These are all powerful anecdotes, but you do not know Denard. Stop trying to diagnose him. If you want to talk about this particular incident, there's a lot to talk about. But repeatedly prognosticating about whether he is an alcoholic (or, in fact, heavily insinuating that he is) is both not appropriate and unbelievably presumptuous. Please stop.
Cannot wait, though, for those people who still do the stand-up paddleboarding in thick wetsuits during the winter to row up to watch the game as November whitecaps toss them around.
IIRC, there's one small-ish surface lot back there next to the b-school, but otherwise no. There isn't a lot of parking anywhere directly on campus, and not even a lot once you cross Sheridan, either.
The logistics of this feel like a nightmare. The practice field is deep into campus on the lakefront, and even with reduced capacity, getting people in and out of there is going to be awful.
The lengths Northwestern will go to purely because of an irrational fear of not having enough NU fans in the building... It's the whole point of this stupid stadium project.
Need to hunt for some eclipse glasses in A2 today, considering driving down to Toledo tomorrow mid-morning and working remotely somewhere until it's time to wander outside and look.
After having to sit through their meathead fans taking over Crisler a couple months back and watching Edey get away with more or less everything all afternoon, nah, I'm good. Go Huskies.
Used to see John Sinclair around every now and then when he came back to Ann Arbor/SE MI in the mid-2000s (he'd been living in New Orleans and/or Amsterdam for a while, IIRC). Totally a guy who gave off strong vibes even when doing super mundane stuff.
Super important figure in the Detroit art and jazz community, maybe even more than his work with the White Panthers/MC5, weed advocacy, anti-war stuff, general radical tomfoolery, etc. An original in every sense of the word.
There were protests in 1971, which (in part) brought about the change. The early women were not treated well, either.
At one point I sat down and figured it out, but the MMB was not unique in this regard within the B1G. The Purdue band had an alumnus on the moon (Neil Armstrong) before they had a woman on the field. IIRC, the outliers were a few bands that allowed women during World War II, but most everyone else came alongside Title IX.
FWIW, the UM Alumni Band has long welcomed for homecoming any alumnus who played in a university band, so there are alumnae who come back from as long ago as the 1940s and 1950s, having played in concert ensembles, but not the MMB.
No, actually not. At a major university, the president trusts their athletic director to make important decisions and be the public face of athletics as a whole.
What we've seen is the university president (and certain regents) taking an active role in employment negotiations and hirings, department operations, and management. He's making announcements and pronouncements about stuff that Warde should/ought to be doing. He's giving the impression that the president is, in fact, an athletics administrator. Which Santa Ono is not.
That is not what usually happens an institution like Michigan, where there is a distinct financial and operational firewall between the academic and athletic sides of the university. Might be different elsewhere, may have been different where Ono was before, but it's a bad look (and bad management) here.
In other words, should the university president care about athletics, and should they be visible supporters of its programs and activities? Sure. But they should not be doing the athletic director's job, nor give even the hint of appearance that they are.
1. Already put the ugliest NC gear in the clearance racks
2. Started flooding their shelves with just as much, if not more Rose Bowl championship gear, which seems to be moving a lot more. Why? Because it's way less ugly.
Does most of it still really suck? Yep. It's such a bummer.
If he's actually making decisions, then why are the university president and individual regents so visible in everything Warde is tasked to do?
Honestly, it's shocking to me that more people aren't asking questions as to why the academic wing of the university seems to have so much power and influence in athletic administration right now. There is zero reason for Santa Ono to have any role in this stuff if you have a functional institution.
I was thinking about this yesterday: Since UM won two (very overdue) championships in three years more than a quarter century ago, it feels like every single thing in both the cosmic universe and college hockey has conspired against that ever happening again.
Looking at the bracket and seeing NoDak followed by that potential MSU quarterfinal, as The Giant once said, "it is happening again."
Seeing Sparty fans hailing this as a watershed moment for the program, and like, good on the B1G officials for handing it to them, I guess. Way to get the help you need.
I'll say it: I don't get the outrage. The headline was fine. Edgy? Sure. But can you look at this season and not call it a failure? Or the general decline over the past couple years? Call it what it is.
Yep, IIRC the DM (Dennis Lee) was standing right there. Because that was exactly where you'd want to stand for a Priority Seating game to actually see anything.
Also, if you look closely after one of the sideline/corner throws (can't remember when, I think it was right before one of the 4th quarter TDs), Jason Avant goes flying out of bounds almost into the band and stays down for a second. Per a band member who was standing there, that's because Avant was popping his own dislocated finger back into place.
The band moved across the stadium to the student section in 2006. There were a number of reasons for it, part of which was the concrete repour that made it possible to create a permanent section for the band that could also better facilitate the drumline and tubas.
The arrangement immediately preceding that in section 41-42ish (which I want to say happened in after the field was sunk for '91, I can't remember for sure) was a really tight and awkward squeeze. It required a separate section of bleachers in front of the band section and a lot of awkward moving in and out, especially since the band usually went on for halftime from the opposite sideline.
There were also the "priority seating" games (usually MSU, ND, OSU, parents' weekend, too, IIRC) where the MMB would be moved to field level and their section of seats sold. The annoying part being you pretty much couldn't see the game if you weren't in the corner.
Major cleanup needed re: the "I don't think Elon Musk's well-known prejudices are all that bad, but are really just misunderstood" crowd over in the SpaceX thread.
Fun fact: The Michigan Marching Band is a class. Band members get course credits (though whether or not the credits/grade/both count towards their degree depends on the program). Feels like a job sometimes, but it's a class.
I'll second this recommendation, it's a phenomenal read.
Also, Jason donated more than $56,000 in royalties from the early sales of the book to the Trevor Project. The sales have been unheard of for a first-time novelist working without a major publisher.
I'm not in the "I've given you enough with tuition" line of argument with UM as much as the "you've continually proven yourself to be a pretty terrible institution with no self-awareness or impetus to change" camp. Especially after their tactics to crush the GEO strike last year.
I am inclined to give to specific programs that were valuable or important when I was in school, if I give at all, but the university as a whole (and the Athletic Department) will never get a cent of general donation money from me.
For 5+ years, how has no one figured out that the Joe Milton Experience™ is practice footage of this guy bombing throws like 75+ yards, in direct contrast to what he does in an actual game experience? Seriously, it feels like another round of gauging Brent Petway's pro potential based on his windmill dunks in pregame warmups.
Because like it or not, MSU is a major state institution that does a lot of good for the people of Michigan, and it behooves all of us who live here to not have it be run into the ground.
Seriously, people, look beyond sports for even one second.
Braylon gets a lot of hate from the fanbase, and he's made a lot of very public mistakes. But I have to say that in every interaction I've ever had with him, he was a legitimately nice guy. Not something you get a lot with star-player-types. Great story.
At the same time, the guiding point seems to be that this was an unprecedentedly crazy amount. What was the price tag for OSU's NIL roster said to be? $13-14M? $1.75M for one guy seems patently nuts, almost unbelievable, until you remember the crazed nature of some of these other fanbases. It's not a game of the haves and have-nots now as much as the haves and the delusional-really-haves.
Pretty much, yes. Schools found other ways to make it cost-free. My point was (IIRC) that the AD scholarship math today works in weird ways when someone is on a couple rosters, especially if one of them is football, which is one of the reasons as to why multi-sport athletes are harder to come by today. Back in the day, none of that mattered.
It was fairly common up until the early 1960s for Michigan football players to compete in other sports, especially basketball. Looking back from a contemporary moment where specialization is the thing and multi-sport athletes are rare, it's hard to fully grasp a guy like Ron Kramer playing three sports and being a star in two of them. So I don't know if it's accurate to say that "some football players helped out" in the late 40s as much as it's true that a lot of those guys of that era were freak athletes who were used to playing all year, and without the kinds of scholarship rules that exist now that make it harder/less advantageous for an athlete to be on two rosters, were encouraged to keep competing year-round, because they were just as good in the other sports, too.
Also, basketball was still a sport gaining traction at the college level well into the 1950s. Cazzie and Buntin got to Ann Arbor right at the cusp of NCAA basketball being a major thing, just as the NCAA Tournament was surpassing the NIT as the more important/prestigious postseason event. A lot of that is why Cazzie was so important for the program. He put Michigan on the map precisely at the moment when it was critical to do so.
And there's a trickle-down effect when the luxury housing goes up, because then even the slumlords think that's what they can charge. I keep hearing these A2 high-rises are going to solve the housing crisis and make everything else more affordable, but when you see that they're almost solely marketing to rich out-of-state students whose parents will write a check without thinking about it (really, their websites have "Parents" tabs) and everything else keeps going up in price, what good is it really doing to address the problem?
I see this point made all the time here, but it 100% hinges on building enough actually affordable housing to make this density and walkability actually work. If not, all of the road dieting and parking restrictions are essentially meaningless.
Also try renting an apartment anywhere near downtown. Aside from the luxury high-rises (which, halol on that crap), everything is awful units for rent on timelines and bad faith practices dictated by predatory student landlords (which city council somehow seems incapable to fully rein in) at prices that would make a Chicago renter do a double take.
We've both lived in major cities where cost of living is presumed to be high. What we're paying to live in A2, between cars and rent and insurances of all kinds, is almost double what we were paying elsewhere. It's not tenable long-term for anyone who isn't starting on third base.
It really is great, but it could be so much better with stronger commitments to a cohesive development plan centering both on affordable housing and commensurate infrastructure so that it's not impossible to get anywhere. A2 now has a middle-to-large city workforce with the roads of a sleepy college town and apartments priced beyond Chicago.
Just imagine if the endless line of cars in and out of town three times a day at UM Hospital shift changes were people walking or biking to nearby housing they can afford.
Teams see a RB that was still very good, but never quite the same after a knee injury <18 months ago. It's unfortunate, but Corum's stock isn't what it looked like in early November 2022. Feels like a vault into the 3rd round is the best case scenario.
Part of me died when I went to Yost for an early-season game years ago and saw Athletic Department people giving students "Children of Yost" t-shirts from a tent in front of the arena. All issues with the name aside, you're absolutely correct–never take a name, never accept oversight, never hand over power, never create leadership or traceable power structures. Also, never give The Victors any more choreography than the fist.
Athletics tried to put the clamp down student section stuff when I was in school. They sent email surveys, held focus group meetings, the whole nine yards. I went to one of them because they promised dinner and a Yost backstage tour. It proved to be great entertainment. Veiled threats were made, alternate/bad plans put forth, more or less constituting a blueprint for the AD and Yost security to use ticket privileges and surveillance and narcing (er, self-policing) to assert soft power over the students. Our cumulative response was basically "thanks for the free dinner, loved the arena tour, but no." Figured they were just biding their time and student interest/saltiness to wane, and indeed they were.
Recent Comments
These are all powerful anecdotes, but you do not know Denard. Stop trying to diagnose him. If you want to talk about this particular incident, there's a lot to talk about. But repeatedly prognosticating about whether he is an alcoholic (or, in fact, heavily insinuating that he is) is both not appropriate and unbelievably presumptuous. Please stop.
Maybe, just maybe we shouldn't speculate as to whether someone we don't know has an alcohol problem.
There's plenty of room to discuss Denard's dumb decision without laying out diagnoses none of us are equipped to make.
Best offseason week of the year, let's go!
Cannot wait, though, for those people who still do the stand-up paddleboarding in thick wetsuits during the winter to row up to watch the game as November whitecaps toss them around.
You still have plenty of time to plan your party for (checks notes) 2025.
And here we have the solution: Put up a football field at Ravinia.
Stagg Field at UChicago is a low-range high school stadium. Like, it's a field with a track and one set of very small bleachers.
As for Gately, getting North Shore alums to go to 103rd and Cottage Grove would be great people-watching at least.
IIRC, there's one small-ish surface lot back there next to the b-school, but otherwise no. There isn't a lot of parking anywhere directly on campus, and not even a lot once you cross Sheridan, either.
The logistics of this feel like a nightmare. The practice field is deep into campus on the lakefront, and even with reduced capacity, getting people in and out of there is going to be awful.
The lengths Northwestern will go to purely because of an irrational fear of not having enough NU fans in the building... It's the whole point of this stupid stadium project.
Need to hunt for some eclipse glasses in A2 today, considering driving down to Toledo tomorrow mid-morning and working remotely somewhere until it's time to wander outside and look.
After having to sit through their meathead fans taking over Crisler a couple months back and watching Edey get away with more or less everything all afternoon, nah, I'm good. Go Huskies.
Down to seeds and stems again, too.
Used to see John Sinclair around every now and then when he came back to Ann Arbor/SE MI in the mid-2000s (he'd been living in New Orleans and/or Amsterdam for a while, IIRC). Totally a guy who gave off strong vibes even when doing super mundane stuff.
Super important figure in the Detroit art and jazz community, maybe even more than his work with the White Panthers/MC5, weed advocacy, anti-war stuff, general radical tomfoolery, etc. An original in every sense of the word.
Rest in Power.
There were protests in 1971, which (in part) brought about the change. The early women were not treated well, either.
At one point I sat down and figured it out, but the MMB was not unique in this regard within the B1G. The Purdue band had an alumnus on the moon (Neil Armstrong) before they had a woman on the field. IIRC, the outliers were a few bands that allowed women during World War II, but most everyone else came alongside Title IX.
FWIW, the UM Alumni Band has long welcomed for homecoming any alumnus who played in a university band, so there are alumnae who come back from as long ago as the 1940s and 1950s, having played in concert ensembles, but not the MMB.
No, actually not. At a major university, the president trusts their athletic director to make important decisions and be the public face of athletics as a whole.
What we've seen is the university president (and certain regents) taking an active role in employment negotiations and hirings, department operations, and management. He's making announcements and pronouncements about stuff that Warde should/ought to be doing. He's giving the impression that the president is, in fact, an athletics administrator. Which Santa Ono is not.
That is not what usually happens an institution like Michigan, where there is a distinct financial and operational firewall between the academic and athletic sides of the university. Might be different elsewhere, may have been different where Ono was before, but it's a bad look (and bad management) here.
In other words, should the university president care about athletics, and should they be visible supporters of its programs and activities? Sure. But they should not be doing the athletic director's job, nor give even the hint of appearance that they are.
It's interesting that the MDen has
1. Already put the ugliest NC gear in the clearance racks
2. Started flooding their shelves with just as much, if not more Rose Bowl championship gear, which seems to be moving a lot more. Why? Because it's way less ugly.
Does most of it still really suck? Yep. It's such a bummer.
If he's actually making decisions, then why are the university president and individual regents so visible in everything Warde is tasked to do?
Honestly, it's shocking to me that more people aren't asking questions as to why the academic wing of the university seems to have so much power and influence in athletic administration right now. There is zero reason for Santa Ono to have any role in this stuff if you have a functional institution.
Do you ever wonder how Jim remains a serious person with millions upon millions of dollars? It's OK because he's our guy, but, still...
I was thinking about this yesterday: Since UM won two (very overdue) championships in three years more than a quarter century ago, it feels like every single thing in both the cosmic universe and college hockey has conspired against that ever happening again.
Looking at the bracket and seeing NoDak followed by that potential MSU quarterfinal, as The Giant once said, "it is happening again."
Seeing Sparty fans hailing this as a watershed moment for the program, and like, good on the B1G officials for handing it to them, I guess. Way to get the help you need.
I'll say it: I don't get the outrage. The headline was fine. Edgy? Sure. But can you look at this season and not call it a failure? Or the general decline over the past couple years? Call it what it is.
Yep, IIRC the DM (Dennis Lee) was standing right there. Because that was exactly where you'd want to stand for a Priority Seating game to actually see anything.
Also, if you look closely after one of the sideline/corner throws (can't remember when, I think it was right before one of the 4th quarter TDs), Jason Avant goes flying out of bounds almost into the band and stays down for a second. Per a band member who was standing there, that's because Avant was popping his own dislocated finger back into place.
Losing to Michigan (ahem, TTUN) three years in a row? Yeah, that's tough, I bet.
The band moved across the stadium to the student section in 2006. There were a number of reasons for it, part of which was the concrete repour that made it possible to create a permanent section for the band that could also better facilitate the drumline and tubas.
The arrangement immediately preceding that in section 41-42ish (which I want to say happened in after the field was sunk for '91, I can't remember for sure) was a really tight and awkward squeeze. It required a separate section of bleachers in front of the band section and a lot of awkward moving in and out, especially since the band usually went on for halftime from the opposite sideline.
There were also the "priority seating" games (usually MSU, ND, OSU, parents' weekend, too, IIRC) where the MMB would be moved to field level and their section of seats sold. The annoying part being you pretty much couldn't see the game if you weren't in the corner.
EDIT: Yeah, no, I don't need to bite on this.
Apologies to the mods if it was an issue.
Major cleanup needed re: the "I don't think Elon Musk's well-known prejudices are all that bad, but are really just misunderstood" crowd over in the SpaceX thread.
https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/spacex-successfully-launched-super-heavy-starship
Frankly, it would be great if this could have been done by anyone else but him.
Surprise! It's Pete with an OSU scoop!
Fun fact: The Michigan Marching Band is a class. Band members get course credits (though whether or not the credits/grade/both count towards their degree depends on the program). Feels like a job sometimes, but it's a class.
I'll second this recommendation, it's a phenomenal read.
Also, Jason donated more than $56,000 in royalties from the early sales of the book to the Trevor Project. The sales have been unheard of for a first-time novelist working without a major publisher.
I'm not in the "I've given you enough with tuition" line of argument with UM as much as the "you've continually proven yourself to be a pretty terrible institution with no self-awareness or impetus to change" camp. Especially after their tactics to crush the GEO strike last year.
I am inclined to give to specific programs that were valuable or important when I was in school, if I give at all, but the university as a whole (and the Athletic Department) will never get a cent of general donation money from me.
For 5+ years, how has no one figured out that the Joe Milton Experience™ is practice footage of this guy bombing throws like 75+ yards, in direct contrast to what he does in an actual game experience? Seriously, it feels like another round of gauging Brent Petway's pro potential based on his windmill dunks in pregame warmups.
After all these years, truly, how difficult is it to actually spell Chris Webber's name correctly?
Webber. Not Weber.
(Pours one out because the legendary 24-hour donut place in Ypsi is no longer 24 hours)
They're elected positions. This isn't that difficult to understand.
Because like it or not, MSU is a major state institution that does a lot of good for the people of Michigan, and it behooves all of us who live here to not have it be run into the ground.
Seriously, people, look beyond sports for even one second.
Wittmer?
"The Gretchen"?
Wittmer?
No shame in going where you want to go and where you feel comfortable. Ys are usually really nice gyms. The one in Ann Arbor is gorgeous.
Braylon gets a lot of hate from the fanbase, and he's made a lot of very public mistakes. But I have to say that in every interaction I've ever had with him, he was a legitimately nice guy. Not something you get a lot with star-player-types. Great story.
At the same time, the guiding point seems to be that this was an unprecedentedly crazy amount. What was the price tag for OSU's NIL roster said to be? $13-14M? $1.75M for one guy seems patently nuts, almost unbelievable, until you remember the crazed nature of some of these other fanbases. It's not a game of the haves and have-nots now as much as the haves and the delusional-really-haves.
Pretty much, yes. Schools found other ways to make it cost-free. My point was (IIRC) that the AD scholarship math today works in weird ways when someone is on a couple rosters, especially if one of them is football, which is one of the reasons as to why multi-sport athletes are harder to come by today. Back in the day, none of that mattered.
I was told NIL was a more preferable arrangement than the League of Extraordinary Bag Men. And yet every revelation like this makes it feel dirtier.
It was fairly common up until the early 1960s for Michigan football players to compete in other sports, especially basketball. Looking back from a contemporary moment where specialization is the thing and multi-sport athletes are rare, it's hard to fully grasp a guy like Ron Kramer playing three sports and being a star in two of them. So I don't know if it's accurate to say that "some football players helped out" in the late 40s as much as it's true that a lot of those guys of that era were freak athletes who were used to playing all year, and without the kinds of scholarship rules that exist now that make it harder/less advantageous for an athlete to be on two rosters, were encouraged to keep competing year-round, because they were just as good in the other sports, too.
Also, basketball was still a sport gaining traction at the college level well into the 1950s. Cazzie and Buntin got to Ann Arbor right at the cusp of NCAA basketball being a major thing, just as the NCAA Tournament was surpassing the NIT as the more important/prestigious postseason event. A lot of that is why Cazzie was so important for the program. He put Michigan on the map precisely at the moment when it was critical to do so.
They're renting, not buying.
And there's a trickle-down effect when the luxury housing goes up, because then even the slumlords think that's what they can charge. I keep hearing these A2 high-rises are going to solve the housing crisis and make everything else more affordable, but when you see that they're almost solely marketing to rich out-of-state students whose parents will write a check without thinking about it (really, their websites have "Parents" tabs) and everything else keeps going up in price, what good is it really doing to address the problem?
I see this point made all the time here, but it 100% hinges on building enough actually affordable housing to make this density and walkability actually work. If not, all of the road dieting and parking restrictions are essentially meaningless.
Also try renting an apartment anywhere near downtown. Aside from the luxury high-rises (which, halol on that crap), everything is awful units for rent on timelines and bad faith practices dictated by predatory student landlords (which city council somehow seems incapable to fully rein in) at prices that would make a Chicago renter do a double take.
We've both lived in major cities where cost of living is presumed to be high. What we're paying to live in A2, between cars and rent and insurances of all kinds, is almost double what we were paying elsewhere. It's not tenable long-term for anyone who isn't starting on third base.
It really is great, but it could be so much better with stronger commitments to a cohesive development plan centering both on affordable housing and commensurate infrastructure so that it's not impossible to get anywhere. A2 now has a middle-to-large city workforce with the roads of a sleepy college town and apartments priced beyond Chicago.
Just imagine if the endless line of cars in and out of town three times a day at UM Hospital shift changes were people walking or biking to nearby housing they can afford.
Teams see a RB that was still very good, but never quite the same after a knee injury <18 months ago. It's unfortunate, but Corum's stock isn't what it looked like in early November 2022. Feels like a vault into the 3rd round is the best case scenario.
Part of me died when I went to Yost for an early-season game years ago and saw Athletic Department people giving students "Children of Yost" t-shirts from a tent in front of the arena. All issues with the name aside, you're absolutely correct–never take a name, never accept oversight, never hand over power, never create leadership or traceable power structures. Also, never give The Victors any more choreography than the fist.
Athletics tried to put the clamp down student section stuff when I was in school. They sent email surveys, held focus group meetings, the whole nine yards. I went to one of them because they promised dinner and a Yost backstage tour. It proved to be great entertainment. Veiled threats were made, alternate/bad plans put forth, more or less constituting a blueprint for the AD and Yost security to use ticket privileges and surveillance and narcing (er, self-policing) to assert soft power over the students. Our cumulative response was basically "thanks for the free dinner, loved the arena tour, but no." Figured they were just biding their time and student interest/saltiness to wane, and indeed they were.