What do you miss about Michigan Stadium?

Miss Lloyd Brady in the front row

The caretaker's house inside the gates of the stadium, southwest corner.

When I was a kid, I wanted to live there.

 

It was the only action I got. Sadly, quite a few times, the young person got spiked over the stadium side and died. We were always in the news for that, it being so disturbing the events would distract the team. Today we know better. Mostly ...

I miss the tailgating scene in the Victors lot. Now most of the lot is reserved for the high rollers in the boxes and the lot always seems to be half empty right up until game time.

...and frankly the towers make it better...more imposing, louder, brick big house look when you walk up gives it MASSIVE look compared to old metal step look that was 3/4 underground...not everything is better just because it was older/different. They took a good thing and improved...other than my student tix were $60 for the season...

I like the suites but, I liked how the stadium snuck up on you. I loved hearing from fans that from the outside the stadium  doesn't look like it could hold 100,000 people. 

 

I miss being there. Haven't gotten to go inside since the Northwestern game, 2004. My return visits to Ann Arbor have not coincided with football season, and I can't spring for an expensive tour that I don't know I'm free for two weeks in advance of anyway.

Someday I'll go back. Take my kids, show them the brick my Dad and I got in 1999 (he has since passed away, it's one of my favorite memorials of him, and I can't even see it), walk them around the concourse.  If Wiards still sells donuts and cider (do they?) I'll get some of that, just like old times. Make that first, unforgettable entry through the tunnel into the bowl. Find our seats, and look at the fiest.

And the memories will run thick and fast, and like James Earl Jones I'll swat them away. We'll watch watch the band take the field, I'll nearly choke up during the powerful rise of the M fanfare, cheer as the drum major dips his head to the ground. Sing Hail to the Victors together with the crowd, just like they've learned at home. Yell together on defense, cheer good plays on offense. 

And it will be over too soon. And we'll head back, probably to my mother's house, and they'll get asked if they had a good time, and they'll say, "yeah!!!!" 

And then I'll miss going once again.

TP

@ 0:27

 

After touchdowns.

pissing in the waterfall trough

TP and marshmallows

Ufer's game calls, the Bo "General George Patton" touchdown horn. 

The yellow "Michigan Stadium" letters on the roof of the press box (didn't realize they're still in the stadium, I assumed they were in Al Glick's basement)

The guy that looks like Truman Capote with the big M flag that would hit us in the face when he waved it.  Stadium security confiscated it from him 3 seasons ago.

Walking on the field with my son.  In the '90s, we lived on Maywood St., less than a mile from the Big House.  I used to take him to the stadium (first in a stroller, then on my shoulders) on Sundays.

I miss tailgating with my dad.  

I miss going to a game without having to listen to goddamn infomercials on the Brandontrons every single timeout.

up hoover pre game and busting osu.

Marshmallows in the student section

The ancient feel of the place when it's empty

Beating OSU

I miss me being at Michigan Stadium.

Don't really miss anything except for my awesome, front row, "Lloyd Brady" seats senior year. Michigan Stadium is still perfect in every way. Memories of real Yost, on the other hand, make me cry myself to sleep every night.

miss the days when people, especially men, never used the term "the feels"

but as has been expressed by several other posters, the restricted access is a negative. I miss being able to play flag football on the field when I was a student, and the ability to go back with family members over the years. I live near a high school that has a very nice football field and track, and the gates are always open to the public. It is so nice to be able to use the facility.

rising over Crisler on a crisp late October afternoon. That view from section 19 is history.

I can't believe that this thread has gone over 100 comments without someone mentioning the beloved halo.  The perfect monument to Lee Bollinger's ego.  [Edit - I see now that Zoltan mentioned it.  Still, WTF Bollinger?  That thing was as tacky as wearing running shoes with your suit.]

On the serious side, I'm with the OP.  I understand the benefits that the luxury boxes bring, but I miss the egalitarian feel of the bowl, with the (eventually) retro press box looming over the west end of the stadium.  I also miss that brief period when there was real grass on the field.

You just knew he could break a big run one any time he touched the ball. Sigh.

Grass, being able to bring in giant flags and such, troughs (kinda)

And tear down the goal post after winning the last game of the year.

cool to me.  To me it that press box symbolizes simpler, less commercial time.   Agree with Victor Valiant's and others comments about missing the stadium gates being open.  Bob Ufer was really special.  Also agree the renovations were needed and for the best.

I miss the relative lack of background noise when the only music to be heard came from the marching band members. I miss the civility and class lacking in the "you suck" punch line that used to be "go blue" in decades past.

I miss, most of all, the infamous Hot Dog Man of 2005.  Before him, there was only a dream that was free hot dogs. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that the students will never get free hot dogs again.

Thank you Hot Dog man.  Thank you.

Although I understand why it's gone, I do miss the grass.  FieldTurf is better than the old Astroturf but there is nothing like grass.  It's too bad we couldn't figure out a way to make it work in the stadium after we lowered the field.  

The new renovations are better.

I miss beating OSU.