Russ,
Not
sure if you know about the Ufer Movie that premiers this Friday at the Michigan
Theater:
I
just bought 2 tickets.
CK
I know a lot of you know that I credit one individual with
my desire to do this blog and he is still the inspiration on those days when I
think, “Eh, I’m not doing this today.”
Then I go back in my own head and hear the man’s voice that, for many of
you reading, also made and molded you into the fans that you are today.
Yes, for me, it was partly Bo and the players
in the 70’s and 80’s, too. But there was
one
guy that brought it to you on Saturday afternoon when the team wasn’t on TV. It was a ritual. Dial in 760 WJR (for the kids
reading, the radios weren’t digital back then.
Sometimes you had to tweak the knob a little for the best
reception!). Turn up the volume. If it was a nice day, you stuck the speaker
out the window and went outside and raked leaves or tossed the pigskin around
as this man’s voice brought you all the emotion of the game and, when
you closed your eyes, you could believe that you were actually there!
“Welcome to another Maize and Blue “Meeechigan” Afternoon!”
“Ricky Leach! The Guts
and Glue of the Maize and Blue!”
“Russell Davis Running through that Buckeye line
like a bull with a bee in his ear."
“The Ole’ Ufer is getting itchy waiting to blow the George
Patton Touchdown Scoring Horn!”
Ufer brought you to Ann Arbor.
Or took you to South Bend. Or
West Lafayette. And Madison. East Lansing.
And even Columbus, where they filled the stadium with 10,000 alumni and
74,000 truck drivers! “And never, ever
forget folks: Ohio is still a Four-Letter
Word!” Where ever Michigan was playing in this great
land, in your mind’s eye, you were there!
"We're down in the snakepit at Ohio State
and our Maize and Blue dobbers are high right now cuz we're getting ready to do
battle with Dr. StrangeHayes and his Scarlet and Grey Legions."
"Prejudiced? Partial? You better b'leeve I
am! Michigan Football is a Religion and
Saturday's the Holy Day of Obligation!"
I remember the ’79 Indiana game and the Carter TD
like it was yesterday. I really thought
that General Patton’s horn was going to get broken after that one! I also remember the old man and I painting the bottom
of the Chris Craft on a beautiful fall afternoon in 1980 when the domers kicker
Oliver hit a 50-yard Figgie as time expired that I thought was going to
kill Ufer. I know it left me unbelievably
depressed.
In fact, 1979 was the first time I attended a game at
the Big House when Special K’s old man, JK, had season tickets and they had an
extra for the Northwestern game, which was opening day. You can never relive your first time entering
the Big House, but you can certainly remember it! And it was all EXACTLY as Ufer had
described. The field. The BAND!
The Banner! It was all
there. Sure, I’d seen some of it on TV,
but there’s nothing like being at the Big House in person.
Football’s Valhalla. On the Holy Day Of Obligation. Because, after all, Football is The Religion!
I finally made it!
“Yes-Sir-Ree-Sir football fans. This Saturday in the house
that Yost built, Canham carpeted and Schembechler made famous, there will be
another great big Meeeeechigan Victory!!”
I listened to George and Al growing up, too. But no other announcer grabbed you and made
you feel like as big a part of game as only Ufer could. He painted a picture with words like no one
else could…
He was a magician.
He is a legend.
The link is to the background of a movie that depicts
the life of Bob Ufer and everything that he accomplished. When you read through the some of the
information, Ufer’s family was surprised that Dan Chace wanted to make a movie about
their old man. After all, he was
“just” a radio announcer. Why would
anyone want to see a movie about Bob Ufer’s life?
Because Ufer, for a lot of
people that are still fans today, was “Meeeechigan!
He’s still Meeechigan.
And frankly, he’ll always
be Meeechigan to this fan!
“May God
Bless Each and Every one of Your Cottin’ Pickin’ Maize and Blue Hearts!”
More on Ufer at the Bentley Historical Library
I’m disagreeing with your
take on the PSU – OSU game. On the 4th
and 5 at the end of the game, Penn State and Franklin didn’t blow the
call. The play had been working all
night for big chunk yardage. The offense
blew the execution and I think it was the right call.
Hmmm…I like when people disagree with me. It makes me think more about things and how sometimes,
when you’re a little over-matched or up against it, you have to out think the other
guy. Let’s look at the
statement: “The play had been working all night for big chunk yardage.” Yep.
And THE Sex Toy U was probably not only figuring it out, but they were
probably guessing that’s exactly what PSU would run.
So you go ahead and decide to put the entire
game on a fatigued O-Line. And a running
back with 5 starts to his name.
When you have a potential Heisman
Senior QB and proven gamer (think the Rose Bowl against USC in 2017) in Trace
McSorely ready to make a play and win the game.
Sometimes, I agree there’s times that it’s all about
the X’s and O’s. But, as they
say, there’s
other times when it’s all about the Jimmies and Joes. In this case, I would have thrown the
conventional playbook out the window and told McSorely to go out there
and win
this damn game.
Of course, hind-sight is always 20-20 and
everyone saying it should have been McSorely with the ball in his hands looks
smarter than Franklin…
In conclusion: I’m still of the opinion that Franklin made a chicken-excrement-call. And I would love for someone to ask current MSU
head coach Moorehead (former OC at PSU) what HE would have called.
That would be a fun answer to hear!
The Margin Is Thin
Nick Baumgardner puts in writing what we all seem to inherently
know.
I have to admit that when this offense works
(against poor or over-matched defenses) it works really, really well. But when this offense meets a good defense
or evenly matched D, there’s going to be problems. What’s depressing for me is how we watched Rich
Rod with arguably one of the best college QBs to ever play the sport, decimate
teams that were inferior and hang with decent teams, from a points
perspective. I know we’ve all dreamed of
what it would be like to have Denard and that former offense with this
defense. Sure, good defenses
could shut that offense down, but with this current defense, the shear
number of touches the offense would get would more than offset the
other team’s D. I want to believe that
offense would just plain ole wear out the opposing defense…And that would be
nice.
This
Week In Schadenfreude
You DON’T want to be PSU fans this week…
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