Being a young fan
Im overflowing with energy for today's game, and I felt like I needed to write something, so here goes.
Im 16, and have been a michigan fan since I was about 10. My earliest football memory was losing to Texas in the Rose Bowl. My most prevalent basketball memory was losing to Kansas in overtime this year (I was there). In all of my years as a michigan fan, we have never beaten osu. Our record in football since ive become a heavy duty fan is terrible. We have never even been relevant in basketball.
Needless to say, im exited about this game. Not only because of what is at stake, but because im fucking sick of losing close games and im fucking sick of not being any good. This is not only a chance for michigan to make the tournament, but this game has a chance to make one of the first positive michigan related memories in my life.
GO BLUE. BEAT STATE.
Your first football memory was from my Senior year at Michigan.
Am I really that old?
I read the OP and thought, "damn I am getting old". Think about this, I have attended games that were played before anyone in today's game was born. My wife pointed that out to me yesterday when watching an old game.
I'm 22 years old and I feel like I'm 10 again.
We need a post with embedded pump-up songs.
How do you even remember Diallo Johnson?
he played in the late 90's. wasnt that long ago. god i feel old now.
the start of the 2000 season, mostly because everyone of my fans were.are HUGE tsio fans, and I wanted to be different... anyway UM beat TSIO that year, and that solidified my fanhood.
Nice use of TSIO. I'm hoping it catches on.
I keep slipping up, but I've been trying to remove all other names for TSIO from my vocabulary.
I'm 15 and I can remember the days of Navarre and Chris Perry. But, my first Michigan "memory" was Chad Henne to Mario Manningham with 1 second left vs Penn State. (The most clutch football play I have ever seen)
My first Michigan memory is of Kordell Stewart and Michael Westbrook ruining my 7th birthday.
My first good Michigan memory is of another last-second game-winning TD catch, Mercury Hayes against Virginia. The Manningham play was during my freshman year at Michigan. I'd have to say that Hayes catch is the better play, but I can't remember experiencing a better atmosphere at the Big House than after Manningham's catch.
my dad took me to my first game, that virginia game. love at first sight. thank you mercury hayes and scott dreisbach.
two of my most vivid early memories of M football as well.
I remember sobbing in the Big House after Kordell dongpunched us at age 7.
I was ten when that went down. Mostly I remember crying in my dad's car.
it's truly awesome to know that i wasn't the only one doing these things. i consider most of my friends to be good michigan fans, but to know that someone else cried after that colorado game is really heartening.
it's truly awesome to know that i wasn't the only one doing these things. i consider most of my friends to be good michigan fans, but to know that someone else cried after that colorado game is really heartening.
This is what's so challenging about recruiting. In college sports, it's like you have 4 bad years, and well, new wave of younger guys don't recall the time when your team was on top.
I'm also 15... I wasn't really into sports when I was younger so I can just barely remember the 2007 football season. Seeing the football team go through such a tough time is really hard to watch but I think Hoke is going to be the next football Messiah.
Favorite memory has to be the ND game from this year because I was so stressed about it I had to go watch by myself. I went to the M-MSU game this year beleiving with all my heart (even after watching our D versus Indiana) that we would win and I was pretty much crushed by that one. I sound a lot like a Spartan- but unless their victory helps us then I cannot root for them.
That's why I have a huge picture of Braylon Edwards jumping over Getty from 2004 on my wall.
Barely.
I have watched the entirety of most "Great" Michigan games. When some Sparty argues with me about their school I will almost always bring up the 1991 (?) game where the MSU DB jumped on Desmond Howard. That picture, that play is one of my favorites because:
1. Charles Woodson is awesome
and
2. It's just a play that State WOULD make. Throwing it out of bounds and having it intercepted.
I wasn't even 1 year old anyway though.
It was 1990. But if you really want to lay some knowledge on them, tell them in 1995 they were a yard short on the fourth down play, and shouldn't have won that one either.
My reputation as "that guy who is obsessed with Michigan football, and knows way too much about the sport" will live on.
Damn you Spartan Bob!
I think I would have had a brain anuerism on the spot.
Which come to think of it, would explain a lot of my posts...
For 20 years they really only legitimately won twice.
I remember my dad bringing the TV into the dining room so we could watch the '91 Heisman Trophy ceremony at the dinner table. I was seven.
I became a Michigan fan my frosh year of college actually... 2002... Philip Brabbs introduced me to Michigan football, with a game winning FG over Washington.
Man, what a great way to kick off a bad habit!
I'm also on the relatively younger side. I remember 2006 vividly, but '97 didn't sink in until years later (I was seven at the time). I have recollection of a few Sparty beatdowns, but I haven't watched Michigan top OSU.
The Fab Five were obviously before my time, so this is the most excited I've ever been about Michigan basketball.
Take heart, you might just be witnessing a new era taking root. What was will never be as good or bad as what is or what will be.
GO BLUE.
I've always told my dad (the biggest fan I know) that he is so very lucky to have seen the entire era of Bo. I hope one day my kids will say I was so lucky to have been able to watch the entire Hoke era.
crying and thinking the world was not fair when Chris Webber called the timeout. I don't know if I remember this correctly now or what, but I swear at age 6 I knew exactly the mistake he made right when he called it and bursted out into tears immediately. At least I like to believe that that was the case.
was the 2006 Michigan vs. O$U game i remember at the end i punched a hole in my wall and thats when i became a michigan fan. i was young so it was harsh. my first live experience was 2008 vs. msu and i remember telling a msu fan to fuck off it was awesome.
This year at the M-MSU footbal game I saw their wide receiver wide open on the goal line when they ran that stupid reverse play and threw some pom-pom thing on a stick at the Spartan behind me. The guy started yelling at me (a teenager) and the older man next to me (obviously a huge Michigan fan- he could see how down I was about the game) told the Spartan to shut his mouth. I was eternally grateful.
but still crushed.
a huge michigan fan gave me a high five after i said it. sitting in the student section is awesome though
My dream is to attend Michigan (not just for athletic purposes, I want an education) to become a teacher or a doctor. I can't wait to be in the student section when I go there.
or syracuse for business. im thinking international business if i go to michigan but i kinda want to go to syracuse for their sports management program because i want to be a sports gm.
I've never really had another option. I should probably research it sometime soon though.
michigan will be hard to get into so ive looked around at other schools but i have a lot of time to decide
I barely knew what Michigan football was until my freshman year in 2006. Went to one game that year, Northwestern. Got hooked on Mich Football right around the moment the team stepped onto the turf of the Horseshoe that year.
The next season I got some season tickets and never looked back
I'm 19, and my first memories were watching the 1997 season. The only player I really knew of was Charles Woodson, and since we won the championship that year my expectations for Michigan have always been pretty high.
97 is also my first U of M memory. Specifically the Rose Bowl vs. WSU
real image that is engraved into my brain and that is Woodson sitting on the goal post after the OSU game with the Rose in his mouth.
My first memory of Michigan was Art Schlichter's game winning touchdown run.
Good times.
All your other Art Schlichter memories...
i think i win for youngest hardcore fan. living in a town that is on the border it didn't take long before I had to pick sides and of course being a rebelious 5/6 years old and having an uncle that was a huge tsio fan (unlike most others he was very educated and not an A-Hole fan) i chose to go against him and chose michigan and i can still remember to this day the first time i sat down and watched the 1997 game vs wsu and i was trying to take everything to just keep educated while watching the game with my uncle. after that day, (being the little cocky 6 year old i was) i had to know everything there was to know about michigan so I could be a little pain in the ass and rub it in his face.
as of late he has had the last laugh and it still haunts me to this day that we only have one win vs the vest.. go blue and bring back the glory
Probably not my first memory, but my clearest childhood Michigan memory was watching Biakabutuka stampede OSU in 1995. What an amazing game. I remember watching it in Ohio at my grandparents house with some OSU loving relatives.
you're a lucky man. i truly admire you
Ah, to be 16… On my 16th birthday Michigan lost to Indiana in the NCAA final. Indiana went undefeated that year, their closest call when Michigan took them to OT in Bloomington. I remember a very satisfying blowout of undefeated Rutgers in the semifinal… Ricky Green and Phil Hubbard running wild.
Great year for football too, crushing the Bucknuts in Columbus 22-0 for the Big Ten championship. I was very fortunate to be at Ohio State games in 73 (the 10-10 tie), 75 and 79 (both frustrating losses). Too bad to miss a good win in 77.
You just hang in there, man. Your time will come, beginning today in hoops (wooo!). In my teenage years I recognized that some of the many Michigan fans I knew took winning for granted. I tried not to, though it wasn't easy… But when the good times roll for you, they'll be all the sweeter.
for being the only person so far on this thread older than me... :-)
When I was at Michigan ('93 grad) we went to four Rose Bowls, the hockey team returned to prominence under Red, and the basketball team had most of the Nat'l championship team (except Glenn Rice), had an off year, then two years of the Fab 5.
It was a good time to learn what Michigan is all about...