OT: Overcoming fan sadness with memories of happier times (25th Anniversary Edition)
Hey, MGofolks: Don’t let some hack SI writer get you down…
Just think of things we've had that no one else ever will. Stroll now down memory lane, if you care, for this week marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of perhaps the merriest and most glorious week in all of Ann Arbor party lore. [I know, I’m wading headlong into tl;dr territory.]
It begins on April fool’s, when Sean Higgins sends hoards of crazy, Hash Bashing kids into the streets to celebrate the Illini-hilation in the national semi-final game (OK, it isn’t anything near annihilation, but a win is a win when the stakes are win-or-go-home). Hello, Ann Arbor Police. Nothing to see here. Nope. We’re just dancing. Just happy to be here.
But the festivities are just getting revved up…
Two days later, Glenn Rice (doubtlessly cooler than April pool water), Loy Vaught , Terry Mills, Rumeal Robinson (OK… maybe Rumeal still has reason to be sad), Mark Hughes, Mike Griffin, and co. (Ooooooos!) top off our magical tournament run by snipping the twine in Seattle. Rose Bowl: Check. MBB National Champs: Check, check.
Meanwhile… Some shlub of an ex-Michigan coach sits next to his suitcase, drinking a cup of cold coffee somewhere near a town the size of Abilene.
But back in A-squared, those same crazy kids who caused such a ruckus a couple of nights ago (and whose numbers have grown to outrageous proportions) get started in on a night of stop-light-hanging-awning-crashing-Rick’s/Charley’s-mobbing mayhem at the corner of Church and South U. For the record (and since the statute of limitations renders me now free from prosecution), I can be seen dancing up on the overhang outside the ballet studio on the NW corner, and while my judgment is a bit clouded, my view of the revelry and riot cops is largely unobstructed. It also absolves me of any responsibility for that news van on its side over there. We pause to marvel at just how long our hoots and hollers echo into the drizzle and beer-soaked mist, eventually heading home at dawn to dream of errant hail-Mary jumpers at the buzzer.
But wait! As if that weren’t enough… or as if we need any more excuses to skip a day - or maybe a week - of classes, this little travelling band from the burning shores of California rolls in to town and sets up shop for a two night juke-joint rollick in the very space our round-ball heroes had just toiled all winter (to a third place Big Ten finish, one may note).
Those who are in attendance can attest: This space is hot! Part victory parade, part carnival, part bacchanal, the April 5th and 6th Crisler dates rank among the tightest Dead shows of the era. I, like many of my fellow pranksters, shake my bones through both long, crazy nights, hardly stopping to rest between them. I do, however, try to bang out a paper in the West Quad basement computing center at about 4am. Unfortunately for my GPA that semester, that little smiley-faced Mac guy won’t stop laughing at me. Paper’s late. Go figure.
As the magic bus pulls on to Stadium, we hear rumors of friends heading to Milwaukee to follow the band, but most of us can’t take five or six years to graduate, so we finally roll into bed for our first real sleep in five days. When we wake (some of us only just in time for Monday classes), we stop to wonder if we had ever been there at all.
I don’t know about you, but thinking back on it brings a smile (smile, smile) to the face of this sad Wolverine.
Anyone else care to share their own details from that week?
Read anyways
My mom - a two-time Michigan grad - and I were staying in a hotel in Chicago for some reason. I remember being obnoxious to the Illinois fans we were surrounded by in a way that only a kid can pull off without being killed by a mob (exception does not apply in Columbus). I also remember jumping up and down on my bed in the hotel room many times while watching the games, which I could do at that age without breaking anything.
I felt like I was floating after the final was over, or at least that's how I remember it. The tournament run - revisted by many this year - was almost too much to believe. Bo kicks the head coach out the door so a "Michigan Man" will coach the team? And then they go on a tear and beat UNC, Illinois, and Seton Hall (or "the team that beat Duke," as I thought of them)? And the last two games are decided in the final seconds? It was almost too much to believe.
I'm a huge Dead fan and fitting in a show between winning a national championship would be the greatest few days of my life.
Cheers to you sir for living it.
The morning after the '89 NCAA National Championship game, it was the top story on all of the A:M news shows like Today, GMA, CNN, etc.
Instead of getting my ass to work on time, I flipped from channel to channel all morning to watch all of the different takes on the Michigan victory and the subsequent near-riot party in Ann Arbor. I was running a VCR tape on record the whole time I was doing it. Somewhere in the basement I have that tape. I'm going to dig it up and see if I can watch it on an old VCR player that I have.
I'll look for the guy dancing up on the overhang outside the ballet studio. I certainly remember the guy hanging from the traffic light suspended by a wire across South U. I kept thinking to myself "How the HELL did that guy get up there?"
It was an impressive level of partying from a school that was not known as a "party school". When I saw it, I was not shocked . . . I was proud.
i remember seeing you in that small overhang -- a buddy of mine was on top of a tv van (detroit station, can't remember which one).
those Dead shows were epic.
That was a pretty good stretch. A magical run of awesome. The entire campus was in a good mood that was broken only by finals.
A typical occurrence, I'm sure: After the second Dead show, I stopped by Bells Pizza and ordered a large pie (meatballs, xtra oven time) and trotted home to my apt near Glen/Fuller just in time for the delivery. The driver gave me the pie in exchange for a bit of the, uh, nightcap I had freshly packed and loaded.
Not sure how we all knew in the era before social media to go to that corner to celebrate. But there we were.
Are you sure you weren't born early?
Where exactly were your parents that night?
was born at the exact moment Rumeal made the game winning FT's.His older 2 brothers initials are RR.I requested/begged/demanded that my sister name the 3rd one Rumeal Robinson.She refused but I always remember his B-Day & his age,unlike most of my other nieces & nephews.
You have to share now!
Seems like even the Fab 5 is ancient sports history here : (
I ran into Dick Vitale, who is a Seton Hall grad, in a hotel elevator. We had spray painted our hotel sheet with a banner "Deck the Hall!". He laughed out loud and it was the headline of the Seattle Times newspaper the next day. Met lots of coaches including Jerry Tarkanian, who was so cool.
When the buzzer went off and UM won I pretty much passed out from excitement and three days of adrenaline rushes ( Illinois game was beyond insane). I dont remember much of the next 36 hours. Didn't sleep until I got on the plane ride home the next day.
We hung around courtside and there weren't that many UM fans so we could talk to the players and coaches as they ran off the court. I couldn't say much since I lost my voice from screaming. Steve Fisher, as he walked off the court, thanked the fans for coming out to support the team. What a great squad that was.
My top three in person sports moments are #1) Wings end cup drought with Stevie Y hoisting the SC, #2) Charles Woodson interception sealing Rose Bowl and NC, and #3) Rumeal Robinson hitting two FTs on a phantom foul to win the NC.