September is peeking around the corner which means I'm allowed to talk about Michigan football without odd looks and poorly disguised attempts to exit the room at the first mention of depth charts and returning starters. It'll be nice to be able to wax eloquent about college football in public without people thinking I sound like Jeffrey Dahmers discussing human anatomy - all is right with the world. Of course, now that football is mere days away, lines are drawn and allegiances are run up the flag pole. When people ask "Why Michigan?" I usually give a terse off-hand response about being born in Flint and brain-washed from birth but to be honest, that's not at all the reason I fell in love with Michigan. Much of it has to do with my father and a bit of it has to do with one Glenn E. "Bo" Schembechler.
Football first appeared in my consciousness at a pretty young age. The family packed up and moved to South Bend, IN before I started school and from then on I was inundated with images, dogma and fanaticism surrounding the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. If nothing else, I am thankful for that experience because I was immediately aware of how much better college football was than pro football. Give me marching bands and ancient rivalries over pyrotechnics and terrible rock music any day. Besides, it was in the halls of colleges where this sport was born, nurtured and made; to transplant such a tradition into the sterile manufactured confines of professional sports arenas is simply a waste. And while I'm thankful for all that living in a college town taught me, even if it was South Bend, I never once felt the pull towards Notre Dame. That had a great deal to do with my father.
You have to understand a few things about my dad. First, my father loves to call people by their first name, especially when he first meets you, especially before you've told him your name and most especially when you are a server at a restaurant walking on the other side of the dining area. He has a "guy" for everything. He is infinitely better at making friends than I am. Second, my father will drop everything to help you out and I mean absolutely everything. I have never met a person with a larger heart and more caring soul than my dad. He is infinitely more selfless than I am. Last, my dad has an announcer voice that he turns on whenever he is excited. The voice moves in a crescendo of exhilaration ending somewhere in a high-pitched falsetto that no longer produces discernible words. He should probably be on the radio.
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| Dad |
Catching college football on TV in the 90's was nothing like it is today. What with ND's seeming ubiquitous presence on TV, thanks to their NBC contract, I remember seeing a lot of the Irish. While no one in the family was a Notre Dame fan, it was football on a weekend and so that's what was on. My dad would watch and he would comment. His tone was almost always even-handed, his comments were respectful, it was clear he enjoyed the game but something was missing. It wasn't until the first time I noticed Dad watching a Michigan game that I figured out what that was. The announcer voice was out in force. Much of Saturday afternoon would be punctuated by random spurts of loud high-pitched squeals. He was alive and it was obvious and it was electric. There was an honesty to the madness, a display of shear elation that I had never heard coming from another human being before and it was in those moments that my young elementary aged self was simultaneously intrigued and jealous by the reactions of my dad. I smiled with him, I might have even clapped with him and I'm sure, at some point (even though I had no earthly idea what was going on or an attention span long enough to really care), I jumped up and down celebrating with him. I wanted to know why and I eventually figured it out.
There was a name Dad used often when talking about Michigan, a name that would forever cement my love for the Wolverines and a name that is synonymous with the coaching greats of college football; Bo. I bring this up because it's important to understand that my father never pushed his Michigan fanaticism on us. It was never talked about without invitation; it was not force-fed. Dad allowed us the opportunity and space to find our own paths through life which made some of the more important discoveries all the more meaningful. So, when I heard the name "Bo" when talking about Michigan, usually in passing, I was intrigued, intrigued enough to listen to this speech the first time I saw it on television:
It was a sort of magical moment. It struck something deep within me probably because it sounded exactly like things my dad had said and done before: not criticism, but encouragement; not me, but us; not for yourself, but for everyone together as a team. It probably didn't hurt that it also appealed to my young budding socialist heart. The funny part about all of this is that I didn't play organized sports in high school. I spent much of my youth watching my brother's baseball games or my sister's softball games. But what I heard in that speech, the thing that resonated because I had heard similar statements from my dad, was that the world was so much bigger than little ole' me. That's probably the piece that I can point to and say, that's why Michigan. Because Bo said things that I had heard from my dad, because my dad made sure to remind me that life isn't just about you and me (it's about us) and because my dad showed me that it was okay to be happy, embarrassingly happy, about something as seemingly meaningless as a college football game. Sometimes I feel bad for people who can make it through a game without causing a scene.
So here's to another season of heartbreak and hope, euphoria and depression, new and inventive cuss words, beer, chex mix and Michigan vs. Nebraska with a few of the most amazing people in the world.
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