Meeting table from John Beilein’s office. The wood tokens are used to diagram plays.
Michigan Wolverine Coach John Beilein’s Table
Hoop Dreams Realized
Recorded in 2004 by Brent Petway (special thanks to TG!)
{Verse 1}
We play in Crisler Arena, where the hoopers at.
The post men, the high flyers,
And the three-point shooters at.
NIT 2004, other teams pursuing that.
Dunkin on these lame cats
(A.G., why you doin’ that?)
Man cuz that’s my job, 2-for-1.
I catch the lob,
the lob I catch.
make you say whoa like Black Rob.
But it ain’t ova yet cuz who handle the rock?
D. Horton, plain and simple, yeah he get off his shots.
But who call the shots, T.A.,
coach Ram, coach Moore, coach Swen.
Slam Jam thank you ma’am!
Next up, nyce man game high 28,
My first 28 field goals,
(How many were dunks?) 28!
Then L.A., Mr. consistency,
Sherrod Harrell, Graham Brown Tri-captaincy.
And why we play so hard?
Why we run when Plock say run?
It ain’t the name on the back,
It’s the name on the front!
{Chorus}
I Said, we gotta be one of the most underrated teams in basketball
By the end of this year, we’re gonna be called #1! #1!
Michigan..huh? #1! #1! (Yeah) (x2)
{Verse 2}
The NIT was just for starters,
Naw…we ain’t finished yet.
Courtney Sims keeps blockin’ shots,
I’m flyin through the air like lear jets.
Then in comes Big Game Hunter,
Known as a Big Game Hunter,
Shoot three-pointers like his name’s Lindsey Hunter.
Switch the subject, in comes J.C. Mathis,
He’s complaining ‘cuz Amadou keeps hackin’.
Keeps smackin’, he keeps foulin’,
meanwhile Ashtyn Bell still wildin’.
Dani, John and R.C., too,
Blue team combo like R2 D2.
Michigan State and Illinois, too,
Georgia Tech, yeah, they’ll all get ran through.
All get done too, Maize Rage, Blue Crew,
Cheer for who, who, dribble, dribble, shoot, shoot.
Basketball this year and football this year,
We all goin’ for the championship.
{Chorus}
The Big House
More Cuts at the Athletic Department
More dead wood being cut at the Michigan Athletic Department.
If you don’t generate enough revenue out comes the ax!
No word on how much this tree missed its revenue target…
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come- How Greed Killed College Football
Have you heard the good news?
The Michigan Wolverine Football Program made $61.6 MILLION in 2011-12.
For most organizations it would be cause for celebration. In Ann Arbor it was time to raise prices.
Yes, despite record profits the Michigan Athletic Department announced that is raising taxes on football season ticket holders…err increasing the amount of preferred seat donations for those who wish to keep their season tickets.
The move will help pad the bottom line of the Athletic Department and help to fuel another wave of buildings on the athletic campus.
But the move intensifies the debate of how skyrocketing ticket prices impact the sustainability of the athletic department profit model.
The ranks of basketball and hockey season ticket holders have been thinned by years of price increases and student season ticket holder numbers have likewise fluctuated.
With huge pockets of empty seats in the student section in Michigan Stadium this past season, it appears that even football isn’t immune to the impact of high ticket prices. Many season ticket holders began attending games as students, transitioning to public season ticket holders after graduation. The Athletic Department risks losing these fans as they graduate.
Many current football season tickets holders are selling a portion of their season tickets to help subsidize their costs. This latest increase have caused some to question the true value of their season tickets. With a waiting list for football season ticket holders, the athletic department seems to be immune to people not renewing their season tickets.
If the athletic department could weather the RichRod era with its losing record and NCAA scandal, a few lost season ticket holders doesn’t seem like a big deal. But with every long time fan who gives up their football, hockey, or basketball season tickets the athletic department gets in return a customer with little or no loyalty to Michigan Athletics.
As the Big Ten expands to include such powerhouses as Maryland and Rutgers, season ticket holders are questioning what kind of games they’ll be seeing in the Big House in future seasons. While the future impact of expansion and tickets prices are unknown, the people making the current decisions won’t be around to face the long term ramifications of these recent developments.
I’m sure we haven’t seen the end of the money grab. Big Ten expansion will only drive revenues so far. Online viewing will start to erode the stranglehold of cable television and then the Big Ten Network will need to some other source cash. That’s why within the next 5 years we’ll see major event games follow the pay-per-view model. It’s the next logical step in the evolution of greed.
The conference will win, the schools will win, and college football will be headed down the road to being about as relevant as boxing.
It’s a bleak future when the people running your athletic program care more about dollars than fans. But more and more it seems that the short sighted greed of a few will lead to the death of college football as we know it.