Your most bittersweet M sports memory/day is...
Today was quite the day in Michigan sports. Red and Fisher retire. Two MBB players declare for the NBA draft (but won't hire agents). And the blog posts an agonizing "what if" exchange. The latter clearly all just bitter, but the other two sets of items are definitely bittersweet - Red's restoration of M hockey, but the late fall; Fisher's NC and 2 NRU teams, but then that happened; 2 great young men take a chance to follow their dreams after helping take MBB on another exciting run.
So, what's your most bittersweet M sports moment? A game we lost, but shouldn't have been in it? A player that left early, but you couldn't fault them for getting theirs? The coach that almost came to Ann Arbor but thankfully didn't now we know he staffs out recruiting to local ladies of the evening?
For me, I vote Derrick Alexander breaking his leg against BC in 1991. Bitter: If he's healthy, do we stand a better chance against FSU? Or Washington? Sweet: Does Howard make 'the catch' the next week against ND? Or win the Heisman? Thankfully Alexander went on to finish a great M career followed by a solid pro career, but 1991 could have been even more special.
April 10th, 2017 at 10:30 PM ^
Retiring.
April 10th, 2017 at 10:58 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:02 PM ^
.........
How is this bittersweet? How is this anything other than sad/heartbreaking?
Unless I just don't know what bittersweet means, apparently.
As coach, Bo brought Michigan back from the doldrums of the late 50s and most of the 60s where the luster was wearing off of Michigan being a national power. In his first season Bo switched our program back to being a national power and had a great run through the 70s and 80s. Bo left Mo and Carr a power house program and Carr was able to win a national championship. The bitter would be Bo retiring, though he earned the honor of being one of our best coaches. The worse bitterness is death but he had a great life getting to do what he loved, coaching and we were lucky Don hired him breaking the cycle of just hiring Michigan men. Even though Bo became one of the greatest Michigan men ever!
+1 for Bo in VALHALLA!
April 10th, 2017 at 10:32 PM ^
So many but off the top of my head, it is Lloyd Carr's last game, especially considering Rich Rod was after him.
Can a moment extend several years (from the mid-'90s to 2007)? If so, my bittersweet "moment" is Lloyd Carr's term. (As with many others here, I'll go with his last game if I have to choose one.)
On the bright side:
- Despite what the "coaches poll" said, national championship. Obviously.
- Great recruiter.
- Great man who understood that football was only part of life and handled his players with that in mind.
- Multiple Big Ten championships and no really lousy seasons.
On the other side:
- Produced Top 25 finishes many years with Top 5 talent. (Michigan used to be considered an NFL factory. It seems to just now be getting back to that.) I still think an elite coach could've coaxed at least one national championship out of his early teams.
- Often went to battle with a medicore coaching staff. His coaching tree is almost nonexistent. Compare it to Bo's.
- As was famously noted here, there was an interval where taking a lead into the 4th quarter was a *bad* predictor.
April 10th, 2017 at 10:35 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 10:35 PM ^
While we couldn't hold on in the second half, I still often wonder what could have been if Drake didn't get hurt. He was on fire.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:35 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:40 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:38 PM ^
oh to be young again....
April 10th, 2017 at 11:43 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 10:39 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 10:45 PM ^
The Hoke era not working out and blowing up into pieces in 2014 at the same time Jed York forced Harbaugh out.
Even if we managed 9-3 and 7-5 in 2013 and 2014, we're better off in the long term now I think you could say.
April 10th, 2017 at 10:51 PM ^
April 11th, 2017 at 12:31 AM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 10:52 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 10:58 PM ^
2006 Ohio State. That was the moment. I was there, and it was as big a gut-punch as I've ever had.
I'd also add the 1995 Frozen Four loss to Maine. Felt like that team was the one, and they came up just short. Turned out to be off by a year.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:21 PM ^
Same. Don't know if these are "bittersweet" but definitely the most devastating M sporting events I've attended:
- 2006 @OSU
- 2007 Appalachian State, Oregon back to back
- 2011 @Duluth Frozen Four
- 2013 Louisville Final Four
- 2016 @OSU
April 11th, 2017 at 12:25 AM ^
Devastating is a different conversation entirely. At least, in theory. Bittersweet involves some sadness but also something to smile about, or something like that. Worst moments we've ever experienced isn't a bittersweet thread, it's a gut-wrench bitter thread.
April 11th, 2017 at 10:36 AM ^
Yeah agreed. So how was 2006 OSU bittersweet? That's what I was responding to.
April 10th, 2017 at 10:58 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:14 PM ^
Victor Hobson (IIRC) got exactly one finger on the winning field goal... A half inch the other direction and he probably blocks it. That freaking game.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:39 PM ^
Prescott Burgess. Hobson graduated after 2002.
April 11th, 2017 at 11:12 AM ^
LMAO ...nice edit work, Walmart.
posted Shazor but then changed when I mentioned it was Burgess. LMAO!!!!
you're such a dork and what, 10yrs old when that game was played?! I'm sure you were just going from memory and didn't have to Google anything ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
I went to my first game when I was 9, dumb FC.
So yeah, that season. 2004. And many memories prior to 2004.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:33 PM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:01 PM ^
Great to get there, great to lead at half time, but inevitable that IU would eventually win.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:06 PM ^
michigan rolling out the best offense in the country against the Gators in Carr's last game. Where was that all year?
April 10th, 2017 at 11:37 PM ^
April 11th, 2017 at 12:07 AM ^
He also had a team whose cogs were healthy for the first time since, well, the first quarter of The Horror.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:42 PM ^
Henne, Long, Hart, Manningham and Arrington at their best. That Gator team was awesome although their record didn't show it. Michigan could've beat anyone that day.
I was bummed after RR first season with only 3 wins. I never thought Michigan would ever have a sub .500 season in the B1G. I think if he would not have went totally to the spread, we would have won at least 6 games. The defense was fairly good that year. Our OL was a mess but we did not have the offensive players to go all spread. Overall I'm glad things went the way they did and we ended up with Harbaugh. Michigan football is so much fun to watch now. It may take a couple more season for Harbaugh to get Michigan to a national championship level. Even if we have a few less wins this season, it will still be exciting to watch this young team grow.
BIttersweet: when Henne lateraled to Jake Long and... he dropped it. Nope, that's just bitter, really wanted to see Long run over a DB.
April 10th, 2017 at 11:09 PM ^
April 11th, 2017 at 12:18 AM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:14 PM ^
Carr's last game. It was a bitter glimpse into what that team could've been with better health and coaching, but beating Meyer and Tebow was certainly sweet.
April 11th, 2017 at 12:47 AM ^
April 10th, 2017 at 11:35 PM ^
National Championship game. It was one hell of a run, and I couldn't have been prouder to be a Michigan Wolverine. On the other hand, losing that game sucked so much.
April 11th, 2017 at 12:25 AM ^
A lot of the usual suspects already posted above, so to be different I'd say Frozen Four 2008 in Denver vs. Notre Dame, where we were the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament and ND was the underdog as the No. 4 team in the West region. We got smoked out of the gate down 3-0 after the first period, but crawled back to tie the game, only to go down a goal again before forcing OT. I really thought we'd win that game once we got into OT, but we lost 5-4. I had to witness a ND vs. BC championship game live which was ehh for me and my friend from BU.
April 11th, 2017 at 12:30 AM ^
This isn't a thread for the worst moment or the biggest gut-punch, this is a thread for bittersweet, where there is happiness tinged with sadness or heartbreak tinged with good feelings.
Lloyd's last game is mentioned often here and seems pretty dead-on. A thrilling game, a beautiful exhibition, a final validation of the coach and the team and the players; also, a maddening demonstration of what could have been.
Kinda like the loss to Oregon this year; gutted that we lost, proud of the team and thrilled that we got there. I feel that way about the Louisville loss in 2013, too.
The most bittersweet times for me are ones that are affected by personal sadness, though. The 2000 UM-MSU game that I attended with a hoard of friends both Michigan and MSU fans, a Michigan win at home. Sweet, yes, but then my best friend, who was only in town from college for the weekend, came with me and we visited my dad who was in the hospital just recently diagnosed with cancer.
The last game Dad and I attended together was in 2002, against Washington. Phil Brabbs. That memory is bittersweet, too.
Yeah, most of these comments aren't even close to bittersweet, they're just depressing. I agree 100% with all the examples you provided that I can relate to.
Yeah, people are competely missing the definition of bittersweet here. So much of this is just straight-up bitterness.
Definition of bittersweet
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1: something that is bittersweet; especially : pleasure accompanied by suffering or regret… the bittersweet of their long separation
i left out the part of the definition about the poisonous vine in europe. that didn't seem to be a problem for any of us posters.
Apologize for whatever I did - haven't a clue - that caused me to lose this and see it posted incomplete.
Let's turn this into a William Carlos Williams poem:
Actual Post Above
Apologies for whatever
I did.
Haven't a clue.
That caused me to lose this,
And see it posted.
Incomplete.
Sweet. Now I understand this maybe! It's beautiful, man.
You forgot the white chickens.
and the world makes sense to you again. Simply wanted to apologize for placing a half written post on the thread. When I changed over to Windows 8 and now 10, it was not unusual to lose full pages of work simply, it appeared at times, by merely waving your hand close to the built in mouse. Today while writing the post, as I said I hit a key, unintentionally, and if I could tell you which one, it would not have been touched. But the second i hit the key, my post disappeared which did really not bother me, but when I saw it appear in the thread, half done and guaranteed to cause a hell of a lot more confusion than what you experienced, I thought the correct thing to do would be to inform the users said post was an accident and not meant to as a sharing of my most bittersweet moments. I am constantly surprised at the number of people on site who spend a considerable amount of time attempting to figure the meaning of a post produced in a like manner. I wanted to save them the waste of time, if possible. I do apologiize if it caused you to think about the poet. i agree; I don't care too much for his work either.
And yes, I am fully aware your post was intended to be sarcastic, and Hell No, not offended at all. Lots of us here so guaranteed to be lots of differences.