Weltschmerz. Grrrrr: Sodden gray skies, the biting wind, and tight white underpants. Show Michigan fans a dollar, and they will tell you it’s not a sawbuck, but rather one hundred sad pennies waiting to clatter on the ground and roll into the sewer grate of life.
Life’s a bitch, and doesn’t deserve the reward of your tears or your joy. 9-0 isn’t an accomplishment: it’s only the brokedick ineptitude of the nine chumps they had to play to that point that allowed them to get that far…and even then, the light that they’re seeing is the oncoming train, or the massive lantern fish hanging out a lure to get them within gobbling range.
Life is pain. Pain is life. And the bright summer day of joy is just waiting until you relax to toss a rogue lighting strike right up your ass, chum-o. That’s why they don’t stand at football games: because fate only strikes those brainless enough to attract notice by standing. If Icarus could be added to the Zodiac, Michigan fans would all fall under its sign. The month of November would have to be its calendar slot to accommodate the inevitable loss to Ohio State.
Hoover Street Rag:
Tradition
If there's one thing Maize and Blue people prize above all else, it's Tradition. The varsity football team played its first game in 1879, Fielding Yost came to town in 1901, and Michigan Stadium hosted its first game in 1927. Maize and Blue people will ramble on about their "13 national championships", even though only one of them came after 1948 and it was a split title. Traditions include: Winged helmets, no in-stadium advertising, touching the GO BLUE banner, anything Bo Schembechler ever said, "The Victors", calling "The Victors" "Hail to the Victors", winning the Big Ten, losing the Rose Bowl, Ron Kramer, having an offense that's a decade past its expiration date, and pretending that beating Minnesota is worth a trophy. Losing to Ohio State at the end of the season is a relatively recent innovation and is not yet a tradition. However, if you told Maize and Blue people that the Wolverines and the Michigan State Normal School had fought over a chamber pot in their 1896 game, Maize and Blue people would immediately adopt their series with Eastern Michigan as a traditional rivalry (All-time record: Michigan 8, Eastern 0).
If you only look at two blogs today in order to understand the multitudes I contain, make it these two.
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