OT - The Naked Mile
tl;dr - there was once a thing at Michigan called The Naked Mile. It was a lot of fun.
When I witnessed my first naked mile in April 1995 I was just amazed that so many people had the (liquid) courage to run/walk naked through campus for all to see. Our MosherJordan crew watched from the steps of the grad library. I am embarrassed to sing karaoke, I sure as heck would never run naked like that. Welp…..
For those that aren’t familiar, annually on the last day of school (late April) Michigan students used to run naked at midnight, or after sundown, from the Rock on Washtenaw down South U, through the diag, and then to the Cube at the union (that sounded like Frank the Tank from Old School). I found this short write up on the history of the event, you can find it here.
On the last day of school 1997 a bunch of us were drinking at Touchdown’s (now the Blue Leprechaun) and my graduating best friend convinced us to run the naked mile, it would be a memory of a lifetime he said. I was not prepared at all, and very drunk. 8 of us, 4 girls 4 guys, undressed in the front yard of a church on Washtenaw, picked up our clothes, then started running. Next thing I know I’m barreling down South U holding my clothes in my arms wearing nothing but my shoes. Now this isn’t always a run. Several times people get so bunched up that you have to walk for a portion of the “run”.
Things were going pretty well for a while. Then as we left South U to head through the arches to the diag I kicked the curb and took a big tumble, my clothes went everywhere. My housemate (and now a father of 2) held people back while I was on my hands and knees trying to find my clothes. I grabbed what I could and continued. I then stumbled and fell again, this time in front of the grad steps on the diag, exactly where I had been when I witnessed my first Naked Mile a few years prior. Oh what a difference 2 years makes.
The night ended with me puking all over myself, bleeding from both knees and elbows, while proudly singing the Victors with hundreds of fellow students in full throat on the steps of the museum of art. The next morning my housemate’s girlfriend (mother of same 2) drove me to UHS to get my elbow x-rayed, and I wasn’t the only “runner” there getting treatment.
In 1998 I was a 5th year senior, and this time I was prepared. We all wore backpacks to hold our clothes. We actually ran it twice that year. The pack I was with decided to run into Angell Hall and then around the fishbowl where students were typing away on those colorful little Macs. We then decided to hit the law library, because why not? Dozens of us stood on top of the long study tables in the law library buck naked singing the fight song as those more studious looked on in amazement, disgust, etc. Football championship, hockey championship, and now this, what a time to be a 5th year senior.
1999 would be the last real year for the Naked Mile. Per the article linked above a large percentage of women ran that year, including my then girlfriend (children status unknown). The internet had reached a point that the Naked Mile could not continue down the same path going forward. Howard Stern sent some of his crew to cover it, local and national media were there as well. And the final straw was when it was announced that anyone running it starting in 2000 could be arrested and charged with a sex offender crime.
RIP The Naked Mile.
What’s your Naked Mile story?
August 9th, 2022 at 12:26 PM ^
I'm not one to be naked outside at midnight, but that doesn't seem like a ruin-your-life-forever type of offense. Unfortunate and concerning.
Yes indeed, two classmates (now doctors) who I couldn't stand ran in it. It was the one year the Girls Gone Wild guy came to record it. There they are in all of their splendor recorded for posterity.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:28 PM ^
Yet another example of a timeless college tradition killed by socio-political agendas. My first years at UM were the last of the naked mile. Sad.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:44 PM ^
It is killed by the camera phone and the internet, first & foremost.
I remember watching a couple naked miles (including some of my old room mates), and thank goodness for everyone involved that it was a fleeting experience. However, that was pre-internet, and the internet is forever.
What this guy said. I was there in the early 90's and happened to be back on campus that day in 1997 and noticed (1) observers weren't sticking on the sidewalks like they used to. The gauntlet had closed into the street. (2) two different rooftops with TV cameras (3) everyone videoing the whole thing. Can you blame people for not wanting to end up on the internet naked. I did it three of the four years I was in undergrad. I wouldn't have done it in 97 with cameras and the fact that spectators had moved right up to within reach of you.
I would've done it any year if I had really impressive (as in, 99th percentile at least) flaccid equipment.
August 9th, 2022 at 11:49 PM ^
Yep, the only one I saw was the last one in 99, my sophmore year. The running path was like 2 feet wide in the middle of the street people crowded in so far. There were creepy dudes with cameras and video cameras everywhere. I'm very far from a prude and I found it all disgusting (not the runners, the crowd). Definitely killed by the internet.
It's weird though because I know some schools still do it, UCLA for example (they call it the 'Undie Run').
What an ignorant, lazy take. Of course you chalk it up to ‘wokeness’; it just *can’t* have anything to do with women being groped by creepy middle aged assholes and seeing naked pictures of themselves posted on the internet the next day.
Maybe try, you know, thinking for yourself, rather than immediately crying about cancel culture and wokeness in a knee jerk reaction for a change
August 9th, 2022 at 11:15 PM ^
It's the conservatives who are offended by sex and sexuality anyway, so his take his laughably off-base.
Well, like too many people who are sad that it is no more, I assume you are more depressed that you no longer get a cheap thrill from the event, but the talk of agendas, vague and mysterious, is perhaps more comforting.
In all seriousness, the Internet killed it, and probably for the better. I was there for the last several years of the Naked Mile, and like a lot of things, what I did in my youth before the rise of the Internet and mass media of the nature we now experience does not correspond with the things I would do now if I were in my early 20s. The Internet is forever, and I am sure images of me wearing only my Asics and some socks would absolutely thrill prospective employers.
August 9th, 2022 at 11:14 PM ^
You, crg, are trying to make something political? Shocking.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:29 PM ^
social media and 24/7 news.... its why we can't have anything nice anymore!
August 9th, 2022 at 12:35 PM ^
My thoughts exactly. Fucking New Puritans ruin everything. Wish we had that when I was there in the 80s. I'm sure i'd have drank enough courage to do that. Great story.
I don't think he's saying "New Puritans" are behind this at all. Rather, people knowing that every idiot on Earth has a high resolution camera at the ready at all times dissuaded folks from wanting to run naked through the streets? I also know that the University was strongly against the practice in the end and essentially killed it. Which, you know, you can't really blame them...
There was a beer chugging contest that was an official part of Greek Week in the 80’s. Very proud to be a member of the winning team one year and second place team the following year. I highly doubt this even would go over now.
Forget now. That was gone by 1990
I don't have a moral objection to the Naked Mile or anything but I was at Michigan toward the end of the Naked Mile's existence and there were stories in the Daily (and other sources) from women who claimed to be hit by whips, groped inappropriately, and had their pictures taken and shared online without their permission. And people did get sick and injured due to excessive alcohol consumption (and resultant uneasiness on their feet) during the event; I remember seeing someone run straight into a sign pole my first year and having a big gash open up on his head.
College is a time for fun and being a bit unmoored by social restraints but it's not always fun-and-games. The Naked Mile was ruined by a bunch of (mostly) older men who came in and took advantage of college students for financial gain, and while I wished we lived in a world where people could do stuff like this without excessive liquid courage and the constant fear of being assaulted or having their naked bodies shared with strangers without their permission, that's not the world we live in.
the next morning I could barely walk to ask my buddy's gf for a ride to UHS. When I got there the front desk lady said I was about the 8th or 10th person to come in that morning after running it.
as I was sitting on the exam table prior to the elbow x-ray my knees were bleeding through my jeans. So she first bandaged those up. The elbow x-ray came back negative, but I needed that elbow bandaged up real well. I looked like the hit bicyclist on European Vacation for a few days.
Imagine trying to post a picture to a website in the 90s. You would have to take the picture, get the pictures developed, somehow scan the picture to digitize it and then figure out how upload it to some weird internet chat room.
There were digital cameras back then but it was more difficult. But if there's an opportunity for people to see naked pictures of college-aged women and men online a subset of the population will absolutely move heaven and earth to pull it off.
The internet was growing rapidly at the end of the decade though. American Pie came out in 1999, same year as the last naked mile run. For anyone who hasn't seen it: first off, what rock in the wilderness have you been living under, but secondly one of the most famous scenes in that movie is when the main character uses a webcam to livestream himself getting naked with a classmate over the internet and accidentally broadcasts it to the entire school. They make a whole ordeal about all the different people watching it on their computers and the guy becomes the school laughingstock while the girl gets in huge trouble and gets deported.
To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if American Pie was on the administration's mind when they cracked down on the run. That plus Howard Stern and Girls Gone Wild coming to record everyone and it generally turning into a media circus
And coincidentally, American Pie came out with the Naked Mile in 2006 where it really goes full circle
August 11th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
And the writers were from Michigan (Grand Rapids).
August 9th, 2022 at 12:30 PM ^
stories people, stay the course!
August 9th, 2022 at 12:31 PM ^
Thanks for sharing your story. I was wondering what happened to the Naked Mile and stumbled on this podcast episode, also from the library: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/14-ann-arbor-stories-the-naked-mile/id1089272384?i=1000374274797.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:41 PM ^
great share, listening now.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:34 PM ^
I can't write my stories on the Internet...
August 9th, 2022 at 12:40 PM ^
Then use the next best option for mass distribution: scrawling your stories on the inside doors or restroom stalls.
Seconded...
Umm, you haven’t spent a lot of time on the internet if you think you have something unshareable.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:43 PM ^
Gratuitous violence is great. Severed heads, guts, lives ending. That's all fun and games and can be seen on Halloween, video games or in the movies or on the news via war footage. Even sex is fine if it's limited to online or TV shows and Twitter (yes Twitter allows porn). But you show one goddamn penis, tit, or labia in public and everyone loses their fucking minds!!!!! Sex offenders!!! Get them!!!!! Put em on a list forever!!!! Gahhhh!!! Also drink booze that's fine. Booze never ruins families or lives unlike those horrible psychopaths on the weed beating their kids and destroying society with their dried up plant flowers.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:55 PM ^
I think you're finally starting to get it!
;-)
August 9th, 2022 at 12:57 PM ^
I'm opposed to all this sex on the television.
I mean, I keep falling off.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:44 PM ^
I'm offended on behalf for those that may or may not be offended by this story. I know, I'm a hero.
/S
August 9th, 2022 at 12:48 PM ^
I'm offended by you being sarcastic about being offended on behalf of those that may or may not be offended. You fucking hero!
August 9th, 2022 at 12:51 PM ^
I ran in '98, one of the best memories of my college career. To your point about its imminent demise, the afternoon of the event I was walking home and a car pulled over on State, window down, asking me something about directions. It was a middle-aged man from out of town who said he was there to watch the Naked Mile. Super creepy. I'm pretty sure he had a camcorder to record it.
I wore a cape, with my clothes in a backpack underneath it, and we ran through the fountain at Ingalls Mall next to the League, to complete our journey from Freshman Orientation. We then went to Ashley's, but they made us put our clothes back on to get in. Lame.
I also ran it in 1998, with a backpack for my clothes, playing The Victors on my trombone through the Diag. While still fun, the Mile’s vibe had become pretty voyeuristic and intrusive by then. I ran it with a mixed-gender group, and the women in the group definitely had to contend with some boorish behavior.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:53 PM ^
I had no intentions of running it in 1996 but after a few too many at Mitch's a couple of my b-school friends convinced me to run. I stripped down somewhere on South U I believe, handed my clothes to my girlfriend and off we went. A few steps in I look ahead and right in front me is future U.S. congressman and NFL great Jon Runyan. I tucked in behind him for the rest of the mile and really don't remember too much other than running through the law library.
I'm definitely glad I did it and don't even think I thought about cameras back then.
August 9th, 2022 at 12:54 PM ^
If you had a tiny penis, could you still run?
not sure, you'll have to ask someone else.
i know from personal experience you can't run if the opposite is true. tripping hazard.
ba dum tsss
I was hoping for a lame meme.
It was generally cold. Plus I have found running to also cause shrinkage. No man looked good. It took real courage.
The key was to be decisive and run early so you could actually run. Run fast. Before the crowds descended and the run slowed to a walk. I sprinted by lots of people I worked with who didn't realize until I was past. I hope they enjoyed my bare ass.
Oh, we did!
- Lots Of People You Worked With
August 9th, 2022 at 12:56 PM ^
I was a freshman in fall of 94. Naked Mile blew my mind. That seemed like the epitome of campus-wide college shenanigans and traditions. RIP Naked Mile.
I ran it a couple times.
But I had girlfriends who would get groped, and the fact that creepy oldmen coming out of the woodwork with a camcorder, I could understand why it eventually ended.
I remember it well. For better and worse
I'm too young to have participated in the Naked Mile while I attended school, though I did hit a foolish nude milestone in my 20s. I was up in Omer and playing drinking games with a half dozen strangers. The losers agreed to streak around the campgrounds and I did it, fueled by whiskey and cannabis. Fortunately we had gotten our clothes back on just in time for a cop to show up and remind us to be quiet.