How/when did your Michigan football fandom begin?

it was Ufer going apeshit on the radio.

Walked on campus not even knowing who Bo was.  I was a dumbass.

the year that the first of my family, now 5 straight generations, matriculated to our favorite school.  she was one of the few women to graduate from michigan, which she did with honors in latin.  returning to the UP she married and had my grandfather ->mother->me/brother->2 nieces and counting...

Probably not going to get a lot of warm responses to this...but here we go.  I was raised a rabid OSU fan to the point that I was apalled when my parents allows UM band members to stay at our home when UM played at OSU.  I truly could not understand why they would do such a thing.  I was very young, preschool.  Few years later we started going to most of the home OSU games and I was increasingly upset at how the home crowd would boo the home team for every punt, incomplete pass, or virtually any other play that didnt result in points.  These people were booing my heroes--again very young.  It was the post-Woody hangover years.  I finally had enough of the culture surrounding OSU football when Earl Bruce was fired for only beating UM half the time (ultimately 5-4 I believe after the last game).  A feat rare to OSU football not including the Tressel years and our implosion during the same period.  I was harrassed by friends and family for not being an OSU fan but the last straw was a teacher.  She would stop class on nearly a daily basis during the fall that year to harrass me about not being an OSU fan.  One day the week of the Michigan game I decided I had had enough.  I asked another teacher I had at the time that I knew was a UM grad if she would let myself and a couple friends in the building early the Friday before the Game.  She agreed--supervising of course--we were still pretty young.  We decorated the rabid OSU teacher's room in maize and blue streamers, Go Blue on the chalk boards in 3ft high letters in blue and yellow chalk--it was beautiful I still to this day wish I had a camera that day.  The resulting uproar in that building that day was incredible--I found a way to rib every fair weather OSU fan that booed and heckled the team I once endeared.  Over the years rooting for UM and always claming the high road in debates regarding football/athletics grew on me and I began attending all the home games and have continued for now decades.  Go Blue!

The first member of my family to graduate from Michigan did so in 1881. Nearly everyone has since (a few Harvard defectors). So, indoctrination pretty much

RoJo vs Wisconsin

I was 9 during the 1997 season.  As far as football was concerned, I was aware of Michigan football, but not fully aware.  I loved Barry Sanders and he along with a couple other Lions were the only footballers I knew of.

Then came the 1997 season and I watched all the games with my dad and I've been hooked ever since.  The next year, a family friend who was a season ticket holder took me to my first game against Antwaan Randel El and IU which we won 17-10.  A little boring for a youngster like myself but I think my eyes were as big as OPs mom's nips when I first walked into the stadium.

When we played Notre Dame and Desmond did his thing.  I was already a Michigan basketball fan (My dad took me to a bar to watch the title game against Seton Hall against my mother's will), but the Desmond catch brought me into the football world.