Origin of "The Game" ?
I am currently working on the Student Union renovation, and although we are roughnecks, us skilled trade workers take pride in making the greatest campus in America even greater. Spirits are high among us, and also among those who are taking in hate week around campus. I've been in a kind of nostalgic-like-trance participating in the beauty of trash talk and blue collar football analysis.
There are many hot takes going around. Plumbers are typically pessimists, Electricians are always cautiously optimistic, Carpenters talk shit, (yeeah.) Iron Wurkurs is stupid dum doo-doo heads, and Sprinkler Fitters save lives.
However, I was stumped today when in discussion with an old guy we talked about "The Game" and where that nickname originated. (Is it a nickname? Alternative title? Whatever.)
I'm 26 years young, and my first recollection of Michigan - OSU being called "The Game" was on the ABC commercial snippet maybe 10 years ago or so.
A Quick Google and Mgoblog search came up negitory. I guess this isn't really a big info find, but it has been bugging me all afternoon, dammit. Any help board?
Lastly, some of us are assholes but most of us workers appreciate all of you that make the University of Michigan a great place to work. Go Blue and Attack Each Day With An Enthusiam Unknown to Mankind!
November 19th, 2018 at 4:52 PM ^
You should take pride! Go Blue!
Thanks for what you do for the University.
November 19th, 2018 at 5:32 PM ^
The OP's memory is correct. I don't recall anybody referring to Mich-OSU as "The Game" until relatively recently, perhaps the 2006 edition. The original "The Game" is the game between Harvard and Yale, which has been called "The Game" forever.
November 19th, 2018 at 6:21 PM ^
Yeah one of my buddies went to Yale and always laments that people refer to Michigan-Ohio St as "The Game" because that's supposed to be Harvard-Yale (and I'm always like 'nobody cares about that shit')
(I don't particularly care for the term 'the game' one way or the other though. I always liked how it was always just 'Michigan-Ohio State' because every other rivalry game seems to have some nickname)
November 19th, 2018 at 6:33 PM ^
Every region in the country has their version of “The Game.” The folks in California use that specific reference for the annual Cal/Stanford tussle. Other regions may have different nomenclature for their big game between arch-rivals. Though born and raised in SE Michigan, I’ve lived in California, Texas, Colorado, and now Florida. Except for some ex-pats from the Midwest, I doubt many locals in those areas would identify the title “The Game” uniquely with UM/OSU.
November 19th, 2018 at 6:49 PM ^
I have to disagree with this, at least as it pertains to the southeast. I've done tours in South and North Carolina, Georgia, and Now Florida, and the term "The Game" seems to be widely understood as UM/OSU.
November 19th, 2018 at 7:15 PM ^
This is not true. Cal/Stanford is "Big Game".
November 19th, 2018 at 10:13 PM ^
Yep; the original and rightful owners of "The Game" nomenclature are the Harvard-Yale rivals.
There's even more to it; the Yale Bowl is widely regarded as the architectural inspiration for Michigan Stadium. And Harvard's stadium is -- you guessed it -- a horseshoe shape.
November 19th, 2018 at 11:29 PM ^
Well for fuck's sake, I now like Yale a little more and Harvard a little less.
November 19th, 2018 at 11:40 PM ^
And so ends the last time Ohio State will ever be compared with Harvard in anything.
November 19th, 2018 at 11:44 PM ^
Having watched Michigan - Ohio State since the late '60s, I don't recall it being called "The Game".
That was always Harvard - Yale.
I'm kind of surprised we just took it over, and there's not more squaking about that from the Ivy league.
It really is theirs.
November 21st, 2018 at 5:49 PM ^
2006? I'm shocked that people think it's that recent. No way.
A quick search shows it back to 1997 at the latest, and I bet older references will pop up:
So here we come, ready for battle - We look to The Game to provide the lore.
https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/midaily/mdp.39015071754985/1017
November 21st, 2018 at 6:02 PM ^
Here's one from 1986, the year of Harbaugh's guarantee:
The Michigan-Ohio State classic has always been known as "the game," but this year, for the first time since 1980, it is truly "the game."
https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/midaily/mdp.39015071754787/782
November 19th, 2018 at 4:52 PM ^
It was THE GAME that determined the Big Ten Champion and who would play in the Rose Bowl.
November 19th, 2018 at 4:56 PM ^
I'm guessing it dates back to the Bo/Woody era. It's definitely more than 10 years old.
November 19th, 2018 at 7:15 PM ^
I don't think it does.
I used to have (or my dad used to have, and I used to watch semi-obsessively) this old VHS tape showing highlights and stuff of the rivalry. This one here, actually:
https://www.amazon.com/Marathon-Michigan-Wolverines-State-Buckeyes/dp/B…
I don't recall it even once being called "The Game" by anyone in that tape. Not Bo or anyone else who speaks.
November 21st, 2018 at 9:40 PM ^
That doesn't mean much, I bet you could find many pressers from recent years where it's not called "The Game". Maybe it's become more prevalent over time, but take heed of the old adage that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
November 19th, 2018 at 5:01 PM ^
Zebras are reactionaries, antelopes are missionaries, pigeons plot in secrecy, and hamsters turn on frequently
Your line about plumbers being pessimistic got me thinking about a truly awful Simon and Garfunkel song lol
November 19th, 2018 at 5:03 PM ^
My dad owned a business that put up steel buildings all over the Midwest. I met a bunch of iron workers that worked for him. Some really great people for the most part. He had a guy that worked for him named Clayton. However, everyone called him Shit. It was short for dumb as shit. He truly was dumb as shit, but he was one hell of an iron worker.
I had a chuckle at your iron worker joke.
November 19th, 2018 at 5:07 PM ^
Thank you sir for rebuilding the Union!
Assume this goes back to the “Ten Year War” between Woody and Bo, but that’s just a guess!
November 19th, 2018 at 5:13 PM ^
As a carpenter who worked once in awhile on the UM campus I agree that we talk shit. I'm thinking you are a pipe fitter so I will tell you that one time on a job I had a kid come up to one morning and ask me a question. I didn't know and said to him go ask that plumber over there, a fitter up on a ladder working. Boy did that pull his chain, he came down and told me that he was not a plumber. The difference he said was a pipe fitter puts his ass where a plumber puts his face, LOL. I never forgot that, one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
November 20th, 2018 at 12:29 AM ^
OP's handle is SpazCarpenter.
November 19th, 2018 at 5:17 PM ^
I checked Google and The Game is a rapper. The internet doesn't lie. I didn't ask Alexa because she occasionally mispeaks.
November 19th, 2018 at 5:19 PM ^
It became " The Game" after Michigan upset Ohio in 1969, Bo's first season. The rivalry became very intense after that. I do believe.
November 20th, 2018 at 8:05 AM ^
Definitely did not exist in the 90s. Neither did "the big house"
November 19th, 2018 at 5:20 PM ^
I think the whole issue of calling it The Game sort of grew organically, in an acknowledgment that it doesn't need a nickname. It doesn't need a sponsor, it doesn't need a trophy designed by a focus group. It's just the game. Capitalize it if you have to, but even that's pushing it.
November 19th, 2018 at 7:37 PM ^
Unlike the Battle for Paul Bunyan brought to you by Muskle Milk and Quality Dairy.
November 20th, 2018 at 12:34 PM ^
This reminded me of how it almost became the SBC Michigan-Ohio State Classic for two years. Thank goodness that got killed. (http://www.espn.com/college-football/news/story?id=1910863)
November 19th, 2018 at 5:22 PM ^
Id be willing to bet Keith Jackson coined the term.
It could have been called that during the 10 year war but I dont remember it being called that. Id think Ufer would have picked up on it but I dont remember him ever saying it.
I do remember in the 80s or early 90s it being used.
November 19th, 2018 at 8:24 PM ^
+1 for mentioning Keith Jackson. "Whoa, Nellie"
November 19th, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
Keith Jackson did not refer to it as The Game in this 2003 pregame video for the 100th edition. Still awesome though.
November 19th, 2018 at 8:48 PM ^
Keith Jackson - The Best Ever!
November 19th, 2018 at 5:23 PM ^
Toledo...look there for the origin of the hatred
November 20th, 2018 at 1:31 AM ^
Agreed. First started going to games in '97 and figured, as an eight-year-old child, that Michigan dominance held as an immutable de facto law. osu's rise coinciding with the fear-based gestalt characteristic of the w bush era soon metastisized to shade my time growing up in Toledo a cloudy shade of pessimism.
Sure, during the early aughts, Michigan's teams were fun. Braylon's OT theatrics over msu. Manningham's walk-off catch against psu. (2003 was also generally a great time.)
But living in Toledo as a teenager whose elementary school classmates openly defected from UM fanhood to board a bandwagon populated with the same gray-skinned middle managers and abject rednecks baselessly thirsty for Iraqi blood relegated these otherwise-bright sports moments to a sort of JV status in lieu of the reality that Michigan could not field a football team capable of vanquishing these petty, obnoxious fucks. Petty, obnoxious fucks helmed by individuals whose signature garments respectively comprised a sweater vest and bowtie, no less.
Yes, allow me to corroborate that the hatred runs fiercely in Toledo.
November 19th, 2018 at 5:32 PM ^
1969 - Bo's first year as head coach, when Michigan pulled off a stunning upset over the "team of the century", thought of as Woody Hayes' best Buckeyes team ever.
The final score per Bob Ufer - "Rose Bowl Bound Meeeeeechigan 24 - Bewildered Ohio State 12".
No data to support this - but it feels right...
November 19th, 2018 at 5:46 PM ^
I honestly don’t remember it being called that more than 12 years ago.
November 19th, 2018 at 10:27 PM ^
I was a student at UM from 1990 to 1994. I don't ever recall anyone referring to it as The Game. I think that came about later on. Maybe in the early 2000's? Perhaps the Buckeyes came up with it?
November 19th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^
I'd agree that it goes back maybe 15 years at the most. Formally sometime in the last 8-10 that ABC/ESPN/FOX brand it THE GAME.
November 19th, 2018 at 6:34 PM ^
It's older than that. I remember it in the '90s (and suspect it's older still). But the media didn't really go with it until sometime this century.
November 19th, 2018 at 7:04 PM ^
Yes! I remember referring to it as the game growing up, but I don't think it really took off from "the game" to "The Game" until Sparty started trying to act uppity somewhere in the late oughts and we had to remind them that "The Game" wasn't for another month and a half.
November 19th, 2018 at 7:53 PM ^
I'm with you guys. I cant find any supporting info anywhere, but these "2006" answers seem crazy to me. It's always been The Game as long as I can remember -- back to the early 90s at least.
November 21st, 2018 at 9:07 PM ^
1971 is the earliest definite attestation I've been able to dig up.
November 19th, 2018 at 6:10 PM ^
At least 50 years. There was a book on it. Did anyone read it?
November 19th, 2018 at 7:59 PM ^
Yeah my grandpa had a book from 1979 that was about "The First 100 years of Michigan Football". It referred to the Game. It wasn't that well put together (centennial committee?) so I am not sure if that name was accepted fact as a title or just the writer running out of ideas. Probably the former but seriously a tough book to digest even for a topic so close to all of us.
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=937688059&searchurl=t…
November 19th, 2018 at 6:24 PM ^
Ancient history, but UM v. OSU was moved to the last game of the season in 1935. Prior to that an argument could be made that our biggest rivals were the Golden Gophers as the biggest "the game" for the Wolverines was against Minnesota as the last game of the year from 1919-1927.
November 19th, 2018 at 6:35 PM ^
The first rival of all was Chicago.
November 19th, 2018 at 10:36 PM ^
Yep...the very first Thanksgiving Day classic, I believe.
November 19th, 2018 at 7:04 PM ^
Apropos of nothing, do you guys on the crew think the "I WOULDN'T DO IT AND I WON'T LET YOU DO IT EITHER" signs from the construction company are as funny as I do?
November 19th, 2018 at 7:06 PM ^
It's a good sign for safety.
November 19th, 2018 at 8:01 PM ^
Yes and no. Safety is important, and the industry has changed drastically from what the old timers tell me. The ones who intentionally disregard safety rules usually lack common sense, or they are incompetent. Many jobs require workers complete safety modules and drug screens.
But.. I've noticed when the general contractor starts bitching about money and deadlines, they lax their safety walkthroughs.
The contractor Walbridge, who is running the Student Union job, is known for being one of the safest contractors, and they enforce pretty strict rules.
I hate to admit it but I've been sent home from a Walbridge job because I was rolling on a baker scaffold, which is lame... I was pissed.
November 20th, 2018 at 8:41 AM ^