What do you miss about Michigan Stadium?
A couple weeks ago on WTKA after the Joe closed, they were talking about how every local stadium is going to be new in SE MI.
They mentioned Michigan Stadium being "new" in 2010 due to the massive renovations.
OT season is here. So this is a feels thread.
I miss the original Michigan Stadium. The bowl.
No giant boxes making it feel boxed in and taking away from its size on the inside.
Sure, it's MUCH louder.........but still. It will never be the same again. I'll never forget my first time walking in when I was 9 years old and being amazed.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:00 PM ^
Miss Lloyd Brady in the front row
April 19th, 2017 at 11:01 PM ^
The caretaker's house inside the gates of the stadium, southwest corner.
When I was a kid, I wanted to live there.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:36 PM ^
Did someone say caretaker?
April 20th, 2017 at 12:50 AM ^
And when they tried to burn down the Big House, I corrected...them.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:02 PM ^
It was the only action I got. Sadly, quite a few times, the young person got spiked over the stadium side and died. We were always in the news for that, it being so disturbing the events would distract the team. Today we know better. Mostly ...
April 19th, 2017 at 11:03 PM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 11:16 PM ^
April 20th, 2017 at 12:11 AM ^
Because my thumbs are in my ears, fingers spread.
Also, what happened to that guy who used to have paddles strapped to his hands and he would lift them upward, balancing by section, and the crowd would roar, else turn them downwards and the crowed indicated would quiet down a bit. "Go!" "Blue!" "Ahhhhhh" "Errrrrr" Etc. Masterful ad lib, that man.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:31 PM ^
I like the suites but, I liked how the stadium snuck up on you. I loved hearing from fans that from the outside the stadium doesn't look like it could hold 100,000 people.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:41 PM ^
I miss being there. Haven't gotten to go inside since the Northwestern game, 2004. My return visits to Ann Arbor have not coincided with football season, and I can't spring for an expensive tour that I don't know I'm free for two weeks in advance of anyway.
Someday I'll go back. Take my kids, show them the brick my Dad and I got in 1999 (he has since passed away, it's one of my favorite memorials of him, and I can't even see it), walk them around the concourse. If Wiards still sells donuts and cider (do they?) I'll get some of that, just like old times. Make that first, unforgettable entry through the tunnel into the bowl. Find our seats, and look at the fiest.
And the memories will run thick and fast, and like James Earl Jones I'll swat them away. We'll watch watch the band take the field, I'll nearly choke up during the powerful rise of the M fanfare, cheer as the drum major dips his head to the ground. Sing Hail to the Victors together with the crowd, just like they've learned at home. Yell together on defense, cheer good plays on offense.
And it will be over too soon. And we'll head back, probably to my mother's house, and they'll get asked if they had a good time, and they'll say, "yeah!!!!"
And then I'll miss going once again.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:04 AM ^
April 20th, 2017 at 12:22 AM ^
I'll try to remember to buzz you for it. For the record, it's in the northwest plaza, says "Dave King Steve King Go Blue 1999."
There are actually two of them, presumably due to an error. Or there were 12 years ago when I saw them last.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:03 AM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 11:55 PM ^
TP
@ 0:27
April 20th, 2017 at 12:01 AM ^
Good vid. Reminds me, I do miss having people right there in the end zone, or the band like they were doing for a while in the early 00s (remember the Braylon game?). The sight of a player rambling into the endzone for a huge TD and the fans right in front of him going nuts is just perfect. Notre Dame did this really well.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:02 AM ^
April 20th, 2017 at 12:14 AM ^
pissing in the waterfall trough
TP and marshmallows
Ufer's game calls, the Bo "General George Patton" touchdown horn.
The yellow "Michigan Stadium" letters on the roof of the press box (didn't realize they're still in the stadium, I assumed they were in Al Glick's basement)
The guy that looks like Truman Capote with the big M flag that would hit us in the face when he waved it. Stadium security confiscated it from him 3 seasons ago.
Walking on the field with my son. In the '90s, we lived on Maywood St., less than a mile from the Big House. I used to take him to the stadium (first in a stroller, then on my shoulders) on Sundays.
I miss tailgating with my dad.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:05 AM ^
against O-State every once in a while
I still hate David Boston.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:16 AM ^
April 20th, 2017 at 12:20 AM ^
up hoover pre game and busting osu.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:46 AM ^
The ancient feel of the place when it's empty
Beating OSU
April 20th, 2017 at 12:53 AM ^
I agree that Yost has taken even a bigger hit than the Stadium in terms of game day experience
While I was in High school some forty five years ago, Michigan Stadium hosted an event called Band Day where, what seemed like every high school marching band in the state was in attendance. Seeing as how I was in one of those bands I had the opportunity to stand on the feild of the Big House and play my trombone...one of my all time great memories.
I can't believe that this thread has gone over 100 comments without someone mentioning the beloved halo. The perfect monument to Lee Bollinger's ego. [Edit - I see now that Zoltan mentioned it. Still, WTF Bollinger? That thing was as tacky as wearing running shoes with your suit.]
On the serious side, I'm with the OP. I understand the benefits that the luxury boxes bring, but I miss the egalitarian feel of the bowl, with the (eventually) retro press box looming over the west end of the stadium. I also miss that brief period when there was real grass on the field.
April 20th, 2017 at 11:47 AM ^
How could supposedly intelligent people ever think tacky Las Vegas glitz would be a good idea in a classic stadium that cherishes tradition and refused advertising?
You just knew he could break a big run one any time he touched the ball. Sigh.
cool to me. To me it that press box symbolizes simpler, less commercial time. Agree with Victor Valiant's and others comments about missing the stadium gates being open. Bob Ufer was really special. Also agree the renovations were needed and for the best.
As others have noted, I miss Michigan Stadium being open year round.
I remember playing catch on the field with my Dad in like 1993. We spent 30 minutes trying to get the Desmond Howard Corner Endzone vs Notre Dame Touchdown just right (we did).
We used to get to basketball games like two hours early just to play catch for a bit at the Big House.
I miss, most of all, the infamous Hot Dog Man of 2005. Before him, there was only a dream that was free hot dogs. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that the students will never get free hot dogs again.
Thank you Hot Dog man. Thank you.
Why was he infamous? Did he spit on the dogs or something?
Because the Athletic Department pretty much turned him into Michigan Stadium's Most Wanted when they got wind of what he was doing. Pretty sure he even got kicked out of the stadium a couple times. All he was doing was throwing people free hot dogs...
April 20th, 2017 at 10:59 AM ^
Free hot dogs are for Commies.
Arrest that man!
April 20th, 2017 at 11:13 AM ^
"And free hot dogs thrown from 20 feet away are going to kill someone! KILL, I say!"
Although I understand why it's gone, I do miss the grass. FieldTurf is better than the old Astroturf but there is nothing like grass. It's too bad we couldn't figure out a way to make it work in the stadium after we lowered the field.
The old astroturf was HOT AS FUCK when we used to do close-order drill on the field on September Wednesday afternoons in NROTC. Burned our feet right through the shoes. I guess cleats helped the players with that, but I couldn't imagine what they must have gone though when they got buried under a pile of players in practice. Agony.
The new renovations are better.