White out at Michigan
August 16th, 2020 at 10:38 PM ^
Only Michigan fans would watch reruns of losses during a canceled football season
We have to get our infinite pain from somewhere
August 16th, 2020 at 10:47 PM ^
If you watch old games from the 90s, it seems like America went through a white t-shirt phase. Someone older than me can confirm or deny.
August 16th, 2020 at 11:55 PM ^
Can confirm. I'm 41--when I was in college/my early 20's (aka broke AF), you could get a six-pack of Hanes white t-shirts for under $10.
White t-shirt, Levis, Vans. Timeless look on a dirt-cheap budget.
August 17th, 2020 at 1:23 PM ^
almost 41, Steve and Barry's had 5 shirts for $20.
There wasn't really any coordination of what fans wore, from what I remember. Michigan had a blue out in 2002 I think, which didn't work out well, since it made all the other colors stand out against the dark background.
August 17th, 2020 at 12:21 AM ^
I think you are thinking of the 50s. May be some people on here were young in the 50s and had white T-shirts and greased back hair. I just remember it from Watching Happy Days and the only cool one was the fonz who wore a white T shirt and had a greased back DA.
August 17th, 2020 at 7:37 AM ^
Both these things can be (and, I believe, are) true. There's photographic evidence from the '50s and '90s if you look. I can personally confirm that I had a bunch of white Ts in my summer wardrobe 20+ years ago. A little oversized, too .....
August 17th, 2020 at 2:12 AM ^
Yes. Watch any U-M game from the 80’s and early 90’s that wasn’t played in late October or in November. The predominant color in the crowd is white. Remember, this was still at the early stages of the sports apparel licensing boom, so not everyone had boatloads of official Michigan gear back then like they do now. People just wore random printed t-shirts to games, which happened to be predominantly white. I think you’d probably see an increase in the amount of maize and blue in the crowd beginning in ‘94 or ‘95, when Michigan signed their initial apparel deal with Nike.
August 17th, 2020 at 4:18 AM ^
I don't remember this and I was a student there in the early and mid 80s. I could buy a nice blue or yellow M t-shirt at K-marts for a couple bucks back then. I could not afford the good stuff at M-Den. I can now! But back then I always went in to games with a blue Michigan T-shirt. I never seen dudes walking around with white T-shirts on, looking like the fonz!
August 17th, 2020 at 6:56 AM ^
No, the point was many/most printed sports t shirts (which were popular back then) used a white t shirt as a base.
August 17th, 2020 at 8:50 AM ^
There are plenty of pics of me in the early 90's wearing white t-shirts with shorts and jeans. Also rocked those white canvas K Swiss.
So I think it was a combo of white dudes wearing white t shirts who hollered for both teams.
August 16th, 2020 at 10:53 PM ^
I was trying to figure out in my head who on the coaching staff or what player had the last name White.
August 16th, 2020 at 11:42 PM ^
I think we had a fullback named Gerald White back in the early 80s. Maybe that's who the OP is referring to.
August 16th, 2020 at 10:56 PM ^
I got sued once... all my friends went away.
August 16th, 2020 at 11:00 PM ^
That wasn't because you were sued
August 16th, 2020 at 11:25 PM ^
To be fair all of you friends dated Sue at one time or another. Sue was the sloppiest of seconds.
August 16th, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
Keep away from Runaround Sue.
August 17th, 2020 at 10:53 AM ^
Clean up on aisle Sue!
August 17th, 2020 at 2:43 AM ^
Probably on the same bicycle.
August 16th, 2020 at 11:26 PM ^
that was a tough one. Wheatley nearly won that game for us singlehandedly.
August 17th, 2020 at 8:25 AM ^
I’m coming around the the thought that TW was the best RB in M history. Dude had a combo of size and strength that only guys like Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson had.
think of the locker room he walked into back in 1990. Vaughn, Powers were very good players and productive backs. Wheatley couldn’t be kept from the field
August 17th, 2020 at 9:27 AM ^
And as Vaughn exited along came Jesse Johnson (oh, what could have been) and then Tshimanga Biakabutuka.
Right as Fred J was taking over the RB group in the early '90s, we had an embarrassment of riches.
August 17th, 2020 at 12:23 AM ^
Man. What stage of grief is this? Find your way Bill. We can get through this together.
August 17th, 2020 at 12:45 AM ^
C’mon man. Pace yourself. It’s going to be a long fall.
August 17th, 2020 at 2:00 AM ^
Go to any game at the big house in the 90's before the weather got cold and you'd see that about 70% of the stadium was wearing white t-shirts. There was no maize rage in those days. Schools didn't obsessively color coordinate the stands like they do now.
No need to have a meltdown because you're looking at a 1994 game through 2020 glasses. And the crowd was amazing for that one despite the heartbreaking outcome. Wheatley was such an insane talent.
August 17th, 2020 at 2:09 AM ^
Yeah, good call, I remember that game. I thought PSU was the best team in the country that season, I feel like they would have beaten that '94 Husker team.
Now '95 was a different deal, Nebraska woulda beat the crap out of anyone that year and they pretty much did, especially Florida.
August 17th, 2020 at 9:22 AM ^
Exactly this. Find the Michigan v Virginia game from 1995 (the temperature was in the mid 90s that day)--everybody was wearing white. Unlike the OP, I don't really feel like Michigan would have scored any more points or allowed any fewer if the fans had been wearing a different color.
From what I recall, 95 percent of men's Michigan apparel I saw at the time was made up of white t-shirts, blue sweatshirts and blue hats. If it was warm, people wore white. A cooler day and the stadium was blue. It's that simple.
I owned a reversible Michigan t-shirt (blue one side, maize the other) in the 1980s, but I don't think I ever wore it maize side out in public. I thought it looked weird to wear maize.
That Michigan-Virginia game is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NpTXz_q6mM
August 17th, 2020 at 6:16 AM ^
I thought the title of this post was referring to something different when I first saw it. Glad I was wrong.
August 17th, 2020 at 7:47 AM ^
I honestly thought someone named White had gotten fired
August 17th, 2020 at 7:57 AM ^
It's an interesting question, both for the what-I-remember responses, and because a historian could look through evidence, probably photographs in archives, to reach some reasonable conclusion.
Another crowd-related question intrigues me: When did standing during games become standard?
More broadly, when did standing become proof of school spirit, and a reason to criticize those who sit? Though it became generational ("Those old farts sitting on their fat asses!"), I suspect it didn't start that way.
August 17th, 2020 at 11:11 AM ^
It wasn't till 2002 that Michigan started pushing for fans to where maize by releasing the student designed T shirts.
August 17th, 2020 at 11:07 PM ^
It was about 78 degrees that day, Late September wonderful day, one of the best I can ever remember. Played 18 in the morning over in Jackson I think it was on the way to the game.
That was one hell of a PSU team and we went toe to toe with them. Great game, great day.