Irrelevance Glorified

(note : originally written in 2003)

This is perhaps one of my most deep-seated, irrational hates. The slightest mention of Michigan may initiate a torrent of swear words from my mouth. Sometimes I drive by a street by that accursed name and it will illicit a large amount of bad vibage from my person. People who don’t know of my passionate loathing for Michigan are often surprised, sometimes astonished, and mostly amused when they (usually unknowingly) walk right into the path of one of my tirades by mentioning Michigan.

First off, there needs to be a clarification. I don’t really have a problem with the state of Michigan. Sure, it sucks in general but I don’t hold that against it. And it has an upper peninsula. That, I just don’t trust. But really, whatever. It is the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor that is the object of my wrath.

To best describe the origins of my hate, I will use an anecdote. The scene is Memorial Stadium, September 23rd, 2000. It is the Big Ten Season Opener. Both teams, Illinois and Michigan, have swept their non-conference schedules and come into the game with identical 3-0 records. The previous season, Illinois had shocked the nation by beating Michigan and Ohio State on the road and romping over Virginia in their first bowl game in a number of years. They are going for two in a row in a start a successful season. It is the first sold-out game in years, although a large number of those fans are from Michigan. The game is closely fought and the Fighting Illini are holding their own against the perennial powerhouse Michigan. With the score 21-31 in favor of Illinois, Michigan begins a comeback and scores to close to within three.

But Illinois does not just cave in. They start to drive their way towards a touchdown. Actually, it seemed like every play was a broken one. Kittner was scrambling around in the backfield and repeatedly finding running back Rocky Harvey scampering wide open, who would shimmy and shake and spin to good yardage. So although it wasn’t pretty, Illinois was eating up clock and moving the chains. Suddenly on one play, Rocky Harvey is hit hard and upended. He lands on his head, and the hand that is holding the ball hits the ground as well. The ball pops free, which is fine because it was caused by the ground. But Rocky falls on it anyway, taking no chances. But in the ensuing pileup (football players just love to create a pile every chance they get), a Michigan linebacker gets a hold of the ball and proudly shows it to the official. The ruling? Michigan ball. Yeah, that’s right, none of us in the stands understand it, but we bow to the whim of the almighty official.

Michigan has the ball again with great field position. The A-Train, Anthony Thomas, is ripping our defense to shreds, and he is eating up the field in 8 yard chunks. Suddenly, he breaks free and starts to head for the end zone. One of our defensive players hits him hard, and it looks like the ball pops free! A number of Illinois players jump on the ball, celebrating the stop. But wait…the officials are conferring…it appears that Thomas’ knee was down when the ball came loose, so it is still MICHIGAN BALL. At this moment, an ESPN camera comes rolling past our field of vision, blocking the field. The cameraman is on a cherry picker, allowing him a good vantage of the field. But up in the cherry picker basket he also has a TV, pointed at the stands, which is showing the ESPN feed. At that moment, ESPN is showing the slow motion replay of the play. It CLEARLY shows that the ball came out BEFORE his knee touched the ground. All of us in the stands now have PROOF that the call was bad, and express our disapproval. Apparently, our disapproval doesn’t count for much in the officials’ eyes. Play continues.

Perhaps our defense was demoralized, but Michigan was on a roll. They scored another touchdown, putting them up by 3 with only a few minutes left in the game. On the ensuing possession, we fumble again, this time legitimately. Michigan runs out the clock and escapes with the win. Sportscenter calls the quality of officiating “disgusting”. The Big Ten office officially apologizes for the blown calls, as is their custom when serious mistakes are made. Lloyd Carr, Michigan’s coach, says that there was nothing wrong with the calls and the Big Ten shouldn’t have apologized, despite replay evidence to the contrary. Illinois can’t get this game out of their head and loseWeight Exercise the next two, ending the season at 5-6. If they had won the Michigan game, they would have been bowl eligible, and probably the psychological “heartbreak” of the game wouldn’t have happened so their chances at an even better record would have been better.

My hate for Michigan began then, when a game was stolen from us by officials who seem to often be swayed by the majesty of the Michigan legend, winningest college football program in history. Calls tend to roll their way, and they are always the media darlings. Football is their thing, but the arrogance runs over into basketball, where they will probably get away with illegal activity such as the hundreds of thousands of dollars Ed Martin gave to members of the basketball team including Chris Webber.

Some will argue that this is all jealously, and that if I went to Michigan I would feel differently. This may be true. But I don’t. I go to Illinois, and will bleed Orange and Blue. And for all time, I will curse Michigan to have 0-8 conference records and NIT appearances only.