What do Bball players do in the summer?
while still on campus, I remember playing pickup ball at the CCRB in the summer, and every now and then, guys from the teams would be playing. (Being 6'3" with a classic case of white man's jumping disease made guarding Glenn Rice and Gary Grant a nightmare.)
Anyway, do players still occasionally play pickup ball, or are they hidden away year round now on the athletic campus? There also were sometimes guys from the football team who would play ball at the CCRB. Does this still happen, or are they kept too busy by Barwis?
Have any of you gym rats played hoops this year with guys from the teams? Are any of the guys accessible to other students, or are they more sequestered?
Now in my 40's, I see no reason I'll ever have contact with the guys on the teams. It would be weird, and we have no point of contact. However, while a student, you had a sense that some guys were accessible, and others were too cool. I'm curious what it's like now.
To your first question: yes, plenty of cagers play pick-up, but at the IM Building, not the CCRB. Actually, it's entirely conceivable that they do play at the CCRB, but I live on Sybil--literally 100 feet from the IM building--so I never go there. My housemate and I went every day during finals a few weeks ago, and almost every single time, Stu Douglass and Laval Lucas-Perry were there shooting around.
The current roster of the basketball team is, from personal experience, full of nothing but really nice guys. Stu Douglass has a very dry sense of humor that confuses people and often times they come away with the impression that he's arrogant, but he isn't; he's just unwaveringly deadpan. Zack Novak might be the nicest, simply because he doesn't understand why people recognize him. He's just happy to be here.
I still have a meal plan and I eat at West Quad pretty often; there can be found many an underclassman on the football team. I don't try to engage them--they're just trying to eat, after all--but plenty of people do and they are all very cordial, even to the painfully awkward worshipper-types who shout "you're so awesome!" in the middle of the dining hall. The only football players I can sincerely claim to know personally are Jon Conover, Kenny Demens, and Patrick Omameh; they are all good guys.
Interestingly, the best pick-up basketball player among Michigan athletes with whom I've played was James McKinney.
That's exactly the kind of reply I was looking for. Glad to hear the guys are still guys (not all arrogant jerks.) I miss going to the IM Bldg. Suburban gyms and fitness centers just aren't the same.
You're not kidding. When I got home I bought a student summer membership at Washington Sports Club because I got sick of working out at my old high school gym during the summer. It was pretty cheap, but my God are we spoiled by the IM building. The Glover Park WSC is maybe, MAYBE, one quarter the size of the IM weight room. I don't think everyone realizes what a nice facility the IM Building is.
I really have to disagree with this. The basketball courts in the IM are very cool but the weight facility is awful (CCRB and NCRB are just as bad/worse). I went to U-M for undergrad and grad ('09) and everyone in our grad program was always surprised at how bad the Michigan facilities are compared to their ugrad schools. I've worked at 3 other schools (smaller, mid-major types) - all with significantly better facilities. Unless you get there really early or really late, its always crowded, the equipment is nothing special and the layout is terrible (cardio area is so far from weights). There are no comforts - TVs, music, etc. and nobody ever cleans or wipes down their machines or racks the weights. I know a fair number of my classmates have joined A2 gyms like Bally's to avoid the IM. I now belong to a 24 hour fitness in LA that is pretty generic and run of the mill and it's so much better than the IM that to term them both as gyms does a disservice to 24hr.
Hm. You might be right, but I guess I just don't notice. I like the IM's weight room. I agree that the CCRB is a bag of ass, though.
Yeah those sorority girls can mask the IM's deficiencies at times. It is also significantly better than it was when I was an undergrad - I think they did a renovation 3 or 4 years ago. Its just hard to compete with a new, state of the art facility - something that I think Michigan needs.
Appreciated your comments on the players above - good stuff. I imagine getting a practice facility in a couple years will make it less likely to see players in the IM.
The exercise machines, the amenities, the spacing, are undoubtedly better elsewhere. For me, it was the sunlight streaming through the arched windows in the IM Bldg, the sound of sceeching high tops on the floor, the combined smell of sweat and varnish and floor polish, the mix of athlete and student (and coed), it was all of those things I remembered fondly. An exercise facility of plastic and metal and TV's everywhere, of a faint blue neon glow, of sterility, of minivans and suburbans and Beemers in the parking lot, of espresso and endless fluffy white towels, of machines always available, is "better" for exercise. Point taken.
thought of Hoosiers (the movie, not those basards from Bloomington) when I played at the IM. Love that building.
used to show up w/ his older brother (Griffin i think his name was) @ the CCRB, and they would just jack up 3pointers all day long during pickup games. Clearly in practice and real games they were not allowed to do this, so during pickup games thats all they wanted to do.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the Crisler practice facility goes up in a couple of years. Will the guys still go to the IM to shoot around, or just stick to the new facility?
I've seen one of the current players up at the NCRB playing full court with the retires and faculty/staff. I'd rather not say who because I don't know if he is technically allowed to be there with the risk of injury and all. Usually every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings the same guys play.
As far as Rec Sports goes, UM is the most poorly funded program at any university in the Big Ten, and ranks far, far behind most other comparable universities in the country. That's hopefully going to change with next year's budget. It is dissappointing that a university that bills itself as the leaders and best has some of the worst facilities in the country.