When Schembechler Hall was renovated a few lockers were saved from the scrapper.Now you can own the ultimate Michigan Football Collectible- Your very own Michigan Football Locker!
There are a variety of numbers available. The numbers are attached via a magnetic plate so the lockers have had *many* different numbers over time. The numbers were assigned by class- so as players became upperclassman their numbers moved with them to different places in the locker room.The lockers have a working combination lock and are in fairly good shape.
Truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to own a piece of Michigan football history.
These aren’t cheap ($975 each) but these lockers are sure to be the centerpiece of any Wolverines fan’s collection.
Pickup is preferred (they are located in Detroit) and delivery is possible for an extra fee but you’ll have to work that out with the seller.
If you’re interested email me phil@umgoblue.com and I’ll put you in contact with the seller.
It’s Thanksgiving, and as one writer friend notes, it’s very good to have “an attitude of gratitude.” We all have plenty to be thankful for in life, and this is a good opportunity to remember that.
For the fifth installment of the Michigan-Ohio State, we go back 15 years to 1997, right in the heart of then-President Bill Clinton’s second term in the Oval Office. The economy was roaring, but the Michigan Wolverines entered that season with plenty of doubts regarding their talents. There were quiet rumblings that “The Block M stood for mediocrity.” Quietly, Michigan vowed not to let the ’97 campaign turn out the way that previous seasons had finished. Through the first 10 games, everything went according to Michigan’s blueprint, but the 11th game was against a highly motivated group from Ohio State. After a scoreless stalemate in the first quarter, Michigan broke through when freshman Anthony Thomas scored on a run up the middle. A few minutes later, Charles Woodson used a couple of good blocks to scamper down the far sideline. Michigan led at the half, 13-0.
The third quarter started out with Michigan scoring on an Andre Weathers, giving the Wolverines a commanding 20-0 lead. But Ohio State wasn’t about to go quietly into the night. The Bucks stormed back with a pair of touchdowns, the first coming when quarterback Joe Germaine connected with David Boston, and the second coming after linebacker Jerry Rudzinski forced a fumble from Michigan quarterback Brian Griese. With the Wolverines ahead by only six points, Michigan fans held their collective breath, but the Michigan defense held the lead, punctuated by Marcus Ray’s bruising hit on Boston that swung the pendulum of momentum back in Michigan’s direction. The Wolverines held on to win, 20-14, and went on to defeat Washington State in the Rose Bowl, completing Michigan’s first perfect season in decades and giving Michigan a share of the National Championship in the season before the Bowl Championship Series was introduced.
Once again, thanks to Brian Cook of mgovideo & mgoblog, as well as to color commentator Bob Griese, and venerable play-by-play man Keith Jackson, who provided the heart and soul of college football for viewers everywhere for several decades.
The fourth installment of Michigan-Ohio State week takes us all the way back to 1950. Today, even the most casual of fans knows obscure statistics, largely because of the advent of fantasy football. Go on. Admit it. I see you smiling over there. Yes, you, the person checking this story on his smart phone. You’re blushing, because you know your stats cold.
Well, cold is exactly how the stats were served at the 1950 game between Michigan and Ohio State. The night before the game, a freak blizzard dumped more than a foot of fresh snow on Ohio Stadium, and volunteers worked through the night to make the field playable for the game. When the decision was made to play the game, the two teams played hot potato with the ball, combining for a record 45 punts, including 24 alone by Michigan’s Chuck Ortmann. But Ortmann would be the first to tell you that he couldn’t have done it without Carl Kreager.
Who’s Carl Kreager, you ask? Well, long snappers have never gotten their due in football, but for this game, Kreager deserved to make the All-America team. In a blinding snowstorm, Kreager delivered 24 perfect long snaps to Ortmann; an impressive feat under ideal conditions. Late in the second quarter, Michigan blocked an Ohio State punt, and Tony Momsen fell on the ball in the end zone for the game’s only touchdown. Michigan went on to win, 9-3, without registering one first down for the entire game.
If you’re a fan of…er…hold on it’s here somewhere…um…uh…oh here it is- Maryland and Rutgers you might want to skip this article.
Maryland’s myriad of uniforms
Bigger Doesn’t mean Better- Discuss
Let’s begin. This week the Big Ten announced that two new schools would be joining the conference. Their names are unimportant- the big driver in this deal is where they are located. Each represents access to a major east coast television market, New York/New Jersey and the greater Washington DC area.
This deal represents a failure by the Big Ten. The conference has long pursued Notre Dame to join the conference. ND makes geographical and historical sense. Its Midwest location lends itself to easy travel for many current Big Ten programs and already play the Irish. Most importantly, its national brand recognition is on par with Michigan and Ohio State, which none of the other recent conference additions can claim. But the Irish have repeatedly spurned the Big Ten. The pursuit of these lesser east coast schools is an admission of failure to get make the ND deal happen.
This deal is about real estate. Location, location, location. Previous Big Ten expansion was paraded as the addition of historical and academic equals. This week’s additions are about access. The Big Ten doesn’t give a rip about the fans of these two programs. The Big Ten does care about the large number of conference alumni who live in these TV markets who will now clamor for the Big Ten Network (BTN) to be added to their cable package. Good news! Walmart is expanding and your mom-and-pop store is in the way! You’ve hit the real estate lotto, please sign for your check and clear out your personal items on the way out!
This deal isn’t about the fans. Close your eyes and read the names of these new additions out loud to yourself. Now imagine writing a check for your season tickets with a home slate consisting of them, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, a service academy of the your choice, and a MAC school. Maryland and Rutgers have been elevated from disappointing non-conference opponents whom you would hope to never see again, to disappointing conference opponents coming repeatedly to a Big House near you. Feel the joy!
This deal isn’t about athletes. Nobody grows up dreaming about glorious victories over Rutgers or Maryland. Playing these schools is even less exciting for the athletes than the fans who grew up on steady diet of nationally known conference opponents.
This deal lessens that chance of big time non-conference opponents. The bigger Big Ten will make its case for inclusion in the new play-off system based on dollars of revenue not its on-field product. Athletic Directors will maximize the number of lucrative home games by loading up on non-conference cupcakes who don’t require home-and-away agreements.
This deal is about football. Football is the main revenue source of the BTN.
In order to understand this deal, you need to understand how to sell pizza. Ann Arbor is home of Domino’s, and despite what their latest commercials say they don’t make the greatest pizza in the world. In fact, if I were line up ten random pizzas for a taste test, Domino’s would probably finish 11th. But the company is phenomenally successful by selling an adequate product, at a cheap price, conveniently located near you. It’s hard to imagine anybody going out of their way to pickup a Domino’s pizza, but price and convenience are differentiators when selling a commodity product.
Rather than being a commodity, you want to be a premium product. A premium product can be sold at a higher price than a commodity and dictate its place in the market.
Yeah, this WAAYYYY better than ND
The Big Ten whiffed on their pursuit of Notre Dame. The addition of the Fighting Irish would have allowed the Big Ten to dictate favorable terms to regional cable networks.
This failure has diminished the brand of Big Ten.
The backup plan, as shown by the pursuit of Maryland and Rutgers, is now to pursue a commodity strategy. Unable to improve its product qualitatively, the Big Ten is embarking on a plan to simply push its current product into to new television markets. It makes sense on a spreadsheet, but long term it does nothing to improve ability of the Big Ten to compete against the nation’s only current premium conference, the SEC.
