The Hammock Papers: The came to bury Michigan . . .

22 November 2008

The came to bury Michigan . . .

. . . but Michigan wasn't dead

As a kid Up North, I became a huge fan of the Maize & Blue. I revelled in Saturday afternoon rituals, putting on a homemade Michigan jersey, listening to Bob Ufer call the game on "WJR: The 50,000 watt Voice of the Great Lakes," while my buddies and I took on the roles of Gordon Bell, Rob Lytle, and Rick Leach in our backyards.

I was privileged to be a fan at, what I consider to be, the finest era in the MICHIGAN-osu rivalry. Nothing has touched it since. Today, the rivalry is renewed as Michigan concludes their worst season ever, with 8 losses.

Many "loyal" fans are putting the blame for this season firmly on the shoulders of Michigan head coach, Rich Rodriguez. I prefer to remain staunch, remembering the words of, perhaps U of M's greatest coach, Field Yost, who said . . .

True loyalty is that quality of service that grows under adversity and expands in defeat. Any street urchin can shout applause in victory, but it takes character to stand fast in defeat. One is noise --- the other, loyalty.

Many self-absorbed Buckeye "fans" would do well to heed this advise from the sage, as well as Ufer's poem . . .

It was November 22nd, 1969
That they came to bury Michigan,
All wrapped in Maize and Blue
The words were said
The prayers were read
And everybody cried
But when they closed the coffin
There was someone else inside
Oh, they came to bury Michigan
But Michigan wasn’t dead
And when the game was over
It was some else instead
22 Michigan Wolverines put on their gloves of gray
And as Revelli played the Victors
They laid Woody Hayes away…

No comments:

Post a Comment

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL