Flashback: 1998 NC Celebration at Crisler

Submitted by Ghost of BCook… on

Slow day got me to thinking about the aftermath of the 1997 National Championship season. 

I was an undecided LSA sophomore that glorious year and my memories of most of the games are vivid, but much less vivid are my memories of the "official" celebration when students returned to campus.  Quite frankly, the night of the rally at Crisler I remember being so blitzed on Aftershock (yes, I know, not very masculine of me....but I WAS just a sophomore and the rock candy in the bottle was pretty damn good) that my ONLY memory of the actual event was walking there with a group of my buddies and being incredulous that a guy was selling unofficial national championship tee-shirts at the corner of Hoover and Greene for the price of 3 shirts for 5 dollars.  "How could that man have been turning a profit", I asked....nobody answered.   

 

From that point on I think I was awake but incoherent.  Anyone have any memories from the rally to help allow me to patch in that gap in my fanhood? 

The online sources are fairly weak: 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-01-12/sports/9801120099_1_coaches-crisler-arena-fans 

http://www.ur.umich.edu/9798/Jan14_98/champ.htm 

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1997 Michigan Football

oriental andrew

April 17th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^

Do you remember the parade that basically went from Crisler (I think) through downtown Ann Arbor and up Liberty?  That was pretty awesome.  

Also, the post-osu celebration was pretty wild that year.  South U was insane, until that guy fell like 25' out of the tree in front of the President's house.

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Ghost of BCook…

April 17th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^

I think we started drinking early, I have absolutely ZERO recollection of the parade.  In fact I didn't even remember there being a parade until the articles I linked mentioned it. 

Unfortunately my strongest post-OSU memory was not being able to open my eyes for a couple hours after being pepper sprayed for field-storming.  It was totally worth it, but it did make it a little harder to celebrate that evening. 

Was the unofficial party at Bollinger's Presidential Residence that night, or was that after the PSU game?  If that was a separate event from the guy falling, that was a pretty eventful year for the President's House!

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ish

April 17th, 2014 at 11:08 AM ^

i too was an undecided LSA sophomore.  the last of my national championship gear finally gave way.  it was a champion sweatshirt.  it now resides in my parents' house, about 2 sizes too small.

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Wolverine Devotee

April 17th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ^

I recently bought the entire ceremony from a guy I buy game footage from.

Will be uploading soon.

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Jobu

April 17th, 2014 at 11:38 AM ^

My former neighbor and mentor, may he rest in peace, was a UofM grad and huge fan. My father is an OSU fan and he single handedly raised me as a Mich fan. My first Michigan Football experience was the parade. I will never forget how cold it was even though I was only 8. The next year I was taken to my first game.

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Dolphonkey

April 17th, 2014 at 12:31 PM ^

My only recollections are Woodson-related (surprising, no?) Most of the team wore their jerseys but he was in street clothes, as you can see in OP's pic. He let his little cousin (brother?) wear his #2 jersey onstage instead. My dad speculated this was because he knew he was already leaving for the NFL though he hadn't declared yet and didn't feel right wearing it, but who knows.

In his little thank you speech to the fans Woodson said we split the NC with Nebraska but noted we had more national trophies, so we could do the math. 

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