as the ones before.  I read about the "stripes" but I couldn't even see them.

It's better than the gold-on-gold "ensemble" WVU wore in the game against Pitt.  Whoops!  Shouldn't say that too loud around here!  Remember?  Rich Rod threw that game so he could sweep into A2.  How could I forget?  LOL! 

Anyhow, as long as M doesn't wear Maize on Maize I don't care.  And if that's the biggest criticism left over, then I'm fine with that too.  It must mean real football season is getting closer!   

I admit it.  I read a lot of posts on MGoBlog.  I also admit that I don't understand half of the silly language that is used here... the "inside speak" of blogs if you will... but it's still fun!  I'm a 40-something which I am sure is old by standards of readers here, but what the heck?  I'll try this out!  It will give me a place to share my "M-thusiasm!"

I don't know a lot about recruiting and because I live well south of Cow-lumbus, (actually in the former land of Rich Rod) - it's a little risky wearing M apparel around.  But I do know that I love to follow the Wolverines.  It's not easy here, but I still do it.  MGoBlog REALLY helps too!

I didn't even attend Michigan.  I graduated from another school in Michigan, but I grew up going to the games.  I believe my first game was a Wisconsin game when I was somewhere around 8-10 years old.  This was back in the days when we were wiping teams out by dozens and dozens of points. 

But I learned to love the traditions of all that is the M experience.  I'm doing my best to pass them on to my kids now. 

The one thing that MOST attracted me to the program was Bo.  He was straight up an incredible influence on a lot of young impressionable males my age.  Yes, our dads were the ultimate men we looked up to, but Bo ran a close second.  Every time I met him he always was kind to me.  Always had time for a word.  Always encouraged a young fan to keep rooting for his team... our team.  He ran the show the way it should be run.  I'm sure a lot of OSU fans my age feel the same way about Woody Hayes.  But I'm on the Maize & Blue side of this line - forever! 

So, thanks to Brian for putting up this site.  A chance to connect and feel a little closer to the place where I had so many great memories as a young person!  

And now - it's back to reading about WVU and OSU in my local paper every day.  Ha-ha!