The Bacon Blog

Letter To Loyal Readers

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:25:20 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

Well, today is the day! After putting it off and getting halfway there and putting it aside again and again to finish that pesky book, the new website is here! (Thank you, Brandi Scharrer!)

More good news: We now have an incredible 136,464 subscribers to the Bacon Blog. And trust me, I’m more surprised than you are. But once it starts spreading, that’s what happens in cyberspace, and now it’s growing by leaps and bounds every week. So, to all of you who have subscribed and invited your friends to subscribe (often at gunpoint, I’d wager, based on the numbers above): THANK YOU!

Now, for the SCARY PART!

I need to ask everyone to SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW SITE, because it can’t happen automatically. The good news is, it’s easy – here’s the link! – and I promise I will never ask you twice. But you need to do it soon, or you won’t keep getting your weekly Slice of Bacon.

The motives are many, but in short, I think you’ll find this a better-looking, more user-friendly and interactive website and blog. I can advertise on this one, too – and, you’ll notice, it now has a little “Donate” button, an idea I’ve taken from some of my favorite sites, though I don’t think many include the phrase, “PLEASE FEED THE WRITER!”

And here’s the reason: When Steve Schram, the director of Michigan Media (which includes Michigan Radio and its stations in Ann Arbor, Flint and Grand Rapids), invited me to provide sports commentary every Friday morning way back in 2007, I had no idea how long I would do this or where it might lead. While it now runs on Detroitnews.com, Annarborchronicle.com, and of course the Bacon Blog, in the new world order we live in, very few newspapers will pay a dime for content, fearful as they are about going under, so syndicating it myself has proven impossible.

But I love writing these weekly commentaries, and want to keep writing them. To do so, however, I’ll need to make some revenue to justify the day or more they usually take to research, revise and record – especially after taking three years to finish a book with a one-year advance. (Ooh -- that hurts!) While I’m not claiming poverty, you will not see me trading in my 2004 Volkswagen Passat for a Rolls Royce any time soon. (A Bentley, maybe, but never a Rolls Royce. That’s just crass.)

But I also promise you this: no one has to pay a dime, of course, as the content remains free.

So that’s the story. I hope to continue to provide commentary for you fine folks, and take in your comments, for many years to come.

And again, THANK YOU!!!

-John

College Football Foreign To All But Us

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:48:22 GMT

September 9, 2011

Press Play to Listen

George Will recently wrote that when archeologists excavate American ruins centuries from now, they may be mystified by the Big House in Ann Arbor. “How did this huge football emporium come to be connected to an institution of higher education? Or was the connection the other way?”

It’s a fair question, one I’ve pondered myself many times. When I try to explain to foreigners why an esteemed university owns the largest stadium in the country, their expressions tell me it’s – well, a truly a foreign concept.

Ken Burns said our national parks are “America’s best idea.” If so, then our state universities must be a close second. They’re why we have more college graduates per capita than any nation in the world. And also why we have college towns rising out of cornfields – another uniquely American phenomenon. But when you put thousands of young men in one place, all that testosterone has to go somewhere. That’s why football grew not in the cities like baseball or in the YMCAs like basketball, but on college campuses.

The students loved it as much as the presidents hated it – and almost as much as they hated the binge drinking that was turning Ann Arbor into a “place of revelry and intoxication,” as one president complained, back in 1871.

They hoped football would give them something else to do. And that’s why there’s no drinking on campuses today. Can you imagine what college would be like if football hadn’t ended drinking on campus forever? I shudder at the thought.

But football did have one very important role. For the university’s first 150 years, state taxpayers picked up 90-percent of the tab. For the farmer in Fenton or the factory worker in Flint, one of the best reasons to support the state school was the Big House – the university’s front porch, the one place on campus where everybody feels welcome.

In most countries, universities were intended to serve a small sliver of intellectual elites. In America, they’re for everybody – and football is one big reason why. Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy once said, “A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.” Alabama’s Bear Bryant added, “It’s kind of hard to rally around a math class.”

Joining 100,000 like-minded strangers solves a modern problem, too. Both the Dali Lama and Mother Teresa noted the great disease of Western Civilization is loneliness. Yes, it’s possible to be lonely in a crowd – but not that one.

Studies show our endorphins spike when we’re marching in formation, singing in unison, or cheering together in a stadium. Where else can you be certain 100,000 people are feeling exactly what you’re feeling, exactly when you’re feeling it? This is why such places are more important now than ever.

Think about it. Michigan does not play one game this season that’s not televised. You can sit back in your easy chair right at home and watch the whole thing for free. Likewise, every song in the world can be purchased for a few bucks, and every movie is on DVD. Yet we still pack Hill Auditorium for concerts, Michigan Theater for movies and Michigan Stadium for football games – just like our ancestors did almost century ago. If Beethoven, Humphrey Bogart or Fielding H. Yost visited those places today, they would think almost nothing had changed.

We need to be together. We need to share something with strangers. And to fill that need, you could do worse than Michigan football. I’ve spent the past three years following the players at close range, and I can tell you that, with few exceptions, they are hard-working, honest guys who care deeply for their school and their teammates. For many fans, when a Wolverine running back breaks through the line into the endzone, then simply hands the ball to the ref, Michigan-style, and celebrates with his teammates, he represents our cherished Midwestern values at their very best.

One fan, who lost his dad at a young age, wrote to Michigan’s athletic director that, “Michigan football is my father.”

A foreign concept, perhaps. But not to us.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

John U. Bacon is the author of, "Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football," due for release October 25. It can be pre-ordered now.

From Victim to Champion

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:14:36 GMT

September 2, 2011

Steve Kempfer grew up in Jackson, and learned to play hockey well enough to earn a scholarship to the University of Michigan. He was a good student and a good player on some very good days, but few expected Kampfer to make it to the NHL. I confess that I was one of them.

What chance he had seemed to vanish on an October night in 2008, when he was leaving a campus bar. He started jawing with another student, who happened to be on the wrestling team. Things got hot, but it was all just talk, until the wrestler picked up Kampfer and turned him upside in a single, sudden move – then dropped him head first on the sidewalk.

Kampfer lay there unconscious, with blood sliding out of his mouth. His stunned friend thought he might be dead.

They rushed Kampfer to the hospital, where they discovered he’d suffered a closed head injury and a severe skull fracture, near his spine. He woke up on a flatboard, his head in a neck brace and tubes running out of his body.

His coach, Red Berenson, talked to him about the possibility – even the likelihood -- that he would never play hockey again. The goal was simply to make a full recovery, but they wouldn’t know that for three months.

Kampfer was a student in my class at the time, which met twice a week at 8:30 in the morning – not the most popular hour for college students. Just one week after the incident, at 8:30 Monday morning, Steve Kampfer walked back into my class, wearing a neckbrace. He never discussed the injury. He never made any excuses. He never missed a single class.

But his life was far from normal. I found out just how far only this week, when his mom gave me a paper he had written for another class. In it, he explains how hard it was just to eat, shower, go to the bathroom, or read a book. Nothing was the way it had been – not even sleeping.

Beyond the inconvenience, there was fear. When he looked in the mirror and saw his neck supported by a huge plastic brace, he knew if he turned his neck just an inch, he could be paralyzed forever. Any time somebody ran toward him, it scared the hell out of him.

After a few weeks, he started going back to the rink – not to skate, but to ride a stationary bike for five minutes a day. Then eight. Then ten. It was the best part of his day, when he would imagine his bones healing, his neck turning, and himself skating again. And on some days, he let himself dream every hockey players’ dream, of raising the Stanley Cup over his head.

After two months, Kampfer started skating again, and got to work building up his legs, and his heart. Instead of becoming gun-shy, he got tougher, and faster. The next year, he had a strong senior season, earned his degree, then reported to the Boston Bruins’ top farm team in Providence, Rhode Island.

I thought that was great, but was as far as he was going to get. But the Bruins called him up in December, and he played very well, before he injured his knee. Boston went on to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in almost four decades, when Number Four, Bobby Orr, was still a young star.

Kampfer had played in 38 games, three short of the 41 required to get your name engraved on the Stanley Cup. But Boston’s general manager petitioned the league, in the hopes of getting Steven Kampfer’s name on the same silver cylinder as Gordie Howe’s, Wayne Gretzky’s and Steve Yzerman’s. Those legends all have bigger names, of course, but not better stories.

Last week, Steve Kampfer got the Stanely Cup for a day, one of the NHL’s most cherished customs. He could have held his party in Boston or Ann Arbor, but chose to take the greatest trophy in team sports to downtown Jackson, surrounded by his friends and former coaches and teachers.

Naturally, they all wanted to get their picture taken with Kampfer, hoisting the Cup over his head – and that sucker weighs 50 pounds. I saw him do it over a hundred times. I had to remind myself this was same kid who, just two years ago, couldn’t lift his own head.

After Kampfer’s friends took their last picture, I said, “Hey Steve -- you must have gotten a hell of a work out tonight. Are you feeling it?”

“No way,” he said, with a deeply satisfied smile. “This thing never gets heavy.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

John U. Bacon is the author of, "Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football," due for release October 25. It can be pre-ordered now.

Hello Loyal Readers!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:12:29 GMT

Hello Loyal Readers!

We’re back for the fall – in full force!

And, in addition to the upcoming book, Three and Our: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football, I have some more news: A new website host, starting next week!

We’ll tell you how to jump over to it in a few days. It will have more features, more color, and more ways to interact. It might also allow me to make a living doing this. (Novel concept, I know.)

We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, George Will reviewed the new book:

“When, several millennia from now, archeologists excavate American ruins as archeologists have done those of Carthage, they may be mystified by the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. How did this 109,901 seat football emporium come to be connected to an institution of higher education? Or was the connection the other way? Without waiting 2,000 years, readers can join John U. Bacon on his eye-opening, and occasionally jaw-dropping, report on the weird world of college football.”

You can PRE-ORDER the new book by calling Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor:

Nicola’s Books

2513 Jackson Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48103-3818
(734) 662-0600

http://www.nicolasbooks.com/

or by ordering from amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Out-Rodriguez-Michigan-Wolverines/dp/0809094665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308469810&sr=1-1

See you in a week – and as always, THANK YOU!

-John

No column this week -- sorry!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:50:40 GMT

8-19-11

Dear Loyal Readers,

No column this week -- sorry! -- as I train to Chicago, plane to LA, plane back to Chicago then train back home by Thursday. But the other and more important reason is, we are re-tooling the site -- or, more accurately, building a completely new one. This was inspired by the fact that we have cracked the amazing number of 120,000 RSS subscribers, and thought we should Go Pro with the project.

So, yes, new and improved! (Although I realize that's completely a contradiction in terms, since it can only be one or the other, yes?)

In the meantime, Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) can be pre-ordered on amazon.com. I am planning the fall book tour now, so if you know of any group which would like a speech, reading, Q&A and/or book signing (such as UM alumni clubs, service organizations, corporations, and the like), and is willing to guarantee the purchase of 50 books (discounted by the publisher), let me know, and the publisher will likely spring for the trip.

In the meantime: Be Cool -- and, of course, Don't Go Changin'.

See you in September!

-John

Goodbye to a Store Like no Other

John U. Bacon — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 05:26:31 GMT

August 12, 2011

Press Play to Listen

It’s tough for any sports writer to get a book published – but it was a lot easier with a friendly bookstore on your side, from start to finish.

It wasn’t that long ago that if you wanted to buy a book, there was no Kindle or Nook or amazon.com – or the internet. There weren’t even big-chain book stores. You had to go to one of those narrow stores in mini-malls that sold paperback best-sellers and thrillers and romance novels.

But then the Borders brothers changed all that. They decided to go big, opening a two-story shop on State Street in Ann Arbor. They stocked almost everything, they gave customers room to relax and read, and they hired people who weren’t just clerks, but readers.

When I applied for a job there in college, they didn’t just hand me an application, but a test on literature -- which I failed.

But if they wouldn’t let me sell books there, they still let me buy them, so perhaps it was just as well. I bought everything from Mark Twain’s “Innocents Abroad” to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five.” Typically, I’d walk in for one book, and walk out with four – an hour later. I spent over a thousand dollars a year there, then a few hundred more on book shelves.

When Borders became a national chain, we Ann Arborites took an unearned pride in seeing the rest of the country love it as much as we did.

But Borders conceded the internet to amazon.com, then seemed to embark on a strategy designed not to create a stirring comeback, but a slow retreat. Finally, Borders announced it was going out of business this summer.

This week I visited my local Border’s store, Number #1, right downtown, one last time. I toured my favorite sections, literature and history, but also stopped by the children’s department, where I bought Dr. Seuss books for my nieces years ago, one of whom is now in college. I visited the travel stacks, where I planned trips to Turkey and Thailand, Spain and South America. I also picked up books to teach me just enough of those languages to get me in trouble, but not quite enough to get me out of it. I must have bought the cheaper ones.

But I didn’t need to get on a plane to go places. Pick up a good book – completely portable, no plugs or batteries needed – and you can go anywhere you want, even back in time, in just minutes.

In 1989, at the original store’s reference section, I picked up a copy of Writer’s Market, because my teacher told me it was the bible for free-lance writers. I saved it. In the back pages I listed all the publications where I sent my articles, and which ones rejected them. That first year, all but one did. Thank you, Motor Trend. I bought ten copies of that issue at Border’s, too.

But I kept buying Writer’s Market and sending out my stories. After a decade, I published my first book. I wrote my second book in Borders’ café, where I also listened to readings by my friends, and the famous.

A few years ago the Borders in downtown Ann Arbor sold more copies of my last book, on Bo Schembechler, than any store in the country. I spent hours signing them, and the staff became colleagues, even friends.

During my last visit, one of them said, “Hey John, can I help you find anything?”

“No, thanks,” I said, then waved my hand over the entire store. “I just came to say goodbye to an old friend.”

I shook his hand. “Thanks for everything.”

He nodded, but kept a stiff upper lip, and walked off to help someone else.

Tiger Woods Raises Ratings - and Questions

John U. Bacon — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:46:48 GMT

August 5, 2011

Tiger Woods has missed most of the season due to his injured left knee. In the past decade, he’s fractured the tibia, torn the ligaments, and had it operated on several times – turning it into the kind of hamburger more commonly seen on NFL running backs.

But he returned this week to play in his first PGA tour event in months. This is big news in the golf world – because without Tiger Woods, there’s barely any golf news at all. Watching golf on TV without Tiger Woods is like…watching golf on TV.

Woods returns ranked 28^th in the world – his lowest mark since he was just getting started 14 years ago. So what? The TV ratings will skyrocket.

People love him, people hate him – but few are indifferent. His first decade was arguably the greatest any golfer ever had in the history of the game. After winning his 14^th major tournament in 2008, the question wasn’t if he would pass Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major titles, but when.

But a funny thing happened. Well, maybe not that funny – especially if you’re his ex-wife. Since Tiger’s sex scandal, he has not won a tournament.

Bacon Theory #342 maintains: You can fool the fans most of the time, and the press some of the time, but you can never fool the guys in the locker room. They know exactly who you are – and they don’t like Tiger Woods.

Actually, they don’t even know him. Woods flies in on his private jet, plays his round, then flies out, without talking to anyone. In the clubhouse, every golfer wants their rivals to sign golf balls and flags for their tournaments back home, but Tiger almost never does. He is simply not a good guy.

But they don’t dare say anything, because they need the ratings boost he gives the game, which boosts their prize money and their sponsors.

But I think everyone is still missing the central question. It’s not his affairs. He’s a professional golfer, not a priest. The scandal cost him plenty of popularity and money, but not a single tournament.

It’s not even his left knee. Yes, it might prevent him from beating Nicklaus – but I doubt it. This is a man who won his last major on one good leg.

No, it’s Canadian doctor Anthony Galea, who was arrested in 2009 for allegedly giving performance-enhancing drugs to athletes. Fine, that’s his problem – but it might become Tiger’s problem, too. Tiger admits he met with the shady doctor at least four times that same year. Woods has always claimed it was for a special blood thinning technique, not performance enhancing drugs, which would make calling this particular doctor one of the dumbest decisions Tiger has ever made -- and he isn’t dumb. But we have little choice but to take him at his word, because Woods has never tested positive.

But in golf, there is no drug testing. It is the only major sport where you are not only encouraged to call penalties on yourself, but expected to. And they do – every week. But run afoul of that honor code, and golf will not forget. Hall of Famer Gary Player is still haunted by the accusation that he moved a leaf by his ball in a 1983 exhibition. It was never proven. It doesn’t matter.

That’s why, if anybody ever proves Tiger has taken a performance enhancing drug, he will find both his competitors and his sport uniquely unforgiving. He has no safety net. Who would stick his neck out for this man? His fellow pros? The tour officials? Or his incredibly loyal caddy of 12 years, Stevie Williams, whom he just fired last month? Good luck.

The seeds of Tiger’s tragic fall might already have been sown. And if it comes to pass, he will lose everything he loves most. No, not his ex-wife, his kids, or even his millions. But his 14 major tournaments.

And that, to Tiger Woods, would be a real tragedy.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

NFL owners turn millionaires into martyrs

John U. Bacon — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:10:05 GMT

July 29, 2011

I hope you missed this, but the National Football League owners had been threatening to lock out the players for months, until they finally agreed to a deal this week.

Normally, I wouldn’t care about this labor dispute. Scratch that – I still don’t. When billionaires bicker with millionaires, you’re better off cleaning your bathroom than giving this skirmish one minute of your attention.

But I am tempted to make an exception. Usually it’s just a battle between spoiled brats – and as often as not, I go away concluding the players’ salaries are insane, and the owners are insane to keep paying them. That was the case during the NHL lock out, which killed the entire season a few years ago, and it will likely be the case if the NBA owners lock out the players this coming season.

But this time, the difference was too glaring. On a very relative scale, the millionaire players were getting exploited by the billionaire owners.

Here’s how their old labor contract worked: The owners kept the first billion – with a “b” – dollars of profit, then the players got 60 percent of everything thereafter. Since the NFL made more than nine billion dollars last year, you don’t have to break out a calculator to realize everybody got filthy rich.

But the owners can keep their franchises for decades – and keep them in their families even longer. When cities and states build new stadiums for their teams, the owners benefit more than anyone, and can really cash in when their teams’ value soars. For the owners, the NFL is a cozy club, and virtually risk free.

But for the players, it’s all risk. The average players’ career lasts just three years. And if he’s injured – and football provides the best odds of that – his team will take away the remaining years on his contract. Only the NFL does that.

But he can almost certainly count on a lifetime of aches and pains, arthritis and fake hips and knees - and worse, we’re now learning, the devastating effects of concussions, including depression and dementia. The average player lives to be 55 – an age when owners buy their first team.

The more you learn about this sport, the harder it is to watch.

All that would be bad enough. But the owners did some research, and they discovered that two billion dollars is more than one billion. So they decided they should be getting two billion dollars before they give the players a cent.

The owners paint themselves as rugged individuals, self-made men and died in the wool capitalists. But they’re not even close. They want all the benefits of socialism with their fellow owners – an iron-clad monopoly, no economic competition, strict revenue sharing, and no real punishment if their teams stink – while behaving like ruthless robber barons with the players. I’m not sure if even John D. Rockefeller was so brazen to insist on doubling his take just because – well, because it’s twice as much. And that’s more. So that would be better.

If nothing else, you can’t fault their math.

The two sides finally settled on a compromise – perhaps Congress should be paying attention here – and guess what? Everybody involved will become even richer. But the players still won’t play any longer, their bones won’t heal any faster and whatever damage is being done to their brains won’t be known until it’s far too late.

As a rule, it’s very hard for me to feel sorry for millionaire celebrities playing a kid’s game. But the NFL owners make it a lot easier.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Thomas Jefferson on Teacher Bashing

John U. Bacon — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:05:31 GMT

July 22, 2011

Press play to listen

Teachers in our country rarely get the respect they deserve -- a uniquely American pathology. But this year they’ve endured not just indifference, but disrespect – and from Congressmen, no less.

Teachers are now blamed not just for falling test scores, but failing state budgets and rising healthcare costs.

There was once a politician who took a different view. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson's Northwest Ordinance – what some scholars believe to be one of the three most important documents in the founding of America, along with the Constitution and Declaration of Independence – provided funding for public schools and universities. In it, he declared, “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

The idea is so central to American public education, the University of Michigan has it engraved on the façade of its central building, Angell Hall. But few of the people walking by Angell Hall even know the line is there, or why. Ignorance makes it easy to take what’s good for granted.

While Congress rewarded Wall Street’s “Masters of the Universe” with millions of taxpayer dollars after they ran the economy into the ground, the same politicians tell us the real economic villains are public school teachers, who educate our children for an average of $45,000 a year.

I don’t think George Orwell himself had the power to imagine such a twisted interpretation of reality.

The claim that teachers are under-worked, overpaid parasites could be made only by people who have never taught. I would be hard pressed to name any group that gives more and takes less from society than do teachers – who, after all, prepare us for what we’re going to do next. Even politicians.

Teaching is one of those jobs, like waiting tables or coaching sports, that everyone thinks is easy – until they try it. True, teaching is one of the easiest jobs to do poorly – but it’s one of the hardest to do well.

Part of this problem the teachers’ union brought on itself, by defending the worst teachers to the hilt, and not even allowing principals to watch their employees work without making an appointment months in advance. At my high school, one teacher set what I hope is a record by showing movies and film strips for 170 of the 180 school days.

But we also had college professors who decided teaching high school students was more important, and others who could have done anything they wanted – one of my English teachers had a law degree -- but devoted their lives to teaching us.

And it wasn’t just out of noblesse oblige. When I was student teaching, I learned the job is not just demanding – it’s intellectually challenging.

But because the unions didn’t make the obvious reforms they should have made, now they’re at the mercy of overconfident, under-qualified politicians, who wouldn’t last a week in front of the classes I taught – let alone the inner city classrooms now packed with 35 students six hours a day, thanks to their budget cuts.

I can still name almost every teacher and coach I’ve ever had – and I bet you can, too. But we’d have a hard time naming our last three Congressional representatives.

I learned about Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance from Ed Klum in U.S. history, the same year I read Orwell’s “1984” in Jim George’s class. I learned how to write from Dave Stringer and Andrew Carrigan. And I learned critical thinking from all of them – which is why it’s not too hard for me to figure out what Jefferson would probably think of those teachers, and the politicians who bash them.

Which brings me to my final line, something public school teachers hear far too rarely: THANK YOU.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Heisman Winner Better than Hype

John U. Bacon — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:59:47 GMT

July 15, 2011

Press play to listen

Desmond Howard stands about 5-foot-8 – I don’t care what the program said. When Bo Schembechler moved the Cleveland native from tailback to receiver, it virtually eliminated any chance Howard had to win the Heisman Trophy. In its first 55 years, only one receiver had ever taken it home.

But then, just playing at Michigan practically knocked Howard out of the running in the first place. Only one Wolverine, Tom Harmon, had ever won the award – and that was back in 1940.

Schembechler never promoted any player for any award – Heisman or otherwise. Because, as he often said, “Nothing comes before The Team, The Team, The Team.” When Bo stepped down in 1990, Gary Moeller took over, and followed the exact same policy.

In the modern era – when Notre Dame’s Joe Theismann started pronouncing his name as Theismann to rhyme with Heisman, and Oregon paid big money to put a huge poster of Joey Harrington on the side of a Manhattan building – Michigan’s policy was positively anachronistic.

Bo didn’t care. “That is not how a Michigan man earns his hardware.” After all, he promised, “Those Who Stay Will Be Champions,” not, “Those Who Stay Will Get Their Faces Painted On New York City Skyscrapers.”

But in 1991, Howard got the nation’s attention anyway, starting with his leaping touchdown catch against Notre Dame. You can still see it painted on the walls of local bars 20 years later. By the last game, Howard had already piled up so many points, all the tailbacks and quarterbacks and kickers couldn’t catch him.

But that last game was still worth watching. Michigan beat Ohio State for the fourth straight year – Howard never lost to his homestate school, winning four Big Ten rings – but that’s not what people remember. No, in the second quarter, Howard caught a punt at the seven-yard line. He sliced through the first wall of defenders, then faked a few out by cutting to the left sideline, leaving only the punter to stop him. “And that wasn’t even fair,” he joked years later.

On his way to completing the longest punt return in Michigan history, with the Heisman Trophy all but sewed up, Howard had to make a decision: Should he strike the familiar Heisman pose, or not? He finally realized he’d never get another chance. He flashed the pose, just for a second, but that was long enough to create one of the most famous photos in football history.

Michigan used to keep the stadium open during the week for visitors. When I used to run the steps, I’d see visitors from all over the world looking around. They invariably did three things: ran out of the tunnel to touch a banner that wasn’t there; they dived in the corner of the endzone to mimic Howard’s leaping catch against Notre Dame; and they re-enacted Howard’s punt return against Ohio State – usually pausing at mid-field to catch their breath – which they always punctuated with Howard’s Heisman pose.

When two of the three things fans did when they thought no one was watching were inspired by one guy— well, that guy isn’t just a great player. He is an icon.

But for me, what happened after all that was better: Desmond Howard graduated on time, he married an attorney, and now their daughter is enrolled at Michigan, too. She probably won’t win the Heisman – her odds are even longer than his – but she doesn’t have to. The Howards already have one more Heisman Trophy in their home than anybody ever thought they would.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

In Chicago on business this week...

John U. Bacon — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:48:35 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

In Chicago on business this week, so no taping -- and that means no commentary this time around.

But we'll be back next week. And the week after. And the week after.

Promise!

Thanks again for your continued interest, and for spreading the word. We're still growing!

THANKS!

-John

Nebraska will get more than TV dollars by joining the Big Ten

John U. Bacon — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:45:00 GMT

July 1, 2011

Press play to listen

Today, for only the third time in almost a century, the Big Ten will officially admit another university to the league. Nebraska left the Big Eight conference to start playing Big Ten football this fall. The Cornhuskers will receive a slice of the much bigger Big Ten TV pie, but that might not be the best reason to join.

To celebrate Nebraska joining the nation’s oldest conference, the Big Ten Network will be kicking off three days of non-stop programming. Now I’m the kind of guy who might actually watch three days of non-stop programming about the Cornhuskers, but you might have other priorities this holiday weekend. So, I’m here to tell you what you need to know in three easy minutes.

Adding Nebraska is nothing but good for the Big Ten, which needs 12 teams to host a lucrative conference championship game. Nebraska’s football program is one of the most successful and respected in the nation, and their fans are gracious in victory or defeat. They have class.

They’re based in Lincoln, and their most famous alum is a guy named Warren Buffett, who still sits with the common folk in the cheap seats.

The Bo Schembechler of Nebraska football is Tom Osborne. He took over in 1973, after his mentor retired by winning two consecutive National Titles. But Osborne had to wait a decade for his first chance at a national crown. He finally got it in the Orange Bowl against the Miami Hurricanes, the anti-matter of the conservative, corny Cornhuskers. The ‘Canes engaged in toxic levels of trash talk, and were led the next year by Jimmy Johnson, who now shills for a “male enhancement” product called ExtenZe.

The Cornhuskers, in contrast, celebrate their touchdowns by handing the ball to the referee. Whether ahead by thirty or down by three, Osborne looked about as animated as a flight attendant explaining how to buckle your seatbelt. When Osborne retired, he skipped pitching for ExtenZe to become a Congressman – though, given recent Congressional photo scandals, maybe that’s a wash.

But under the surface, Osborne was surprisingly bold. In the final moments of that 1984 national title game against Miami, he decided not to kick the easy extra point for a tie – which would have secured his first national title -- and instead went for the riskier two-point conversion to win. It failed, they lost, and Osborne had to wait another decade to win his first national title. But recently he explained that playing for a tie would have been insulting to his players and the people of Nebraska, who appreciate good football, and he would never vote for a team that played for a tie. In my book, that’s pretty cool.

By joining the Big Ten, Nebraska will get more money, more fans, and more visitors. David Byrne of Talking Heads once wrote that no one pays money to see flat landscape – and Nebraska is so flat, you can see three state capitols just by standing on a park bench. But people will pay to see great football.

Nebraska is a solid school, but ranks in the Big Ten’s lower half academically. Fewer than half its students graduate. This gives rise to an old joke: What does the “N” on Nebraska’s helmet stand for? Knowledge.

But, in joining the Big Ten, Nebraska’s faculty is automatically admitted to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, or CIC, which provides a big boost to the Big Ten’s big research universities. Since Penn State joined the Big Ten twenty years ago, its research income has tripled, to 780 million dollars.

Nebraska is not the first school to leverage football to improve its academics. Chicago, Notre Dame, and Michigan State, among others, have all done it, and done it quite well.

Twenty years from now, the N on Nebraska’s helmet might stand for Nobel laureates – and the joke will be on the Big Eight schools Nebraska just left behind.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Woe, Canada? Go, Canada!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:54:00 GMT

June 24, 2011

Press play to listen

Canada might be the only nation on earth that invented its favorite sport, has no other sport that’s even half as popular, and remains arguably the best in the world at playing it.

How big is hockey in Canada? They put the sport on their five-dollar bill. It has a drawing of kids playing a pick-up game outside, and a quote from a beloved children’s story, “The Hockey Sweater.” It goes like this:

“The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places - the school, the church and the skating rink - but our real life was on the skating rink.”

That’s right: on our finski, we put the Lincoln Memorial. They put pond hockey.

That’s why it killed them when they lost the Olympic gold medal – in 1956. I’m not kidding. I was out for dinner with two Canadian friends last week, and they told me it still bothers them. No surprise, then, that it’s a crisis of national confidence that no Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993.

Despite a little skirmish called the Civil War, the United States is still far more unified than Canada is. Its biggest province speaks French and every few years, threatens to secede.

But hockey – and only hockey -- brings them together. A few years ago, I was in Vancouver on business during the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Canucks had already been eliminated, but I was stunned to see business signs in the English-speaking city saying “Go Habs!” – the Montreal Canadiens, that is, the last Canadian team left standing that year. You never saw that in the eighties.

So great is the Canadians’ desire to bring the Cup home again, they’ll look past language, culture and decades of bitter rivalry just to see their countrymen hoist the grail once more.

That’s why all of Canada was cheering for Vancouver when the Canucks got to the Stanley Cup Finals this spring. They got ahead of the Boston Bruins two games to none, then three to two. The dream was that close.

But it came down to a winner-take-all game seven. NBC covered it, which got the highest ratings in the U.S. of any NHL game since 1973. Of course, that still meant it finished behind a re-run of NCIS. I don’t even know what NCIS is. Is it related to CSI? The CIA? The NLRB? I have no idea – but whatever it is, it’s still more popular than the biggest hockey game of the year.

But even those ratings were far better than the Stanley Cup Final ratings a few years ago, which finished behind a Food Channel show called, “How to Build a Better Burger.”

Few Americans outside of Boston probably cared, but the Bruins beat the Canucks to take the Cup. Canadians were devastated. The locals trashed the town the way Detroit did when it won the World Series in 1984. (One difference: Canadian parents turn their teenagers into the police.)

But there was a silver lining, made official this week: The NHL approved the sale of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg, which had lost its first NHL team to Phoenix back in 1997. Not because they didn’t love them – they packed the place – but because they couldn’t get big the TV money the NHL required in a small market, and the exchange rate was killing them.

They say the rich will find your fun, buy it and sell it for a profit. So it’s good to see the Canadians get some of their fun back.

Go Winnipeg. Go Canada.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

A Simple Gift for Father's Day

John U. Bacon — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:52:46 GMT

June 17, 2011

Press play to listen

My dad grew up in Scarsdale, New York – but, as he’s quick to point out, that was before it became “Scahsdahle.” His dad told him always to root for the underdog, and my dad took that seriously.

All his friends were Yankees fans, but Dad loved the Brooklyn Dodgers. A perfect Friday night for him, when he was a young teen, was to go up to his room with a Faygo Redpop, a Boy’s Life magazine – he was on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout – and listen to Red Barber reporting on the Dodgers’ game. He wouldn’t say something so prosaic as, “the bases are loaded,” but “the bases are saturated with humanity.”

Dad was a decent athlete – baseball and golf – but he didn’t make his high school team. He did have a star turn as the short stop for his fraternity softball team, which won the championship when he pulled off a perfect squeeze play. You never forget those moments.

My parents raised three kids, and spent most of their weekends schlepping us to swim meets and hockey games. My dad had to wake me up at five in the morning, then pile me and my hockey bag into our 1965 Volkswagen Beetle – which had no radio and a heater only in theory. I’m sure I complained every time he woke me up. He didn’t complain once.

My dad didn’t play hockey, but he taught me the important things: Play hard. Play fair. Losing is okay. Loafing is not. And hot-dogging after a goal was unacceptable. You’re better off not scoring than doing that.

My dad and I spent countless hours together watching George Kell do the Tigers’ games on TV, and Ernie Harwell on the radio.

In high school my brother and I both made the hockey team, and played together for one season. My dad is not one to brag, but he gushed to us about seeing his two boys standing together on the blue line for the national anthem. It didn’t matter to him that that was all the ice time we usually got.

When I became a sullen teen – at least at home – we didn’t have a lot to talk about. Still, like Daniel Stern’s character said in City Slickers, we always had baseball. That kept us connected, when it seemed like few things did.

After I left home, we started becoming good friends. As Mark Twain said, “It was amazing how much my father had changed.”

We formed another bond when I took over my old high school hockey team, Ann Arbor Huron, which had not won a game in a year and a half. Assessing my team’s situation, my dad said, “Well, when you’re on the floor, you can’t fall out of bed.”

I gave my parents a schedule, but I didn’t expect them to see them at the games. But they came to every one of our home games. And the games in Trenton, and Muskegon, and Traverse City, and even Culver, Indiana. They became valued members of the hockey parents’ gang.

When we won our first game, they were there. When we finally beat Pioneer in my third season, they were there. The lobby crowd was loud, but not my dad. He didn’t say a word, but I’ll never forget his glassy eyes as he reached out his hand to grasp mine, and he held it, firmly.

He knew how much it meant to me. And I saw how much it meant to him.

When I asked him a couple months ago what I could possibly get him for his birthday, he said, “Just your friendship.” Consider it done.

And that’s what he’s getting for Father’s Day, too.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

LAST time I can claim the book is holding me up

John U. Bacon — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:13:08 GMT

June 10, 2011

Dear Loyal Readers,

Well, this is it: the LAST time I can claim the book is holding me up. I will be turning it in, a huge stack of hacked up pages, on Monday in New York. It will arrive in your book stores by October 11, 2011.

Thanks for your patience throughout this crazy process. But oh, I see the light! Very close!

Next time you hear from me, the book will be done, and -- I hope -- I will have recovered from all the damage letting out three years of pent up everything has done to me. The town might take longer, however. So, if you see me in New York on Monday, Ann Arbor mid-week, Lansing on Thursday or up north next weekend -- don't say I didn't warn you.

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I AM (almost) FREE AT LAST!

THANK YOU LOYAL READERS!

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.

-John

In College Football, Cheating Pays -- Handsomely

John U. Bacon — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:56:12 GMT

June 3, 2011

Press play to listen

The Jim Tressel era at Ohio State started on Thursday, January 18, 2001.

The Buckeyes happened to have a basketball game that night against Michigan, so it was a good opportunity to introduce their new football coach. When Tressel stood up to speak, he knew exactly what they wanted.

He was hired on the heels of John Cooper, whose record at Ohio State was second only to that of Woody Hayes. But in 13 seasons, Cooper’s teams lost to Michigan a stunning ten times. Can’t do that. And you can’t say, “It’s just another game,” either – which might have been his biggest mistake.

Knowing all this, Tressel told the crowd, "I can assure you that you will be proud of your young people in the classroom, in the community, and most especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the football field.”

The place went crazy. “At last,” they said, “somebody gets it!”

Tressel got it – and he proved it, beating Michigan nine out of ten times – and the last seven in a row, a record. The Buckeyes have also won the last six Big Ten titles, another record, plus a national title.

Jim Tressel is clearly one heck of a coach. He was also pleasantly professorial, famed for his sweater vest, not his temper.

But smoke always billowed up behind him. His previous team, Youngstown State, won three Division I-AA national titles, but one of his stars got in trouble for taking money from a wealthy booster. The school got in trouble, but not Tressel. At Ohio State, another star was suspected of academic fraud and taking money, too. The player got in trouble, but not Tressel.

Last spring, however, a few of Tressel’s players traded signed jerseys for tattoos. Yes, it was against NCAA rules, but it was still relatively small potatoes – until their coach lied about it to the NCAA. Not once. Not twice. But three times. As usual, it’s not the crime, but the cover-up that always does them in. But no one ever seems to learn this.

Tressel committed his third lie right before the Buckeyes’ big bowl game against Arkansas. The Big Ten, the NCAA and the bowl officials were only too willing to play along. There was money to be made.

But after the Buckeyes’ victory, reporters dug a little deeper and discovered an oil spill of corruption -- money, cars, you name it. With more to come.

The Jim Tressel era at Ohio State ended on Monday, May 30^th, 2011, when he “resigned.” But don’t worry: Tressel will be fine. He’ll get to keep his national titles and his severance package and he’ll probably end up on TV as a color commentator, because the networks seem to prefer hiring only the most corrupt or incompetent coaches for those cushy jobs.

The mess Tressel leaves behind will be for everyone else to clean up: the players, the school and the next coach, for years. A few former opponents – like Michigan – might get some of their losses to Ohio State erased from their records. But it’s unlikely they’ll storm the field after getting the news.

And that’s why coaches like Tressel cheat: It works -- for them.

The Big Ten and the NCAA don’t want to catch you, and when they finally have to, it’s the guys who come after you who will pay the price. A few years from now, when the Ohio State Marching Band is performing their famed “Script Ohio,” it will be Jim Tressel dotting the “i,” while John Cooper looks on from the press box.

Cheating is excused. Losing is not.

Winning is rewarded.

Following the rules is for suckers.

Wish I had a better story to tell you.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Student-Run Softball Made for Super Memories

John U. Bacon — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:07:29 GMT

May 27, 2011

Press play to listen

I went to Ann Arbor Huron High School, considered by every objective source to be the greatest high school in the history of the universe. And one of the things that made it so great when I was there was an intramural softball league.

Maybe your clearly inferior high school had one, too. But the IM softball league at Huron was created and run entirely by students – the burnouts, no less. That meant the adults, perhaps wisely, wanted nothing to do with it.

So the burn-outs got the park permits – God bless ‘em -- and every clique had a team, from the guys in auto shop to marching band. They gave their teams names like the Extra Burly Studs, the Master Batters and – yes – the ‘Nads. If you pause to think of their cheer, you’ll get the joke.

My buddies and I failed to get a team together our junior year, but our senior year, we found inspiration. Most of my friends weren’t playing spring sports, so we came home every day after school to catch "Leave It To Beaver" re-runs on channel 20 – on something called UHF. (Kids, go ask Grandpa.)

Come softball season, we were moved to build a team around that very name: The Cleavers. But if we were going to face battle-tested squads like the All-Star Rogues and the Ghetto Tigers, we knew we’d need an edgier name. And that’s when we came up with – yes – the Almighty Cleavers. You know, to instill fear in our opponents.

You can imagine how well that worked.

Our next stroke of genius was our uniform: we each got one of our dads’ undershirts, then used a laundry marker to write one of the characters’ names on the back: Ward, Wally, Eddie – we had ‘em all. Now all we needed were ten more players.

No problem. Once word got out about our hardcore name and unis, people flocked to our team, even a half-dozen women. None of the other teams were co-ed, but there was no rule against it – because there were almost no rules. That’s what you get when you play in a league founded by burnouts.

We didn’t just expect to lose. We were built to lose. But we didn’t care. In fact, that was our team motto: “We Don’t Care.” Whenever somebody was seen running too hard or – god forbid – sliding into home plate, we started our chant: “We Don’t Care! We Don’t Care!”

The girls could play wherever they wanted, and nobody was allowed to yell at anyone, no matter how badly they screwed up.

It probably helped that, like most teams, we brought cooling beverages to each game, be they “jumbos” of Goebel’s. “torpedoes” of Colt 45 or, for big games, an actual quarter barrel of Stroh’s Bohemian Style. We’d set it up right at the corner of Huron Parkway and Fuller, with Lord knows how many teachers, parents and police officers driving by. No one cared.

Yes, I know we were being stupid and illegal, but you have to remember this was at a time when Huron had a smoking lounge for students, Ann Arbor had a five-dollar pot law, and the Almighty Cleavers were probably on the conservative side of things. Okay, on a very relative scale. And all of it might explain why I can’t recall a single fight among the twelve tribes that played. (Take that any way you want.)

But what I saw next defied explanation: Against a bunch of guys who clearly wanted to beat us, our coed squad won the game. And then, another. And another.

It was incredible. Once the girls realized they weren’t going to get yelled at, their Inner Softball Players came out – and before we knew it, we finished the regular season at 9-2, in second place.

Well, our magical season had to come to an end, and it did – with a playoff loss to the always-tough Junior Junkies. Even more heartbreaking, actor Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward Cleaver, died the week before, prompting all of us to draw black armbands on our sacred jerseys.

But then, something even stranger happened. The mother of one of our founders happened to be the president of the American Psychiatric Association, so reporters were always calling her up to get her expert opinion on this or that. When an Associated Press reporter asked her about violence on television, she finally said, “Well, it can’t be that bad. My son watches ‘Leave it to Beaver’ every day with his buddies.’”

It just so happened the reporter was a big “Leave it to Beaver” fan, and voila! All of a sudden our team was on the AP wire, in the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press and featured in TV Guide, for crying out loud.

My grandparents, in from Eastern Canada, must have been completely confused – or simply assumed all American teenagers appear in national stories for playing IM softball as a rite of passage before graduating. But the unexpected attention wasn’t the point.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had more fun playing anything than I did playing intramural softball that spring. No parents, no umpires, no rules except most runs wins – and win or lose, get over it. “No One Cares!”

It was low-rent, small stakes, and big, big fun – because it was ours.

I don’t think kids today have any idea what that feels like.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

A Ninth-Grade Dance to Forget -- If Only I Could

John U. Bacon — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:05:05 GMT

May 20, 2011

This tale of woe takes place in the ninth grade, back when ninth graders still stayed in junior high.

I had detention. I don’t remember why. But so did the prettiest girl in the class, whom I’ll call Rhonda—because that was her name.

The catch was, she was dating Benny, the captain of the football team. But, at detention, I learned there was trouble in paradise. Oh yes. They had broken up, with just four days to go before the big ninth grade dance. Tragic!

We had a fine chat when I walked her home, so when I got home, I decided, what the heck. I called her up to ask her to the dance. Sure, she said, why not.

Simple stuff!

Of course, I was level-jumping, and I knew it. So I had to avoid her the entire week, to make sure she didn’t back out. Because her locker was near the bathroom, that meant I couldn’t go to the bathroom at school all week. Couldn’t risk it.

And, as luck would have it, my mustache was finally coming in that very week, so after four days of rubbing my fingers over my lip, I had two mustaches: one made of wispy blond hair, the other of acne. Awesome.

Dragging that blade over my lip for my shaving experience was fantastic. Man that felt great!

Being only 14, my dad had to drive me to her house, and this is where things got tricky. Her father happened to be the head coach of the Huron high school hockey team. My entire life, I dreamed of not of winning Nobel Prizes or even playing for the Red Wings or even Michigan, but suiting up for the River Rats of Huron High.

So, when I got there, I had to be cool around Rhonda – wearing a beautiful spaghetti strap purple dress I remember to this day – tough around her dad, but sweet around her mom. After we took some pictures by the fireplace, I figured I’d pulled the whole thing off – until we get to the gym.

I made sure we showed up about 20 minutes late, so all my friends – and especially my enemies – could see me walk in with the prettiest girl in school.

Well, it worked – maybe too well.

My former best friend yells, from the back of the gym, with 300 people I’ve known my entire life between us: “Hey Bake! Look at your coat!”

I look down, and I see a sight I will also never forget: There are only two buttons on a sport coat, and I’ve got them mixed up. The coat is a mess – with everything tilted to the side, as if I’m on a skateboard flying by.

My brain goes into full panic mode – Reee! Reee! Reee! Overload! Overload! Can’t function! Can’t function! To this day I don’t know if I put my right foot down and kept walking, or even if I could have.

The rest of the night, I was a shell of my former self. But I was young, and after school got out, I recovered, finding solace by playing baseball and hanging out with my friends.

Until, that is, I got a little envelope from a strange address. I open it up. In it is a sweet note from Rhonda’s mom. And – what’s this? -- a photo, of us standing together, next to their fireplace – with my coat buttoned wrong!

And that’s when that tender wound that had just started to heal tore clean open.

Oh, and her father left Huron to start coaching one of the Red Wings’ minor league teams that fall. Lot of good all that did me.

So, boys, this prom season, be sure to double-check your coat to make sure you buttoned it properly. Girls, be sure double-check your date’s coat to make sure he buttoned it properly. And moms, if your daughter’s date didn’t button his coat properly – don’t send him photos.

But don’t worry, boys. Even if you do screw it up, you’ll get over it—after years of therapy and light medication. You’ll be fine. Trust me.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Bacon letter to readers

John U. Bacon — Fri, 13 May 2011 13:38:00 GMT

May 13, 2011

Dear Loyal Readers,

Once again -- and I think for the last time (honest! I swear!) -- I had to take the week off to finish (really this time!) the book I've been working on for 33 years. No, wait, I meant 'three years.' Just feels a little longer, is all, but these pages are going in to the actual copy editor. So the publisher means business.

It covers the last three years of Michigan football for which I had unequaled access, and will be out this fall.

But only if I finish it, of course!

Thanks for your patience and continued interest.

See you next week!

-John

What Sports Really Teach Us

John U. Bacon — Fri, 06 May 2011 13:45:00 GMT

May 6,2011

Press play to listen

Sometimes the real world is so overwhelming it sneaks into sports. One of those times occurred after 9/11, when the crowd at Yankee Stadium sang “God Bless America,” with all their heart. I’m not very religious, but it sounded right to me.

It seemed appropriate that that signature moment, when we needed to be together, occurred in our country’s most hallowed arena, the nation’s front porch. We are probably the most sports-soaked culture in the world – we’re the ones who pay for the Olympics, after all – and I believe our code of conduct when we’re competing often represents our values at their best.

People like to say sports teaches us how to be aggressive. But you can learn that through alley fighting. Any jerk with no regard for others can be aggressive. Prisons are filled with them. 9/11 was conceived by them.

And it's easy to play by the rules, too, if you never defend yourself.

So, I disagree. What sports teaches us is how to be tough without crossing the line. That’s the crucial difference. That’s why every sport I know not only has official rules, but unwritten ones, too, that anyone who cares about the sport is expected to follow.

If you’ve ever coached – any sport, any age – you know that is one of the hardest lessons to teach. And, I believe, one of the most important.

When I coached high school hockey, I made it clear: I expected my guys always to play tough, but never to play dirty. When my players complained the other team was playing dirty, I said: Right. That’s what makes you better than them. I don’t coach those guys. I coach you.

That was one more reason -- among many others, of course -- that 9/11 troubled me. It boiled down to a few thugs going after 3,000 innocent civilians, led by a coward who had enough money to get others to do his fighting for him. He just took the credit -- if that’s what you call it.

I admit I was not always heartened by our nation’s response to 9/11, either. So much of it seemed sloppy and undisciplined – and counterproductive. John McCain has said one of the most important sources of strength he and his fellow Viet Nam P.O.W.’s relied on to keep going was the simple belief that they were better than their captors. It sustained them.

It seemed like we were losing that. And that’s why I was so heartened by the conduct of the Navy Seals this week. I know there are still many questions about how this process started. But I don’t have too many questions about how it ended, or about the men who flew into Pakistan that night. They found their man not in a cave outside Kabul, sacrificing for his cause – however wrong-headed it might be – but in a suburban mansion.

I admired the Seals’ commitment to going after this paper bully – and the incredible preparation, the courage and the restraint they displayed under the most dangerous conditions.

They were not inspired by blood lust, but simple justice. If the choice was him, or thousands more innocent people – an equation he created, not us – the Seals’ decision is one I can live with.

The Seals got their man.

It felt cathartic. They reclaimed a measure of our self-respect – and they left it at that, right down to the decision to give him a proper Muslim burial at sea, and to keep the photos private.

“We don’t need to spike the football,” President Obama said. “That’s not who we are.” And that’s exactly what had sustained Senator McCain.

It’s good to know we have people like that on our team.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Memories of El Diablo - A Michigan Original

John U. Bacon — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:37:00 GMT

April 29, 2011

On Tuesday, the Michigan football family lost another beloved son, Jim Mandich, who died of cancer at age 62.

Regular readers of this space know I’ve had to write a few elegies already this year, and I’m not sure if we can bear another one right now.

I’m not sure Mandich would want any more, either, beyond his funeral. As he told Angelique Chengalis of The Detroit News last fall, after he was diagnosed with cancer, “I said to myself, ‘No whining, no complaining, no bitching. You've lived a damned good life. You've got lot to be thankful for.’”

And he did, including a great NFL career and three grown sons – good guys, good friends. But I’m sure he’d like to be remembered – don’t we all? -- and I thought you might enjoy a story or two about an unusually talented and charismatic man.

Mandich grew up in Solon, Ohio, outside Cleveland, and should have gone to Ohio State, where Woody Hayes had the program riding high.

Instead, he risked being called a traitor, and went to Michigan.

“Obviously, Michigan is the better place,” he told HBO a few years ago. “That was a very easy decision to make. And if that’s smug, Michigan arrogance – deal with it, Buckeyes.”

As a junior, he played on the 1968 team that went down to Columbus and lost, 50-14.

We got shellacked. We couldn’t stop ‘em and we couldn’t do anything against them. And Woody Hayes showed no mercy.”

The next year, a man named Bo Schembechler arrived in Ann Arbor, and things were not the same. He told his players, “From now on, I’ll treat you all the same – Like dogs!” He kept his promise, which helps explain why 40 or 50 guys left, some times in the middle of the night.

That inspired Bo’s famous phrase, “Those who stayed will be champions.”

All the best players in that team stayed, but the most important might have been Jim Mandich, their only captain.

He was a confident guy, even a little cocky -- but he had the rarer kind of swagger that attracted people, instead of repelling them. The ladies loved him, and he had the perfect nickname, “El Diablo.”

I always got the feeling, whenever Schembechler started talking about Mandich, that Bo, as tight as they come, with tunnel vision and no time for women until he got married at mid-age, secretly envied Mandich, this swashbuckling football star, and wished he could be a bit more like him.

But that never stopped Bo from chewing him out, of course. Someone once asked Mandich who had a shorter fuse, Schembechler, or his legendarily hot-tempered NFL coach, Don Shula?

Mandich thought about it for a moment, then said, “Neither one had a fuse.”

Call it a draw.

But Mandich was also a serious student, who graduated in four years with a degree in economics, while earning Academic All-American honors.

He was also an All-American tight end. He never took himself too seriously, but he took his role seriously. He led.

The Wolverines started Mandich’s senior year, 1969, by losing two of their first five games. But then they caught fire, beating Big Ten teams by scores like 35–7, 57–0, and 51–6.

They had caught El Diablo’s swagger. It was contagious. They believed they could beat the number one-ranked, undefeated, returning national champion Ohio State Buckeyes – even if no one else did.

Las Vegas pegged the Wolverines a 17-point underdog – but they didn’t listen.

The morning of the game, one of the Buckeyes missed the team bus. They weren’t taking it seriously.

But Mandich was. When I asked him about that game, he told me he was crying in the tunnel. I said, Of course. It was the greatest upset in Michigan history. No, he said. “I was crying in the tunnel before the game.”

That’s how charged up they were. All that pain, all that suffering, all that work they’d done in the off-season—it fueled everything they did that day. And it showed, when they completely manhandled Woody Hayes’s greatest Ohio State team, 24-12.

On the HBO documentary about the rivalry, Mandich says, “There’s an expression in German, “schadenfreude,” which means, “Joy in the misery of others.

“40 years later, I feel Schadenfreude – Joy, that it still hurts the Buckeyes, what we did on that fateful November day in 1969.”

But the image of Mandich that day tells a different story, from the famous photo of the outstretched number 88, exalting in the final countdown, and the film footage of his teammates carrying him off the field. He’s exhausted, and overwhelmed, exuding something deeper than mere happiness – something more akin to an abiding satisfaction, one he probably knew even at that moment would last the rest of his life, having spent himself completely for his teammates and his school, and a cause bigger than himself.

And that’s what he did.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Bacon break for book!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:01:00 GMT

April 22, 2011

Hello Loyal Readers,

Turns out I really, really need to finish a certain book -- go figure -- so I have to take another week off the Bacon Blog. But boy, I'm close! I'd say Wish me luck-- but I sincerely hope luck doesn't have much to do with writing a book.

But it can't hurt!

See you next week.

-John

Cinderella's Unequaled Sequel

John U. Bacon — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:09:00 GMT

April 15, 2011

Press play to listen

Last year, Michigan’s men’s hockey team was in danger of breaking its record 19-straight appearances in the NCAA tournament – a streak that started before many of the current players were even born. They were picked to finish first in the league – but they finished a disastrous seventh, unheard of in Ann Arbor.

The only way they could keep their streak alive was to win six league playoff games to get an automatic bid. Oh, and they’d have to do it with a back-up goalie named Shawn Hunwick, a 5-foot-6 walk-on who had never started a college game. Things looked bleak, to say the least.

But the kid caught fire. The Wolverines actually won all six games, they stretched their streak to 20 straight NCAA tournaments, and Hunwick won the league tournament MVP award. He was like Rudy – with talent.

But there are no sequels for Cinderella. One run is all you get.

This fall, Hunwick alternated games with the original starting goalie, Bryan Hogan, who was healthy again. They both played well, but Hogan won more games. Luck was not on the little Hunwick’s side.

So, when Red Berenson had to pick a goalie to play in the Big Chill game at Michigan’s football stadium – in front of the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game – he picked Hogan. Hunwick was disappointed – but not surprised.

But in warm ups, Hogan pulled a muscle, so they had to throw Hunwick in net, with no preparation – and the kid shuts out Michigan State, 5-0. A star was re-born. Once again, Hunwick took his team on an incredible run, finishing the regular season with an eight-game winning streak to steal the conference crown from Notre Dame on the last night.

Michigan went on to win the NCAA West Region, thanks to Hunwick’s MVP performance, and the team advanced to hockey’s final four. But that meant they had to face the best team in college hockey, North Dakota. Michigan got ahead, 1-0, then counted on Hunwick to do the rest – and he did, knocking back 40 shots, including a few simply spectacular saves, without letting in a single goal. Against the best players in college hockey, many of whom were days away from signing big NHL contracts, the best player on the ice was the 5-foot-6 walk-on goalie who didn’t even have a full scholarship. But he was the one who made it to the championship game on Saturday, not the future NHLers.

Against Minnesota-Duluth, for all the marbles, Hunwick was fantastic again, making 35 saves and being named the Frozen Four’s best goalie. But three minutes into overtime, Duluth scored a good goal. Hunwick didn’t have a chance. The dream ended one goal short.

But the best thing Hunwick did this season happened a few weeks earlier, on Senior Night, when he had a shut-out going against Northern Michigan. Finishing the shut-out could only help his chances for winning league awards, but Hunwick told the coaches he wanted to come out, and let Bryan Hogan, the man who’s job he had taken, finish the game.

“Hey, we’re friends,” Hunwick told me. “And I didn’t win his job. He just got hurt.” If anyone knew how it felt to be the back-up, waiting for a chance that might not ever come, it was Shawn Hunwick. “I’ve been on the bench, and I’ve been in the spotlight. This is definitely a better view.”

Amazingly, Hunwick didn’t get elected to the league’s first or second all-star teams – in a ridiculous oversight -- and the NHL scouts continue to ignore him. But I’ve never seen any athlete get two chances to play Cinderella – and Hunwick nailed it, both times.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

A Michigan Man

John U. Bacon — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:00:00 GMT

April 8, 2011

Press play to listen

If you’re not a Michigan football fan, you probably haven’t heard of Vada Murray, but you might have seen his picture. It’s one of those iconic images of Michigan football, along with Tom Harmon standing in his mud-soaked, torn-apart jersey, and Desmond Howard diving to catch a touchdown pass against Notre Dame.

But the photo I’m talking about shows Vada Murray and Tripp Welborne soaring skyward to block a field goal. They were a kicker’s nightmare. But even when they got a hand on the ball, it simply denied their opponent three points. That’s not the kind of thing that wins you a Heisman Trophy or an NFL contract. They don’t even keep records of those things.

But more than two decades later, something about that photo still resonates. Maybe it’s because it captures their effort, their intensity, their passion – all of it spent just to give their teammates a slightly better chance for success. There is something noble in that. And we recognize it – which is why they’ve been selling that photo at the frame store on Ann Arbor’s Main Street for years, right along side Harmon’s and Howard’s legendary poses.

Murray prepared for life after football. And, like a few other big-time athletes in town, he joined the Ann Arbor Police Department, where he rose to the rank of detective. Even students he busted for hosting parties years ago remember him fondly, which is saying something.

Whenever his former coach, Bo Schembechler, left town, he would tell Vada, “If anything happens to my home while I’m gone, I’m holding you personally responsible!” Bo picked the right man. His place was always safe.

Vada married Sarah, and together they had two beautiful kids, along with Vada's son, Deric, from his first marriage. Life seemed perfect. But three years ago, while he was taking a shower, Vada noticed his left love-handle was a little bigger than his right side. Vada, who had never smoked a cigarette in his life, had lung cancer.

When he gave a guest lecture for my students at Michigan in late 2009, he started by saying, “I’m Vada Murray, and I’m dying of cancer.” If there’s a gutsier opening to a speech, I have not heard it. The students were stunned, and captivated.

But he didn’t dwell on it. He used it to point out how, if you’re a Michigan man in good standing, your football friends will come to your aid – and that’s exactly what they did. It wasn’t about football, he said. It was about family.

The police department proved to be another supportive family. But from people they didn’t know as well, they still had to endure the occasional well-meaning but misplaced comments. Things like, It will all work out. Everything’s for the best. God has a plan for you.

When I visited their home a few months ago, their youngest daughter was playing in Vada’s lap. Their middle child had her arm around Sarah and their oldest kid was playing in the backyard with a friend. Vada looked me in the eye and said, “If God’s plan is for me not to see my little girls grow up and walk down the aisle, you can tell God, his plan sucks.” We were all getting a little choked up at this point, but I couldn’t help but grin at that.

A few weeks ago, Sarah called me and said, “Vada can’t speak to your class this semester.” She didn’t have to say any more. I knew what she meant.

Vada passed away on Wednesday.

If you’re walking down Ann Arbor’s Main Street some day, doing a little window-shopping, you might want to take a moment to look at the photo in the frame store display. You’ll see what a man living fully looks like.

You don’t get to see that every day.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Taking the day off to work on...

John U. Bacon — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:03:00 GMT

Friday, April 1, 2011

Dear Loyal Readers!

Taking the day off to work on -- yes! -- that pesky book, which doesn't seem to be writing itself, for some reason.

But in the meantime, thank you for reading and writing the Bacon blog -- especially the past few weeks. The Fennville story got a record number of hits, and the piece on the Fab Five wasn't far behind. Today we have over 81,000 subscribers.

Whether we agree or not, I appreciate your intelligent and civil commentaries -- which seem to be in short supply on most sports blogs and talk shows. It's a smart bunch we have here, and that's always fun.

Now if I could just figure out a way to make a buck on this -- I mean, really, a buck would be a start -- it will be a perfect world. Okay, guess the writer here isn't that smart -- but you guys are, and that's the key!

Again, THANK YOU!

See you next week!

-JUB

The Fab Five: Then and Now

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:22:00 GMT

March 25, 2011

Press play to listen

The past two Sundays, ESPN has been running a documentary called “The Fab Five,” about Michigan’s famed five freshman basketball players who captured the public’s imagination twenty years ago. It’s not quite journalism – four of the Fab Five produced it themselves – but it is a pretty honest account of what those two years were all about, if not a complete one. And it is undeniably compelling. The first showing reached over two million homes, making it the highest rated documentary in ESPN’s history.

A lot of this story, you already know: in 1991, five super-talented freshmen came to Michigan, and by mid-season the Wolverines were the first team in NCAA history to start five freshmen. They got to the final game of March Madness before losing to the defending national champion Duke Blue Devils. The next year, they made it to the finals again, but this time they lost to North Carolina when Michigan’s best player, Chris Webber, called a time-out they didn’t have.

Along the way they made baggy shorts and black socks fashionable, and imported rap music and trash talk from the inner-city playgrounds to the college courts. It’s been that way ever since.

They stirred up a lot of controversy, but at the time the two most sympathetic figures were head coach Steve Fisher, a truly nice guy who seemed to be a hapless victim of his own recruiting success, and Chris Webber, the most polished of the bunch, due partly to his private school background. To many fans, the rest of the Fab Five were just a bunch of clueless, classless clowns who didn’t belong on a college campus.

The Fab Five certainly had its vices, but selfishness wasn’t one of them. In the history of college basketball, few starting fives worked better together than the Fab Five, mainly because they really didn’t care who scored.

I started writing stories about them after they left Michigan, and quickly discovered they’d known all along what they were doing, and did a lot of it merely to gain a competitive advantage. That doesn’t make all of it right, of course, but it dispels the popular notion they were just a bunch of out-of-control kids from the ‘hood simply seeking attention. They weren’t that needy, and they definitely were not stupid.

I found the ones I spoke to – Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard and Jimmy King -- to be unfailingly friendly, respectful and helpful. My impression wasn’t unique. "Everyone say, 'The Michigan boys have no respect,'" Nuggets center Dikembe Mutombo told me at the time. "But Jalen comes here and he show respect for everyone: teammates, coaches -- even writers!”

That last claim I had to test. When I asked Denver reporter Mike Monroe about him, he said, "He's one of my favorites, and I've been doing this for 11 years. He's just a real pleasant guy to be around."

The cloud of controversy that hung over the Fab Five throughout their years in Ann Arbor disappeared in the NBA – when it usually works the other way around. At one point, three of the Fab Five were listed among the NBA’s top five charitable givers.

It also turned out Steve Fisher really could coach – witness the masterpiece over Kentucky in the 1993 NCAA semi-finals -- and he wasn’t a victim, either. I learned the latter on a cold Sunday morning in 1996 – a year after the last of the Fab Five had left -- when my editor called me to find Maurice Taylor’s Ford Explorer that had rolled over on M-14, near Plymouth.

After I tracked down the truck, a car dealer told me it cost about $35,000. The Secretary of State told me Taylor’s grandmother bought it, and the records showed the car cost twice as much as her home. Within 24 hours, we found several other Michigan players were driving cars they probably couldn’t afford, either. It didn’t take much to smell something fishy.

The investigation that started that day resulted in two coaches fired, two banners brought down, and the entire program put on probation for years.

But I had to wonder: If the press could figure all this out in about 24 hours, why couldn’t Steve Fisher connect the dots right under his nose over several years? They say he wasn’t part of the payola plan, and that’s probably true. But you’d have to be willfully blind not to see its effects by 1996.

When Fisher was fired, he said they’d built an elite program, which was true, and they’d “done it the right way,” which wasn’t – and by the time he was fired, he had to know it. To this day, Fisher has never accepted any responsibility for what happened on his watch, and Chris Webber has never apologized for taking over a quarter-million dollars from a booster. Fisher now coaches San Diego State, which played in the Sweet Sixteen last night, while Webber is a very wealthy TV commentator. Those who followed them at Michigan paid the price for their mistakes.

Twenty years ago, I thought the leaders of the Fab Five were Steve Fisher and Chris Webber. But it turns out the real leader was Jalen Rose, who finished his degree by writing term papers in the back of NBA team planes. He and the other three have proven to be thoughtful, successful and even honest men, committed to their communities and their families. I’ve come to have great respect for them – and much less for their so-called leaders.

What a difference twenty years makes.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Small Town, Big Dreams, Tough Times

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:47:00 GMT

March 18, 2011

Press play to listen

FENNVILLE, MICHIGAN -- On Monday, I drove across Michigan to see a Class C regional semi-final basketball game, pitting tiny Schoolcraft High School against even tinier Fennville.

Both schools were undefeated – but that’s not why I was going. I was going to see the impact of a young man who would not be there.

Before I drove back, I also learned how quickly even a record-breaking basketball game can become utterly insignificant – and then, just a few days later, how the next game can matter so much.

Fennville is about 200 miles from Detroit, but it might as well be 200 light years. When you approach Fennville, you pass a sign declaring, “Hometown of Richard ‘Richie’ Jordan,’ Member of the 2001 National High School Sports Hall of Fame.”

You haven’t heard of Richie Jordan, who graduated almost fifty years ago and stands only 5-7. But everyone around here has, and down at the Blue Goose Café, they still talk about all the records he set in football, basketball and baseball. But the last few years, they’ve been talking about Wes Leonard.

When Gary Leonard joined his brother’s company in Holland, near Lake Michigan, the family could have moved to any number of nearby towns, but chose little Fennville, which has just 1500-some people, a third of them high school students. Here, the whole town comes out for football and basketball games – and musicals and graduations, too.

“I left Fennville for another place,” English teacher Melissa Hoover recalled in the teachers’ lounge, “and I kept saying, ‘In Fennville they do this,’ and ‘In Fennville they do that.’ Finally, one of the teachers said, ‘Well, maybe you should go back to Fennville.’ She was right. So I did.”

The Leonards loved Fennville, and Fennville loved them back.

Their oldest son, Wes, often asked his teachers about their weekends, partly to avoid work but also because he was simply curious about people -- all people.

Leonard would invite the special-ed kids to join him for lunch, and soon the other jocks were doing it, too. When English teacher Susan McEntyre read her students’ journals last semester, “Just about all the kids wrote that Wes was their best friend. They always wrote about that.”

No matter what you were like in high school, you’d want Wes Leonard to be your friend. And he would be.

As an athlete, Leonard was the best thing to come out of Fennville since Richie Jordan himself – something people around here don’t say lightly. Leonard was the team’s star quarterback – he threw seven touchdowns in one game this past fall -- but it was on the basketball court where the junior center really connected with the fans. Sitting so close, they could feel his energy and drive and passion – and see his trademark grin.

But even with Leonard leading the team, no one dared to imagine they’d enter their last regular season game with a perfect 19-0 mark.

When the Bridgman Bees jumped out to an eleven-point half-time lead, Leonard took over, pushing the game to overtime. Then, with about 30 seconds left, he drove the lane for a pretty lay-up – and the win. Fennville’s fans rushed the court, and hoisted their hero onto their shoulders.

It was the kind of ending that sends announcers into paroxysms of hyperbole: Incredible! Unbelievable! Unthinkable!

Then, just seconds later, the truly unthinkable actually happened: Wes Leonard’s enlarged heart gave out, and he collapsed, right on the court.

His father ran down to him, yelling, “Breathe, Wes, breathe! Don’t die on me!” The paramedics loaded Leonard into an ambulance, where they worked to get his heart pumping again. Gary and Jocelyn could only look through the back window, helpless.

Before midnight, the town pastor emerged from the hospital to tell the crowd Wes Leonard had died.

When a small town hero fulfills his fans’ every dream, they put up signs about him on the city limits. What happens to that town when its hero falls right in front of them?

The next day the grade school kids clutched teddy bears, and cried in the corner. Wes’s classmates hugged and sobbed in the hallways. The older townspeople gathered at the Blue Goose, talking about him softly, with tears in their eyes.

“If I was twice as good as everyone else, I’d be arrogant,” said Mike Peel, 57, a real estate agent in nearby Douglas. “But he never was. Never even argued bad calls. He was the kind of kid who could hug his mom in front of a thousand people and not feel embarrassed about it.”

Letters and posters came from as far away as the Philippines and Cambodia. The NBA’s Golden State Warriors asked what they could do to help, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo cut practice short to drive to Fennville to talk the family and the team, and Bo Kimble, whose Loyola Marymount teammate Hank Gathers died on the court from the same condition in 1990, drove all night from Philadelphia to be with them for four days, arriving as a famous stranger and leaving as a close friend. The Blackhawks’ arch-rivals in Saugatuck hosted the luncheon after the funeral.

The coach had to ask his players if they wanted to play their first-round play-off game that Monday. They thought about it. They discussed it. Then they decided, Yes. This is what we do.

They moved the games to Hope College, where the Blackhawks drew over 3,000 fans each night. When the other teams playing that day took the court, they were all wearing the same black t-shirts Fennville wore, with Leonard’s name and number on the back, and “NEVER FORGOTTEN” on the front.

They struggled in their first game, caught fire in their second, then came back in the district finals Friday night from nine points down to win by three. “If you weren’t there,” Mike Peel said, “you wouldn’t believe it.”

This Monday, when Fennville faced Schoolcraft, the Blackhawks finally ran out of gas and luck in the second half and lost, 86-62. But if you didn’t see the scoreboard, you’d have no idea Fennville was getting trounced. The players kept working just as hard, and the crowd kept cheering just as loud, to the very last second.

Harder days are ahead. They know that.

They also know people like Wes Leonard come along in a place like Fennville every fifty years or so, and they might not see another like him the rest of their lives. But the very qualities Wes Leonard brought out in them – pride, unity, and joy – are the very traits they’ll rely on to get them through.

The people of Fennville will never be the same.

But they will be okay.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Sheriffs, Saloon Keepers and Sports Scandals

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:04:00 GMT

March 11, 2011

Press play to listen

On Tuesday night, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith flew back from New York, where he had been running the NCAA basketball selection committee, to conduct a press conference. He announced he was suspending his head football coach, Jim Tressel, for the first two games of the 2011 season. This has Michigan Radio sports commentator wondering why – and why it’s not more.

It looks like Jim Tressel has gotten himself into a bit of hot water. That’s why his boss, athletic director Gene Smith, flew back to make sure everybody said they were “taking responsibility” – a phrase which changed some time in the last decade, and now means the exact opposite.

It was fine theater.

In December, a few weeks before Ohio State’s Sugar Bowl game, five Ohio State players were forced to admit they sold some jerseys, mementos and trophies to a tattoo parlor owner. (And if you can’t trust a tattoo parlor owner with your ill-gotten goods, who can you trust?) Well, he naturally put them on e-Bay, and there’s your scandal. It all seems pretty petty to most people, but it’s serious business to the NCAA.

In fairness to the NCAA, the players knew the rules – despite initially denying they did -- and brazenly decided to do it anyway. They got caught, and they will have to pay the price. Or they might… eventually. You can’t be certain.

That’s because they were not caught by the FBI or the IRS or whatever agency hunts down the scofflaws who tear off mattress tags. They were caught by the NCAA – and that changes everything.

The NCAA started in 1905, after 18 college students died playing football that year. President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to save college football, so he called the presidents of Harvard, Yale and Princeton to the White House to figure out how. And that’s when the NCAA was born.

For decades, the NCAA’s main source of money was members’ dues, which it used to enforce the rules. Simple enough. But about thirty years ago the NCAA started profiting enormously from its basketball tournament – the current TV contract is worth more than ten billion dollars – the sheriff became the saloon keeper. And nobody can do both jobs equally well.

Six years ago, the University of Southern California Trojans were suspected of giving the parents of its Heisman Trophy-winning tailback, Reggie Bush, a house. A whole house. I said at the time: Watch how slowly the NCAA moves on this one. But even I didn’t think it would take five years for them to find the house – the kind of thing you can find with, say, a phone book.

But when the five Buckeyes were busted, they were in danger of being suspended for their upcoming bowl game. Suddenly, the same Keystone Cops who took five years to find a house sorted out the Ohio State mess in just a couple weeks. Then they allowed the players to serve their five game suspension the following fall, when some or all of them might already be in the NFL.

Now an email has turned up which seems to prove Jim Tressel knew about all of this back in April – but told the NCAA in December he knew nothing, no-how. Oops.

So that’s why Gene Smith came rushing back to Columbus to announce he would suspend Tressel for two games. Sound serious? It’s supposed to – but those first two games are against the Akron Zips and the Toledo Rockets – games the Buckeyes could not lose if they were paid to.

If the suspended players stay in school, they will miss out on almost half their last season to prepare for their one chance at pro football. Fair enough. They brought it on themselves. But their coach, who covered all of it up for a year, will be just fine.

How can I be so sure? Because his boss, Gene Smith, is currently the chairman of the NCAA committee for this year’s men’s basketball tournament – the NCAA’s cash cow. If he’s not the sheriff, he’s the deputy. He’ll find just enough wrong-doing to make it look like he’s doing something – and not one ounce more.

The NCAA is no longer interested in integrity – just the image of it. That’s what sells. The suspended players don’t get that. But Tressel does, and so does his boss. They know the saloon owners won’t be too eager to investigate the saloon manager and his best bartender when business is booming.

So, drink up. This round’s on the house.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Little Man Fulfills Big Dream

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:38:00 GMT

March 4, 2011

Press play to listen

In the late nineties, Eastern Michigan University assembled some its best basketball teams. The Eagles were so good they stunned the Duke Blue Devils in the first round of the 1996 NCAA tournament, 75-60. They were led by the nation’s second-leading scorer in 1998 – a guy named Earl Boykins – who the program said stood just 5-foot-8 inches tall. This, I had to see.

I watched Boykins torch Western, Central and Ball State. He could handle the ball, shoot it and pass it better than anyone on the court – even though he was shorter than everyone on the court. Yep, this was a story.

When I interviewed him, the story just got better. He told me he was so small growing up that he learned to dribble by using a tennis ball. When he was three, his dad could sneak him into games by stuffing him in a gym bag -- but, Boykins told me, "Man, that's back when I was small."

Then he stood up, and I quickly realized the program listing was very generous. 5-food-8? I’m 5-foot-8 – and I towered over him. I said, “Duuuuuude! You ain’t 5-8!”

He laughed and confessed he was actually 5-5 – and that’s how I broke the “Earl Boykins’ actual height” story nationwide. Just another example of good, hard-hitting, investigative journalism.

If you’re a 5-foot-8 sports writer you get used to being towered over by your subjects. The only time I can ever look down at an athlete is when I interview jockeys…which I’ve never done. So this was it. Heck, this guy wasn’t just shorter than the sports writers. He was shorter than the referees, the cheerleaders and the ballboys-- and probably you, too.

So, how did he get so good?

When Boykins was 13 his father started bringing him to his adult Saturday morning pick-up games. It improved his skills – and particularly his thinking. He said, “I can't tell you how much more advanced I was mentally than other guys my age."

His court sense is incredible. A full day after one of his games, I asked him about a dozen or so plays, and on each one he had an almost photographic memory of where everyone stood on the court, who was moving where, and who should get the ball. Plus, the dude can dunk!

I still figured there had to be more to it, so I asked to play him in a little one-on-one game up to five.

I didn’t fear getting burned – I knew that was coming – but I was afraid I might injure Boykins through some dumb play. But that would have required getting within five feet of him, which I never did. So, he was safe.

I learned one thing right off: Earl Boykin’s isn’t quick. He’s gone. Where most guards rattle off three sudden steps to get around their opponents, Boykins's first surging stride launches him four or five feet, bringing him even with his defender, and every step thereafter is just gone, gone, gone.

After he did that to me twice, I started back-peddling – and that’s when I discovered Boykins can jam his size 9 1/2 right foot into the hardwood and spring up and back from the bucket – almost like a pole vaulter -- for an uncontested jump shot. So he’s 5-foot-5, and I’m 5-foot-8 – and there was no way I could stop him. 5-0, game over.

Okay, I stink. But far better and bigger players have not stopped him, either. I’m in good company.

For Boykins, playing basketball is the easy part. The hard part is getting the chance.

Iowa offered him a scholarship – then took it back. In college, Boykins finished second in scoring nationwide – and not one NBA team drafted him.

But here he is, already in his second decade in the NBA, a multimillionaire who probably can’t take all the rides at Cedar Point. On Sunday, Eastern retired his jersey, only the fourth player so honored.

Oh, and all the guys Iowa spent scholarships on? Earl Boykins has played more years of pro basketball than all of them -- combined. The little guy has outlasted them all.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Farewell to a First-Class Hockey Father

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:45:00 GMT

February 25, 2011

Press play to listen

Whenever I talk to a high school coach who quit, they always say the kids were great, but the parents drove them crazy. Doesn’t matter what sport.

But when I coached the Ann Arbor Huron high school hockey team, I was lucky. Yes, getting to know the players was the best part, and now, seven years after I stepped down, I’m going to their weddings. What I didn’t expect, though, was becoming lifelong friends with their parents, too.

The team we took over hadn’t won many games, but after we had a decent first season, three hot shots showed up at our door. They had all been coached by Fred Fragner, who once played for the Junior Red Wings.

Whenever these boys blew a great scoring chance, or received a bad call or got whacked with a stick, Fred always told them, with a grin, “Three words: Be a man.” By the time they came to Huron, all three were just that.

Fred’s son, Chris, had more talent than I could have hoped for. Even better, no one worked harder, which solves a lot of problems if you’re the coach. He got that from his father. The only real differences between them were matters of style, not substance. Fred’s character, was Chris’s character.

Another problem we didn’t have was Fred Fragner butting his nose into our business. He was a much better player than I ever was, and he did a great job coaching our fall conditioning team, but he left us alone each winter, which is a great gift for any coach. He never had a bad word for anyone – with the possible exception of a few referees, who, I must say, richly deserved it. Fred Fragner knew a rotten ref when he saw one.

Chris had become so good his senior year, only one guy could keep him from being named the state’s top player – me. Other coaches would have played Chris in big blow-outs to pad his stats, but I never did – and Chris never complained. Neither did his parents. Those of you who’ve coached kids sports can appreciate what a gift that is, too.

It was only after I stepped down that a friend of mine pointed out what great families we had on our team. I hadn’t considered that as a separate factor before, but I soon realized that was the foundation of everything we had accomplished – and Fred Fragner was smack-dab in the middle of it all.

After Chris graduated, he became the first player from our high school to make Michigan’s team in two decades. He didn’t play much, but he never complained. Now he’s using his business degree to pursue a career in finance, and playing with washed-up skaters like me on Tuesday nights.

Along the way, I’d become close friends with all the Fragners, and especially Fred, who always flashed his big rack of white teeth whenever he let loose his booming laugh. I saw that rack of white teeth and heard that laugh for the last time on Monday. After a year-long battle with an aggressive form of cancer, Fred Fragner took his last breath that night.

He was a great husband to Patty, his wife of 37 years, a great father to his daughter Jessi and to Chris, and a great friend to many more, including me.

The year had been filled with physical pain and heartbreaking setbacks, but I never heard Fred complain. He savored everything he could – including the weddings of his two children last year. Faced with a diagnosis he knew was bad news, he followed the advice he had so often given to his son. “Three words: Be a man.”

Fred Fragner was a man – one of the best I have ever known.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Dog Days of Winter

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:33:00 GMT

February 18, 2011

Press play to listen

Last week my beloved television went Poof! It’s seven years old – or, 14 in sports writer years.

So, what great sports events have I missed? Well, I can’t be sure, of course, but I’m willing to bet: Not many.

Sports writers complain about the dog-days of summer, when all we have to write about is tennis and Tiger and the Tigers – and, well, that’s about it.

But there’s a lesser-known slow season for sports scribes, and it’s called February. College football picked its champion more than a month ago, the super-hyped Super Bowl has finally blown over, and baseball is still a solid six weeks away from opening day. And that leaves basketball and hockey.

Both the NBA and the NHL are in the middle of their endless, 82-game seasons. The players are so worn out, some nights they don’t even try to fake it. Only the owners want to see this many games.

That’s why I call this, “Highlight Season,” because the pointless games are only good for generating pointless highlights for ESPN.

I recall when sports highlights were a big deal, and you’d wait up for the 11 o’clock news to see them. Now you can’t avoid them, any time of day or night, and what used to be special has become downright dull.

The worst highlights are baseball, basketball and golf, because I can tell you right now how every single one of those clips ends: Ball goes over the fence, ball goes in the hoop, ball goes in the hole. There – that’s about it.

So once I see it’s time for hoop highlights, I can cover my eyes and play Carnac the Magnificent: “Wait, wait -- Don’t tell me: The big guy jumped up in the air, and stuffed the ball in the hoop? Or, maybe, just maybe, the small guy shot the ball from half-court – and swished it! Ohmygosh!”

Golf is even worse: Once you see the backswing, you know the ball’s going in the hole. The only question is, how cool will the geeky golfer look trying to high-five his caddy? Answer: about as cool as the Brady Bunch break-dancing. Nobody wins.

Baseball highlights are just plain strange. We see the pitch, we see the hitter connect – which always looks like a harmless pop-up -- and then they cut to a shot of a some baseball dropping over a fence somewhere. Is it the same ball? Whose fence is that? The events seem utterly unconnected.

During my hiatus, I suspect I’ve also missed a lot of ads – which are all the same, too. From years of watching games on TV, I’ve learned that opening a can of beer can make scantily clad women materialize out of mist, and when they do, they like you a lot… for some reason.

I’ve also learned there’s some new product – have you heard of this? – that can make a middle-aged man as randy as… well, the kind of guy who’d like scantily clad women to materialize out of mist, just by opening a can of beer.

During games they advertise these pills every twelve seconds, until you can repeat the medical warnings verbatim. But you have to admire any product whose possible side effects are the best advertisement for it -- unlike every other medicine, whose side effects always include headaches and diarrhea.

And what’s up with the couple lying in the empty bathtubs on some sunny hillside? I’m no doctor, but I think I can diagnose their problem – and it’s not a lack of pills. Who does that -- ever?

So, while my TV is broken, what am I missing? Maybe not that much.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

What's Really Super about the Super Bowl

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:39:00 GMT

February 11, 2011

Press play to listen

45 years ago, the Super Bowl… wasn’t even the Super Bowl. They called it the NFL-AFL Championship Game, until one of the founders renamed it after watching his grandson play with a “High Bouncing Ball” – a super ball. Super ball – Super Bowl. Get it? And thus, an artificial event was born.

Tickets were just fifteen bucks for that first game – and they barely sold half of those, leaving some 40,000 empty seats in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

A thirty-second ad cost only $42,000 – and they weren’t any different than the ads they showed the previous weekend. The half-time show featured three college marching bands – including one you might have seen from the University of Michigan.

Over the next couple decades, of course, the event became a veritable national holiday. Tickets now sell for thousands of dollars, and ads for millions. The game attracts more than 100 million viewers in the U.S. alone.

The hoopla surrounding the game has exploded, too. Instead of sticking to college marching bands for halftime, they branched out into other forms of entertainment. For reasons I’ll never understand, that included four appearances by a group called “Up With People!” Or, as the Simpsons called them, “those clean-cut young go-getters, Hooray for Everything!’”

“Up with People!”? As opposed to what, exactly? “Down With Humans!”? Besides, I don’t think we can afford to be that conclusive. “Up With People” sounds great – so long as we’re not talking all people.

One year they devoted the show to America’s 200^th anniversary, followed by the 100^th anniversary of Hollywood, the 40^th anniversary of the Peanuts’ comic strip, then the 25^th anniversary of… the Super Bowl itself. You kind of got the feeling they were running out of ideas.

That all changed in 1993, when Michael Jackson performed the half-time show, and his hair caught on fire, or his sister suffered a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ or maybe they conducted the OJ trial live on the fifty-yard line – I’m sorry, but these events have started to blur for me.

The point is, the half-time show became a big deal. Such a big deal, in fact, that the ratings were higher for the show, than for the game. A survey showed most fans said they would rather miss a play than an ad. Style had officially triumphed over substance.

That might have been a good thing, because the game itself usually stunk. Of the first 30 Super Bowls, only seven – less than a quarter – were within a touchdown. But more than half the past 15 Super Bowls have been that close.

And that’s good, too, because now all the stuff around the game itself – the national anthem, the half-time shows, the ads – have become almost unwatchable.

On Sunday we heard Christina Aguilara butcher the Star Spangled Banner, which was bad enough. But then we heard the Black Eyed Peas butcher their own songs, which was even worse.

The only thing that matched the quality of the game – which was great, once again -- was the now-famous Chrysler ad. It was as much about their car as it was about the city that spawned it. It certainly beat piling on the poor city, which every hack out there has already done. And it was better than the dopey old campaign, “Say Nice Things About Detroit.” Yes, and “Up With People!” too, while you’re at it.

No, the ad was authentic, it was serious, it was sincere. It was real.

When you look back at the checkered history of over-hyped Super Bowl games and shows, that understated ad stands out as something truly super.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Hello Loyal Readers!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:52:00 GMT

January 14, 2010

As you know from the Bacon Blog last week, I'm working on a book about Michigan football. Titled Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines, it will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and will be on shelves this fall.

That's the good news. The bad news is, that means I have to finish by February 1st! As one friend said, "Well, that's good. You'll be done soon!" No, I will be finished soon -- done or not! The deadline is a lot closer than the book is right now, so I'm working like mad to get this in as good a shape as I can before the bell rings.

So, as I result, I'm taking a break from just about everything I can until I finish. Sadly (for me, at least!) that means taking a break from the Bacon Blog, too.

But I'll be writing and recording the Bacon Blog again in just a few weeks. Somehow, I think you'll survive.

But thank you again for being such loyal readers. Our numbers are still climbing!

THANK YOU!

-John

p.s. Here is the longer version of the story that ran in the Wall Street Journal last week.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723104576062163140431804.html

Inside a College Football Tragicomedy

John U. Bacon — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 05:55:00 GMT

January 7, 2011

Press play to listen

For the past three years I have been granted unfettered access to the Michigan football program, from the film room to the locker room, to write a book about what I’ve seen. Titled Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines, it will come out this fall.

Before I walked into my first staff meeting, I thought I knew college football, and particularly Michigan football, as well as anyone out there. But after three years of seeing everything up close, I can tell you this unequivocally: I had no idea.

College football is based on a central conflict: It’s a billion-dollar business that can generate enough revenue to fund whole athletic departments and enough passion to fuel endowment drives for entire universities, but it’s all built on the backs of stressed-out coaches and amateur athletes.

College athletic departments now resemble modern racehorses: They’re bigger, faster and more powerful than ever, but still supported by the same spindly legs that break too easily and too often. Michigan’s $226 million renovation of its stadium—already the largest in the country, and twice as big as many NFL stadiums—the coaches’ spiraling salaries, and the seemingly insatiable need to build new facilities for its 26 other varsity programs, all depend on selling football tickets, seat licenses, luxury suites and TV rights. And all that still depends on the arm of a 20-year-old quarterback, or the foot a 19-year-old kicker.

That’s why coaches work 100-hour weeks recruiting, practicing and watching endless hours of film—only to see that 19-year-old kid miss the kick anyway. When that happens, the head coach can expect to get thousands of nasty emails, and just a few hours of fitfull sleep.

The coaches have to ask their players to work almost as hard -- not just on the field but in the weight room and in the classroom. I followed Michigan’s Big Ten MVP quarterback, Denard Robinson, for one day, which started at 7 a.m. with treatment for his swollen knee, followed by weightlifting, classes, an interview with ESPN Radio, more treatment, meetings, practice, a third round of treatment, dinner and study table. When he walked out of the academic center at 10 p.m., two middle-aged men who’d been waiting all night asked him to sign a dozen glossy photos. I went home exhausted—and I hadn’t done anything more than take notes.

Conditioning, however, was even harder. I worked out with the strength coaches for six weeks, just to see what it was like. They doubled my bench press and tripled my squat – and also showed me I could throw up from running or weight lifting. I had not known that. After each workout I collapsed on my couch for an hour or two —not to nap, mind you, but to whimper in the fetal position like a little kid.

How those players got any school work done at the end of those days is a mystery to me. And, thanks to Michigan’s self-imposed penalties, the Wolverines actually worked fewer hours than the NCAA allowed. What they do is not against the rules—that’s the real story there—it’s just very, very hard.

If any of Michigan’s 125 players do any of these things poorly, or not at all, that’s the head coach’s problem. And if any of those failures hit the papers, the talk shows or the blogs, it’s an even bigger headache.

This beast we have created may be bigger and stronger, but the coach’s job security still rests on kids who might weigh 300 pounds and can squat twice that, but still can’t grow a respectable mustache. They really are just kids.

Having seen it all up close, I know this much: I don’t care how much money the head coach gets paid or how famous the quarterback is. I would not trade with either of them. And if you saw how they lived, as I did, you might not either.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Game of the Century

John U. Bacon — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:50:00 GMT

December 3, 2010

Press play to listen

By beating Penn State on Saturday, Michigan State secured a share of its first Big Ten title in 20 years. It was a big game, but it was far from Michigan State’s biggest.

The biggest game in the Spartans’ long history wasn’t one of their 30 victories over Michigan, their six national title-clinching contests or their three Rose Bowl triumphs.

No, the biggest game in Michigan State history was against Notre Dame in 1966 – and it wasn’t a victory.

A lot of history went into that contest. Both schools had leveraged their football success to raise the profile and prestige of their universities. Both wanted desperately to get into the Big Ten, but Notre Dame was blocked in the twenties by Michigan’s first big-time coach, Fielding Yost, while Michigan State was blocked in the forties by Michigan’s second big-time coach, Fritz Crisler.

Notre Dame finally said, to heck with you guys, and went off on its own to become the only independent power with a national following. But Michigan State knew independence wouldn’t work as well for a state school. So the Spartans kept asking the Big Ten to let them in. Watching this unfold, the Irish concluded: Any enemy of our enemy must be a friend of ours.

Thus, in 1948, the Irish told the Spartans, Sure, for the first time in 27 years, we’ll play you. And they’ve kept doing it all but four years since.

The rivalry gave the Spartans added credibility, helping them win national titles in 1951 and 1952. The next year, when the Big Ten finally let the Spartans join, they celebrated by taking the league title in their first year.

The Irish had to wonder if boosting their friends to national prominence had perhaps worked too well. Since the Irish had won their last national title in 1949, the Spartans had won five.

It all came to a head on November 19^th, 1966, in East Lansing. The radicalism that had already started growing in Ann Arbor, Madison and Berkeley hadn’t yet reached East Lansing or South Bend. Most students there were not yet focused on the draft or civil rights, but football.

The game attracted 8,000 more fans than Spartan Stadium had seats – and for good reason. Before kick-off, the pundits were already calling it, “The Game of the Century.” Notre Dame entered the game undefeated, and ranked number one in one poll. The Spartans were also undefeated, and ranked number one in the other poll.

The nation would be watching – or trying to. In those days, colleges were allowed only one national telecast per season, and both teams had already used theirs up. But interest in the “Game of the Century” was so great, fans in the South and West wrote over 50,000 letters to ABC. Can you imagine people today writing 50,000 letters – not emails -- to anyone, about anything?

It worked – sort of. ABC agreed to show the game on tape delay – which, before the advent of the internet and cell phones, still allowed most fans to watch it hours later without knowing who had actually won.

State scored first, and took a 10-7 lead into half-time. In the second half, Notre Dame managed to kick a field goal – just was enough to tie the game. The Irish got the ball back on their own thirty yard-line, with a minute left and a chance to win the game.

But instead of playing to win, Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian started running out the clock. The crowd booed lustily, but Parseghian stuck to his guns. There was no overtime then, and he knew a tie would not cost the Irish a chance at another national title, the way Notre Dame’s narrow loss to Southern California the previous season had given the crown to Michigan State.

Not this time. When Notre Dame swamped Southern California the next weekend, 51-0, Parseghian won his first national title – but he’s been answering for his decision ever since.

The Spartans earned a share of the national title, too. But don’t feel sorry for either team. They played ten games each, tied one, and shared a national title. Feel sorry for Alabama’s Bear Bryant, whose team won the SEC title, won the Sugar Bowl, didn’t lose to or tie anyone -- and won nothing.

And that’s the story of the Game of the Century – the biggest game any college team ever… tied.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

How the Lions Started Playing on Thanksgiving - Before it was a Holiday

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:38:00 GMT

Friday, November 26, 2010

If it seems like the Detroit Lions have played on Thanksgiving since it became a national holiday, it’s because they actually started seven years earlier.

True, the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in October of 1621, but the custom faded, resurfacing only when George Washington, Abe Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt promoted the idea as a national tonic in troubled times. FDR tried to move the unofficial holiday back a week to expand the shopping season, but Congress put an end to all the feast-fiddling in 1941, when it fixed Thanksgiving’s date forever and declared it a national holiday.

George Richards was way ahead of them. In 1934 Richards bought the Portsmouth, Ohio, Spartans, for $7,952.08, moved them to Detroit, and re-named them the Lions. Incredibly, they won their first ten contests to tie the Chicago Bears for first place with three games left. The bad news: only about 12,000 people seemed to care. If the Lions couldn’t catch on at 10-0, Richards knew, their days in Detroit were numbered.

Richards needed a hook -- and fast -- so he invited the Bears to play on FDR’s unofficial Thanksgiving Day, and drew an overflow crowd of 26,000. The Bears may have won the game, 19-16, but the Lions won the war.

They had started a tradition that’s now older than 22 of the NFL’s 32 current teams. They rewarded their fans the next season by beating the Bears 14-2, on Thanksgiving, en route to their first league championship, the same year the Tigers, Red Wings and Detroit native Joe Louis all won titles, earning Detroit the nickname, “City of Champions.” (If this sounds unbelievable, we understand.)

(The Dallas Cowboys started the second-half of this holiday biathlon in 1966, when they stuck the powerful Cleveland Browns with a 26-14 Thanksgiving turkey. The Cowboys have played every year since, having successfully fought to keep their tradition protected by the NFL, too.)

The annual tradition invariably inspires the Lions’ best effort. “I don’t know what it is about the Thanksgiving game,” says former All-Pro lineman Keith Dorney. “Maybe it’s the holiday or the national television, but there’s magic in the air for the Lions.”

Call it magic, motivation, or Full-Moon Football, on Thanksgiving the Lions have traditionally been over-achievers, and never more so than in 1962, against Vince Lombardi’s undefeated Green Bay Packers. The Lions jumped out to a shocking 26-0 lead, to give the Packers their only loss that year – one “so distasteful in Green Bay,” writes Lombardi biographer David Maraniss, “that not even the championship win over the [New York] Giants completely erased it.”

There hasn’t been much magic for the Lions the last six seasons, when they’ve have lost ever Thanksgiving Day game. But these days, they’re usually on national TV just once a year – and that’s something the whole country can be thankful for.

How the Badgers Blew It

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:29:00 GMT

November 19, 2010

Press play to listen

Since the Michigan and Wisconsin football teams first played each other in 1892, Michigan has won a decisive 80-percent of those games.

The difference was one man: Bo Schembechler, who beat the Badgers 18 of 19 times. If Schembechler had coached Wisconsin, instead of Michigan, the record would be almost even.

That actually almost happened. And it all came down to a 40-minute meeting, 43 years ago.

Schembechler became the head coach of his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, in 1963, at the ripe old age of 33. After Miami won its league title in 1965 and '66, Wisconsin came calling for the head coach.

Wisconsin set up an interview for ten o’clock on a Sunday night. Bo walked in to face twenty guys sitting around a room, looking bored. One of the members actually fell asleep, right in front of Bo – which thrilled him. They also had a student who seemed to relish asking smart-aleck questions – which thrilled him even more.

The whole thing lasted just forty minutes. The second Schembechler got out that door he walked to the nearest pay phone and called the Wisconsin athletic director, and told him to withdraw his name from consideration.

Schembechler already knew they were probably going to hire an assistant coach from Notre Dame anyway, so it was mostly for show. He didn’t appreciate that, either. But Bo knew one thing: even if Wisconsin still wanted him, he no longer wanted Wisconsin.

The process also made Schembechler realize his destination was the Big Ten, and he was going to hold out until he got there.

He turned down Tulane and Pitt, Vanderbilt and Kansas State. Finally, in 1968, Schembechler got a call from Michigan’s outgoing head coach, Bump Elliott, who was recruiting his replacement. Schembechler was interested, of course, but let them know he was not about to go through another dog-and-pony show like Wisconsin’s.

“Michigan didn’t need some silly committee or student rep to check me out,” Bo told me, “and I didn’t need any dime-store tour of the campus to appreciate what Michigan had to offer.”

Two days later, they sealed the deal with a handshake.

A year after Schembechler’s disastrous interview at Wisconsin, the Badgers offered a young basketball coach named Bobby Knight the top job. Knight called Schembechler at six in the morning for his advice.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Bo said, “but I was unimpressed. If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t go to Wisconsin.”

Knight didn’t, of course. Two years later, he took the job at Indiana.

The Badgers lost out on a football coach who would go on to win 13 Big Ten titles, and a basketball coach who won eleven more, plus three national titles.

Instead, Wisconsin got a revolving door of five football coaches and six basketball coaches, none of whom ever won a single Big Ten title. They did, however, get shellacked by the coaches they could have had, year after year.

And it was all because of one shabby, 40-minute interview on a Sunday night in 1967.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Banner Beginnings

John U. Bacon — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:04:00 GMT

November 5, 2010

Press play to listen

Whenever you see a TV spot promoting college football, you can be sure they’ll include a shot of the Wolverines running out of the Michigan Stadium tunnel to jump up and touch the “M Go Blue” banner. It’s one of the sport’s truly iconic images.

But like most traditions –most of the good ones, anyway -- this one started organically and quietly before becoming a public pillar of Michigan football.

Fifty years ago, Michigan’s head coach was a guy named Chalmers Elliott – which might explain why his friends called him “Bump.” As a player, he’d been an All-American and national champion, but coaching was tougher.

In 1962, the Wolverines lost five of their first six games, including four straight Big Ten losses– three of them, shutouts.

The head hockey coach, Al Renfrew, had been a classmate of Elliott’s, and the two had remained good friends. So Renfrew and his wife Marjorie decided to do something to help boost the football team’s morale. Marjorie went to work in her sewing room, stitching a yellow block “M” on a blue sheet, about six feet across.

The players liked it, so Bump Elliott let the boosters hoist the banner the next day – IN the tunnel– for the players to touch on their way out.

It worked. The Wolverines won, 14-10.

The next year, the boosters moved the banner to mid-field, and the year after that, 1964, the Wolverines won the Big Ten title and the Rose Bowl.

Today the banner measures four feet high and 40 feet wide. It’s been stolen twice, but recovered both times. It was even attacked once, when the Ohio State Buckeyes took the field in 1973.

Announcer Bob Ufer was apoplectic:“And they're tearing down Michigan's coveted M-Club banner! They will meet a dastardly fate here for that! There isn't a Michigan Man who wouldn't like to go out and scalp those Buckeyes right now. They had the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to tear down the coveted [banner].”

In a backhanded way, the Buckeyes paid the banner its greatest compliment: their attack proved the banner had come to represent everything about Michigan football its fans admired,and its opponents feared.

The power of the sheet of nylon should not be underestimated. Many players and even coaches say it was one of the reasons they wanted to come to Michigan – and one of them wasn’t even a football player.

In the early nineties, every professional and college hockey program in North America was dying to get Brendan Morrison to leave British Columbia to play for their team.

But Michigan had one thing the others didn’t: the famed football banner. When they asked Morrison to hold one of the ropes to keep the banner up when the team ran out, he was hooked. A few years later, he scored the overtime goal to win Michigan’s first national title since 1964, and was named the best player in college hockey.

And that’s how the football program paid back the hockey team.

Jim Conley, captain of that1964 football team, said of the banner: “You can’t explain it. But there’s something to it.”

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Mascot Manifesto

John U. Bacon — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:09:00 GMT

October 29, 2010

Press play to listen

Michigan towns invest a lot in their high schools – and they should, because those schools represent them. That’s why you see those signs at the city limits boasting about their Class B state baseball champs or Class D volleyball team– from 1994. I’ve always thought that’s pretty cool –and even cooler for the state champs who get to see it every time they come home.

The towns’ pride often carries over to the teams’ mascots, like the Midland Chemics, the Calumet Copper Kings, or the Bad Axe Hatchets – great names, every one of them. When you pull those jerseys over your head, you know you’re wearing a piece of your home, your history, your very identity. But if you play for the Panthers or the Wildcats or – heaven forbid– the Eagles, you’re one of a hundred. Actually, you’re one of 103. That’s how many high schools have those names in Michigan alone.

Ann Arbor’s newest high school is among the unfortunate. Instead of letting the students pick their mascot, a committee of fifty did it for them. And really,a committee of fifty isn’t a committee. It’s a small village. The committee did what committees do: it picked the lamest possible names.

They called the new high school Skyline, which makes no sense at all, because Ann Arbor doesn’t have a skyline – and if it did, it wouldn’t be in the northwest corner of town, where the school is. No, in that neighborhood,you have a treeline. See the difference? The committee couldn’t.

But the mascot the committed picked is worse. After careful study and lots of discussion, they came up with – yes! -- the Eagles! Just like 44 other schools in the state, Michigan’s most common nickname. Awesome.

Which is why I feel grateful to wake up every morning and know that I am… a River Rat!

Yeah, you heard me right. The mascot for my alma mater, Ann Arbor Huron, is the River Rats. And yes, there’s a story behind that.

For well over a century, Ann Arbor had only one high school, whose teams were called the Pioneers. So, when they opened Ann Arbor’s second high school in 1969, Ann Arbor’s first school decided to call themselves the Pioneer… Pioneers! Hey, it rhymes. Get it? And only three teams in our hockey league are called that!

The question was, what to call the new school? They were building it hard by the Huron River, so that was easy: Huron High. Nice.

Now, what about the mascot? Years before Huron was even finished, Pioneer students started calling their new rivals the “sewer rats.” This being the sixties,and this being Ann Arbor, the Huron students weren’t offended, but flattered, converting the name to the River Rats, and claiming it as their own.

The administrators hoped the students would pick the Highlanders or the Hawks, but the counter-culture crowd voted for “River Rats” in a landslide. So the administrators decided to start the school without an official mascot.

The name finally caught on for good during football camp a few years later. Huron was so overcrowded in its early years, the joke went, that even the rats left the building. So when the football players sat down to eat, and a huge, hairy rat ambled into the cafeteria, the football players didn’t need a committee to start their spontaneous chant: “The rat is back! The rat is back!”

So what if the principal later found that rat under Huron’s trademark arch – and clubbed it to death with a two-by-four? Those players, inspired by that rat,beat Pioneer for the first time in 1976, and the name stuck.

Yes, other schools might make fun of us – as I’m sure they do the Hematites, the Flivvers, and the Nimrods, all great names – but they know who we are, because we’re the only River Rats around. And because we have a story, we know who we are, too.

Poor Eagles. Poor Pioneers.

Go Rats!

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

How Yost Built the Big House

John U. Bacon — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:45:00 GMT

October 22, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

It's fund-drive week on Michigan Radio, so I'm off. However, for you loyal readers (and listeners), we have a couple items to keep your insatiable appetite satiated for another week.

First, this feature piece that ran in Michigan Today on the building of Michigan Stadium -- a lot more controversial and tricky than you might have thought, with two failed votes before Fielding Yost finally got approval.

And, because it didn't work the first time, we're including the audio from the piece on Aussie Rules Football, featuring a few Aussie phrases in native accent, thanks to my coach, Vince Duffy, who lived there for a year.

http://blog.johnubacon.com/2010/10/08/the-toughest-athletes-are-down-under.aspx

As always, thanks for reading, listening, and writing! We've cracked the 70,000 mark for subscribers, and the 1,000 mark for Twitter...ing. If that's a word.

THANKS!

-John

HOW YOST BUILT THE BIG HOUSE

http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2010/09/story.php?id=7865

Why College Football is Superior to the Pros in Every Way

John U. Bacon — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:53:00 GMT

October 15, 2010

Press play to listen

Last Saturday, the Michigan State Spartans beat the Michigan Wolverines in the most anticipated rivalry game in years. But that was overshadowed just one day later by the Detroit Lions, who pulled off one of the great upsets of the NFL season, when they… beat someone. Anyone. Doesn’t matter. At football!

Hard to believe it was just two years ago the Lions became the first NFL team to lose all 16 games. And now, here they are, standing tall at 1-5.

That’s why their victory was such big news. I hear from my friends who have real jobs that it was bigger talk around the office water cooler than the Michigan-Michigan State game – and that’s saying something.

It just proves my theory that Detroit really isn’t Hockeytown. It’s a football town. Whenever the Lions so much as show a pulse, the locals go loco.

But I’m still not biting. Not just on the Lions, but on pro football itself.

Yes, I watch the games. Yes, I know the teams and follow the players. But the NFL has never captured my imagination the way college football has.

Granted, when I was growing up, the Wolverines were great, every year, and the Lions were – well,the Lions. Every year. But it’s more than just wins.

College teams were created over a century ago by college students, just for fun. NFL teams are created every few years by NFL owners, just for profit.

College teams play on college campuses, where students actually go to school. NFL teams play in big cities, where they don’t have homecoming games, because nobody ever attended Jacksonsville Jaguars University.

College teams never threaten to change their colors or move to Oklahoma City if you don’t build them a new stadium -- at taxpayer expense. No, they play in grand old coliseums surrounded by green lawns and radiant trees. They have marching bands and fight songs and crazy customs that go back 100years. NFL teams play in sanitized, soulless domes, with loud scoreboards that tell you exactly what to yell and exactly when to yell it.

Fun!

The NFL’s rules are designed to create as much parity as possible – which is why it seems like almost every team finishes nine-and-seven, or seven and nine. (The Lions being a notable exception.) Pro football functions like a giant gumball machine, randomly jumbling the players around the league, and spitting out winning teams seemingly by dumb luck. When you hear the score of an NFL game, you have to stop and think:Was that an upset? I can’t recall. But when Appalachia State beats Michigan, you know it’s big.

Pro teams choose their players,but college players choose their teams – and it shows. They’re more passionate playing for free than pro athletes are playing for millions. And when college players have a good year, they don’t demand to ‘renegotiate’ their contracts. College players don’t play for paydays or playoff spots, but Brown Jugs and Brass Spittoons – and good old fashioned bragging rights. Who brags about beating the Carolina Panthers?

Yes, the Spartans say A.A.stands not for Ann Arbor but Arrogant Asses, and the Wolverines comeback by calling M.S.U. a cow college – but they’ve been doing it for a hundred years, and they’re not likely to stop any time soon.

Well, good for them.

It may be crude, obnoxious and unfair – but it’s tradition, real tradition – and that is something the NFL will never have.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Toughest Athletes are Down Under

John U. Bacon — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:54:00 GMT

October 8, 2010

Press play to listen

Players on both sides of the Michigan-Michigan State game will tell you it’s the hardest hitting game of the year. No one can doubt the guys who’ll go at it tomorrow are some of the nation’s toughest men.

But the best athletes I’ve ever seen – and perhaps the toughest -- I found on the other side of the world, playing Australian Rules Football – or “footy,” as they call it.

American football is dominated by specialists: huge linemen, speedy receivers and tiny kickers –all with their own, very specific jobs. But in Aussie Rules Football, all eighteen players on a team have to be able to catch the ball, run with it, pass it with either hand and kick it with either foot – all on the run. And when an opposing player gets it, they have to chase him down to make the tackle. That’s why footy players all look the same: big and strong, lean and mean.

Every season these guys play twenty-six games, which run ninety-minutes each, on a pitch three-times larger than a U.S. football field, with almost no stops in play or substitutions. They only have four guys on the bench. So, they have to run over ten miles each game. One team’s trainer told me, “These guys are probably the best conditioned athletes I’ve ever seen, and I once worked with the Penn State football team. They’re strong, they have great endurance and most can run the 100-meter dash in eleven seconds.”

And they’re tough. With only one official watching 36 players, a lot goes on behind the play – heck, most of it goes on behind the ref’s back. The Monday papers are filled with colorful examples of opponents getting to know each other in ways Miss Manners never mentioned. Imagine the NFL without equipment, whistles, or penalties, and you’re pretty close.

How tough are they? In the first five minutes of the Grand Final one year, the star forward suffered a concussion, and dropped to the grass. When the trainers lifted him to his feet he threw up, but just a few minutes later he came back to make a spectacular catch and kicked a goal that set the tone for the game. In the same quarter his teammate was tackled so hard he broke a rib, which punctured a lung. Both players were sent to the hospital -- but only after they finished the remaining three quarters to help their team hold on for a dramatic victory. It is the stuff of legends – or just stupidity, take your pick.

Small wonder the sport’s most important statistic is not points or goals, but games played. Survival is the measure of success. Only about five-percent of players get past fifty games – or about two seasons’ worth.

League officials do their best to punish dirty play at the weekly tribunals, held in a Melbourne courthouse, but they’re foiled by the players’ absolute determination to lie through their broken teeth -- on behalf of the very guys who broke them. That’s right: the Footy Code requires victims to tell the most outlandish stories about their injuries -- “I hit my head on the cupboard,”“Oh, that? Shaving accident,” and of course, “It’s just a flesh wound”-- often by phone from their hospital beds, even as the videotape at the tribunal shows them taking elbows, fists and knees in the very places you would least like to take them, just to protect their attackers from punishment.

Why stay mum? If you squeal, the whole league will pound you. “Whatever happens on the field, stays there,” one told me. “You just wait ‘till you see him next time.”

A player named Kevin Sheedy set the standard for revenge when he played an additional year in the sport’s minor league system for the sole purpose of exacting revenge on an opponent who had duffed his hero, Ian Shelton. When he finally played the offender a year later, Sheedy left the poor bloke in so many pieces he could have been sold for parts. Once the victim regained consciousness, he told the tribunal, “I just took a tumble.”

So, whatever happens tomorrow, it probably won’t be quite as violent as an Aussie Rules Football game. And that’s fair dinkum.

No worries, mates.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Story of the Gipper

John U. Bacon — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:43:00 GMT

October 1, 2010

Press play to listen

The Notre Dame football team has lost three straight games to Michigan, Michigan State and Stanford. Normally, nobody would care about a 1-3 team that’s finished in the top ten just three times in the past two decades. But this is Notre Dame, the nation’s first football team with a national following.

It all started with coach Knute Rockne and his best player, George Gipp -- more commonly known as "The Gipper." Thanks to the famous phrase "Win one for the Gipper," and a 1940 movie starring Ronald Reagan, who played the Gipper, George Gipp remains famous 90 years after his death. He’s also woefully misunderstood.

Gipp was born in 1895, on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula in the U.P. He was Laurium’s best athlete in five sports. He even won a gold watch for ballroom dancing.

But he was no one’s idea of a Boy Scout. He grew up during the U.P.’s copper mining boom,and like the miners, he enjoyed smoking and drinking, playing cards and shooting pool. When he enrolled at Notre Dame in 1916, he was not corrupted by South Bend. South Bend was corrupted by him. When the best poker and pool sharks came in from Chicago,Gipp beat them soundly.

He once said, "I'm the finest free-lance gambler ever to attend Notre Dame” – and he was probably right.

Because this was long before TV, Gipp was not widely recognized, so he could go to the bars unrecognized, bet on himself to score in the next day’s game, then go out the next night and collect.

And he collected often. His junior year, he led the Irish to an undefeated season.

But he only cared about one thing: Iris Tripeer, the governor’s secretary. She cared about him, too – but her parents didn’t, because back then, football players had no way to make an honest living.

Gipp’s letters to Iris display two sides he rarely showed anywhere else: commitment, and passion. “Iris honey I'm mighty lonesome tonight,” he wrote in the summer of 1920, when he worked at the Buick plant in Flint. “Just think of you all the time dear. I want your life to be always happy but if you refuse to believe in me I don't see how it can be.”

When Gipp’s attempts to impress Iris and her parents fell short by the fall of 1920, his senior season,he became downright self-destructive, doubling his gambling, his smoking and his drinking, even while leading his team to another undefeated season.

But it caught it up with him. He coughed so much at the team’s banquet, they took him straight to the hospital, where they discovered he had strep throat. Today antibiotics can cure it in a week, but they would not be invented for12 more years.

Rockne telegrammed Iris to come quickly – and she did. Even as Gipp's body was failing,he was named Notre Dame’s first All-American; Walter Camp tapped him as the nation’s finest back; and the Chicago Cubs offered him a pro contract.

But no accolades could save him. On the evening of December 14, 1920, the editor of the Calumet paper solemnly placed a card in the window that announced George Gipphad died. His death was front page news across the country.

Eight years later, when Notre Dame faced a heavily favored Army team in Yankee Stadium, Rockne passed on to his players Gipp’s final words.

"I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid.

"Sometime, Rock, when the team's up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys -- tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy."

Gipp’s posthumous speech inspired the Irish to pull off a tremendous upset, 12-6.

Of course, only two people know if Gipp really said all that – and they’re both long gone --but Gipp’s love letters do suggest that he had it in him.

Perhaps his greatest honor came decades later. Before Iris Tripeer died in 1975, she showed her granddaughter his letters. She said, "George Gipp was the only man I ever loved."

No myth can top that.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Friday Outage

John U. Bacon — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:52:00 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

Unfortunately, we experienced some serious technical difficulties on Friday, when the host crashed our happy little site. Of course, it has taken us this long to get back up and running, so we are considering making some major changes to ensure this never happens again.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

And as always, thanks for reading!

-John

Restoring Heisman's Honor

John U. Bacon — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 03:02:00 GMT

September 17, 2010

Press play to listen

The Heisman Trophy had humble beginnings. In 1935, the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City– a private organization with no ties to the NCAA or any major football conference or team – decided to give an award to the best player in college football. The next year, when the Club’s most famous member, John Heisman, died of pneumonia, the members named the award after him.

They made a fine choice. Heisman went to Brown University as an undergrad, and the University of Pennsylvania for his law degree before becoming a coach in 1892. He coached at six colleges, including Georgia Tech, where he led his team to a 33-game winning streak. Many historians consider him the father of the forward pass. And, on the side, Heisman was a skilled Shakespearean actor.

But his best line was his own. To start the season each fall, he would hold a football in his hand and tell his players, “Men, it is better to die as a young boy than to drop this ball.”

It did not take long for Heisman’s trophy to gain prestige. Today it’s probably the best-known trophy awarded to an American athlete. But, there is a catch:the winner has to be an eligible amateur athlete.

That never seemed to be a problem until Reggie Bush took home the hardware in 2005. No one questioned his achievements. He gained over 2600 yards and scored 18 touchdowns for the University of Southern California. The Trojans have won seven Heisman Trophies, tying Notre Dame and Ohio State, and they claim more national titles than anyone. Or they used to.

The Trojans also apparently set some records for breaking the rules. Bush received more than a quarter million dollars in gifts from sports marketers – which people at USC knew about, and let slide. But when Bush signed a 20 million dollar NFL contract, and refused to pay back his benefactors, they sued him. And that’s how the famously feckless NCAA got their man.

Pete Carroll, the architect of this corrupt regime, magically decided to jump back to the NFL right before the NCAA hit USC with some of the harshest penalties any school has received in a quarter-century. USC’s athletic director,Mike Garret, was summarily fired – and rightly so. The Trojans had to “vacate” their victories – a fancy phrase for forfeiting –for their entire 2005 national title season.

But the current players will pay the real price. They will lose scholarships and not be able to go to a bowl game for a couple years.

There was, however, one unanswered question: With the Heisman winner declared ineligible, should Bush have to give back his trophy?

Lots of people thought not. After all, plenty of Heisman trophy winners were horrible people –with O.J. Simpson leading the pack. I say, that’s beside the point. True, Reggie Bush did not commit a felony – but that’s why he’s losing his trophy, and not his freedom.

The apologists also argue that Bush had a great year, and won the award in a landslide. So what? That’s like praising Michael Milken’s business savvy for stealing more money than other folks earned honestly.

The Heisman people did the right thing. And, this week, when Reggie Bush announced he would return his trophy, he did the right thing, too – finally – and perhaps,for the first time.

And this once noble trophy, named for an uncommon man, got a bit of its dignity back, too.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Real Show Stopper

John U. Bacon — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:55:00 GMT

September 10, 2010

Press play to listen

The University of Michigan’s athletic department just completed its 226 million dollar renovation, on time and on budget. To celebrate, Michigan rededicated its iconic stadium in grand style, including fancy receptions, programs, pins and not one but two-fly overs, all followed by a big win over Connecticut.

But the show-stopper wasn’t a world-class pilot or an All-American athlete -- just some guy who walked out to mid-field.

In 2007, on Christmas Eve,23-year-old Brock Mealer was riding home from their cousin’s house with his family and his brother’s girlfriend. It was a wonderful evening, full of appreciation and promise.

Brock’s brother Elliott had just accepted a scholarship to play football at Michigan, and Elliot and his girlfriend seemed headed for the altar.

But on the way home, a 90-year old driver named H. Edward Johnson ran a stop sign and struck the Mealer’s SUV. Hollis Richer, Elliott's girlfriend, and the Mealers’ father, Dave, were killed instantly. Brock was paralyzed from the waist down.

The other driver survived, but never apologized.

Doctors gave Brock less than a one-percent chance of walking again. They advised his mom to consider buying a specially equipped van for about 100,000 dollars,and to be prepared to change her son’s diapers. Hope was officially discouraged.

They had their reasons. In most cases like Brock’s, there really isn’t much chance of walking, and to pretend there is can be demoralizing.

But Brock’s will to live hinged on walking again. With little hope for improvement, he had fallen into a deep depression, made worse when his insurance company cut him off last fall.

He still had family, though, and Michigan football. About a year ago, strength coach Mike Barwis invited him to work with them.

The guy had no idea what he was in for.

Michigan’s strength staff may be many things, but soft is not one of them. Barwis turned the job over to Parker Whiteman, who gave Brock his daily lunch hour, but not an inch of slack, especially when the going got tough – which it did, every day.

Within a month, Brock had re-learned how to stand up – just for a second, at first, and then for a moment, and then a minute. Then he started walking with arm crutches. And then, by this spring, just canes.

And that’s when head coach Rich Rodriguez told Brock they wanted him to help open the renovated stadium on Saturday. Leading up to the big day, Brock was as nervous as any player – maybe more. On game day, his brother, Elliott, was more anxious about Brock’s walk than his own play.

With a record crowd standing and cheering him on, Brock Mealer got out of his wheel chair, gripped his canes, and did something the experts said he never would. He took one step, and then another. And then another. He was so pumped, he was worried about going too fast and losing his balance.

Since the famed banner was first raised in 1962, Michigan football players have touched it over 30,000 times – and every single one of them got there faster than Brock Mealer did.

But as Mealer approached the block M in the center of the field, stopped, and reached up to touch the banner, no All-American or Heisman Trophy winner ever received more affection and respect from the crowd than he did.

When they write about that day a hundred years from now, Brock Mealer is the one they’re going to remember.

The Rivalry -- Saved

John U. Bacon — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:36:00 GMT

September 3, 2010

Press play to listen

Ten years ago, ESPN viewers voted the Michigan-Ohio State football game the best rivalry in thenation. Not just in college football, or football in general, but in all sports. Since 1935, it’s held a privileged spot as the last game of the Big Ten season. More college football fans have seen this rivalry, in person and on TV, than any other.

HBO has produced dozens of sports documentaries, but only one on college football: the Michigan-Ohio State game. They titled it simply, “The Rivalry.” They did not feel they had to explain it.

But when the Big Ten added Nebraska, everything seemed up in the air, including the Michigan-Ohio State game. Next fall the Big Ten will have 12 teams, playing in two divisions, culminating in a title game – all new.

So that raised a few possibilities– not to mention plenty of rumors and fears. If they kept Michigan and Ohio State in the same division, the teams could never meet in the title game. But if they put them in different divisions, they might have to play again in the title game just one week later. One rumor had them moving the game from its traditional date at the end of the season - or even interrupting the rivalry, instead of playing every year.

The fans, former players and reporters – including me -- responded with their “usual level of cool maturity,” as Dave Barry would say, “similar to the way Moe reacts when he is poked in the eyeballs by Larry and Curly.” One Ohio politician even went so far as to introduce a resolution demanding the game never be moved.

Rob Lytle, an Ohio native turned Michigan All-American, said, “Bo would have hated this. I'm glad he and Woody don't have to go through it. They're probably marching around throwing tantrums right now." He was probably right.

College football is famous for fixing what ain’t broken, but the idea of moving or even interrupting the greatest rivalry in sports would have been the dumbest idea since New Coke. Actually, that’s not fair -- because no one made you drink New Coke.

Fans expect to see the Rose Bowl in January, the Super Bowl in February, and March Madness in, yes, March. And they expect to see Michigan play Ohio State in late November. If they moved it, it would be no better than, say, Tennessee-Florida, or Oregon-Southern Cal. Those are not classics, just games, and no one cares when they play them. Not so The Rivalry.

Besides, the odds of a championship rematch are actually pretty small. In the last 22 years, the two rivals have finished first and second only four times – less than twice a decade. And on those rare occasions when there is a rematch, it won’t dampen interest, but ignite it.

Take the most recent example:in 2006, Michigan was undefeated, and ranked second in the country. Ohio State was undefeated, and ranked first. The Wolverines’ comeback attempt fell just short, and they lost, 42-39. But the game was so good, almost half the country wanted them to meet again for the national title. So who wouldn’t watch them tee it up a week later for the Big Ten title? The ratings would be astronomical.

So what’d the Big Ten honchos finally decide? They stunned everyone – including me -- and came up with a format that’s intelligent, even elegant. They listened to their constituents and left the Michigan-Ohio State game at the end of the season, right where it belongs.

There’s only one downside:I had written my commentary a few days ago blasting away in anticipation of the sporting world’s dumbest decision, and instead I have to close this by saying: “You fooled me. Well done.”

Copyright© 2010, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Hemingway's Michigan

John U. Bacon — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:24:00 GMT

August 27, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

Although I was officially on vacation this week, because I spent a few days retracing Ernest Hemingway's haunts in Northern Michigan, I decided to take a couple hours - more than I intended! -- to combine two pieces, one that ran in the Detroit News in 1998, and one that Time commissioned in 1999 but didn't run, due to JFK Jr.'s tragic plane crash the same week.

I was inspired by meeting again with Ernest H. Mainland, Hemingway's nephew, whom I first met 12 years ago pursuing these pieces. He has become a good friend. Then, after a round of golf, I coaxed another old friend, Jeff Johnson, into joining me for an impromptu tour of nearby Horton Bay. While telling Jeff about some of the stories Hemingway based there, a man named Robert walked down the road and joined us, then invited us for a drink with his girlfriend at his rental cabin just up the road -- which turned out to be Shangri-La, where the Hemingways honeymooned in 1922.

Needless to say, when I returned to Chicago on Thursday, I felt compelled to combine my pieces on Hemingway into one narrative, and deliver it to you.

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed researching, writing and revising it.

See you next week.

-John

HEMINGWAY’S MICHIGAN

HORTON BAY -- Ernest Hemingway gave the world novels that are still treasured 49 years after his death, but he gave the folks in Michigan something extra.

Before Hemingway earned wealth, fame and a Nobel Prize for his books about Europe and Africa, Key West and Cuba, he wrote short stories about life in Petoskey, Charlevoix and tiny Horton Bay.

Hemingway's highly autobiographical stories celebrate the kind of rustic northern living thousands of us have enjoyed since. Written more than eight decades ago, stories like "Summer People," "Three Day Blow" and "The End of Something" still resonate with Michigan readers.

In 1922, Hemingway made his last visit to the family cabin on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey. A few years after that, he wrote his final piece about the area. But the short stories' clear, uncomplicated writing introduced a style no one had seen before, and his first tales have proven to be as enduring as the beauty of the region he wrote about.

FIRST LOVES

Like many wealthy Chicago families at the turn of the century, the Hemingways escaped the Second City’s muggy weather by migrating to northern Michigan each summer. (This is why Michigan’s west coast was settled not by Detroiters, but Chicagoans.) Ernest Hemingway saw Walloon Lake, about 90 miles northeast of Traverse City, for the first time as a six-week-old baby in 1899, and every summer thereafter through 1921.

At the turn of the century, just getting there required the Hemingways to board a train ride from their home in Oak Park to Chicago, a horse taxi to the Lake Michigan pier, a steamer to Harbor Springs, a narrow-gauge train to Petoskey, another train to Walloon Lake, and a smaller wood-burning steamer to the Hemingway's cottage.

It was there, and not in the family's stuffy hometown, that Hemingway first learned about fishing and drinking, romance and writing -- the very things that continue to define his legacy.

The people who introduced Hemingway to these pleasures appeared a few years later as characters in his highly autobiographical short stories --often by their real names.

In "Three Day Blow," Hemingway's alter ego, Nick Adams, gets drunk while discussing baseball, fishing and women with Bill, a ringer for real-life summer friend Bill Smith. In the unfinished "Summer People," Adams and Katy -- named after Bill's sister, a real-life flame of Hemingway's -- make love in the forest surrounding Lake Charlevoix. And in "The End of Something," Nick ends an affair on the beach of Horton Bay with Marjorie, inspired by a local waitress named Marge Bump.

Naturally, in some of these stories Hemingway took reality and twisted it. A few women named in the stories later said they never consummated their relationships with Hemingway. But they were still so accurate, one biographer described Hemingway's recollection of the area as "photographic."

But Hemingway did not sit down to write those stories until after he was married and living in Paris. He could have written about the big cities where he had lived in North America and Europe, but he chose instead to devote his energies to the small towns of northern Michigan. He followed his famous advice -- write about what you know -- and what he knew best was Michigan's woods and waters.

SINGING A NEW SONG

On the back of his novels, it says Hemingway’s “tough, terse prose and short, declarative sentences did more to change the style of written English than any other writer in the twentieth century.” A lofty claim, perhaps, but probably true.

When Hemingway started writing, he borrowed not only Horton Bay’s scenes and people, he also its voice. When Hemingway's readers fell in love with his character’s direct dialogue – so unlike the sophisticated speaking style of Oak Park or the baroque sentences of Key West -- few realized they were hearing the clear, clipped phrases of northern Michigan. And it wasn’t Sherwood Anderson or Gertrude Stein who first told Hemingway to reveal his characters through their own words. It was Bill Smith, a Michigan fishing buddy. From these gifts Hemingway built the foundation of his deceptively simple style.

Hemingway sought to “describe without frills, without the imposition of attitude,” wrote Anthony Burgess, who, in addition to writing, “A Clockwork Orange,” also produced a brief biography of Hemingway. “This sounds easy now, chiefly because Hemingway has shown us how to do it, but it was not easy at a time when ‘literature’ still meant fine writing in the Victorian sense, with neo-Gothic decoration.

“The Hemingway tune is in the ears of all young people who set out to write.”

Hemingway picked up that tune in northern Michigan, and sang it his entire life.

A SENSE OF PLACE

In Paris and Pamplona, Oak Park and Key West, the locals shamelessly sell their connection to Hemingway to gullible tourists. The annual running of the bulls in Spain, an event known to only a few Americans before Hemingway described it in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, is now televised live each year on ESPN. And Hemingway’s favorite Key West watering hole, Sloppy Joe’s, has plastered his likeness on everything from key chains to condoms to a web site, complete with a 24-hour “bar-cam.”

While other towns have sold off their Hemingway history piece by piece to gullible tourists, the place Hemingway loved the most -- northern Michigan-- has exploited his legacy the least.

Despite the locals’ fierce protection of the Hemingways’ privacy, however, some Hemingway buffs manage to find the secluded summer home anyway. One stranger once walked in, uninvited, and was happily poking around the home when Mainland emerged from the shower. “What the hell are you doing here?” Mainland asked.

“Well, it wasn’t locked,” the man said.

"We still have a chance of keeping tourists away,” Mainland says, “because so far they haven't banned land mines.”

Although he sells insurance in Petoskey, Mainland doesn't use his middle name on his cards nor on his door. He says even most of his friends in town don't realize he’s Hemingway's nephew, and he likes it that way. Mainland's son, Ken, has read only one Hemingway work, "The Old Man and the Sea," simply because it was required reading a tPetoskey High School. "It was all right," he remembers. "I wrote my report on it and moved on. I think I got a 'B.'"

The Hemingways’ cozy cottage is now dwarfed by million dollar homes, but Walloon Lake is just as cold, clear and captivating as it was one hundred years ago, with the cool morning mist burned off by the sun each afternoon, exactly as Hemingway described it in a high school poem.

A few months before his wedding to Hadley Richardson in 1922, he confessed his fear that married life would keep him from his boyhood paradise. “Guy... loves a girl and the god dam (sic) streams can dry up for all he cares,” he wrote a Michigan friend. “Only the hell of it is that all that country has as bad a hold on me as ever ... and you know how it’s always been... At night it comes and ruins me -- and I can’t go.”

His fears proved correct. After their honeymoon at the family cabin,Hemingway never returned to his favorite place.

He should have.

STILL THE SAME

If Hemingway traced his old footprints today, he would have no trouble finding his familiar haunts.

To escape his overbearing mother, Hemingway thought nothing of rowing a mile across Walloon Lake, then walking three miles along roads that are still quiet, dusty and scented by the pine trees that line the route, into the tiny town of Horton Bay. Upon arriving in the two-road town of Horton Bay (which sits on the shore of a cove of the same name) Hemingway would discover the white clap board church where he and Hadley were married burned down decades ago, but he’d easily recognize the Horton Bay General Store, which has the same facade, the same wooden floor and the same fare of ice cream, candy and fresh bait. He might notice a small revolving rack filled with his paperbacks, and a guest book with entries from Syria and Argentina, Germany and Japan, but he would not see his face staring back at him from tacky t-shirts and trinkets.

Reassured by the familiarity of his former hamlet, he’d probably be willing to brave a walk down Lake Road to the water. On the way he’d see Dilworth’s boarding house, which provided him refuge in the low-ceilinged room off the kitchen when he didn’t feel like making the long trek back to his parents’ cabin, is no longer open for business, and the extra room off the kitchen, where Hemingway’s old bunk bed used to be, is now used for storing rusty croquet sets and barbecue grills. But he’d be relieved to see the current owners have refrained from posting a sign saying “Hemingway Slept Here” -- although he did, many times. And unlike the Lincoln Bedroom, this one’s never for rent.

Next door, above the porch, he’d see an old board with “Shangri-La”engraved on it, identifying the place where Ernest and Hadley held their wedding reception 78 years ago. When Debby and Jeff Hutchison decided to buy the home years ago, they weren’t aware of the Hemingway connection. "We just bought it because it was a nice house," she said. “And it has been.” The people in Horton Bay generally talk about their famous resident as a former neighbor, not a Nobel laureate.

If the locals are nonchalant about their Hemingway connection, Hemingway was unabashed about his devotion to the area. In 1924, while living in Paris, Hemingway started “Summer People,” the first of his highly autobiographical Nick Adams short stories. "Halfway down the gravel road from Hortons Bay... to the lake there was a spring,” he wrote, “flowing away through the close-growing mint into the swamp."

Three decades after “Summer People,” Hemingway started, “The Last Good Country,” in which he wrote, “There was a tin cup on a forked stick that was stuck in the gravel by the spring and Nick Adams looked at it and at the water rising and then flowing clear in its gravel bed beside the road… He could see both ways on the road and he looked up the hill and then down to the dock and the lake, and the wooded point across the bay...”

The same tin cup Hemingway wrote about in 1951 hung from the same forked stick, undisturbed for decades, until the road was paved a few years ago. No one wanted to steal the cup, or memorialize it. They just wanted to use it.

The swamp, the spring and the close-growing mint are all still there, as they were. These days the bay’s natural calm is occasionally broken by the wail of jet-skis, but the dock’s right there, and the point across the bay remains heavily wooded, haunted by the ghosts of Hemingway and his friends.

Hemingway led a glamorous life filled with travel, adventure and famous people, but he always reserved a special place in his memory for the simple summers he'd spent up north.

In 1960, Hemingway finished "A Moveable Feast," his memoirs of 1920s Paris. Even then, Michigan was still on his mind. Just a few months before he killed himself, he wrote, "The best sky was in Italy or Spain and in Northern Michigan in the fall."

It still is.

Major Fun in the Minor Leagues

John U. Bacon — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:30:00 GMT

August 20, 2010

Press play to listen

If you're sick of the big leagues, but not baseball, check out your backyard.

Here in Michigan you can watch the Beach Bums in Traverse City, the Lugnuts in Lansing, the West Michigan Whitecaps near Grand Rapids, the Great Lake Loons in Midland, and the Kings in Kalamazoo. Michigan fans can see six minor league teams if you count the Toledo Mudhens; and seven if the Tigers start slumping again. Michigan baseball fans haven’t had it this good in decades.

In 1949, the U.S. boasted almost 500 minor league teams, supported by forty-two million fans. But their ranks shriveled when major league baseball expanded, TV blossomed and air conditioning made staying at home much cooler. In just three years, attendance dropped almost 80-percent.

But when major league baseball turned its back on its fans with strikes and lockouts, the minor leagues aggressively courted them. Almost every fan-friendly custom you see at major league stadiums today they stole from the minors, including fancy food, daily promotions, pop music and endless stunts to keep the fans coming back, win or lose. As a result, the minors have grown back to a robust 176 teams nationwide.

Visit one, and you understand why. You park your car for a couple bucks, and in a couple minutes, you’re in your seat. Every employee you meet seems to be working overtime to keep you fat and happy. They remember the season ticket holders’ names, and welcome them back each night.

The workers shower the fans with free frisbees, candy bars and bunched-up t-shirts fired from sling-shots. Between innings, they sponsor the usual potpourri of minor league gags, including the dizzy bat race, the hula hoop contest and a sumo wrestling match -- always involving fans pulled from the stands.

A minor league baseball park is no place for the self-conscious. You should expect to let your hair down and join the show.

Kids play on the grass embankments, stand on the dugouts and sing "Take me out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch -- while waving to their parents -- and get to run around the bases when the game's over.

Fans don't leave minor league games early, because they’re enjoying the whole experience, not just the outcome.

In the minors, even the players aim top lease. Unlike the lolly gaggers in the majors, the bush leaguers take their at-bats as if they're being timed, they don't whine about the umpire’s calls and they actually run all the way to first base on hopeless ground balls. Of course, they’d better, or they’re gone.

The players put their hearts in their work for less than they could make flipping burgers at McDonald's. So, why do it? Because after four or five years of flipping burgers, McDonald’s will never give you a big league contract. Do any of these guys really have a chance? As one manager told me, "If you got a uniform, you got a chance."

These guys are doing what they've dreamed about all their lives: playing baseball.

Some dreams are a little more modest. I met two brothers who had good jobs at Oldsmobile, but asked the Lansing Lugnuts if they could walk around the park with trash cans. They only got minimum wage – and all the cans they could find. "If it wasn't fun,” one told me, “we wouldn't be here."

He then picked up his trash can, turned toward his buddies in the stands and bellowed, "Get yer trraaaaaash. Cold trash here! Get yer trash!"

And that, in a peanut shell, is the difference between the majors and the minors: Everyone in the minors is making less money, and having more fun.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Bonus Bacon Blog

John U. Bacon — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:11:00 GMT

Here's a bonus Bacon Blog, on a Wednesday no less.

Meet the NFL's Most Interesting Man, Zoltan Mesko, in today's WallStreet Journal. (It's free today. After that, I won't charge you, but they will.)

>View Article Here

Of course, you can always get the paper paper, where they gave it a full back page.

Now, to get back to this week's Bacon Blog, on minor league baseball. (Little tease for you.)

Enjoy your, um, middle of the week, I guess. (Why not?)

As always, thanks for reading!

-John

Bullfighting: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

John U. Bacon — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:31:00 GMT

August 13, 2010

Press play to listen

When I read the Spanish province of Catalonia voted to outlaw bullfighting, I was not surprised. A few years ago I traveled through Spain to write about bullfighting. Along the way, I met Barcelona’s director of tourism, and asked her why bullfighting was much less popular in Barcelona than the rest of Spain. She replied, “It is because we are civilized.”

Bullfighting’s biggest opponents ,in fact, have always been Spaniards. Even bullfighting’s fans don’t brag about the 13,000 bulls killed every year in the ring, or claim they deserve to be killed.

But I’m not sure we’re in a position to judge bullfighting too harshly. We kill more than 35 million cows every year, and 100 million pigs and eight billion chickens. Not even Birkenstocks grow on trees.

The Spanish bulls might have it better than your average American bull. They’re not castrated or stuck in a veal pen but roam freely on the range and mate for life. Whether it’s better to die by a cattle prod and a knife to the throat or a sword to the back, after being allowed a few swipes at the swordsman, is debatable. But if you’ve never seen a bull killed outside of a bullring, you might be just as appalled by an Omaha slaughterhouse.

No one claims a bull fight is fair. But it would be a mistake to think the whole thing is just a mere contest. The aficionados don't go to the bullfights to see who "wins” any more than music critics go the opera to see who finishes first.

It’s not a game, but a performance. Done poorly, bullfighting is humiliating and revolting, diminishing everyone involved. One bad bullfighter I saw named Jesulin kept shuffling his feet as if he was standing on a frying pan. He had no poise, no control. The bull ran when he wanted it to stop; it stopped when he wanted it to run; and then it simply ignored him altogether and walked away, leaving him standing there like a suitor trying to look brave after being slapped in public. When he drew his sword to end the bull’s life, I had to look away. It was that bad.

But seeing it done well was just as memorable. Francisco Ordonez is one of Spain’s best bullfighters. His grandfather was the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s Pedro Romero in The Sun Also Rises. Unlike Jesulin, Ordonez planted his feet as if they’d been nailed there. He was fearless, and exuded complete control, like a conductor who could create exactly what he wanted with the slightest gesture – and knew it.

In just seconds, he and his four-legged partner were dancing like they’d been doing it for years– first slowly and separately, then quickly and closely, but always in concert, with Ordonez leaving the bull in position for his next pass the way a good pool player leaves the cue ball poised for his next shot.

After a flurry of passes, Ordonez nodded respectfully to the mesmerized bull, then strode confidently away from him, trusting the bull with his back. He did not work to impress the crowd, but the bull – and he did.

When the dance was over, Fran guided the long sword directly over the bull’s horns, and thrust downward into the bull’s back. He then walked away, certain he had done it right. Two beats later, the bull fell on its side.

Hemingway wrote, “From amoral point of view, the whole bullfight is indefensible. But whoever reads this can only truly make such a judgment when he, or she,has seen the things that are spoken of here.”

Bullfighting might be many things, but only a person who has never seen it done well could claim it lacks courage, skill and art.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The All-Star Next Door

John U. Bacon — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:09:00 GMT

August 6, 2010

DEAR LOYAL READERS

Well, turns out teaching in Chicago on Thursdays can mess up your schedule a little bit -- and more so when you throw in the Big Ten media days Monday and Tuesday this week. That means I didn't go home between Thursdays, and that means Michigan Radio has to pay for studio time here to knock out the weekly commentary. They have done it a few times, God bless 'em, but not this week, partly because there aren't any truly hot topics that beg to be addressed. And that means, this week at least, that no, we don't have a fresh commentary for you, but are-run of a piece about Brandon Inge from last summer.

The good news is it's still as relevant today as when I wrote it, and second, because YOU amazing folks have expanded the subscriber rolls to over 70,000 (holy mackeral!) that most of you probably missed it the first time around. So act like it's new, and I will too.

I'm coming home on the train today, though -- can't miss the UM hockey alumni weekend! -- and will have fresh goods for all of you next week. Scout's honor.

Hope you're all enjoying the rest of this hot hot summer while you can! Sure beats the cold cold winter!

And, as always, THANK YOU!

-JUB

THE ALL-STAR NEXT DOOR

Three years ago, a few folks in Dexter, Michigan – a small farming town just west of Ann Arbor– were buzzing with rumors that the only house for sale in their neighborhood might finally be sold.

I found out from my mom, who found out from her hair-dresser, Chantel Williams, who lived next door to the vacant house, that Shani Inge and her husband, Brandon, had bought it. They moved to Dexter even though it’s a full hour from his office. He works at Comerica Park, in Detroit, playing third base for the Tigers. In fact, he just played in his first All-Star game. But you’d never guess it from the way he looks – and certainly not from the way he acts.

A friend of mine I’ll call “Fred Fragner” – because that’s his name -- is a home inspector. When Fragner knocked on the Inge’s door to do his job, the guy who answered looked so young, Fragner figured he was probably the family’s kid back from college.

Inge gave Fragner the full tour of the house, ending in the basement. There, Fragner noticed more baseball memorabilia than even the manliest of man-caves typically has.

“You play ball?” Fragner asked.

Inge looked at him, to see if he was serious. “Yeah, I do.”

“For who?”

“For the Tigers.”

“The Louisiana State Tigers?” Fragner asked, still refusing to believe the guy was old enough to be a major leaguer.

“No, the Detroit Tigers!”

“The Tigers?!? You’re not big enough!”

Inge chuckled, and took it right in stride.

Before Inge left for the park that day, he asked Fragner if there was anything he could do for him. Fragner asked for an autographed baseball card. No problem, Inge said. After Fragner finished his work, on the way out he saw, on the kitchen table, a baseball card signed by Brandon Inge – and five more, just for him.

In fairness to Fragner, a lot of folks can’t believe the 5-11 Inge is a major leaguer. Inge is so inconspicuous, a local softball team daringly put him on their roster, called him “Charlie” -- and got away with it for weeks.

The kids at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital have been quicker on the uptake. Brandon’s wife Shani had worked there, and both their boys were born there. But what hooked her husband was meeting the patients.

Inge has been a frequent visitor ever since, and didn’t need to be prodded to donate $100,000 to build a new play area for the young patients. Instead of naming it after themselves, the Inges have asked the kids to come up with a name for it.

Inge was scheduled to meet one of those kids, eight-year-old Tommy Schomaker, this spring. But Inge missed him because Tommy had to be rushed that very day into surgery to receive a heart transplant. When Inge came back a few weeks later, Tommy asked for an autograph. Inge agreed, on one condition: Tommy had to give him one, too – right on Inge’s right forearm.

When Inge stepped into the batter’s box that night, he looked down at Tommy’s autograph –then knocked the ball over the wall for a two-run homer.

I’ve never met Brandon Inge. I’d like to, but I don’t need to. I feel like I already know him.

He’s the All-Star who lives next door.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Wheels of Justice Grind Slowly -- But They Do Grind

John U. Bacon — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:54:00 GMT

July 30, 2010

Press play to listen

The gears of justice grind slowly, but they do grind, and sometimes they actually get their man– or woman, as the case may be.

The sports world saw its share of slow-moving justice this week, from the global to the local.

New York Yankees’ third basemen Alex Rodriguez has already admitted he used steroids, but only after his tests were leaked to the press. He’s still playing, and is now one just home run away from hitting 600. Twenty years ago this would have been big news – but since suspected steroid users Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds crossed that threshold, the luster is lost. About half of those polled said they simply don’t care – and they polled New Yorkers. If they don’t care, why should we?

Rodriguez cheated himself out of his own celebration. Seems about right to me.

Overseas, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong dropped from the leader board for the first time in years. He’s long been suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs, too, but he’s never failed a drug test. Still, the circumstantial evidence is mounting. Greg Lemond, the first American to win the Tour in 1986, publicly wondered years ago why Armstrong had worked with a dirty doctor in Italy known to traffic in steroids. But the blow back hit not Armstrong but Lemond, who felt compelled to apologize for his comments.

In 2006, Floyd Landis pulled off one of the greatest finishes in Tour de France history, then tested positive for drugs. He denied it, he denied it and he denied it– until this spring, when he ‘fessed up. But, he said, Armstrong took them too.

It was a gutless act from a gutless man, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t telling the truth –for once. Armstrong brushed it off, and given Landis’s record for integrity, it wasn’t hard to do. But it seems the noose is slowly tightening, and we’ve not heard the end of this story.

We’re also missing the story in golf. Yes, Tiger Woods’s love life made great tabloid fodder, and has cost him millions in endorsements and probably his marriage– but not his career. No, the real story, the one few seem to be pursuing, centers on his mysterious Canadian doctor. Dr. Tony Galea has been linked to a number of drug-using athletes, and is currently facing charges. Woods says he’s never taken any performance-enhancing drugs, but if so, why would you ever call a doctor like Galea? Best case scenario: it was an extremely stupid decision.

Golf is the only sport where you’re expected to call penalties on yourself, even when no one’s watching. So if Woods is found guilty, he should not expect his sport to be very forgiving. He will be stripped of every tournament he has ever won. Mark my words: Watch this one carefully.

And now to our own backyard.

You might recall Kimberly Knight, the woman who appeared in court a year ago to face charges she’d embezzled almost a million dollars from the kids who play in the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association. Judge Melinda Morris gave her a shockingly light suspended sentence, requiring Knight to return only a small fraction of the money, with no jail time.

Well, Knight showed her first collision with the law was no fluke when she failed to produce court-ordered tax records, and faced unrelated fraud charges. Morris gave her a minimum two-year sentence. Though I’d still like to see Knight forced to give far more of the stolen money back to the kids who need it, it was good to see a little accountability, at least.

These examples remind me of a quote from Winston Churchill. When he was asked about democracy– including our ideas of justice – he said, “It’s the worst system in the world – except for all the others.”

So it was nice to see the worst system in the world have a pretty good week.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Camp Director

John U. Bacon — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:31:00 GMT

Dear Loyal Readers,

I'm traveling this week so I didn't get a chance to tape a new commentary, so I hope you will enjoy this updated version of one from last year, about former Camp Director Pat Rode -- one of the more popular ones we've done.

In the meantime, we are also working to transfer the site to a better host, so we can get rid of the typo-glitches many of you experience, make it easier to comment, and ensure that you can get all the taped commentaries in full through the archives. In other words, it should be just plain better.

Don't forget that you can listen to all these commentaries, thanks to the fine folks at Michigan Radio who work hard to make them sound professional!

I'll be back next week. I look forward to connecting with you again, then!

-John

THE CAMP DIRECTOR

Press play to listen

With the weak economy, and high school coaches urging their players to attend “voluntary” work outs, enrollment for summer camps is down nationwide about 10-percent. But if the choice is between team workouts and summer camp, I say, summer camp wins hands-down.

Let me explain.

I didn’t want to go to summer camp.

I spent my summers growing up at our family cottage near Traverse City. The idea of going to Camp Hayo-Went-Ha– a YMCA camp on the lake -- didn’t interest me. I liked playing baseball, riding bikes and going to hockey school with my best friend. I figured the kids who went to Hayo-Went-Ha either couldn’t play baseball or didn’t have many friends.

But by my sixteenth birthday, thanks to the curveball, I couldn’t play baseball either. Far sadder, my best friend had been killed in a car accident.

With nothing else to do, I went to Camp Hayo-Went-Ha. I discovered the kids there were tougher than most of my hockey teammates. And they got to go on exotic trips from the Rockies to Nova Scotia.

The camp has the rustic, tidy look of the "Swiss Family Robinson" movie set, but camp sessions play out more like episodes of Fantasy Island. The anxious newcomers hope that special place will help them find what they’re missing.

The man who choreographed those life-changing experiences for me and 10,000 other brave souls stepped down 11 years ago. Pat Rode, now 80, worked hard to give bored kids some adventure, forgotten kids some attention and just about everyone -- campers and counselors alike -- a sense of belonging.

Rode based camp on his belief that we can’t get through life alone, but there are plenty of people willing to help. As a child Rode was sickly, his father was often gone, and his mother was buried on his 12th birthday. "But,"he told me, "so many people went out of their way to help me that, well, you've got to give back."

He did. In addition to his time and energy, Rode gave former campers money to pay for rent, college tuition, plane tickets and even bail. All but one has paid him back. Rode believes in second chances.

At camp I learned how important it is to be needed. When a young camper lost his mother in a car accident, I could only tell him what it felt like when my best friend died. I was surprised this helped him -- and even more surprised how much this helped me.

That’s why, when my brother was searching for direction 27 years ago, I suggested he join the camp staff.

He says it absolutely changed his life. Being responsible for the kids made him think about what's important. It made him realize his abilities. And he made lifelong friendships there.

That's what summer camp did for him.

After camp, my brother climbed Mt. Ranier, earned his bachelor’s and launched his career. And when he got married, Pat Rode was there.

When Rode announced that 1998 would behis last summer, his old campers and counselors flooded his office with letters, calls and visits. At his final farewell ceremony, a dozen alums flew in just to thank him.

As always, Rode lit his candle and those of his staff members, who then lit their campers' candles, too, until the once dark hall was bright enough to see the tears on the faces of Pat Rode's campers, his counselors, and the old camp director himself.

Then everyone blew out their candles,returning the big room to its original darkness, and listened to Pat Rode say goodbye. My brother draped his right arm around his wife, and his left arm around me. After all those years, I still felt part of something special – and I still do.

That’s what summer camp did for me.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Goodbye, Mr. Brown

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:29:00 GMT

July 16, 2010

Press play to listen

It was a beautiful summer morning. I walked from my home in Ann Arbor, down State Street, to St. Thomas Church. A crowd had already gathered outside, waiting to pay respects to our old friend, Mr. Brown.

No one told us to call him that. We just did.

In 1937, Mr. Brown’s father and grandfather opened a store called College Shoe Repair. Mr. Brown took over the business in 1951, the same year he married Dorothy– or Mrs. Brown, to us. They worked together every day. They had seven kids, and all of them worked at the store at some point.

When the shoe repair business slowed down in the seventies, Mr. Brown started selling hockey equipment and sharpening skates. That’s how most of us got to know him.

Mr. Brown was gruff and sometimes grouchy. He had a temper, and he didn’t suffer fools too gladly. But if he was no glad-hander, he was no pretender, either. There was not a phony bone in that man’s body. If he got to know you– and he seemed to know everyone who visited his place more than twice– you soon discovered he was as loyal as a hunting dog, and good company.

Mr. Brown never played hockey himself, but he knew more about the local hockey scene than just about anyone in town. His store served as the nerve center for everybody who played or coached or reffed or drove their kids to some freezing rink at six in the morning. When I coached the Huron high school hockey team, he never had to ask me how we were doing, because he already knew – and on some days, he seemed to know better than I did.

Most of all, Mr. Brown cared. He cared about the quality of his work, whether he was resoling a pair of shoes or re-palming a pair of hockey gloves. He cared about his customers, and the people who played the game, from Mites to Masters. Mr. Brown often grumbled about the homeless people around his store, but then you’d catch him slipping one of them a few bucks just for washing his windows.

I wonder who will care about all those people now.

After the service, I walked back from St. Thomas, right up State Street, to take another walk around Mr. Brown’s block. I strolled past Hank at Van Bovens, Jerome at the Diag Party Store, Dave at White’s Market, Marizio at New York Pizza Delivery, John at Gold Bond Cleaners and right next door, Pete at Frank’s Restaurant. I know them all by name, and they all know me – and hundreds of other customers, too, because they’re not customers to them. They’re friends.

When I coached the high school team, each fall we had to raise money to keep our team going. We learned pretty quickly that there was no point asking the franchise stores on that block, or anywhere else. They have no idea who you are, they don’t care, and they’ll tell you to call the people at corporate – who care even less.

But every one of those Mom and Pop stores bought an ad in our program, even though they’re all fighting for survival. That’s what friends do.

I fear their days are numbered. The rent on that block is astronomical, as much as $10,000 a month. The chain stores come in, and if it proves too much for them, what do they care? They just pull out – and leave behind a higher rate for everyone else, and an empty storefront, some times for years.

But that’s capitalism, and if you believe in the free market, there’s not much you can say. But you’d have to be blind not to see the cost.

We’re losing our community. We’re losing our sense of belonging. We’re losing our friends.

My last stop on my tour was Mr. Brown’s store. I looked down at my shoes, which Mr. Brown had shined himself a half-dozen times, and re-soled once. I looked up at the door, and read a hand-written sign that said, “Death in the Family. Closed Saturday. Open Monday.”

I hope it always is.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Where it Started -- and Almost Ended

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:21:00 GMT

July 9, 2010

Press play to listen

Whenever I drive up US-23, I can’t resist gazing at two structures on my right: The Whitmore Lake high school stadium press box, where my writing career started, and the big red ski jump on Whitmore Lake, where it almost ended.

I once volunteered to visit the Whitmore Lake Ski Club, the oldest in the state, to try water ski jumping. The problem is, this is not something you can gradually work up to. It's your basic all-or-nothing proposition.

Take our coach, Hal Baker. On several occasions he had cleared a hundred feet, the sport’s main milestone, but he one time he hit the side of the jump so hard, he embedded white paint in his skin. A few times, he leaned back too far, causing him to fall backward into the water – at 50 miles-per-hour.

“I’ve been pulled out unconscious a few times,” Baker said, with a reassuring maniacal cackle. This was a man who knew the thrill of victory, and the unconsciousness of defeat.

Jumpers face four basic obstacles. First, the jump about 20 feet long and ten feet high, and covered in wax and water, so it feels like you’re hitting ice. If you’re not ready for it, your skis will shoot out from under you, and you’ll get dragged over the jump on your backside -- or your head. Second, the boat pulls you diagonally across the jump. If you fight it, you’ll be – you guessed it -- dragged over the jump on your backside -- or your head. See a pattern here?

But wait! There’s more. Because the jump is, well, a jump, as you slide up the incline, your knees get shoved into your chin. This is called "crushing.” When you see people flying off the jump in that state, you understand why.

To combat these forces, you have to squat down, lock your knees and lean forward, holding the handle hard against your right hip. In other words, do whatever feels the most unnatural.

If we actually made it over the jump, Baker said, "Don’t look down, or you’ll go down." He told us to focus on the shore line instead.

Yeah, right. That happens. I made a deal with myself right then and there: If I got over the jump without ripping my face off, I could look anywhere I damn well pleased.

I hopped into the water, and they threw me a hockey helmet. Note this well: If you find yourself hopping into the water and someone throws you a hockey helmet, you might think twice about what you're about to do.

When I grabbed the rope, Baker asked, “Ready?”

“Ready!” I yelled. It wasn’t true – just protocol.

I popped up, and the driver sent me right to the jump. I squatted down, locked my knees, and pulled the handle hard to my right hip – all textbook.

No matter. When I hit that jump,I crushed like a house of cards under a steamroller. But, just for fun, I also crossed my skis. I went flew over the jump with all the grace and style of Wile E. Coyote.

Despite my efforts, I did not hurt myself. So, my confidence grew. But my ability did not. My second attempt was just as bad. At this rate, I realized, the eleven-year-old kid going next would embarrass me. Focus, Bacon. Focus!

On my third attempt I finally avoided crushing, but everything else was still a mess. My fourth and final attempt, however, proved to be the charm. I looked so good I couldn’t resist admiring my skis flying over the edge, thus committing the final sin: "If you look down, you go down." No joke,turns out. I plunged straight into the water face first like,okay, Wile E. Coyote again. But I neglected to let go of the rope,and got dragged underwater for about a hundred feet or so.

Well, I came, I saw, I had lake water pounded into every hole in my head. It took me days to get the stuff out of my ears.

The eleven-year old kid, by the way,nailed it on his second attempt.

And so, I became a sports writer.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

World's Greatest Game?

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:53:00 GMT

July 2, 2010

Press play to listen

The 2010 World Cup is in full swing – even if the U.S. was eliminated in the second round. I’ve played soccer, coached it and covered it, and there’s a lotto like about the sport.

First, soccer players are great athletes. The pros run about six miles a game. They can settle the ball down from any direction in a split second, play keep away with it for days, and then blast it right on target, with either foot.

For TV viewers, it’s a pleasure to see the great expanse of green on your screen, with no TV timeouts interrupting play. And, unlike the World Series, the world is actually invited to play in the World Cup. It’s almost every nation’s favorite sport. And you can play it anywhere, with anything.

I’ve seen soccer played in the streets of Bangkok, the alleys of Buenos Aires, and the wide-open fields of British public schools. I’ve seen them play under the lights of Tokyo’s fenced-in asphalt courts, and during dusk on the Canary Island’s empty beaches, with just two sandals for a goal.

It is, truly, the world’s game. That’s why Time magazine contributor Daniel Okrent concluded the best athlete of all time isn’t Babe Ruth or Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan, but Pele. Because, he said, everyone plays soccer.

But you don’t have to be a xenophobe or a philistine or just a knucklehead to find fault with this game. Take the start. I counted the Germans passing the ball at midfield 17 times before they even considered advancing forward – which is, after all, where the goal is located.

When they finally do try to score, there’s an excellent chance the play will be called offside, which is determined by an imaginary line that goes back and forth with the last defender. Yes, it’s hard to tell, which might explain why the refs blow the call half the time. Or perhaps it’s because they are the worst officials I’ve ever seen – in any sport.

As a result, a goal in soccer is as rare as Halley’s Comet. The World Cup’s first nine matches featured a grand total of seven goals. That’s about one goal every two hours – and games are only 90 minutes.

Or, about that. No one can tell for sure, because whenever a player is injured, the referee tacks on extra time. But only he knows how much. It’s the only game in the world where just one guy knows when it ends.

What’s worse than the Official Pretend Clock are the unofficial pretend injuries. When you see a player jump in the air, fall to the ground, and spin like a lathe, you start looking for a sniper in the stands, until the replay shows he wasn’t touched by…anything. Every sport in the world celebrates toughness –mental or physical – except this one, which celebrates athletes acting like wimps.

Add it all up – and it all adds up to a one-one tie, soccer’s favorite score. This is not a problem just for Americans suffering from ADD, but for anyone who cares about competition. The whole idea of keeping score, after all, is to see who’s better. But in this year’s first round of 48 games, about one-quarter ended in ties – usually one-to-one.

But in the second round, even the World Cup needs to pick a winner. If 30 minutes of overtime can’t settle it, they go to a shoot-out, where players from each team take turns shooting directly on the helpless goalie, who has to guess if the shooter will kick it to the right, or the left. It has all the strategic intrigue of rock-paper-scissors – without the scissors.

So they spend two hours playing a game in which it’s virtually impossible to score – then settle it with an unrelated contest in which it’s virtually impossible not to score. And that’s how the world’s favorite sport picks the world’s best team.

So, yes, soccer is the World’s Game. It’s just not the world’s greatest game.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Gone Fishin'

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:31:00 GMT

June 25, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thanks for your -- yes -- loyalty, and your reading and writing. I've been having a blast with this, and hope you have too. The response has been more than I could have asked.

Having made six stops in the last three days, on my way to Northwestern's downtown newsroom to teach my first summer class, I didn't have time to convert my outline into a decent column -- and we needed to find somewhere to tape it, in any case. The good news is,it's about -- yes! -- the World Cup, and all the pros and cons thereof, so I'll be able to update it and get it to you next week, when it's still current.

I'll be back next week -- promise!

Again, THANK YOU!!!

Hope you can enjoy the great outdoors, wherever you are.

-John

Copyright© 2010, Michigan Radio

It's All About The Benjamins - Except When It Isn't

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:27:00 GMT

June 18, 2010

Press play to listen

For college coaches and athletes,June is supposed to be reserved for easy chores like conducting camps, fixing tackling dummies and replacing nets.

Well, so much for the lazy, hazy days of summer. This has been one of the craziest Junes of all time.

The NCAA finally completed its four-year investigation of the cesspool that is the University of Southern California’s athletic department. The NCAA was shocked-- shocked! – to discover USC’s boosters were giving tens of thousands of dollars to their star players. (The NCAA officials must have been the last folks to know.) But, to its credit, the NCAA actually came down with some consequences: a two-year ban on bowl games, and the loss of 10 scholarships for the next three years. The school cheated for wins and for money, and their punishment will cost them wins and money – though probably not as many wins and as much money as they gained by cheating.

That would have been pretty big news by itself. But then the Big Ten started talking about expanding, which sent every major conference into a paranoid frenzy, trying to keep their leagues intact. Rumors started flying about this school and that conference. Some said the Big Ten might expand to as many 16 teams, including Notre Dame, and the Big Eight, the Big East and maybe even the venerable ACC would collapse.

Well, at the end of this national game of musical chairs, with schools scurrying to secure a seat, exactly two schools have changed conferences: Colorado to the Pac Ten, and Nebraska to the Big Ten. And no conferences are close to collapsing.

Now, if you ask why the Big10 now has twelve teams, and the Big Twelve has ten teams – I’d say, you’re not very familiar with the logic of college football,such as it is. If you’re not a college football fan, for example,you might not know the answer to this riddle: What does the ‘N’ on Nebraska’s helmet stand for? Knowledge, of course.

So what was that whole dance all about? Not knowledge. Not student-athletes, either. But money, pure and simple. And lots of it.

And that brings us to the next big college sports subject this month: Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, who is rightly regarded as a living legend, a man whose success and character have stamped his school indelibly. So when the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers came calling, offering a 30 million dollar contract, and the possibility of coaching LeBron James, Spartan fans shuddered. As Izzo said, “Sometimes there are opportunities that come about that must be thoroughly examined… This one was uniquely intriguing.”

Izzo, a born competitor, was tempted by the challenge of coaching at the highest level, and one of the game’s greatest players. He’s also sick of the recruiting madness that has taken over the college game – witness USC -- which makes it harder and harder for an honest coach to succeed.

But, unlike the folks who run USC’s athletic department and the Big Ten conference, Izzo decided making the most money wasn’t the most important thing.

“It’s been an agonizing week,” he said. But, “I’m pleased to say I am here for life at Michigan State.”

That’s not just good news for Michigan State, but for the State of Michigan – and the state of college athletics.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Original Six is Neither

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:23:00 GMT

June 11, 2010

Press play to listen

Hard-core hockey fans – and really, are there any other kind? – are all pumped up this week because on Wednesday night, the Chicago Blackhawks scored in over time to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961. And that harkens back to the era of the so-called Original Six.

But if you’re not a hard-core fan, you probably don’t know what Original Six means. The Hard-Cores will be quick to tell you the Original Six is code for the first six NHL teams. They’re easy to remember, if you think of them in pairs: New York and Boston, Montreal and Toronto, Detroit and Chicago.

Hockey fans revere the Original Six the way basketball fans gush about the Celtics-Lakers rivalry and classical music buffs go on about Bach, Brahams and Beethoven. The Original Six has become such a popular catch-phrase, it’s now on a baseball cap, featuring all six team logos. It outsells the caps of most individual teams.

I’ve always suspected The Original Six is such a hot catch-phrase because, for the Hard-Cores,it doubles as a secret password. If you know what the Original Six is, you must be Hard-Core. And if you don’t, you ain’t.

The elusive dream of all Hard-Corehockey fans is another Stanley Cup Final between two Original Six teams. That hasn’t happened since in 1979.

That’s why, when the Red Wings got knocked out of the playoffs by the San Jose Sharks, the Hard-Cores figured, Hey, no problem, the Blackhawks will win the West – which they did.

Now all the Hard-Cores needed was an Original Six team to make it through the Eastern Conference, where four Original Six teams play. But the Philadelphia Flyers came from behind to upset the Boston Bruins, and then took out the legendary Montreal Canadiens, too. And that left just one Original Six team left standing: The Chicago Blackhawks.

It was no small consolation to the Hard-Cores that the Blackhawks beat Philadelphia in overtime Wednesday night, to notch another Stanley Cup for the Original Six this year. But there’s a catch: The Original Six weren’t original,and there weren’t even six of them.

As George Will once wrote, the best cure for nostalgia is a little history.

When the NHL started in 1917,the league had just five teams, including Montreal and Toronto – the Original Two, if you will. But they also had teams like the Quebec Bulldogs, which became the Hamilton Bulldogs, which became… extinct.

All told, in the NHL’s first25 years, the league launched 12 teams, but had to move four and kill six, including such bottom feeders as the St. Louis Eagles, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Quakers – who, I’m guessing, we’re not allowed to fight.

Finally, in 1942, the NHL had boiled the league down to what we now call The Original Six. And that’s how it stayed for the next 25 years, until the NHL expanded again in 1967, ultimately building the current 30-team league.

So the next time you hear some Hard-Core fan gushing about the Original Six, you can one-up the poor guy by saying, “Original Six, eh? Pretty cool. But do you know what would be even cooler? If the Original Six were either.”

While your hockey pal is trying to figure out what you just said, you can walk away with the smug satisfaction of knowing you just bested a Hard-Core – and you didn’t even have to buy a hat to do it.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Better Than Perfect

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:51:00 GMT

June 4, 2010

Press play to listen

I’d just finished writing my commentary Wednesday night, when a friend tipped me off that I should be watching the Tigers game. He didn’t say why, because there’s a code in baseball against jinxing a pitcher who’s throwing a great game. I turned on the TV, and saw the Tigers were beating Cleveland, 1-0, in the eighth inning. Then I finally realized Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga wasn’t just working on a no-hitter, but a perfect game.

What’s the difference? A no-hitter means just that: A pitcher can’t give up any hits. But he can still let a runner get to first base on a walk or an error, and keep his no-hitter. But to throw a perfect game, the pitcher can’t let a single batter reach first base for any reason. He’s got to get 27 straight outs.

How rare is that? In the 135-year history of Major League Baseball, only twenty pitchers have done it. Twenty. It’s ten times rarer than a no-hitter--so rare, in over a century of Tiger baseball, not one pitcher had ever thrown a perfect game. Ever.

But there he was, Armando Galarraga from Venezuela, pitching a perfect game. In the ninth inning, with everybody in the ballpark well aware of the stakes, Cleveland’s lead off hitter smashed the ball to deep center field. The Tigers’ Austin Jackson thought it was going to fly over his head. But he chased after it anyway – running full-speed to the fence to make one of the best catches of the year.

After a ground out, Galarraga was just one out from baseball immortality. That’s when Cleveland’s Jason Donald hit a groundball to first baseman Miguel Cabrerra. He scooped it up, and threw the ball back to first base, where Galarraga had run to cover the play. Galarraga caught the ball, and stepped on the bag – a half-stride before Donald did.

Galarraga had done it – or so everyone thought. Everyone, that is, except the one person who’s opinion mattered: Jim Joyce, the first base umpire widely considered one of the best in the business. He had a clear view of the entire play – then he signaled, Safe!

The replay showed Joyce was dead wrong. The fans were screaming, the Tigers were outraged, and even the Indians looked embarrassed. The only guy who was not screaming at Joyce was Galarraga himself – by all accounts, one of the most decent men in baseball.

But if there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no replay, either. Even the lawyers whose ads run between innings are, thankfully, out of place between the lines– no matter how much everyone wished they could fix it.

After the Tigers won, manager Jim Leyland came busting out of the dugout to give Joyce an earful –and to Joyce’s credit, he stood there and took it like a man. Back in the locker room, instead of spouting or pouting, Galarraga said, in his slightly broken English, “I really respect [Joyce], because he say, ‘I need to talk to you. I really say I’m sorry.’ His eyes were water. He don’t have to say much. His body language say more. He probably feel more bad than me. Nobody perfect. Everybody human.”

What do you do next? “You come back and play tomorrow,” Leyland said. “That’s what makes this game great.”

There’s already a great hue and cry to use instant replay in baseball. But if they had used replay that night, we would not have known what a stand-up guy Jim Joyce is, just moments after making a mistake he knows will reappear in the first paragraph of his obituary. We would not have known what a fair-minded person Jim Leyland is, expressing respect for Joyce’s professionalism and compassion for his plight just minutes after the game.

I already knew what a great game Galarraga pitched. A rose is a rose, after all, by any other name– and his might go down as the most famous “perfect” game of them all. But I didn’t know what a great man he is.

We don’t need instant replay. We need more men like these.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Thank You!

John U. Bacon — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:01:00 GMT

As of this writing, we have exactly 47,182 RSS subscribers, plus those folks who dip their toes in each week, so breaking 50,000 shouldn't be too far off.

THANK YOU! (Or have I said that?)

Alas, your reward for your loyalty is a rebaked piece from two years ago, when George Carlin died, because I'm goin' fishin'. Or, at least, not writing a new piece until next week. The main motivation is so many Michigan Radio listeners head up north -- or somewhere else, anyway-- this weekend, reducing the broadcast to the proverbial tree in the forest. But I can assure you I am fully aware of recent press conferences in Ann Arbor, and I will have plenty to say about this down the road.

George Carlin Safe At Home

Press play to listen

Comedian George Carlin died two years ago this spring, at the age of 71. Almost every elegy for him said, “He is remembered mainly for his skit on the ‘Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio.’” But I remember Carlin for a better bit.

I’m not going to discuss his Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio – because, I’m ON radio, and you still can’t. And besides, it seems shame to have your life’s work reduced to seven profanities. Carlin was better than that.

I believe Carlin was not only one of our funniest comics – which is, after all, the point of his profession – but also one of the most thoughtful, even insightful. I still use his comparison of baseball and football – and what they say about our society -- when I teach my class on the history of college athletics.

Carlin not only breaks down two of our most popular sports, he deftly demonstrates how they define fans as liberal or conservative, dove or hawk, Prius or Hummer.

But I’ll let the man speak for himself.

“Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.

Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

“Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!

Football is played on a gridiron,in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

“Baseball begins in the spring! The season of new life!

Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

“Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has… the sacrifice!

“Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.

“Football has the two minute warning.

“Baseball has no time limit. We don't know when it's gonna end! We might even have extra innings! Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

“And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

“In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun.With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

“In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! I hope I'll be safe at home!”

No sportswriter or professor or deep political thinker ever said it better.

I thank him for that. And I’d like to assume that George Carlin himself is now safe at home.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Michigan Man Meets His Moment

John U. Bacon — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:35:00 GMT

March 21, 2010

Press play to listen

Michigan first baseman Mike Dufek stepped up to the plate in the tenth inning. The bases were empty, which in this game was rare.

Northwestern had shot out to an early 14-0 lead. We’re not talking football here folks, but baseball. Then, incredibly, the Wolverines clawed back, run by run, until they tied the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth. That brought Dufek up in the tenth inning, with the game in his hands.

That Dufek had even gotten that far was a story in itself.

His genes surely helped. Mike’s grandfather, Don Dufek, Sr., played football for Michigan. In the 1951 Rose Bowl, against undefeated Cal-Berkeley, Don Sr. ran for two touchdowns in the final six minutes to win the game and the MVP award.

Mike’s uncle, Don Jr., played both hockey and football at Michigan – the last guy to do that. The Red Wings drafted him, and so did the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, where he played for nine years. Mike’s other uncle, Bill, also played football for Michigan, and signed with the New York Jets.

Mike’s dad, Joe, turned down Michigan for Yale, where he became an All-American as an outfielder and quarterback. He started eight games for the Buffalo Bills, and played several years in the Canadian Football League. Clearly, Mike had the DNA.

He grew up in Scottsdale, where he played quarterback, too, but excelled in baseball. He wanted to play for Michigan in the worst way, but Michigan wasn’t that wild about him. They finally let him walk on – making Mike the first Dufek athlete not actively recruited by the University of Michigan.

Mike’s freshman year, he barely played on the field, and was barely eligible off it. Butthen Dufek caught fire. Last year, he led the team with 17 homeruns – and he’s carried a B-minus average in sociology. This season, his teammates and coaches named him co-captain. He got it.

But Dufek’s home run total dropped from 17 to just five going into Sunday’s game – the game in which they fell behind by a staggering 14-0. If that was absurd, what happened next was positively crazy. The Wolverines scored 14 straight runs to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and force extra innings.

So the score was 14-14 when Dufek came to the plate in the bottom of the tenth. A teammate’s father told him “We need you to end it with a homer” – then his coach said the same thing.

The pitcher threw a change-up. Dufek swung – and missed. He moved up a foot in the batter’s box, in the hopes that the pitcher would throw him another change-up– and he did. “As soon as I saw that pitch, I knew I could hit it,” he told me. “And after I hit it, I knew it was gone.”

Boy, was it. It sailed more than 400 feet, far over the fence in centerfield, deep into the pine trees. The Northwestern outfielder punched the fence, incredulous that they had blown a 14-run lead. It finished the biggest come back in Michigan baseball history, it was bigger than the biggest come back in Major League history, and it might just be the biggest comeback in the history of college or professional baseball. Anywhere.

Dufek didn’t know all that as he rounded the bases, and he probably wouldn’t have cared. Coming around third base, he threw his helmet away, then jumped into the mob surrounding the plate. He got so many hugs, he was out of breath.

Mike Dufek might not ever play a single game of pro baseball. But he’s got his degree – and at least one memory none of the famous Dufek men can match.

Could be worse.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Red Wings’ Record Deserves A Little Recognition

John U. Bacon — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:29:00 GMT

March 14, 2010

Press play to listen

The Red Wings bowed out of the Stanley Cup playoffs Saturday, in just the second round. It was disappointing for Red Wings’ fans – okay, crushing.

But it’s worth remembering the Red Wings have made the playoffs for 20 consecutive years – the longest active run of any team not just in hockey, but in baseball,basketball and football. The last time the Red Wings didn’t make the playoffs, George Bush was just getting started – George H.W.Bush, that is.

That 1990 team was decent,but nobody thought it would spark a streak of twenty straight playoff seasons. To do that, the Red Wings have stayed at the top of their game with four different coaches, 25 goalies and hundreds of players. Not one has spanned the entire streak. But the team has been led during the entire stretch by just two captains: Steve Yzerman and Niklas Lidstrom – and no team has ever had better leaders than those two.

Detroit was a playoff team when the Edmonton Oilers’ wide-open offense ruled the game. They made the playoffs when the New Jersey Devils’ oh so boring defense dominated. But then the Red Wings developed a style of their own:a wonderful hybrid of hardcore North American hitting, and European-style skating and passing. They can play with anyone, any way you like– and they’ll beat you doing it.

The Wings were on top ten years ago when the referees didn’t call anything – like clutching, grabbing, and hooking – and they’ve stayed on top after the refs started calling everything, like coughing and sneezing.

The Wings’ streak survived the lockout of 1995 and the lock out of 2005, and they didn’t miss a beat.

The Wings won three Stanley Cups before the salary cap was put in place five years ago. Everyone said would be the end of their dynasty, until they won another Cup in 2008, with not a dime more than everyone else had.

The Wings play in the NHL’s Western Conference, despite the fact that Joe Louis Arena is a few miles east of the Piston’s home, and they play in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. Go figure.

No team in the four major sports has traveled more than the Red Wings have over the past twenty years. They’ve had to play conference rivals in Dallas and Denver, Edmonton and Anaheim, Phoenix and Vancouver. They don’t complain about it. They just win, get on the plane, and go do it again.

The Red Wings have done all of this with zero – zero – off-ice scandals. They’ve played through the Minnesota Vikings’ sex boat escapades, Pete Rose and Mark McGwire’s ‘confessions,’ Ben Roethlisberger and Lawrence Taylor and Tiger Woods. They’ve earned a reputation for being genuinely good guys. They even take pay cuts to keep their teammates on board.

In his autobiography, comedian Steve Martin said the hardest thing to learn was not how to be great. On a given night, almost any comedian can do that. No, the hardest thing, he said, was to learn to be good, night after night, no matter what they throw at you.

The Red Wings have not only been good, night after night, they’ve been great. And they’ve been doing it for almost 2,000 nights. They are the honest accountants,the loyal employees – the guys who do their jobs so well for so long,you barely notice.

Well, hockey fans, you should. Because teams don’t come along like this – ever.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Ernie Harwell: 1918-2010

John U. Bacon — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:31:00 GMT

May 5, 2010

Press play to listen

This past September, the Detroit Tigers’ beloved broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, announced that he had contracted an incurable form of cancer, and would not seek treatment.

For everybody who knew him, or felt like they did – which, really, is just about all of us – it hit hard. We were losing our baseball buddy, our grandfather, our friend.

The only person who didn’t seem shaken by the news was Ernie Harwell. He said, “Whatever's in store, I'm ready for a new adventure. That's the way I look at it."

Harwell was a deeply religious man, buthe never wore it on his sleeve. He simply lived it. He was, truly, at peace.

But I was not. Like just about every sports writer who knew him, I felt compelled to write about him.

I wrote about our family trips up north, which were always accompanied by Harwell’s comfortable cadences filling our station wagon. Harwell didn’t simply broadcast baseball games. He turned them into stories. In Harwell’s world, a batter didn’t merely strike out. He was "called out for excessive window shopping," or "caught standing there like the house by the side of the road.”

Unlike today’s announcers, who prattle on with mindless patter and pointless stats, Harwell treated his listeners to healthy doses of "companionable silences," something Zen masters refer to as the delicious “space between the notes.” Harwell often said the quiet allowed the listeners to enjoy the sounds of the ballpark itself, which he felt was richer than his own voice. When Harwell called the game, you not only heard the crack of the bat, you heard the peanut vendors.

Harwell was born in Georgia in 1918, a time and a place that valued relaxed conversations on the porch. He grew up listening to Atlanta Crackers games on a crystal radio set. The power of those broadcasts probably hit Harwell more than most. His dad suffered from multiple sclerosis, and rarely left his wheel chair. The highlight of his day was listening to those ball games.

At age 29, Harwell became the Crackers’ play-by-play man. Just two years later, in 1948, Harwell caught the ear of the Brooklyn Dodgers. They were so impressed, they traded their catcher for Harwell, making him the only broadcaster in baseball history to be traded for a player.

Harwell went on to set the record for most games broadcast, including 41 seasons for the Tigers. When Sports Illustrated picked its all-time baseball dream team a few years ago, they included a spot for their favorite radio announcer. They bypassed some real legends – like Mel Allen and Vin Scully and even Red Barber – to tap Harwell, a true Hall of Famer.

He told me Willie Mays was the best player he’s ever seen, that Jackie Robinson was the most courageous, and that a lovable Tigers pitcher named Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, who used to get on his hands and knees to groom the mound, "was probably the most charismatic guy we’ve ever had here in Detroit. A real breath of fresh air."

In 1997, I was lucky enough to cover spring training for The Detroit News. My first day I was sitting on a bench, watching infield practice, when Ernie Harwell sidled up next to me. We sat there, watching baseball, and chatting like old friends – just the way everyone one of us imagined we already were, listening to him on the radio all those years. He invited me for dinner that night with his wife Lulu. We enjoyed a long talk, and he picked up the tab.

I wrote a story about him nine years ago. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up to the phone ringing. It was Ernie Harwell, calling to thank me for the article. Who does that? That day, of course, soon turned tragic, but Harwell’s little act of humanity will always stand in my mind as such a poignant contrast to everything that followed that day.

A few times over the years, I invited him to call in to a talk show I was hosting. “Just ask,” he always said, “And I’ll come running.”

Eight months ago, I closed my piece by saying, I wish there was something I could do for him now. If he just asked, I’d come running.

I had to deliver that line in the studio a few times before I got through it without getting too choked up. The next morning, after the piece ran, an old friend called to thank me. Who does that? Ernie Harwell, that’s who.

It’s a strange sensation, knowing it’s probably going to be the last time you’ll talk. I kept it short – I didn’t want to be greedy with his time – but I had to tell him how much I appreciated hearing from him. He said, “Well, John, we go back a loooong way. Thanks for the wonderful story. God bless you. Good bye.”

After we hung up, I sat therefor a few minutes. We went back about 13 years – not really that long for a man who had friends going back more than a half-century– and I’m sure he read better stories than mine that week alone. But he still took the time to call.

So, thank you, Mr. Harwell,for all the wonderful stories.

God bless you.

Good bye.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Only in America A Draft Story

John U. Bacon — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:33:00 GMT

April 30, 2010

Press play to listen

The wonderfully named Zoltan Mesko was born and raised in Timisoara, Romania, right on the Hungarian border. Like his parents, Mihai and Elizabeta, Zoltan speaks both languages fluently.

When the Berlin Wall came downin 1989, life improved dramatically for most people living behind the Iron Curtain – but not much for Romanians. His parents, both engineers, could not leave the country until they won Romania’s Green Card lottery -– yes, they had one – in 1997, when Zoltan was ten.

They quickly discovered Hollywood’s depiction of America didn’t quite match their apartment in Queens. It was dirty and cramped – even for just three people -- and too expensive,so they moved to Twinsburg, Ohio, right outside Cleveland.

Zoltan learned English in about two months. His parents took two years, but understanding American culture took a little longer.

When Mesko’s eight-grade class played kickball inside the gym one day, he boomed the ball so high it shattered a ceiling light. The teacher gave him a choice:“You’re either paying for that light, or you’re playing football.”

It was an easy decision. At Mesko’s Thursday night soccer games, only the parents watched. But the Friday night football games were sold out, every time. And football had cheerleaders.

During warm-ups for a game his first year, Mesko’s coach casually mentioned that the other team’s punter had just gotten a college scholarship.

“Excuse me?” a mystified Mesko asked. “A scholarship -- for punting?”

“Yeah, for punting,” thecoach said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

When Zoltan told his parents,they didn’t believe him. Who’d heard of such a thing?

But Mesko knew they couldn’t pay for college any other way, so he devoted himself to the singular skill of kicking a football as high and far as he could. Before his senior season, he’d become him the nation’s top punting prospect. Indiana offered him a full scholarship, then Harvard, Yale and every other Ivy League school offered him admission and financial aid. It still didn’t make sense to his parents, but they were no longer goingto question it.

Mesko grew up a Buckeye fan,but when his mom researched his options, they quickly dismissed the home state team. The Columbia coach told him, “We can’t guarantee you the NFL, but we can guarantee you Wall Street.” Mesko wanted a shot at both, so he enrolled at Michigan.

He graduated from Michigan’s business school in four years with an A-minus average, and will be awarded a master’s degree in sports management tomorrow. He also got the attention of NFL scouts, but almost blew it at the Senior Bowl in January, where he was distracted by the gifts and the interviews and the atmosphere, and kicked badly.

A month later, at the NFL combine in Indianapolis, Zoltan focused on just one thing: Kicking the football. In a one-hour work out with four other punters, he re-established himself as the best prospect.

On Saturday, he watched the NFL draft with his friends and his parents, who drove up for the day. During the fifth round, Mesko’s cell phone rang. “Unknown Caller,” it said. When he picked it up, he found himself talking to the New England Patriots’ head coach, Bill Billichick, who’s won three Super Bowls, and the owner, Robert Kraft. While they talked,ESPN announced that, “With the 150^th pick, the New England Patriots select Zoltan Mesko of Michigan.” The room erupted.

This spring Mesko will sign a contract for the minimum wage. But, in the NFL, that’s not $7.25 an hour, but $320,000 a year. He will be the poorest player in the NFL, but probably the richest kid from Timisoara, Romania.

Taking it all in, Mesko said,“What a difference a decade makes.”

Only in America.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

THANKS!

Dear Loyal Readers,

Good news -- we are now up to some 42,000 subscribers! (And yes, I'm as surprised as you are.) Thanks for your patronage!

Thanks also for your comments. They're always appreciated and alwayswelcome, just so long as you remember to sign your name and keep itreasonably civil. Beyond that, all's fair!

Again, Thank You!

-John

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Taking Money from Students for Sports Stars

John U. Bacon — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:23:00 GMT

April 23, 2010

Press play to listen

With tax day just past, it’s a good time to ask where our money should go – and where it shouldn’t. I don’t have all the answers, of course – but I’m convinced one expenditure should end immediately: stadium subsidies.

Two years ago, the New York Yankees signed third baseman Alex Rodriguez to a contract that will pay him $275 million dollars in exchange for ten years of catching, throwing and hitting a baseball. That puts him ahead of his teammate, Derek Jeter, who has to get by on a mere $189 million for his decade of duty. Sucker.

Whenever teams sign contracts like that, the player’s agent always justifies it by saying, “Well, that’s what the market will bear.”

If that were true, it would still be insane, but at least there would be a logic to it. After all, if any team is dumb enough to pay someone that kind of money, and if a family of four wants to pay $200 to see that guy play – well,then, so be it. That’s how free markets work.

But the free market doesn’t come close to paying these guys’ salaries. Who picks up the gap? You do – every time you pay your taxes. When teams spend money like that, they suddenly realize they need a fancy new stadium with luxury skyboxes to generate the kind of revenue necessary to pay hose ridiculous salaries. So, they demand state and local governments build them one – and most of the time, that’s exactly what those states and cities do.

The United States is home to 99 major league baseball, football, basketball and hockey arenas and stadiums. According to Judith Grant Long’s research at Rutgers University, the teams that play in those places have received subsidies totaling 21.3 billion dollars. That’s billion, with a ‘b.’

To pay for the Silverdome, the Palace and Comerica Park, Michigan taxpayers have coughed up $616 million dollars – which is about average.

Rodriguez’s team, the New York Yankees, just built a shiny new stadium for 2.3 billion dollars– and had the nerve to ask the tax payers to pony up half of that, over a billion dollars. But the Yankees get to keepall the team’s profits, which is how they pay guys like Rodriguez hundreds of millions of dollars to do something your kid does in the backyard for free.

What do the taxpayers get? The bill, that’s what. New York City’s school system is facing a $4 billion deficit, and a massive layoff of 15,000 teachers.

It doesn’t have to be this way. And, just across the border, it isn’t. Canada is home to eight major league teams. But Canadian taxpayers don’t pay for their stadiums. Their teams do – just like they should– and the taxpayers spend their money on their schools. It’s a novel concept.

Somehow, Canada ranks second worldwide in student literacy, and the U.S. ranks 15^th. Fine. But we lead the world in sports salaries. U-S-A! U-S-A!

More good news: Rodriguez is doing just fine, thank you -- except for the steroid scandal, that is. He’s already hit two home runs this season, and since he gets paid about $800,000 per homer, he’s already made more than thirty New York City school teachers will this year – combined. Provided, of course, they don’t get laid off.

Taking candy from a baby maybe immoral – but taking money from students, and giving it to sports stars, should be illegal.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Man Behind Jackie Robinson

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:38:00 GMT

April 16, 2010

Press play to listen

The first quarter of this year has been filled with endless sports stories about salaries and steroids and sex – and pretty much everything but sports. So I welcome a look back at a time the stakes were real, and the men were equal to the moment.

Well, we’re in luck, because this week marks the anniversary of the most important day in sports:April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson made his major league debut.

Even people who don’t know about sports know about Jackie Robinson – and they should. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "Jackie Robinson made it possible for me in the first place. Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did."

But, without a much less famous man named Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ president, Robinson might never have gotten his chance.

At first glance, Rickey wasa very unlikely candidate for such an important mission. He was a staunch conservative who hated Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal and welfare in equal measure. But if you look a little closer, it makes more sense.

Rickey was born in 1881 in Lucasville, Ohio, a hotbed of the abolitionist movement. He went to Ohio Wesleyan, where he coached a baseball team that had a black catcher. When Rickey took his team to South Bend to play Notre Dame, the hotel clerk would not give the catcher a room. After lots of arguing, Rickey told the clerk the player would stay in his room.

Fifty years later, Rickey recalled,“When I got to the room, here was this fine young man sitting the recrying and pulling at his hands. I asked him what was wrong. ‘Oh,Mister Rickey,’ he said, ‘it’s my skin. If only I could pull it off everything would be all right.’ All these yearsI have heard that boy crying.”

After Rickey tried pro baseball-- hitting a lukewarm .239 – he enrolled in the University of Michiganlaw school. But he couldn’t shake the baseball bug, so he managed Michigan’s team on the side.

He tried practicing law, but hated it, and returned to baseball as an executive. Rickey once asked, "why a man trained for the law devotes his life to something so cosmically unimportant as a game?"

One thing is certain: Rickey never treated baseball as just a game. He didn’t just return to it. He reinvented it, twice – first by creating the modern minor league system, which produced the St. Louis Cardinals’ famous Gashouse Gang that won four World Series. Then Rickey moved to Brooklyn, where he finally hatched his plan to change the game – and the country – forever. He still heard that catcher crying.

A few years ago, I had the chance to interview baseball legend Buck O’Neil, who told me, “It took a big man to do what Rickey did. It could have killed Rickey in baseball if this thing had blown up.”

But whom could he find to take on such an incredible task? There were better Negro League ball players than Jackie Robinson, and certainly more passive ones. But Rickey said, "I don't like silent men, when personal liberty is at stake." Rickey didn't make the safe choice. He made the bold one – and the best one.

In 1965, Branch Rickey died at age 84. When a reporter called Robinson to pass on the sad news, Robinson fell silent. Finally, he turned to his wife Rachel and said, "Rae, take this call. Mr. Rickey has just died."

Later, Rachel said, "Rickey needed Jack as much as Jack needed Rickey.”

Baseball great Buck O’Neil agreed. "Don't ever forget," he told me. "When you say Jackie Robinson, to say Branch Rickey too, see, because you couldn't have one without the other.”

We were lucky to have both.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

NCAA Threatens to Trade MarchMadness Perfection… for Just a Little More

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:49:00 GMT

April 9, 2010

Press play to listen

March Madness is one of thebest sporting events of the year, every year, on a very short list withthe Super Bowl, the World Series and the Olympics. But March Madnessis the most inclusive – and, in some ways, the purest.

The tournament’s 65 teamscame from 31 states this year. Schools like Gonzaga and Winthrop,Lehigh and New Mexico State all got to play.

What separates March Madnessfrom the other events is that we get to play, too. Every officeruns a hoop pool, and the winner is never the ESPN-addicted sharpiein sales, but the receptionist who picks her teams based on her favoritecolors. It’s a beautiful thing.

This year’s March Madnesshad it all – early round upsets, like Northern Iowa over Kansas; traditionalpowers like Michigan State and Kentucky advancing to the Elite Eight;and a title game for the ages.

In this corner, you had thethree-time champeeens: The Duke Blue Devils, whose coach wondered whyhis school wasn’t more popular. Yes, why aren’t obnoxious rich kids from New York more popular? Got me, Coach!

And in this corner, you hadthe upstart Butler Bulldogs from Indianapolis, who had never been tothe Final Four. They play their home games in the very arena wherethey filmed the movie “Hoosiers” in 1986, and where Milan High Schoolplayed that actual game, in 1954.

All the experts said Duke wasgoing to blow out Butler, but the game went back and forth all night.In the final seconds, Butler’s wonderboy, Gordon Hayward, dashed downthe court to launch a last-second half-court shot -- but it bouncedoff the rim, just off the mark. Duke won by two – the closestfinal since Michigan’s overtime victory in 1989.

It was one of those rare gameswhere both teams came out the better for it. For the fourth time,Duke earned a national title, and for the first time, Butler earnednational respect.

The TV ratings were the bestin eleven years. So the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, was notcontent to say, “It is good.”   No. That’s forsuckers. It said, Gimme gimme gimme.

Instead of leaving perfectionalone, the NCAA is poised to add 31 teams and another week to the tournament.If you wonder why, you have to remember the NCAA’s holy trinity: Greed,Hypocrisy and Stupidity.

March Madness is already thebiggest money maker in the history of college athletics, by far.Every year, CBS pays out $700 million to the NCAA, in exchange for tendays of basketball. The coaches are millionaires, and the playersare students. Where’s Karl Marx when you need him?

But $700 million is not enough.Why? Because, to the NCAA, it is never enough. Itreminds me of an exchange between Homer Simpson and his boss, MontyBurns. When Homer says, “You’re the richest man I know.”Burns says. “Yes. But you know, I’d trade it all forjust a little more.”

Some things in sports are perfect:90 feet from home plate to first base. 100 yards on a footballfield. And three weeks for March Madness.

If the NCAA adds a fourth week,they’ll give us a lot of bad teams playing bad basketball, and ruinthe rhythm of the tournament for everyone. How are you going tofit 96 teams on a single sheet of paper to fill out your bracket?

None of this will stop theNCAA, because nothing -- not billions, not perfection, not fair play-- has ever stopped the NCAA.

March Madness might be thebest sports event of the year. But the NCAA is going to tradeit all, for just a little more.

Now that is madness.

Copyright © 2010, Michigan Radio
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Finding What They Were Missing

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:43:00 GMT

April 2, 2010

Press play to listen

Tom Izzo’s best coaching job

From the outside, it looked like a typically dominant Michigan State basketball team. By the end of January, the Spartans were undefeated in the Big Ten, and ranked fifth in the nation. That record hid some problems the public couldn’t see, but Coach Tom Izzo could.

It wasn’t talent. The Spartans returned four starters, including Big Ten player of the year Kalin Lucas, from a team that had already reached the NCAA finals the previous year. The problem was simpler, but more serious: the players just didn’t care enough about each other.

The coaches did. In January, Izzo, his trainer, his video guy and Dave Pruder, his long-time equipment manager, all lost close relatives. And every time, they were therefor each other. In the middle of the season, Izzo drove down with his trainer to South Bend for his father’s funeral. Pruder told me, “We knew we could rely on each other. But the players didn’t.”

The team’s problems came to the surface in February, when the Spartans dropped three straight games, and five spots in the rankings. They were able to right the ship, and grind out five wins in their last six games to earn a share of the Big Ten title – Izzo’s sixth. But they still hadn’t solved their central problem.

“Every team has got to learn to come together,” Pruder told me. “Some seasons, it takes longer than others, and some times it never happens. We kept winning,but something was still wrong. Even when we won the Big Ten title,something didn’t feel right.”

Izzo pushed them, and they pushed right back. He didn’t give in to them, but he didn’t give up on them, either – not a bad description of good parenting. But they just didn’t seem to understand that if you don’t care about each other, you will not play the way you should for each other.

Izzo’s concerns were validated when the Spartans lost to a mediocre Minnesota team in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. The NCAA selection committee punished the Spartans with a fifth-seed, almost unheard of for a Big Ten champion.

This time, it wasn’t Izzo,but the players who sounded the alarms. They held a players-only meeting to clear the air, and underscore what a great opportunity they had, if they could just come together in time to seize it.

Their new found unity was tested in the second round against Maryland, when their star, Kalin Lucas,went down with a torn’ Achilles’ tendon. Izzo told his team Lucas was done. “So,” he said, “you’ve got to step it up. You owe it to him.”

They responded by beating Maryland at the buzzer. In the next game, they came from behind to beat Northern Iowa, and they took Tennessee on Sunday by shooting a free throw with eleven seconds left. They were not dominant, but for the first time all season, they were unified.

On their way down to Indianapolis Wednesday, the team bus stopped by Lucas’s apartment, where he’s recovering from his surgery with his mom’s help. He’ll join his teammates Saturday, when they play Butler in the Final Four –Izzo’s sixth in the last 12 years, the most of any coach over that stretch.

This is not Izzo’s best team. Far from it. But it might be his best coaching.

And it’s nice to know, as complicated as the game has gotten, that caring for each other is still the most important thing.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

LIttle Man Comes Up Big

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:07:00 GMT

March 26, 2010

Press play to listen

It’s been a dismal year for Michigan fans. The football team and the men’s basketball team both failed to make it to the post-season, and together they lost to Michigan State three times.

The men’s hockey team was supposed to be the saving grace. Entering this season, the Wolverines had made it to the NCAA tournament a record 19-straight seasons. That streak started in 1991, before many of the current players were even born.

The Wolverines were picked to finish first in their league – but they finished seventh, unheard of in Ann Arbor. The only chance they had to keep their streak alive was to win four straight rounds of their conference playoffs. Nothing else could save their season.

It was a tall order. No team had ever come from that far down to win the league playoffs. And it got a lot taller when the Wolverines lost their starting goalie, Bryan Hogan, leaving them with the shortest goalie in the league, a five-foot-six back up named Shawn Hunwick. In his three seasons at Michigan, Hunwick had not started a single game.

Hunwick isn’t even the best player in his family. His older brother Matt had captained the Wolverines, and now plays for the NHL’s Boston Bruins.

They grew up in Sterling Heights, where Matt beat Shawn in just about everything, including daily fights. But Shawn was feisty, and always came back for more. When Shawn wanted to play hockey, Matt shoved him in net – like older brothers do -- and made him play goalie.

But Shawn took to it immediately, and tried to convince his parents – a grocery store manager and a school maintenance man -- to buy the expensive equipment needed to play the position. They initially refused, but Shawn persisted until they couldn’t say no. Shawn’s like that.

It’s not fair to say he looks like your paperboy – because he looks like your paperboy’s baby brother. When Hunwick’s in his stance, he barely reaches the cross bar, and looks like he has to jump for the high shots.

He paid his dues in places like Alpena, and Petrolia, Ontario, before he became Michigan’s “practice goalie.” These guys pay full tuition – brother Matt pays Shawn’s -- and they don’t even dress for the games. All for the honor of having future pros fire slapshots at their heads two hours a day. There’s a reason why practice goalies are called “targets.”

In almost three years at Michigan, Hunwick played exactly 18 minutes of college hockey. But he never complained, he never skipped, and he never badgered his coaches for playing time. He just kept his mouth shut, and did his job, day in and day out.

In his first start, four weeks ago against Notre Dame, he got shelled for four goals in ten minutes, and Michigan lost. But the next weekend, the first round of the do-or-die playoffs against Lake Superior State, he gave up only two goals the first night, and none the next, to earn his first shut out.

The Wolverines then faced second-place Michigan State, which had already beaten Michigan three times. But with Hunwick in net, the Wolverines swept their arch-rivals, 5-1 and 5-3. Head coach Red Berenson realized he had pulled out a plum.

Next up: the Miami Redhawks, which finished first in the league, and second in the nation. But they were no match for Shawn Hunwick, who led Michigan to a 5-2 victory. The next night, with Michigan’s 19-year NCAA tournament streak on the line, Hunwick held off Northern Michigan, 2-1. Their season, and their streak, had been saved.

When the game ended, the Wolverines threw their gloves and sticks into the air and raced to hug their hero, like they’d won the Stanley Cup. Hunwick’s parents cried. Even Berenson, who’s about as expressive behind the bench as Mt. Rushmore, was caught smiling, on camera – twice. And when they called up his surprising savior to receive the MVP award, Berenson actually got a little choked up.

Back on the team bus, Shawn made his first call to brother Matt, and tried to give him the credit, but Matt wouldn’t hear it. “You made the saves,” he said.

And that’s how little brother earned one trophy big brother never did.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Spring Training's Longest Marriage

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:33:00 GMT

March 19, 2010

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thanks once again for your continued, well, loyalty. First, acorrection: I cited 33,000 subscribers last week, but in fact, we're well over 38,000, because the stats I looked at only covered the past12 months, and we're in month thirteen now of the Bacon Blog.

Second, as I wrote before, if you're willing to sign your full name toyour letters, and keep it reasonably civil, we'll print every one of them.

Third, no audio this week, because Michigan Radio is on a pledge drive.

Again, THANKS!

-John

Spring Training's Longest Marriage

Almost all of the major league baseball’s 30 teams have moved their spring training camps in the past three decades, and fully half of them now play in Arizona. Stay-at-home stalwarts like the Cincinnati Reds trained in Tampa for 52 years before moving to Plant City in 1988, then to Sarasota a decade later, then finally to Goodyear, Arizona, last year. Even the Los Angeles Dodgers, who created Dodgertown 62 years ago in Vero Beach to provide a safe haven for Jackie Robinson and other black players, also bolted for Arizona last year.

Baseball teams have been city-swapping their spring training sites like swingers in a – well, a bad movie about swingers, I guess.

In this permissive environment, the Detroit Tigers stand as a pillar of fidelity. Except for three years during World War II, the Tigers have trained in Lakeland every year since 1934. That's 74 seasons, by far the longest marriage in the major leagues.

But why Lakeland?

It’s not the nightlife. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell told me when he first started going to Lakeland in 1941, “nothing happened there but morning, noon and night -- and sometimes they skipped one of those."

One important consideration for a major league club is the quality of the training facilities. On that score, Lakeland’s have always ranked among the best in baseball -- maybe the very best. And the city treats the team well. When the Tigers need a new bulletin board, it’s the city park workers who install it. The city even celebrates the Tigers with an annual barbeque blow out.

But the real cement behind this rock-solid bond was the relationship forged years ago by former Tigers' president Jim Campbell and a guy named Joker Marchant. You might have heard of Campbell, but even Tigers fans only know the other name because the Tigers’ spring training site is called Joker Marchant Stadium.

Officially, Joker Marchant was the director of Lakeland's parks and recreation department for 35 years. Unofficially, he was the "Boss Hog" of the city, getting things done that no one else dared to do.

Marchant was a small guy who walked tall, with a big white Stetson on top. He had a taut body, leathery skin and a deep Southern drawl. He always drove a pick-up truck. His only indulgence was leaving work every day at 5 p.m. to go home and watch re-runs of "Gunsmoke." Then he'd hop back in his pick-up truck and work some more.

One of his employees told me Marchant would never let you down. He said Marchant’s word was his bond, and Campbell was the same way.

Despite their differences in background, Campbell and Marchant both saw in the other a kindred spirit.

A couple decades ago, the Tigers had a minor league pitcher who brought a huge boa constrictor to spring training. When one of Joker’s workers came to him with the problem, Joker told him to put the snake in an extra room in the cafeteria.

When Campbell heard about the snake he was hotter'n a firecracker. The worker told me Campbell gave him the business up one side and down the other, every expletive in the book and he even threatened to fire him.

Finally the worker said, “Joker said it was ok." At that, Campbell stared at the young man, clenched his jaw, and simply walked away. The worker had said the only thing that would get him off the hook: Joker said it was okay. That is how close those two were.

Near the end of their long careers, and longer lives, Jim Campbell and Joker Marchant -- a famous guy from a big northern city, and a small town parks and rec guy from the south – would sit together every morning in the team’s cafeteria, eat breakfast, and talk about old times.

They had become close of friends. As unlikely a partnership as the one they left behind, between the Detroit Tigers and little Lakeland, Florida.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

How to Talk Sports, the Coach Bacon Way

John U. Bacon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:28:00 GMT

March 13, 2010

Press play to listen

In America, you’re “behind the eight ball,” if you will, if you can’t “Talk Sports." Jay McInerny once wrote that sports fans constitute the largest fraternity in America, and not knowing how to talk about them will put you on the outside of every airport and elevator conversation you encounter.

Now, normally, that’s a wonderful thing – but on the rare occasion you actually need to make small talk in such situations, Coach Bacon is here to cut through the clichés so you can bull with the best of them.

First, you’ve got to see through the silly semantics. They love to talk about the “respective captains from each team,” which means “the captains from each team,” because “respective” adds nothing to that clause. And, of course, the “ensuing kickoff,” which means “next.”

So far, so good. Now you’ve got to master the pseudo-psychological phrases, like this old chestnut: “Check out the character of this man, in the face of all this adversity.” That usually means the guy’s playing when he should be in the hospital, and what you’re looking at is not character but a compound fracture. Or when they gush: "Would you look at that concentration!" No, they can’t see concentration, either. All they're saying is the receiver is watching the ball – I mean, really watching it -- which, after all, is his job.

Announcers also like to use pseudo-scientific phrases, to make the simplest of actions sound like quantum physics. So, when you hear some color man say, "Note Nagurski's 'low center of gravity' as he totes the pigskin." All he means is: "Nagurski is holding the football, and his knees are bent." Not that complicated.

Then they start saying things like, “The ball was clearly in the cylinder,” or “It definitely broke the plane,” which mean, respectively: The basketball’s directly above the basket, and the football has crossed the goal line. Keep your slide rule in your holster, folks. You won’t need it here.

Sometimes sportscasters are simply awed by commonplace events. For example, sportscasters like to say-- with tear-jerking admiration-- that "This guy comes to play everyday." Which -- I guess -- means that he consistently wears the correct attire at the correct location at the correct time. In other words, he’s doing what a Wal-Mart greeter does every day of the week. Which is not a lot to ask, it would seem, of a high school drop-out making a million bucks to play a spirited game of catch.

Here's another popular expression, especially among coaches. "We're just gonna take 'em one game at a time." What the coaches are forgetting here is that you're not allowed to play two games simultaneously. Imagine a coach saying: "Well, we figure we'll take on both the Blackhawks and the Bruins this Saturday, playing alternate periods, and we’re gonna keep it up the entire season. That way we’ll be done by March, and take April off to rest up for the playoffs.”

Now that you understand the basics of balderdash, it's time to master a couple catch phrases that you can use on your friends and family. These are the gems of gibberish, the Hall of Famers of hot air, the all-stars of asinine assessments. To wit, they are: "Mistakes really hurt," and it’s corollary, "Turnovers'll kill ya.”

These phrases are so powerful, you often hear sportscasters say things like, "Well, you know Howard, whoever makes the fewest turnovers is gonna win this game." No, Howard, whoever scores the most points is going to win that game, and every other game - except golf, of course, where the player with the most ridiculous outfit takes top prize. If all else fails, just blurt out, every ten minutes: "Oh, man! You gotta be kidding me!"

If your friends like sports, they’ll think you’re some sort of super genius.

Sports talk can be confusing, so don't get frustrated if you don't learn it over night. Just remember: you've got to take ‘em one game at a time, and come to play every day. Oh yeah, and turnover’s’ll kill ya.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Olympics' Real Winners and Losers

John U. Bacon — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:55:00 GMT

March 5, 2010

Press play to listen

It was the best of Olympics, it was the worst of Olympics. For some, it was the season of hope; for others, the winter of their discontent. But to heck with all that. I’m just here to give you Coach Bacon’s Winners and Losers of the Winter Olympics. So, here we go.

WINNER: Vancouver

Great city, great people, great Olympics. Well done, my Canadian friends.

LOSER: Vancouver

In the opening ceremonies, the flame apparatus failed to rise, launching a thousand Viagra jokes. But the real joke was the speed skating oval, where the Canadians failed to manufacture decent ice. That’s like Jamaicans failing to manufacture decent sand. What’s up with that?

WINNER: Olympic Hockey

With the best players in the world, and six nations with an equal chance of grabbing the gold, the Olympics gave us hockey at its very best. The US-Canada overtime final, with NO TV time-outs, made for an unforgettable finish – some say the best ever.

LOSER: NHL Hockey

Only the NHL can take this singular moment and blow it. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said the NHL might skip the next Olympics. Now you know why he’s considered the dumbest commissioner in all of sports. He did it the old-fashioned way. He earned it.

WINNER: The Medal Count

The U.S. set a record for most Winter Olympic medals ever, with 37, and the Canadians set a record for most golds, with 14 -- redeeming themselves for being the only host nation to win no golds, twice, in Montreal and Calgary. Kudos, North America.

LOSER: The Medal Count

It took 20 Canadian men seven games of skating, passing and shooting to earn a single gold medal in hockey. Meanwhile, Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjorgen had only to repeat the same basic motion in the sprint, the 10K, the 15K, the 30K, and the relay, to get five medals. Is cross-country skiing really five times harder than ice hockey? What’s up with that? I say all distance sports should be reduced to a short run, a long run, and a relay—that’s it. And hockey should count 20. There. That’d do it.

WINNER: Curling

Watching curling proved oddly compelling, like gazing at a lava lamp. And it gives all of us hope that – yeah, sure, I could be a world class athlete. Look at that slob! He’s on the Olympic team?! Oh, yeah. I could do that.

LOSER: Curling

I’m sorry, it’s still just shuffle board on ice. And spare me your emails. My grandfather was a proud member of his New Brunswick curling team, but he didn’t expect to get a medal for it. He preferred beer, anyway.

WINNER: Ryan Miller

The former Michigan State star let in the overtime goal against Canada, but he was still the best player – by far – in the tournament, and rightly won the Most Valuable Player trophy.

LOSER: Mikka Kiprusoff

The Finnish goalie said he’d only join his national team if they named him the starter. He got what he asked for – then went out and let in four goals on seven shots against the U.S. He sucked at 400 pounds-per-square inch. Then he didn’t even wait for his coach to pull him, before skulking back to the bench. I have just two words for you, sir: Loo Zer.

WINNER: Ann Arbor

With seven players from the US National Development Team on the Olympic hockey roster, and two pairs of ice dancers all training at Ann Arbor’s Ice Cube, A-Squared was downright Olympian.

LOSER: The Biathlon

Making someone ski several miles, then stop to shoot at targets for no apparent reason, makes as much sense as making swimmers finish four laps, then get out and bowl three frames.

So I say, let’s spice it up a little. Each time the biathletes miss their marks, they should have to ski behind the targets before they’re allowed to shoot again. That would increase the stakes, and focus the mind.

Too much for you? Okay, how about giving them all paint ball pellets to fire at their fellow competitors as they traipse through the woods? That way, no lead would be safe, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and the leader would be forced to ski in a zig-zag pattern down the stretch while the trailers try to pick him off from behind.

Or we could just kill this silly sport altogether.

WINNER: NBC

NBC gave us fewer taped fillers, and more live action.

LOSER: NBC

Still too much fireplace, and not enough first place. Oh, give me the CBC!

WINNERS: Us

Yes, the Olympics are over-hyped and over-packaged, but they’re still the best thing on TV. We see it all – the bratty skiers, the bodacious boarders and the inspiring skaters, like Joannie Rochette, who took to the ice just two days after her mother died of a heart attack – and delivered the single best short program of her life.

That is reality TV. And that’s why I can’t wait for 2012.

Note to loyal listeners

Hello Loyal Readers,

Thanks once again for reading, for writing, and for spreading theword. Thanks to you, we will break 33,000 subscribers this week.

As the site's gotten bigger, I realize it's probably time to add a bit of -- gasp! -- professionalism to comment section. So, like most respectable publications, I will seek to keep the comment section completely open to all civil contributors -- whether you like the latest piece or not -- without excising letters. All you have to do isbe willing to sign your name, as you do for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine and the rest --a good idea I should have put in place from the start.

As one of my on-line outlets says, You keep it civil, we'll keep it open.

Great thanks -- and keep 'em comin'!

-John

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Miracle on Ice Architect Herb Brooks: A Personal Thank You

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:21:00 GMT

February 26, 2010

Press play to listen

The surprising United States Olympic men’s hockey team will play Finland today in the semi-finals, inspiring some to compare them to the last U.S. men’s team to win the gold 30 years ago, Lake Placid’s “Miracle on Ice.” Sorry, even if the U.S. wins it all, it will not qualify as a miracle. We are not likely to see anything quite like it again. And there will never be another coach like Herb Brooks.

I will never forget the impact the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team had on our country – or the impact the coach, Herb Brooks, had on me.

On December 13, 1979, my best friend was heading home from hockey practice up north, when he was killed in a car accident. I found out the next morning, seconds before my high school hockey teammates and I walked out onto the basketball court for our first pep rally. What started out as one of the happiest days of my life, had suddenly become the saddest.

I didn’t come out of it for months. But when the 1980 Olympic hockey tournament started, I watched every second of every game – I was transfixed by this team and their coach -- and that’s what brought me back.

Fifteen years later, as a sports reporter for The Detroit News, I decided to write a story about Mike Ramsey and Slava Fetisov, who were bitter rivals in Lake Placid Games, before becoming great friends playing together with the Red Wings. To round out the piece I knew I had to call Herb Brooks, who was famously impatient with sports writers.

When I reached Brooks at his home in Minnesota, he spent the first ten minutes chewing out my entire profession, from our lack of credentials to our lack of accountability, before he answered any of my questions. I stayed calm throughout, but after I hung up the phone, I looked down, and saw that my hands were shaking.

When the story came out, I sent Brooks a copy, then nervously called him a week later to get his response. I talked to his wife, Patti – a warm and generous soul -- who told me, “Well, he didn’t throw it against the wall, like he usually does. So that’s a good sign.”

A year later, I called Brooks for a story on Russian hockey, and when that one came out, he asked if they could reprint it in a hockey magazine in Minnesota. After that, we talked every few months, and we would occasionally meet up in rinks from Ann Arbor to Nagano.

Our relationship deepened in 2000, when I took over my old high school hockey team, which had not won a game in a year-and-a-half. Making matters tougher, I was the worst player in school history. (I am not bragging. These are facts.)

But I had the best group of assistants in the state, plus a secret weapon: a world-class mentor in Herb Brooks. I stole from him shamelessly – and it worked.

In our second year, we got to the regional finals – but we had to face our Soviet Union, Trenton high school, which has won twelve state titles. Three weeks before the regional finals, they had smoked us, 10-1.

I knew we were better than that, but I also knew we needed a boost. So, the day before the game, I called Herb Brooks. He said, "Johnny, just tell 'em this: Above all, you have to believe. If you don’t, you don’t have a chance. But if you do, anything is possible.”

I passed on Herb’s words to our players, who had heard me talk about Brooks many times. Our guys played like they were on fire, without any fear whatsoever, but we fell short, 3-2. Still, their fans gave our players a standing ovation. Back in the locker room, I told them, “We might have lost, but you did something more important: You dared to believe you could do it.”

The next year, Herb and I started working on his autobiography. But three months later, Herb died in a car accident.

The next season, my last in coaching, we traveled to Trenton and we beat them in their building, 4-3.

On the bus ride home I wanted to call Herb Brooks in the worst way, just to tell him: We believed.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Our National Anthem is Not Our Nation's Best Tribute

John U. Bacon — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:58:00 GMT

February 19, 2010

Press play to listen

The modern Olympics started in 1896, but it took 28 more years before the winners would hear their national anthem during the medal ceremony.

The Vancouver Games will conduct 86 medal ceremonies, during which any of the 82 countries present could be serenaded with their national anthem. But not all are created equal -- including ours.

You probably knew the melody for our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, came from a popular British drinking song, and that Francis Scott Key added the words during the War of 1812. But you might not have known the Star Spangled Banner didn’t become our national anthem until more than a century later, in 1931. And we didn’t start playing the song before ball games until World War II.

The Star Spangled Banner may be two centuries old, but its status as our national anthem is relatively new – and, I think, not beyond reconsideration.

True, the song can be strong and moving. But who can forget Carl Lewis’s version, which sounded like a feral cat in serious pain, or actress Roseanne Barr’s rendition – which put the “f” back in “professionalism”?

In their defense, the Star Spangled Banner is notoriously difficult to sing – or even remember.   Raise your hand if you really know what a “rampart” is? That’s what I thought. Thank you.

That’s just another reason why I think we should consider adopting a different national anthem, like “America, the Beautiful.” In 1895, a Wellesley College professor, fed up with the greed of the Robber Barons – sound familiar? -- took a train to Colorado, and was reminded along the way what a great country this truly is. When her poem was coupled with Samuel Ward’s melody, a classic was born.

For my money, Ray Charles’ version is the best. When I hear him sing, “America, America, God done shed his grace on thee. And crown thy good, with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea,” there aren’t too many things I wouldn’t be willing to do for my country.

Just a few years after “America, the Beautiful” came out, Irving Berlin composed “God Bless America” to inspire victory in World War One. Twenty years later, he revised it to respond to the Nazis’ rise to power.

From the opening, “God Bless America, Land that I love.,” to the close, “My home sweet home,” Berlin doesn’t give you much to quibble about.

If Ray Charles stamped “America, the Beautiful,” as his own, surely “God Bless America” belongs to Kate Smith. But in the aftermath of Viet Nam, the patriotic standard’s popularity was slipping -- until the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team started playing it before crucial contests. They’ve won some 80-percent of those games – and all three when Kate Smith arrived to sing it in person. Her first appearance, on May 19, 1974, preceded the Flyers’ 1-0 victory over Boston, for the Flyers’ first Stanley Cup. Many credited Smith for lifting the crowd and the team to new heights. Even the famously tough Philly fans could not boo Kate Smith.

When the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team pulled off the greatest upset in sports history, the players spontaneously broke into a chorus – not of “The Star Spangled Banner,” but “God Bless America.”

They couldn’t sing it quite like Kate Smith, but they understood what they were singing, they understood why, and they meant every word. I think they were on to something.

Please Show Us The Athletes Competing, Instead Of The Announcers Talking

John U. Bacon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:01:00 GMT

February 12, 2010

Press play to listen

Twelve years ago I covered the Winter Olympics in Nagano. It was exhausting – and exhilarating.

Every day, right in front of me, I got to savor the skill and the speed of the skiers and the snowboarders, the hockey players and the figure skaters. But what I remember most is the energy generated by the athletes and the audience, who seemed to feed off each other. I didn’t get to merely see it. I got to feel it – an experience shared with thousands of people from around the world, right as it happened.

So that’s why I was stunned when I called my friends back home, breathless about the drama stirring all around me, only to learn they had no idea what I was talking about. They weren’t impressed by the Nagano Olympics, or the coverage of it – take your pick. And that’s when I realized the Olympics I was experiencing had nothing to do with the one they were watching – or not watching at all. (Nagano had the lowest ratings in 30 years.)

Now I realize TV can’t compete with being there, especially 12 time zones away. But it can come a lot closer than it usually does. American networks spend so much money on the Olympics -- 2.3 billion dollars for the rights alone this year – they feel compelled to protect their investment with too many safe, soft feature stories filmed months before the Games even begin.

Yes, I’m talking about those ubiquitous “Up Close and Personal” segments, about the cross-country skier from Eveleth, Minnesota, who became world class fast while being chased by dogs on his after-school paper route. And that’d be a fine story – if it didn’t keep us from watching the former paper boy competing in “The Actual Olympics” segments.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation does much better, with much less. Or they did, until they lost the Canadian rights to CTV. And that’s a crying shame, because the CBC consistently showed you the most interesting athletes, even if they weren’t Americans, and they showed them competing, live.

Why does that matter? Because sports is one of the few things on TV nobody knows how it’s going to turn out. You just can’t get you a preview of tonight’s game. So when we see a classic competition unfolding before our very eyes, we become participants in that event. We share it with family, friends, even strangers – or tell them, Awww, man! Ya missed it! And we remember it forever.

I’ll never forget watching the ’76 Winter Olympics on a school night with my brother and my dad. We saw skier after skier cut the leading time, until the last skier, world champion Franz Klammer, came flying over the hill in his skin-tight yellow suit in a reckless attempt to claim his title – and he did it. We jumped and cheered as if we were there – and we were, in our living room, sharing it with millions of people around the world.

The list is long. Think of Tonya and Nancy, right down to Tonya’s broken skate lace. Or speed skater Dan Jansen’s repeated heartbreaks before winning the gold. Or the Miracle on Ice medal ceremony, when captain Mike Eruzione spontaneously called his teammates up to the medal stand with him, and they all managed to fit, just barely – a scene no one who saw it can ever forget.

If you witnessed those events, when they happened, you’re probably nodding right now. It’s something we share, because, “We were there.”

And that’s why I wish NBC would be kind enough to get the heck out of the way, and let us watch the athletes, not the announcers, do what they’ve been preparing to do for years.

Only that way can we have a few more memories.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Amid Super Bowl Silliness, A Couple Stories Worth Telling

John U. Bacon — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:04:00 GMT

February 5, 2010

Press play to listen

It’s hard to think of too many endeavors that receive more overblown attention than do sports. And within sports, nothing’s more overblown than the Super Bowl.

This time around, we’re getting endless stories about President Obama picking the New Orleans Saints – because… that matters? – a preview of the ads scheduled to run during the game, and several hundred articles analyzing the recuperation of Dwight Freeney’s sprained right ankle, and how that might affect national security. Or some such.

But in the midst of this morass are two stories worth telling.

The first is Kurt Warner. After graduating from Northern Iowa in 1994, not one NFL team drafted him. In other words, the NFL determined there were at least 222 players better than Kurt Warner that year alone.

Warner was tempted to pack it in. Instead, he started packing groceries in Cedar Falls, Iowa, while living in his girlfriend’s parents’ basement, serving as a graduate assistant coach for his alma mater, and working out in the hopes of getting another chance. He had to settle for the Iowa Barnstormers, a team that played in the doomed Arena Football League. But, what should have been a dead end, proved to be a launch pad.

Arena Football’s funny rules required Warner to speed up his decision-making and his delivery – skills you need to succeed in the NFL. Three years later, one of the NFL’s worst teams, the St. Louis Rams, hired him as a backup. The next season, incredibly, the Rams won their first Superbowl, and Kurt Warner won the league’s MVP – his first of three.

Last week, Warner retired with a pile of records, a pile of money, and a well-earned reputation for playing his best in the biggest games. He said he didn’t want to be known for being a clutch player, but a hard worker. He’ll have to settle for both.

Warner left the stage with quiet dignity – two qualities not often associated with NFL players – just as a younger quarterback was taking his place.

Drew Brees was one of the most celebrated high school quarterbacks in Texas, a state that celebrates high school quarterbacks more than it does Supreme Court justices. But Brees blew off the hometown Texas Longhorns to head north to Purdue, where he set just about every school record for passing. He took the Boilermakers to their first Rose Bowl in over three decades, and was named not just an Academic All-American, but the Academic All-American of the Year.

But in the NFL, Brees struggled his first three seasons. Soon after he finally found his rhythm, he also found a new city to play in: New Orleans, which had been ravished by Hurricane Katrina the year before. The Saints’ home, the Superdome, had become the very symbol of the disaster, and the owners were considering moving the team for good.

Enter Drew Brees, who not only led the historically pathetic Saints to the playoffs, he spent his money and his time creating his own foundation, which restores schools, parks and playgrounds, in a city desperate for all three. A recent Sports Illustrated cover story said Brees was “as adored and appreciated as any [athlete] in an American city today.”

It’s hard to argue with that, and even harder to root against Drew Brees.

So, if you missed Kurt Warner, enjoy Drew Brees while you can. Players like this don’t come along very often.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

How Berenson and Beilein Put Values Before Victories

John U. Bacon — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:59:00 GMT

January 29, 2010

Press play to listen

The Michigan basketball team recently lost to Michigan State by one point, all but ending the Wolverines’ chances to return to the NCAA tournament. The Michigan hockey team faces Michigan State this weekend, and they need a sweep to improve their fading chances of getting back to the tournament themselves.

For Michigan fans, this is the Winter of Their Discontent. Provided, that is, only wins and losses count. But the head coaches of both teams did notch a couple moral victories last week. Yes, they’ve lost some battles this season, but they’re still winning the war.

On Thursday, the general manager of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, Dean Lombardi, had some sharp words about legendary Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson and his program. Lombardi – no relation to the great Vince Lombardi in any way, shape or form, as you’ll see -- said, “Red Berenson doesn’t coach. It’s ‘Do what you want.’ Michigan is the worst.”

Now, Berenson doesn’t need me or anybody else to defend him or his record – but I can’t resist.

Forget, for a moment, Berenson’s two NCAA titles, 18 league titles and record 19-straight NCAA tournament appearances, not to mention the 20 All-Americans he’s produced.

The crux of Lombardi’s claim that Michigan doesn’t develop players can be refuted simply by looking at guys like Mike Stone, a walk-on who rose to become the team’s Most Valuable Player, on a team loaded with future NHLers; Mike Knuble, who arrived a lightly regarded freshmen from East Kentwood, Michigan, and left an All-American, a U.S. Olympian and now a 12-year NHL veteran, who skates on a line with the best player in the game, Alexander Ovechkin ; and John Madden, who wasn’t even drafted as a freshman – which is rare at Michigan -- before he came to Ann Arbor, and is now in his 11^th year in the NHL, where he's served as a captain, and has won two Stanley Cups. For the record, that’s two more than Lombardi has won in over two decades as an employee of three NHL teams.

It was such a stupid comment, Berenson did not bother to dignify it with a response. As they say in politics, if your critic is busy firing bullets into his own foot, don’t grab the gun.

But when the player who inspired Lombardi’s remarks, Jack Johnson – a former Michigan star who now plays for Lombardi’s L.A. Kings – heard about them, he told his coach he wasn’t getting dressed for their home game that night until Lombardi came down to apologize to him in person. Lombardi did just that, 15 minutes before warm up, and Johnson got dressed.

You’ve got to admire Johnson’s conviction. He’s a great player, but Lombardi can send him any time he wants to any team he wants, including the minors. Johnson’s courageous stand, with little to gain and a lot to lose, tells you something about the kind of players Michigan’s coaching staff develops.

At the same time this was playing out, Michigan basketball star Manny Harris mistakenly thought one of his teammates had taken a cheap shot at him during practice. Harris started a fight. When head coach John Beilein tried to break it up, Harris only made things worse. Beilein decided to leave Harris at home when the team traveled to play a crucial game the next day against 13th-ranked Purdue. With their star player out, Michigan lost by ten.

Harris apologized to his coach, his teammates and the fans. He returned Tuesday night to play a great game against fifth-ranked Michigan State, but the Wolverines fell just short. Michigan lost – but Harris grew up.

I’m just old-fashioned enough to believe that still matters.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Why Pond Hockey Beats Indoor Hockey

John U. Bacon — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:06:00 GMT

January 22, 2010

Hello Loyal Readers,

Thanks for reading, listening (for those of you who prefer the audio version below) and writing in with your comments.

For you Michigan types, you might be interested in my column for Michigan Today, which I write every month, on the Wolverines’ Top Ten Moments of the Decade. http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2010/01/

And again, thank you!

-John

Press play to listen

WHY POND HOCKEY BEATS INDOOR HOCKEY

“I think we have too many AAA, Showcase and elite camps for the kids today, and as a result, we are creating a bunch of robots. We need to make it fun for the kids and let them learn to love the game the way we did.”

-Herb Brooks, coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Pond Hockey: A Documentary Film

Just over half a million kids play organized hockey in the United States, as I did – but trust me, they’re missing out.

We’re deep in the dead of winter. And for most of us, there’s not a lot to do, and not much to look forward to for the next couple months. But if you’re a hockey player – scratch that, if you’re a pond hockey player -- this is the best time of year.

When I was growing up – not that long ago – we’d come home from school, slip our skates onto our sticks and throw the stick over our shoulders like hobos carrying their knapsacks, then trudge through the apple orchard behind our neighborhood to a pond in the middle of the woods. We’d lace ‘em up and play until it was too dark to see, then put our boots back on and head home for dinner.

On weekends, we;d spend all day down there. Friends of mine who lived near Burns Park and Thurston Pond would come home, eat dinner with their skates on, then go back to the ice for more.

We got more ice time in a single day on those ponds than we got in weeks of indoor practices and games. And it was more fun, too. No try-outs, no scoreboards, no whistles, no drills, no lines, no benches, no coaches, no refs – in fact, no adults at all – and no nets. Just a pair of boots at each end.

I don’t recall once coming back from the pond upset that we’d lost. That’s because we played about a dozen games a day, and whenever one team lost too many, we’d just change teams. I also can’t recall much about the hundreds of indoor practices I endured as a kid, but I can remember those long, happy days on the pond like they were yesterday.

But when you drive by those very same ponds today, you won’t see any kids. They’re all packed in vans, being dragged to some tournament two hours away. And when they get back, they’ll be inside playing video games.

So when my old high school teammate, Pete Read, put together his third annual Michigan Pond Hockey Classic at Whitmore Lake last weekend – one of the nation’s biggest – it was no surprise that almost all of the 500-some players were over thirty.

Read laid out 15 rinks, separated only by snow banks. We played four-on-four, with no goalies or fancy nets – just a flat box of two-by-sixes. Everyone got dressed in one big tent, and sat on hay bales. A hockey locker room is one of the few places on earth where the smell can be improved by fresh hay. The guys getting reading to play could see their breath, while the guys coming back in could watch the steam coming off their pads as they stuffed them back into their bags.

My team, consisting of a bunch of former high school teammates, got our butts kicked in the first two games by margins like 21-14 – football scores. In our last two games, however, we staged heroic rallies to lose by a little less.

But we had a blast all weekend. Until our last game, that is, when the volunteer score keeper – god bless ‘im – decided to play full-time ref, and rule on every out of bounds play and every goal. Before we realized what we were doing, we started sniping and hacking at each other, and the once friendly match quickly devolved into – well, a little league hockey game. Once we told the would-be ref we could handle the game ourselves, we got back to playing pond hockey – and that’s what we love.

One of my friends brought his son along, but he couldn’t play with us because his travel team had a game later that day.

Poor kid doesn’t know what he’s missing.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

McGwire's Confession Risks Nothing, Gains Nothing

John U. Bacon — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:36:00 GMT

January 15, 2010

Press play to listen

On Monday, former home run hitter Mark McGwire talked to sports broadcaster Bob Costas in an attempt to restore his good name.

He had a lot of restoring to do.

McGwire was one of those super-sized sluggers who were knocking out home runs at a record rate in the nineties. And, like his peers – Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa – McGwire was widely rumored to be taking steroids.

In fact, the FBI gave the commissioner of baseball a list of 70 players they discovered were taking steroids, including McGwire -- two decades ago. The commissioner, of course, promptly did absolutely nothing, because he was too hooked on the home runs that were saving baseball from itself after he had canceled the 1994 World Series.

And the hits just kept on coming. In 1998, McGwire broke one of the game’s most revered records when he shattered Roger Maris’s old mark of 61 home runs in a season by smashing 70. He was a national hero.

But the gig was up five years ago when McGwire’s former teammate, Jose Canseco, published a tell-all book in which he named names – including McGwire. You know you’re in a cesspool when the only guy telling the truth, Canseco, is a convicted felon.

Canseco’s book led to a Congressional hearing the same year. When it was McGwire’s turn to testify, he famously said, “I am not here to talk about the past.” Unfortunately, “the past” is usually what Congressional hearings are all about.

It was a public relations disaster. When the Hall of Fame voters turned their ballots in the next year, less than 25-percent voted for McGwire. A player needs three times that to get in. He’s not done any better since – and now he’s going to help coach the St. Louis Cardinals. He wants a clean slate.

Thus, Monday’s “Hail Mary” interview, in which McGwire said, “It was a mistake.” No, picking the wrong restaurant for dinner is a mistake. Injecting yourself with illegal steroids for fame and fortune is a deal with the devil.

He also said, “I regret I played in the steroids era.” That’s like Bernie Madoff saying, “I regret I was an investor during the Ponzi Scheme era.” Sorry, it doesn’t cut it.

But then, even more absurdly, McGwire said, with a straight face, that he didn’t take steroids to hit more home runs – no! -- but for “health purposes.” In other words, we should ignore the fact that his season-high home run total skyrocketed from 49 to 70 – or that he played with the faith of 300 million people, to update The Great Gatsby’s take on the Black Sox scandal.

It seems to me a real confession is marked by sincerity, not self-interest. Its value is directly related to how much the confessor risks by making it.

In McGwire’s case, he fudged so much that it’s hard to call it a confession at all, and he was risking absolutely nothing. Everybody already knew he took steroids, and his chance to be brave about it came and went years ago. We knew he was a fraud as a player. On Monday we learned he’s also a fraud as a person, as well. McGwire’s just trying to scam us -- again.

If we can apply Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief to McGwire’s mess, we can see he’s gone from stage one, denial, to stage three, bargaining – but he’s still a long way from the final stage, honest acceptance.

And he is just as far from the front doors of Cooperstown.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Former Third-Stringer Named Leader of Michigan's Athletic Department

John U. Bacon — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:34:00 GMT

January 8, 2010

Press play to listen

On Tuesday, the University of Michigan announced Domino’s Pizza CEO David Brandon would succeed Bill Martin as the athletic director. It marked a personal high point of a great career – one you wouldn’t have predicted when Brandon played for Michigan as a third-string defensive back.

14 years ago, I wrote a big feature on Bo Schembechler for the Detroit News. Bo liked the story and, out of nowhere, gave me his papers. When I tried to interest him in writing a book, he told me to ask him later – much later, it turned out. About nine years later. So, in the summer of 2000, I started without him.

The first person I sought out was Dave Brandon, who was in his second year as the CEO of Domino’s Pizza. He probably didn’t know me from Adam, but he gave me an hour of his time anyway. And he didn’t spend it gushing about his greatest day, either, but confessing his worst one.

Brandon had been an All-State quarterback at South Lyon High School, and Schembechler offered him a full ride to come to Michigan in 1970.

Problem was, Michigan already had three quarterbacks who would play that position – Tom Slade, Larry Cipa and Dennis Franklin -- so Brandon switched to defensive back. But that only made his situation worse, because the Wolverines were stocked with four future All-Americans at that spot. Brandon could have been the fifth-best defensive back in the country and not gotten any playing time on that team – they were that good. So, after a couple years of hard work, he was still languishing on the depth chart, and getting frustrated.

At a Monday practice in the middle of the 1972 season, Brandon’s junior year, Schembechler decided to work with the guys who hadn’t played that Saturday by making up a scrimmage they called the Toilet Bowl. Well, Brandon apparently responded with something less than complete enthusiasm. He just muttered a few words under his breath, across the field from the old general, but somehow Schembechler was in his face in about eight nanoseconds. Creating the illusion that his eyes and ears were everywhere was part of his genius.

“Brandon! I hear you’d rather not partake in our little scrimmage,” he barked. “Well, I can solve your problem, son. You’re going straight into that locker room, and cleaning your locker out. You’re done playing football for the University of Michigan.”

Brandon sat in his empty stall, dazed and despondent, wondering what he would tell his father, who loved Bo, his teammates, his girlfriend, and, one day, years from then, his kids.

Needless to say, Brandon didn’t sleep a wink that night. The next morning, he put on a dress shirt and went straight to Bo’s office, scared, nervous, and worn out. He apologized – as Bo knew he would -- and Bo took him back. But he never heard Dave Brandon complain about any scrimmages after that.

Fast forward to 1989, the first reunion for all of Bo’s players. Brandon is already an All-American businessman by now, and a millionaire – but that incident still bothered him. Brandon figured it was time to confess his sins, so he told his teammates at his table about it – and everybody started laughing.

Brandon was stunned. What are you guys laughing about? I’m spilling my guts! One by one, they confessed, at one time or another Bo had kicked all of them off the team.

Brandon had a good laugh, too -- but the lesson stayed with him: Don’t take what you’ve been given for granted, or you’ll lose it.

And that’s one reason why the guy who’d been kicked off the team is now not only responsible for Michigan’s football team, but for all Michigan’s teams.

Bo would be proud – and I’m sure he would agree: That’s a hell of a story.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

He Loved the Game, Even When the Game Didn't Love Him

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:21:00 GMT

December 18, 2009

Press play to listen

Old Man Winter is back with a vengeance. That’s okay. I like the snow – and I love the hockey.

You can play pond hockey, drop-in hockey or beer league hockey, but for me, the best hockey is the pick-up game at Michigan’s Yost Arena on Tuesday nights.

The game features some of the best players in the area, most of them former Michigan players, many of whom played pro hockey. But a few wannabes, like me, have gotten regular spots. It’s by invitation only, and I only got invited because I knew the guy started it. Jeff Bourne -- known as “Tiny,” thanks to his 5-6 frame -- cared as much about attitude as ability. As he said: If you don’t pass, you’re an ass.

Tiny’s dad was Canadian. So it was only natural that he and his younger brother, Roger, grew up playing hockey in the Bourne’s back yard.

Tiny wasn’t a great player, but he loved the game. Every year, Tiny tried out for the Ann Arbor Pioneer high school team, and every year he got cut. Every year, that is, until his senior year, when his brother Roger – a freshman who was already bigger and better – tried out too.

As expected, Roger made the team. But so did Tiny. When Tiny was driving them home, he told Roger he knew why the coach finally took him:

So he could drive his younger brother to the rink.

But Tiny didn’t feel slighted. He was thrilled to finally make the team, and watch his brother play, even while Tiny rode the bench. Tiny liked to point out that they were one of the most productive pair of brothers in Pioneer history, totaling 201 points. Roger got 200 of those, and Tiny added the one.

Roger went on to play at Michigan. His biggest fan, by far, was his big brother, Tiny. Roger returned the favor by introducing Tiny to Lauri, one of Roger’s classmates. They hit it off immediately. She said, “You’re just like Roger!”

“No,” Tiny said. “Roger is just like me!”

They had two kids. Tiny coached his son’s teams, he coached his daughter’s teams, and he organized our skates on Tuesdays. And that’s where I got to know him best.

On paper, Tiny and I had almost nothing in common, from our passports to our politics. But none of that seemed to matter. Tiny had a way of drawing people to him, and the game he loved – me included.

Six years ago, between Christmas and New Year’s, Roger was skating the puck down the ice, and Tiny, playing defense for the other team, stopped him cold. It was a great play.

It was also Tiny’s last play. He returned to the bench, sat down, and fell forward. He was just 47 – and he was gone.

At Tiny’s funeral, you’d have thought it was a service for a Hall of Famer. The standing room only crowd included Jeff Daniels and Red Berenson, Michigan’s hockey coach; Tiny’s teammates at Pioneer; and the girls on his daughter’s hockey team, sitting together, wearing their blue jerseys.

Tiny might have loved hockey more than the game loved him. But that never stopped him. Every year, he got better, and every year, he drew more people to the game.

What did Tiny get out of it? To answer that question, all you had to do was look around that church.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Notre Dame's rep rises while football falls

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:25:00 GMT

December 11, 2009

Press play to listen

The Michigan Wolverines might have the most wins in college football history, and the highest winning percentage, but the Wolverines have never captured the nation’s imagination like the Fightin’ Irish of Notre Dame.

Notre Dame’s success is partly the Wolverines’ fault. Knute Rockne wanted to get his Fightin’ Irish into the Big Ten in the worst way – but Michigan’s Fielding Yost wanted to keep them out even…worser.

Yost probably expected Rockne to take his team and go home – but Rockne had other ideas. He took his team to Chicago and Boston, which had large Catholic populations, and built a following. He also scheduled games in Yankee Stadium – in front of the national media – and in Los Angeles, in front of Hollywood hot-shots.

And that’s why Notre Dame didn’t shrink without the Big Ten, but grew into the only college team with a national following. The sports writers told tales of The Four Horseman, while the movie makers immortalized the Irish with films from “Knute Rockne: All American” – starring young Ronald Reagan as the Gipper -- to “Rudy.”

It took Father Ted Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president from 1952 to 1987, to figure out how to leverage Notre Dame’s success in football to success in academia. What started out as a Podunk private school that would accept live cattle for tuition – I am not making that up -- is now among the most respected universities in the world.

But, while Notre Dame’s academic reputation has been steadily rising, the reputation of its football team – which made it all possible – has been steadily falling. The Irish earned at least one national title every decade from the twenties to the eighties – eleven total -- but haven’t won another since 1988. Worse, Notre Dame has fired three head coaches in the last eight years – including Charlie Weis, just last week.

Part of the problem is Notre Dame’s tradition – which makes them think they can hire just about anyone and he’ll succeed, because it’s Notre Dame. How else can you explain the hiring of Gerry Faust in 1981 from Cincinnati – Moeller High School in Cincinnati, that is? Faust had not coached a single college game, and it showed. He flamed out in five years.

Faust’s successor, Lou Holtz, left the Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish for the South Carolina Gamecocks, under a cloud of suspicion.

After firing two more coaches, Notre Dame had to go searching again in 2005. But, to their surprise, the coach they really wanted, Urban Meyer -- who was named after Pope Urban, fer cryin’ out loud -- didn’t really want to work for a school that fired its last coach after just three seasons.

Michigan fans, take note.

So, they hired Charlie Weis, a Notre Dame alum whose reputation was built more on hope and hype than any actual accomplishments – a man who had never played or coached a down of college football. His greatest victory at Notre Dame, the joke goes, was a loss to top-ranked Southern Cal by just three points. The Irish were so impressed by this close call, they signed Weis that month, in the middle of his first season, to a ten-year extension worth tens of millions, to make sure he couldn’t go anywhere else. Well, be careful what you wish for.

But there is good news for Notre Dame: U.S. News and World Report just ranked Notre Dame the 18th best university in the country – a higher ranking than the football team has enjoyed in years.

Coach Rockne must be spinning – but Father Ted must be thrilled.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Woods Whiffs Twice

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:17:00 GMT

December 4, 2009

Press play to listen

From the day Tiger Woods was born, his parents groomed him to become the best golfer in the world.

Incredibly, it worked. Woods’s uncommon ability to hit a golf ball landed him on the Mike Douglas show – when he was two. He got his first hole in one at six, and two years later he won his first international tournament. Tiger Woods has been the best golfer in the world for his age every year of his life.

Woods’s unequaled ambition also earned him a few bucks – about a hundred million of them last year alone, almost all of it from endorsements.

Perhaps more surprising, the guy seems normal. He’s got brains – he went to Stanford – he has a sense of humor, friends, a beautiful wife and two kids. If anyone had it all, it was Tiger Woods.

And that’s why the stories this week about marital fights and car accidents and affairs with California cocktail waitresses are so surprising. Not that such things are unusual among athletes. On that scale, the week’s events barely wiggled the Richter scale. What -- no drugs, no guns, no bankruptcy, or no dog fights? You call that a scandal?

No, the stunning thing is that it all happened to Tiger Woods – the single most self-disciplined man in sports. Before this, his only apparent vice was swearing after a bad shot. And if that’s a sin, every golfer is going to hell.

But there he was, zipping out of his Florida mansion at two in the morning, with no shoes on, with his gorgeous wife chasing after him with a two-iron. When Tiger ran his car into a tree, she caught up to him – and proceeded to hack at the windows, with a complete disregard for basic golf etiquette.

Now, one of my favorite things about American society is our ability to turn any horrible situation into a half-dozen one liners by Tuesday. What’s the difference between a car and a golf ball? Tiger Woods can drive a golf ball 300 yards.

I imagine neither Woods nor his wife are laughing right now. There are some serious issues here, starting with privacy. The unwritten code among sports writers is this: if an affair is between consenting adults, no one reports it. Take Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, whose private lives didn’t become public until other factors made them impossible to ignore. Tiger Woods would probably get the same treatment – but once the police got involved, the story changed.

Woods often gets in trouble on the golf course because he takes so many chances. But when he does, he displays perhaps his greatest skill: an uncanny knack for getting out of trouble quickly. Tiger Woods, the man, did exactly the opposite, taking a bad situation and making it much worse.

Whenever a celebrity screws up, his lawyers invariably tell him to keep his mouth shut – not realizing that the courts are the least of his problems. His case will be tried on ESPN every hour on the hour, and silence only breeds suspicion – and interest. As a character on the Simpsons said: “What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?” What, indeed.

But Woods’s “apology statement” was even worse, less concerned with apologizing to his family than venting about the media. Woods values his privacy so much he bought a $20 million yacht, and named it, “Privacy.” But it wasn’t privacy that paid for that boat – it was publicity. Lots of it. And you’d have to be pretty naïve or dumb – and Woods ain’t either – to think you can direct the spotlight to shine only on your good sides.

Woods seems to have gotten about what he deserved: a public embarrassment, though perhaps not as bad as his wife’s, who did nothing to deserve it. But Woods will recover, the money will keep flowing, and he’ll sail off on the good ship Privacy – though he might consider renaming it.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Michigan-Ohio State Rivalry's Roots Run Deep

John U. Bacon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:20:00 GMT

November 20, 2009

Press play to listen

They’ve hated each other since before football was invented

Michigan plays Ohio State tomorrow, for the 106th time. The Buckeyes have already wrapped up the Rose Bowl, while the Wolverines are fighting to secure a bowl bid. But ESPN viewers still consider this rivalry the greatest in American sports. What most sports fans don’t know is, this one goes back before football even existed.

In 1833, Michigan was still a territory, while Ohio had already been a state for three decades. When Michigan started making its pitch for statehood, the surveyors had to figure out exactly where Michigan ended, and Ohio began. They soon discovered they’d gotten it wrong the first time: Toledo should have belonged to Michigan all along.

No big deal, you say? Well, don’t forget: at that time, the main thoroughfare between the Northeast and the Midwest was the Erie Canal -- and Toledo was a major stop.

When Michigan claimed it for its own, Ohio blocked Michigan’s bid for statehood. Former president John Adams, who had returned to Congress, wrote, “Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other."

So, Michigan was right – but weak. What recourse did the Wolverines, as they were called, really have?

And thus began the War of Toledo. More than half a million dollars were raised for troops on both sides. They marched into the city, and then… nothing happened, except for a few bar fights. That’s when Monroe County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Wood decided to travel south to do him some arrestin’.

This is where things get a little murky. Some say Wood road to Perrysburg to arrest Benjamin Franklin Stickney for the treasonous act of voting in an Ohio election. Others say he traveled to a Toledo tavern to arrest one of Stickney’s sons – creatively named, I’m not kidding, One Stickney, and Two Stickney. Well, that’s one way to keep track of your kids, I suppose – and to bolster stereotypes.

One thing all historians agree on: when Wood stepped forward to arrest one of the Stickneys, Two Stickney stuck ‘em – right in the thigh, with a pen knife. And that marked the only casualty of the great Toledo War.

President Andrew Jackson, tired of the silliness, offered Michigan a deal: IF you guys give Toledo back to Ohio, we’ll give you statehood. And we’ll even throw in the Upper Peninsula to boot. They took it, but one Michigan politician complained: “I wonder why they didn't give us a slice of the moon? It would have been more valuable.”

Their attitude toward the UP changed a few decades later when they discovered iron and copper – but their attitude toward Ohio did not.

The differences between them deepened during the migration to both states. Michigan was settled by upstate New York industrialists. Ohio was settled by Virginia farmers -- two very distinct groups of people, which only adds to the differences between the schools. Ah, the conceit of small differences.

How do you handle such hostility? With a good old-fashioned football game, that’s how. Michigan started playing Ohio State in 1897, but it didn’t count for much. Michigan won or tied all of the first 14 games, and Ohio State wasn’t even in the Big Ten anyway.

But things started getting interesting in 1907, the year Michigan left the Big Ten over a rules dispute. Ohio State took Michigan’s place in 1912, so when Michigan returned to the league in 1918, the rivalry was for real.

Since then, the Wolverines have beaten Ohio State 45 times, and the Buckeyes have returned the favor 42 times – about as close as you can get.

No matter who wins tomorrow, there will be blood, sweat and tears – but it still beats taking a pen knife in your thigh.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Stevie Yzerman: All-Star, Stanley Cup Champion, Hall of Famer – and Captain

John U. Bacon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:33:00 GMT

November 13, 2009

Press play to listen

Dear Loyal Readers:

Thanks to your loyal readership, and spreading the word, we broke 30,000 subscribers last week. Great thanks!

-JUB

STEVIE YZERMAN: ALL-STAR, STANLEY CUP CHAMPION, HALL OF FAMER – AND CAPTAIN

When the Red Wings drafted Steve Yzerman in 1983, he was 18 years old, but he looked even younger – less a Boy Scout, than a Cub Scout.

But his baby face didn’t prevent him from notching a stellar 91 points his rookie season. Two years later, the coach named him team captain – the youngest in the Red Wings’ history – though he hadn’t really earned it yet.

Oh, he could score. In his twenties, Yzerman rattled off six seasons of 100 points or more – including 155 points in 1988-89. In the history of the game, only two players have ever surpassed that mark: Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. Not bad company.

Scoring will get you individual honors -- that year, Yzerman’s opponents named him the league’s most outstanding player – but it won’t get your name engraved on the Stanley Cup. For that, a team’s best players have to do all the grimy little chores that don’t show up on a score sheet, only the win column – like playing defense. But defense was not Yzerman’s thing, and that’s why the Red Wings usually had good teams, but never great ones.

That all changed in 1993, when Scotty Bowman became the Red Wings’ head coach. Bowman had a remarkable record for coaching winners: He’d taken teams in St. Louis, Montreal and Pittsburgh to the Stanley Cup finals nine times, and won the Cup six times.

But Detroit hadn’t won the grail since Gordie Howe ruled the rink, almost four decades earlier. Bowman had his work cut out for him.

Bowman also arrived with a well-earned reputation for inscrutability. The legendary coach was so enigmatic, some reporters took to calling him, “Rainman.” But there was method to his madness: his headgames kept everybody on edge, which usually brought out their best.

No sooner had Bowman settled in Detroit than he started speculation that he was willing to trade the team’s star center. This shocking news sent ripples through the locker room, the city and even the state.

Bowman ultimately backed off, but Yzerman got the message. He started doing all those things that don’t win headlines, just games – like backchecking, grinding, and blocking shots. This shift in priorities cut his scoring in half – but doubled his value to the team.

He became a complete player – and a complete leader. He didn’t say much in the locker room, but when he did, everybody listened. And whenever new players wondered what it took to be a Red Wing, all they had to do was watch the 38-year old captain, one of the most skilled players in the league, take a knee to block a shot.

His younger teammate Kirk Maltby said, “When you see him blocking shots night after night, you can’t help but do the same yourself. Given all the things he’s gone through, you can’t ask for a better motivation to win the Cup.”

And those are just a few of the reasons why Yzerman’s name is engraved on the Stanley Cup, three times. That’s why his jersey is one of only six that hangs from the rafters at Joe Louis Arena. And that’s why he walked into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

You can call him an All-Star. A Stanley Cup champion. A Hall of Famer. But the most appropriate title is one he received early in his career, but grew into over two decades: Captain.

Michigan's "Secret Weapon"

John U. Bacon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:11:00 GMT

November 6, 2009

Press play to listen

Fifty years ago, Michigan football looked a lot different from what you see today. Most Saturdays, the stadium was half-empty. Freshmen were not allowed to play, and sophomores rarely did. The starting players on offense also served as the back-ups on defense, and vice versa. So, most of the better players got tuckered out pretty fast.

Michigan started the ‘59 season right where it left off the last one, by losing two games to extend their losing streak to six. The last of those was an embarrassing loss to Michigan State, 34 to 8.

Desperate, head coach Bump Elliott took a chance: he created a “third unit” of young back-up players to give the older guys an occasional rest. Elliott had no idea what he had created.

These third-stringers made their mark not with their experience or expertise but their wild, hellbent style of attacking anyone wearing the wrong color jersey. They called themselves “Raeder’s Raiders,” in honor of their spiritual leader, sophomore Paul Raeder.

Elliott deployed his secret weapon for the first time against Oregon State – and the Wolverines finally won, 18-7. Encouraged, Elliott kept putting them in, and they kept disrupting the other team’s offense.

Raeder’s Raiders didn’t always follow the script the coaches gave them. They blitzed without provocation, knocked off helmets and broke up plays and blocked punts. They created havoc and fumbles and interceptions, and they flipped All-American running backs head over heels to the turf.

They also captured the hearts of the fans. Whenever Bump Elliott pulled Raeder’s Raiders to put the starters back in, the crowd booed.

Led by these also-rans, the 1959 Wolverines won four of their last six games, including a stunner over Ohio State, 21-14.

The next year most of the Raiders were promoted to starters themselves – but they all say they never had more fun than they did being sent in as super subs the year before.

They graduated, then became employees, husbands and fathers. Of the 12 Raiders, three became doctors, and a surprising seven became teachers and coaches. Even one of the doctors won awards for his teaching. They all seemed to remember what a difference it makes when somebody believes in you, and gives you a chance.

Almost all of them are retired now. They spend their time with their wives and their children, and their grandchildren.

Four of them have passed away, including Paul Raeder. Shortly after he died two years ago, his widow, Wendy, received a difficult diagnosis herself. Life is not easy for Wendy these days, but like a true Raeder’s Raider, that didn’t stop her from getting the gang back together this fall for the 50^th anniversary of their great season. They served as the honorary captains for the Delaware State game, the first group of Michigan players so honored.

Wendy collected their stories in a binder, and gave me a copy. At the end of it, she wrote, “That’s the story of the Raiders. No big moral or heavy lesson, just Be Prepared, have a Great Attitude, have Fun, and Seize Your Moment.”

Fifty years later, nobody can remember the starters on that team, or even their back ups. No, it’s the third-stringers, Raeder’s Raiders, and their relentless spirit, that we recall today.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Bill Martin Legacy

John U. Bacon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:15:00 GMT

October 30, 2009

Press play to listen

Last week, Bill Martin announced he would step down as Michigan’s athletic director, effective right before next fall’s first football game.

I was a little surprised Martin announced his retirement in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the football season. But, as surprises go, it wasn’t much of one. Martin has already put in a decade as the Wolverines’ athletic director, which is about average by contemporary standards. And he’s accomplished more during that time than anyone could have reasonably expected -- perhaps including himself.

The big surprises happened years ago.

The first occurred when former U of M President Lee Bollinger tapped his old friend to fill in for a few months while the school searched for a full time replacement. Martin – an avid sailor who never played or coached any school sports -- did the job so well that Michigan’s coaches asked Bollinger to keep him. And it was perhaps a bigger surprise that Martin, who had already made millions building First Martin Corporation into the largest property owner in the city, took the job – for a dollar a year.

He had no idea what he was getting into.

For almost a century, Michigan had arguably the most innovative, successful and stable athletic department in the country. Michigan needed only five A-Ds for its first 90 years – and five more just to get through the 1990s.

When Martin took over in 1999, the department labored under a $3.9 million dollar deficit and the specter of an investigation by both the NCAA and the FBI into illegal payments made to basketball players – which proved to be true.

Martin should have asked for more than a buck.

The first order of business was to clear Michigan’s name. Martin did that by cooperating with the NCAA – even though they always make you regret it.

He then created a huge budget surplus, revamped the aging facilities, and hired coaches. He did great work on the first two tasks, and a pretty good job on the third.

He hired a few duds, most notably basketball coaches Cheryl Burnett and Tommy Amaker. But when he hired them, there was good reason to believe both would succeed. They just didn’t, so Martin let them go and replaced them with much better coaches.

Martin’s search for a new football coach, however, was undoubtedly the low point of his tenure. Lloyd Carr had already told Martin he would not be coaching much longer, but Martin seemed to be genuinely caught off-guard by Carr’s retirement after the 2007 Ohio State game.

Les Miles, a former Michigan player and assistant coach who was in the process of leading Louisiana State University to a national title, wanted the Michigan job – but Michigan did not even return his calls. Instead, Michigan offered the job to Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano – who publicly turned Michigan down. Martin then reassured people that he had a list of twenty candidates, which is the kind of list you put together a year before you actually need to pick one.

Martin and U of M President Mary Sue Coleman had to scramble. They got lucky when Rich Rodriguez became interested only after his West Virginia team got knocked out of the national title chase by lowly Pitt. But the damage had been done to the Michigan football family, which remains fractured.

It will be up to the next AD to bring the family back together. The question is: should Michigan hire someone with an athletic background, or a business one? The race is on.

But whomever they pick, the next AD will no doubt make some mistakes and some enemies. Martin did both, and some might have been avoidable. But Michigan will be lucky if its next athletic director improves the department as much as Bill Martin did.

Gone Fishin'. Back Next Week.

John U. Bacon — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:12:00 GMT

October 23, 2009

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thanks to the Michigan Radio pledge week, and slightly more than theusual amount of madness in my own schedule -- augmented by MichiganAthletic Director Bill Martin's announcement that he'd be stepping downby September 4, 2010 -- I did not write a commentary this week, butwill have plenty to write in the weeks to come.

Thanks for your patience, and your continued interest.

-John

Some May Hate The Luxury Boxes, But Yost Would Have Loved Them

John U. Bacon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:07:00 GMT

October 16, 2009

Dear Loyal Readers,

This week Michigan Radio is running their fund-raiser, so I didn't tape this piece this week. Instead, you'll have to be content with the text, which is how most of you digest these weekly commentaries.

As always, great thanks for reading, and responding.

-John

Some May Hate The Luxury Boxes, But Yost Would Have Loved Them

At the dedication game of Michigan's new 84,401-seat stadium in 1927, the Wolverines sent new rival Ohio State home with a 21-0 thumping. In that informal era, it was perfectly natural for athletic director Fielding Yost to walk back to campus with the game’s star, Bennie Oosterbaan.

"Mr. Yost was feeling pretty good," Oosterbaan told author Al Slote. "We'd won, and the stadium was completely filled. He turned to me and said, 'Bennie, do you know what the best thing about that new stadium is? Eighty-five thousand people paid five dollars apiece for their seats -- and Bennie, they had to leave the seats there!'"

While no one can be certain what Yost would think of the luxury boxes (and no matter what the University is calling them, that’s clearly what they are) that are going up right now, the record suggests he would approve it – and for the very reasons he pushed to build the Big House in the first place. As Michigan’s athletic director from 1921 to 1941, Fielding Yost worked tirelessly to elevate the profile of Michigan athletics -- and along with it, his own. When someone asked famed sportswriter Ring Lardner if he ever talked to Mr. Yost, Lardner replied, “No, my mother taught me never to interrupt.”

Given Yost’s massive ego, it’s no surprise he was obsessed with massive stadiums. It galled him that Ohio State, Illinois, and other rivals built theirs before Michigan got around to it. After years of lobbying, Yost finally overcame the objections of the faculty, the students, The Michigan Daily and the Regents – who twice vetoed the plan before passing it – to build his Big House.

Michigan Stadium originally boasted a permanent capacity of 72,000 -- including hundreds of pricier box seats – plus 12,401 temporary bleachers. All this, to serve a city of just 35,000 people. It’s hard to argue Yost was anything but a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist who fully intended to maximize the profitability of his football team.

Yost also installed footings for a balcony of some 70,000 seats -- which strikes me as a pretty clear invitation to future generations that Michigan Stadium was not to be regarded as a sacred mausoleum, but an organic building designed to meet the changing needs of the athletic department and its fans. As proof, Michigan Stadium has undergone 21 major renovations, expansions and improvements, starting in the building’s second year, when Yost added 13,753 permanent seats.

The Big House helped pay for Yost Field House, the baseball stadium, and -- for all students – the golf course, the Intramural Building and the Waterman Gym, arguably the best women’s facility of its time.

Fielding Yost invented the linebacker, the no-huddle offense, and the quick kick. But his most important innovation, by far, was the financially self-sufficient athletic department – a tradition worth protecting.

While it’s undeniably true that the arms race in college sports – for bigger and better practice facilities, weight rooms, arenas and coaches’ salaries – seems almost completely out of control, it’s an arms race that seems impossible to stop unilaterally.

When Michigan opens its luxury boxes in the fall of 2010, the only Big Ten schools without them will be Indiana and Northwestern – hardly Michigan’s football peers. Michigan’s proposed luxury boxes won’t require anything from the University’s general fund nor its students, which is how most schools’ pay for a healthy portion of their athletic departments’ budgets.

The luxury boxes will help fund 25 varsity teams -- 13 of them women’s -- all but three of which cost millions every year. And, it must be said, they are infinitely more tasteful than the abomination that was the “Maize Halo” a decade ago.

The luxury boxes will also keep ticket prices down for the average fan. In the early seventies, the average tickets cost $120 per season. Those exact same seats now cost $1266, an increase of over 1000-percent. The luxury boxes will serve as a progressive tax on the wealthiest Michigan boosters, effectively subsidizing both non-revenue sports and tickets for the average fan – the very traditions Yost established in 1927.

The athletic department needs more money to fund its teams, and if I have to make a choice between extracting more from starving students or corporate fat cats, I’ll take the fat cats, every time.

And the best part is, when the game is over, they’ll have to leave the luxury boxes there.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

2009 A Long Way from 1968 - For Better and Worse

John U. Bacon — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:07:00 GMT

October 9, 2009

Press play to listen

And so, it’s done. The Detroit Tigers’ once promising season ended Tuesday in a cataclysmic collapse.

In the American League’s Central Division, Sports Illustrated had picked the Tigers to finish next to last. But by September, they had built a seemingly insurmountable seven-game lead. The team was a tonic for a troubled town in a troubled time. Some pundits even claimed the Tigers season was a metaphor for a Motown renaissance. They started comparing this team to the 1968 Tigers, and the role they played in healing a city that had been torn apart the summer before.

On July 23, 1967, the long-simmering tensions between the police and the people finally boiled over into a full-blown race rebellion – or riot, depending on whom you ask -- that lasted five days, the worst in American history.

Enter the 1968 Tigers.

They jumped out in front of the pack early on, and stayed there the rest of the season. That might sound boring, but they won almost a third of their games in their last at bat.   Even better, the hero could be almost anybody, on any given night, from big stars to no-names.   The team had character, and captured the city’s imagination.

It helped that many of the ‘68 Tigers had grown up dreaming of playing for their hometown team, guys like Bill Freehan, the All-Star catcher from Royal Oak, and the entire outfield of Jim Northrup, Mickey Stanley and Willie Horton, who won a city baseball title playing for Detroit’s Northwestern High.

Even transplants like Mickey Lolich, “Stormin’” Norman Cash and Gates “Gator” Brown would all make Michigan their home long after their careers were over. The love affair between the 1968 Tigers and their town was as real and deep as it was needed.

When the Tigers faced the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, however, few gave them much of a chance. After they lost three of the first four games, almost no one did.

But the cornered Tigers clawed back, game by game. In game five, Bill Freehan blocked Lou Brock from touching home plate. In game six, Jim Northrup hit a grand slam. And in the deciding game seven, Mickey Lolich, one of the fattest pitchers ever to take the mound, gave up only one run– his third complete game victory of the series.

The Detroit Free Press headline read, “WE WIN!” And that’s how it felt. This split city had come back together that summer – all over a baseball team.

The years since have not been kind to the Motor City. It now suffers from severe segregation, a dying auto industry and almost four decades of stunningly cynical leadership. You can say Nice Things About Detroit all you want. This town needs far more help than any baseball team can provide.

Still, this year’s Tigers were a pleasant distraction. They played hard and they had great chemistry, thanks to good guys like Brandon Inge and Placido Polanco. But over the past month they suffered a breakdown of historic proportions, capped by Miguel Cabrera’s drunken Saturday night that ended in domestic abuse.

It was an ugly end to a buoyant beginning.

In 1968, the Detroit Tigers did more than you could ask of any team. Yet Detroit’s leaders couldn’t match their effort.

This year, the Tigers fell short – but if the current leaders can finally begin to rebuild Detroit, that would be a trade worth making.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Sibling Rivalry-Arguably the most emotional rivalry in the game

John U. Bacon — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:47:00 GMT

October 2, 2009

Press play to listen

In their century-old rivalry, Michigan holds a commanding advantage over Michigan State. But since 1950, the margin is much closer. Michigan has won 34 games, and the Spartans 23. The rivalry is special not just because of the many Big Ten titles it’s determined or the national coverage it attracts. What sets it apart from other long-running feuds is the relationship between the schools, which fuels this duel with more emotion than any other.

The Spartans will tell you it’s their biggest game of the year. The Wolverines will tell you no loss is more painful. Unlike Michigan’s other rivalries against Notre Dame and Ohio State, this duel depends not on the teams’ records but on a constant regional turf war. It is a sibling rivalry, not subject to change. That’s why, even when one team is down, the tension is still high.

Chris Hutchinson, one of Michigan’s former All-American defensive tackles, once said, “Ohio State and Notre Dame were rivalries, but Michigan State was a war, almost a civil war, a real hatred.” He explained that most of the players on both teams were recruited by both schools. Once they pick one, they become polarized. “We just out-and-out didn’t like each other.”

The dislike – okay, genuine hatred – undoubtedly started in 1947.

That was Fritz Crisler’s last year as Michigan’s head coach, and Biggie Munn’s first year leading the Spartans. When Crisler had coached at Minnesota, Biggie Munn was one of his captains. He Crisler came to Michigan, he hired Munn as one of his assistants. So you’d think they would have been close. But for reasons I’ve never been able to determine, they hated each others’ guts.

In that 1947 game, their only contest against each other, the teacher made sure the student remembered the game by sending the Spartans home with a 55-0 pasting.

Crisler got his wish: Munn never, ever forgot that game – nor Crisler’s attempts to keep the Spartans out of the Big Ten. And he vowed to avenge both dastardly acts.

He did – many times over. During the fifties and sixties, the Spartans dominated Michigan, losing only four games over those two decades.

The Wolverines have since regained the upper hand, thanks mainly to Bo Schembechler’s 17-4 mark against State, but only Ohio State has beaten Michigan more often than have the Spartans. In the entire history of college football, only the Michigan-Ohio State games have attracted more fans. And no one, not even the Buckeyes, have upset the Wolverines more often than the Spartans have.

It’s an underrated rivalry – but not to the players.

Almost everybody who’s played in it, on either side, would agree with former Michigan defender Ian Gold: “That was truly the hardest hitting game we played every year."

Whoever wins tomorrow, it’s a safe bet that both teams will never be as sore all season as they will be on Sunday. But it’s just as certain that, whoever wins, will feel a hell of a lot better about it.

Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

The Greatest Play I've Ever Heard - Audio

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:39:00 GMT

The Greatest Play I've Ever Heard

John U. Bacon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:44:00 GMT

September 25, 2009

Let’s be honest: the Michigan-Indiana rivalry is no rivalry at all. Of the 59 games they’ve played, Michigan has won fully 50 of them, including all but one since 1967.

But 30 years ago, this game produced one of the most memorable plays in Michigan history.

The Wolverines entered the Indiana game ranked tenth, with six victories and only one defeat -- to Notre Dame, on a last-second field goal. They knew if they kept winning, they’d get another chance at a national title.

But in the last minute of Michigan’s homecoming game – which had been as dreary as the weather -- the Hoosiers did the unthinkable, and tied the game at 21.

A few plays later, the Wolverines found themselves with only six seconds left, enough time to run just one more play – but they were still 45 yards away from the endzone, too far for a field goal. They had no choice but to try one last gasp at a touchdown.

Now, this was 1979, four years after the Wolverines had begun their string of consecutive 100,000-plus crowds. So if you were a 15-year old kid like I was, you couldn’t get a ticket. But this was also before every Michigan game was televised, so you couldn’t stay home and watch it on TV, either.

Whatya do? You kill some time downtown with your friends at the two-story McDonald’s on Maynard. So it was that when Michigan set up for its final play, I was in line at McDonald’s with maybe forty other folks, listening to the radio broadcast spilling out of the kitchen.

I will never forget it. Everyone stopped what they were doing – the cooks, the customers, even their kids. All you could hear was the french fries bubbling and the burgers sizzling – and Bob Ufer’s one-of-a-kind delivery.

What we didn’t know was that Ufer had been diagnosed with cancer two years earlier. His son Dave worried how much those games took out of his dad – who did the entire broadcast himself, the color commentary and the play-by-play -- but Dave knew he could never talk his dad out of it.

When you listen to his dad call this play, you’ll understand why:

“Under center is Wangler at the 45, he goes back. He’s looking for a receiver. He throws downfield to Carter. [Carter makes a great cut and outruns another defender to get into the endzone untouched.]

“Look at the crowd! You cannot believe it! Michigan throws a 45-yard touchdown pass. Johnny Wangler to Anthony Carter will be heard until another 100 years of Michigan football is played!

“You’re listening to it. I hope you can hear me -- because I’ve never been so happy in all my cotton-picking 59 years! I have broadcast 347 ball games.

I’ve never had one like this. Meeeshigan wins, 27-21. They aren’t even going to try the extra point. Who cares? Who gives a damn? (http://www.ufer.org/sounds/Wrangler_Carter.mp3)

Michigan Stadium erupted – but so did the McDonald’s. Everyone started yelling, screaming, jumping up and down, and hugging people they didn’t even know.

I’ve seen that play a hundred times on TV since then – but never more vividly than I did that day, standing in line at McDonald’s, and listening to Bob Ufer tell me the story.

Ufer died two years later, at age 61. He broadcast 362 consecutive games, and thousands of plays – but he called that one the greatest play he’d ever seen.

Me, too.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon

Going Mad over Mascots

John U. Bacon — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:07:00 GMT

September 18, 2009

Dear Loyal Readers,

I hope you enjoy this week's commentary. It's in text form only, however, so you listeners need to be readers for a week. Hope that's not too great an inconvenience.

In the meantime, we have crossed the 27,000 line for subscribers. Thanks for your continued support! And have a good weekend, no matter what teams you're cheering for.

-John

Going Mad over Mascots
Mascots are supposed to inspire those who play for the team, but just as often they provide amusement for those who don't.

On college campuses nationwide there are no fewer than 107 teams named for Lions, Tigers and Bears - oh my - but only the University of Idaho dares calls its teams the Vandals. I only wish the Vandals of Idaho could engage in macho combat with, say, the Ne'er Do Wells of Nevada.

With some teams, it's hard to tell just whom they're trying to scare. Take the Centenary College Ladies and Gentleman - the actual mascots. Are they intended to intimidate the ill-mannered? Or, how about the Brandeis University Judges, named after Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Who's afraid of the big bad Judges - the Parolees of Penn State?

And what are we to make of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons? What are they, Demons or Deacons? I think they should pick one, and stick to it. Their oxymoronic mascot reminds me of a chant I once heard at a Friends School in Pennsylvania, where the uninformed cheerleaders broke into the classic mantra: “Fight, Quakers, Fight!”

This otherwise silly subject takes a serious turn when we start talking about Native American nicknames. Some 600 high school and college teams have dropped such names, but over 2400 still use them.

It seems pretty obvious to me such pejoratives as Braves, Blackhawks and Redskins need to be replaced - and hundreds have been. But that shouldn't mean all team names should automatically be changed.

There is no better example of good intentions gone awry than the mascot mess Eastern Michigan University stirred up a few years ago. The athletes there called themselves, at various times, as the Normalites, the Men from Ypsi and, from 1929 to 1991, the Hurons.

Despite the fact that the Hurons are an authentic tribe indigenous to the region, and that the school created no offensive logos or rituals, a movement arose to change the name. Many of the arguments for doing so were of the “How would you like it?” variety.

This position ignores the many teams named for groups such as the Hoosiers and Cornhuskers, the Sooners and Aggies, not to mention the Midshipmen, the Mountaineers and the Minutemen. Believe it or not, Notre Dame's teams used to be called the Vagabonds, but school officials felt that name would only reinforce negative stereotypes, so they changed it to the Fightin' Irish. adopting a logo depicting a leprechaun with his dukes up. Problem solved.

In the professional ranks you have the Celtics and the Knickerbockers, the Canucks and the Yankees. Atlanta's former minor league team was called -- get this -- the Crackers. That's right: the Crackers. And don't get me started on the Minnesota Vikings - named after my people - whose sideline mascot walks around wearing that silly horned helmet, which comes not from Nordic custom but a Wagner symphony.

Well, whatever.

I realize there is a fundamental difference between a bunch of white students deciding to call their squad the Minutemen, and a group of, say, African-Americans deciding to call their team the Crackers. Something tells me that wouldn't go over so well.

But it's also true that when we eradicate all group names - no matter how respectful or accepted they may be, we lose something. If we are to get rid of the Hurons, should we also rename Lake Huron, Port Huron, the Huron River and Huron High School? The vast majority of states adopted their Native American names, including Michigan, Mississippi and Minnesota, for starters.

Here's another consideration - which too often seems to be an afterthought: What do the Native Americans think? Believe it or not, according to a Sports Illustrated survey, when asked if school teams should stop using Native American nicknames, 81% of Native Americans said no.

Shouldn't that matter? It seems to me it’s almost as arrogant to assume Native Americans shouldn’t be insulted by the Redskins as it is to assume they should be by the Hurons – even if they’re not.

The officials of the University of Utah Utes did something almost revolutionary: They actually asked the members of the Ute tribe what they should do. The Utes said, please keep the name. And then, more incredibly, the university listened.

Eastern Michigan officials could find only two actual members of the Huron tribe, one in Oklahoma and the other in Quebec. When asked, they urged the school not to change its name because they felt it reflected well on their tribal heritage.

So the school changed it anyway. Worse, in my opinion, they didn’t change it to the whimsical (and obvious) Emus, but to the utterly bland Eagles - the single most common nickname in college sports - a mascot picked mainly for its inability to file a class-action lawsuit.

Go Hurons.

Saying Good Bye To An Old Friend

John U. Bacon — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:54:00 GMT

September 11, 2009

Press play to listen

If you grew up in Michigan in the seventies, as I did, Bob Seger sang the soundtrack to your summers, and Ernie Harwell provided the voice over.

When I think about our family trips up north, they’re always accompanied by Harwell’s comfortable cadences filling the car. He didn’t simply broadcast baseball games. He turned them into stories. In Harwell’s world, a batter didn’t merely strike out. He was "called out for excessive window shopping," or "caught standing there like the house by the side of the road.”

Unlike today’s announcers, who prattle on with mindless patter and pointless stats, Harwell treated his listeners to healthy doses of "companionable silences," something Zen masters refer to as the delicious “space between the notes.” Harwell said the quiet allowed the listeners to enjoy the sounds of the ballpark itself, which he felt was richer than his own voice.

Harwell went on to set the record for most games broadcast, including 41 seasons for the Tigers. When Sports Illustrated picked its all-time baseball dream team a few years ago, it tapped Harwell as the radio announcer -- a true Hall of Famer.

He’ll tell you Willie Mays is the best player he’s ever seen, that Jackie Robinson was the most courageous, and that a lovable Tigers pitcher named Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, who used to get on his hands and knees to groom the mound, "was probably the most charismatic guy we’ve ever had here in Detroit. A real breath of fresh air."

In 1997, I was lucky enough to cover spring training for The Detroit News. My first day I was sitting on a bench, watching infield practice, when Ernie Harwell sidled up up next to me. We sat there, watching baseball, and chatting like old friends – just the way we all imagined we already were, listening to him on the radio. He invited me for dinner that night with his wife Lulu. We enjoyed a long talk, and he picked up the tab.

Harwell is a deeply religious man, but he never wears it on his sleeve. He simply lives it. This week, Harwell announced that he had an incurable form of cancer, and would not seek treatment. “"Whatever's in store,” he said, “I'm ready for a new adventure. That's the way I look at it."

I wrote a story about him eight years ago. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up to the phone ringing. It was Ernie Harwell, calling to thank me for the article. Who does that? That day, of course, soon turned tragic, but I will never forget how Harwell’s little act of humanity stood as such a poignant contrast to all that followed.

A few times I invited him to call in on a talk show I was hosting. “Just ask,” he said, “And I’ll come running.”

What's Going On

John U. Bacon — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:29:00 GMT

September 4, 2009

Press Play to listen

Last Sunday, the Detroit Free Press ran a front-page story on the Michigan football team that created a national stir. The newspaper said Michigan football players exceed the NCAA rules on the amount of time student-athletes can work at their sport. It prompted Michigan to launch an internal investigation, but it leaves some important questions unanswered.

But before I try to answer those questions, I want to tell you in the interest of full disclosure that I teach at the University of Michigan, and I write books about their teams. I’m not involved in this story, but I’m close the people who are.

The story quotes ten players, most of them former, and most of them anonymous. They all agree that Michigan football players put in a lot of time and effort. Some boast about it, others complain. But the important thing to understand is what constitutes an NCAA violation, and what doesn’t.

The NCAA needs two pages and 35 bullet-points just to cover a small section of this convoluted rule. Boiled down, student-athletes can spend only eight hours a week on their sports during the off-season, and 20 hours a week during the season.

Sounds simple, right?

It is – until you get into what the NCAA calls “countable” hours, and “uncountable” hours. Under “countable” hours the NCAA lists eleven core activities like practice, games and team meetings.

Under “uncountable” hours, they list just about everything else, 16 items total, from stretching and taping to team meals and travel. In other words, the 20 hours a week the NCAA counts is probably about half the actual time student-athletes put in every week. It’s not an adventure, it’s a job.

It gets even messier when you count mandatory activities, which count, and voluntary ones, which don’t. Weight lifting, for example, is considered mandatory – except when it isn’t.

How can you tell the difference? Good question. If you write for the Michigan Daily or play in the Michigan Marching Band, you probably have to put in extra hours if you want to become the editor-in-chief or the drum major. Does that make it mandatory? Who knows? The NCAA isn’t watching them, of course.

Even voluntary weight lifting can be tricky. If several strength coaches are in the weight room conducting the session, it’s considered mandatory, and it counts. But if only one strength coach is in the weight room, monitoring the players for safety, that’s considered voluntary, and does not count.

The main motive behind these rules is to make sure the student comes before the athlete. In this case, at least, it does not appear to be a problem. The Michigan football team just notched its highest grade point in 20 years. But that will have no bearing on the investigation whatsoever.