Where I Come From: How I Became a Michigan Wolverines Fan

i’ve been living in the ann arbor area since i was 4, so naturally i picked up the tradition of the maize & blue. i spent my saturdays around michigan football during the season. i enjoyed looking at what the ann arbor news (now annarbor.com) had to say about each team, who might be starting, etc.

it hasn’t quite been the same during the rich rod tenure. i just haven’t felt quite the same passion, simply b/c of all the issues that rich rod has had.

Dave, I recall when I met with you to discuss this very topic near the end of my road trip, and you told me this exact story. How we arrive at this obsession is a big part of who we are in it. I know you’re never going to stop adoring Michigan, and this tale is the foundation for that. Even though it seems somewhat plain, it’s monumentally important for you.

My arrival is not dissimilar. I always had positive notions about Michigan, but it wasn’t until my first visit to the Big House as a freshman (a pasting of Washington State) that I realized that I was going to become a college football fan. More than that, I was stunned by how much it hurt to endure my first loss, a four-point defeat at the hands of Notre Dame. In in a single week, I had gone from a somewhat interested fan to a suffering die-hard. I know that day was the day that made me.

At the end of that trip I figured some things out about why we’re so crazy about all this. For a couple months every year, only on the weekends, we get to pretend we’re back in college again. That makes any suffering worth it.

I’m one of those outside fans, as I was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. My uncle is an alumn of the University of Michigan and since I was still in diapers he’d come over to our place and watch college foootball on TV. Back then we’d only get 2 channels showing CFB. One always showed ND, the other (be it with rabbit ears and discolouration) usually showed UM. I would sit beside him and watch him cheer and scream at the TV. This became a tradition, one that I grew to love and live for.

He took me to my first Wolverines game, UM vs Wisc way back in 1985, I was just a kid but that memory will remain forever. The sights and sounds are as vivid today as they were back then. We’ve seen 3 more games together, and sat beside one another for many years, together cheering for the maize and blue.

Unfortunately like some traditions, this one had to end. My job took me away from home, and my dear uncle passed away, but the seed he planted has taken hold and bloomed into a love for the Wolverines that would rival many.

Oh, and at the ripe age of 40, I have submitted my application to enroll in the University of Michigan. Amazing how one football game can do so much.

Reposted from The Rivalry, Esq.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. The closest division I football school is MIZZOU in Columbia, MO. My parents never went to college nor most of my immediate family, so there were no strong school ties to inherit. My dad would root for MIZZOU as would I simply because they were the state team, but if I cared about sports at all, it was always more for the Cardinals and Blues than for any college team. I didn’t understand how college football worked, what bowls were, or even had a clue about recruiting. My dad had a Notre Dame sweatshirt that he would wear from time to time that he bought at a local store, but he wasn’t really a domer.

In undergrad, I attended Truman State University, a division II school. Football games were something you did when the family was in town to pass the time. Often more opposing fans would attend our home football games than our own friends. Saturday mornings were for sleeping in and playing video games. Our team was awful and no one cared about division II football.

I graduated in December of 2005 and started looking for a grad school. MIZZOU didn’t offer the program I was looking for and neither did the two larger private schools in St. Louis. Several Big Ten schools had what I was looking for though. I applied to Iowa and Michigan and was accepted to both. I visited Iowa first and liked it a lot. It was only 4 hours from home and felt more like what I was used to. I bought an Iowa sweatshirt and a flag, visited the football stadium and basketball arena, and went home expecting to be a Hawkeye. This was very nearly the case.

I visited Michigan later and while I liked it, I wasn’t as happy with it as I was Iowa for whatever reason. I came up with many excuses. It felt too east coast. It was too far away. The stadium wasn’t that impressive. (I had only seen it from the outside at this point.) Once again, I felt I was going to be a Hawkeye.

Two weeks before the semester began at Iowa, they had not guaranteed the funding they promised me. (They were going through an accredidation process or something and had to wait for it to finish to guarantee the money.) While I knew they would pass, I was nervous going there without guaranteed scholarship help. I called Michigan back up, (who I had already told no at this point) and asked if there was anyway they still had a spot in their program for me. They said they did and I was a Wolverine. My dad and I drove up that weekend and wandered around Ann Arbor looking for a place to live. I found a home with four other guys about 3 blocks from the Stadium on Main Street and signed the lease a couple days later.

During orientation, I met my future fiancee. (A Michigan State grad. We’re getting married on Oct. 9th. Michigan-Michigan State game day.) She hates Iowa now because they almost stole me from her, but I still root for them when it doesn’t affect Michigan. She’s become a true Michigan fan as well and we both would love to move to Ann Arbor some day. (She still loves her MSU basketball though.)

Shortly after moving in, all the guys wanted to know if I was going to the football game. No I said. I didn’t have tickets and anyway, I didn’t really care about college football. Well, they convinced me that I had to go and my mom called up the athletic office for me and found out that there were still some standing room student season tickets available. I bought them and picked them up a couple days later. I was in section 31 row 99 or something like that. Absolute last row. Every game, I would walk over with my housemates and then seperate from them to go to my section. Once past the ticket checkers, I would sneak across the top and then down to section 29 row 76 or something like that to sit with my housemates.

The first Michigan game I ever saw, in person or otherwise, was Vanderbilt vs. Michigan on September 2nd, 2006. Little did I know what a magical season was just ahead. By the end of the year, I was hooked. The Ohio State game was both awesome and frustrating. I went home to St. Louis for Christmas break and watched the Rose Bowl with my family. My dad couldn’t understand why I was so into the game or why I was so upset when Michigan lost.

I was an avid reader of the SBNation Cardinals blog and soon found Maize N Brew while looking through the network of blogs. From MnB, I discoved MGoBlog and began to dive further down the rabbit hole. The blogs helped me get through the difficult start to the 2007 season and the frustrating years since. I remain true to the team and I doubt that will ever change.

My dad is becoming a Michigan fan too. (My sister’s best friend from high school is Dan Dierdorf’s daughter so that helps.) He says he used to hate Michigan because they always won. He always preferred to root for the underdog. Now that Michigan is the underdog, he finds them easier to love.

Football heaven for me is a cool fall day in Ann Arbor with several hours of tailgating before a 3:30 kickoff followed by a Michigan victory over a tough opponent and good party afterwards with friends and fellow Michigan fans.

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1980. My dad was/is a big Michigan fan. I grew up rooting for the Wolverines. We won a lot, but we lost some games too. It is hard to deal with a losing at a young age. You want everything to go your way. My Dad taught me what Coach Yost said: Any street urchin can shout applause in victory, but it takes character to stand fast in defeat. One is noise-the other, loyalty" .
Of course I was surrounded by Ohio State fans growing up, including my best friends. It was nice that we went 12-3-1 from ’85 to ’00. Having my friends tell me before THE game every year how badly UM was gonna get beat, followed by MY TEAM coming through for ME…well they have my loyalty through thick and thin forever. I stand by the team. The last two years has made me an even stronger fan. I know we will be back. SOON. This year would be nice.
GO BLUE!

Thank You Maize and Brew crew. I love this blog, and have been reading it for a couple of years now. Almost without fail, the viewpoints, opinions, and observations presented herein mirror, parallel, or resemble my own, and it is nice to share being right….
:)

I was Born one :D

But if RR doesn’t get this ship turned around times are a changing!

Don’t get me wrong I don’t divided loyalties if my wife was dying before my very eyes and she needed to be rush to a hospital during even the most trivial Michigan appoint well.. after 24 years maybe its time for a change, women are like buses there will be another one around in five minutes.

If I can borrow from the dumpiest thing said in the last two years , when the boys in blue take the field on Saturday I get a chill up my leg ;)