Michigan dark secrets
The offseason can be a long and difficult time for football fans, but it is a time that generates some really interesting threads occasionally. In light of this, I pose this question to you all:
What are your deepest and darkest secrets relating to your Michigan fandom? Are you a convert from the other side? Do you have any regrettable stories from watching Michigan games? Do you have any dark secrets now?
I'll start: I love Michigan and cherished my undergraduate years there, but next year I start my PhD at...Ohio State.
April 16th, 2015 at 12:15 AM ^
Their offense is beautiful. I still can't stand the school, but that offense with Ezekiel Elliott truck-sticking around is a sight to behold
April 16th, 2015 at 12:30 AM ^
I became friends with a 49's fan because he respected JH so damn much...and i hate, LOATH the 49's!!!
April 16th, 2015 at 12:42 AM ^
Get the 49'ers confused with the Houston Colt 45s?
As a Ninja I early on in high school decided to infiltrate the enemy's ranks and was known to be an MSU fan. By my college years I had found the acidic taste of Spartan tears to (late 80's) be too much for me and thus fled to the good guys and my team for the remainder of my life, the University of Michigan!
Sadly, most of my family succumbed to the evils of the Green Ones and are still under their spell. Despite some of my greatest ninjitsu tactics I have been foiled at converting them in every instance. The good news is that my 2 girls are both blue through and through as is my wife who was a UK fan when I met her. But one thing remains the same in all my family line, hatred of the dark ones in scarlet and grey. Go Blue!
I had to downvote you simply because you decided to go to OSU next year for your PhD. That's no longer a "dark secret" and your attempt to alleviate your burden by getting everyone else to talk about their masturbation routines back when they were living in Markley is disingenuous at best.
Late to the party, it's been a busy few days.
First Dark Secret: I grew up in Columbus, but for as long as I remember, I've rooted for Michigan. It's probably becuase my dad stopped rooting for OSU when they fired Earl Bruce. He grew up watching the ten year war and really loved both coaches. my dad started taking me to games in the early 90s, usually one game a year till I graduated from high school.
My first michigan game was 93 against purdue, though I was 6 years old so I don't really remember the first few years. One game that stands out was a few years later, in 95, michigan beat purdue in a game that saw rain, sleet, snow, and the worst wind. Final score: 5-0. It has to be the worst conditions I've ever edured to watch a game, but we stayed for the whole thing. That's when I learned about what true fandom was.
Second Dark Secret: I got to watch a game from the sidelines/pressbox, and Michigan lost. I went to college at University of Toledo (UM is expensive if you are out of state in the middle class). I was in the marching band for a few years and helped with video and pictures for the band while I was co-oping. I was at the game when Alex Stagerwald beat RichRod. I did have a Michigan shit under my band apparel for that game. It's the only time in the 20 or so times I've been at a game where Michigan lost.
This week's Dark Secret: University of Michigan Pathology informed me that I don't have carcinoma (Pilomatrix). I had a lump removed from my arm last week and the local hospital pathology deemed it Atypical, and suspicious for carcinoma. Pilomatrical tumors are rare, and mine (being in my late 20s) was extremely rare. Most are benign and are in children, 10% are cancerous and they present in elderly people (0% survivor rate from those). UM said that there was no sign of infiltration that always shows with carcinoma, so we're pretty confident it isn't. If not, then I'm definitely going to go to UM for my Master's in Engineering.
tl;dr : Born in mordor, watched them lose from the sidelines, tumors are shit.
Long time reader. But I gotta post on this.
My Dad was class of ’50, a mechanical engineer. Asking me when I became a Michigan fan is like trying to answer the question, “When did you first become self-aware?”
I grew up on Michigan football (in Michigan) and as far back as I can remember can still hear Ufer calling games, watching the occasionally broadcast game on a 15” or so black and white TV. And my Dad sighing and muttering a lot early on. He was there during the ’47 and ’48 seasons, after all…
Went to my first game in ’71: UCLA. I was overwhelmed with the stadium, the beat down…and the COLOR. Before the end of the season I had prevailed on Dad to get a color TV…a big ass console, with AM/FM radio and Hi-Fi record player to boot, baby…
I applied to Michigan and was accepted (for Dad—whom I loved deeply and lost 15 years ago; he bought me a ton of Michigan stuff, most of which I still wear in his honor including the split M. Which I like…), but went to a small, private college (Div III) to keep my job which I needed, to be closer to my long-standing girlfriend at the time (amazing what a youngster will do for some tail…) and because I would have no Division I loyalty problems.
I rarely missed a game even when a naval officer—in those days, you couldn’t get real-time ANYthing. I was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia and when cable TV came on line, I almost wet my pants because by that time, I could watch the game most of the time as long as I wasn’t at sea. And even then, there were ways to get periodic updates at least.
So after all these fifty-some years and then gutting it out through the shock of The Horror (and the pathetic performance against Oregon), eating my liver through the disastrous loss of so many records in RR’s 3-9 season, and still watching with increased resignation during Hoke’s tenure, I admit I was reduced to turning off games last year, in absolute disgust, pain, guilt…and anger, some of which irrationally directed at Coach Bo: Not much has gone right since the day he died. Must be his fault…
I couldn’t bring myself to root against Michigan but the disgust and anger I felt from the AD on down became hardened last year. No matter how “good a guy” Coach Hoke or anyone else in that chain is, it’s shameful to my mind that they drove so many of us to not giving a shit. And even some of us, reading the posts here, to actively root against us in the hopes of ending the agony. That they created that condition is unforgiveable.
To destroy the DECADES of joy of watching Michigan football in so few years is unforgiveable. To create apathy in the largest alumni crowd in the country (and many countless others like myself [I guess I’m a “legacy”, right? You HAVE to take me, like Dorfman!]) is unforgiveable.
I know—TL;DR, but dammit, regimes which have driven us to Northwestern-level apathy shouldn’t be forgiven, no matter how “nice” or “committed” they were. Thank goodness, win or lose, we know we will have real Michigan football to watch again, even if we might still have historically and uncustomary weakness at some skill positions. That will change, and we know we’ll have improvement over time. For the first time in a long time, we have competence and more than mere platitudes from the AD on down.
GO BLUE
I started DVR'ing the games and only watching them if Michigan played well (not win mind you, just was close).
I feel like after 30+ years of UM football, the last 4 have been karma for our past winning ways...as if I'm sadly part of the going to be as bad for as long as you were good period of UM football...
I hope JH bad firing from 49ers (mutual leaving,my butt) karma negates our bad streak...