I must admit to doing it. Just bringing up the browser and pointing it to
mgoblog.com and clicking enter, or hitting reload while on that page. Not because I want to see the content -- I already know what's there, I've read the boards, scanned the front page, studied the diaries. No, just clicking, and hoping. Hoping for refresh to be slow, ponderously, unimaginably, program-changing kind of slow, because some big news flash has hit the site, overloading its surprisingly delicate resources, the thousands of us clicking and wanting to know, "did it happen?", "did we get a new guy?". Yes, I am Waiting for 502, to herald the beginning of a new era, and to see if this thing called Michigan Football can be reborn, brought back from mediocrity once again.
I grew up in Ann Arbor. We didn't go to church on Sundays, but don't you tell me we didn't enter a house of worship, once every other week or so, our religion enacting its rituals each Saturday in the fall. We'd wake up early, and we'd park far far away -- the old man too cheap to spring for a spot near the Stadium -- and we'd walk. Man, how we'd walk, through Burns Park, down towards State St., right turn up towards the Stadium, the smell of grilled meat in the air, the leaves that yellow-orange-red midwesterners know mean Autumn, eventually seeing our fellow congregationalists, all headed towards that same holy place of worship. You might have heard of it; it's called the Big House.
It's funny -- and certainly appropriate -- how it's called a house, because being there has always felt like home. Walking around until you find your section, lining up to get in, and that first reveal, which still takes my breath: entering and suddenly catching sight of the half-bowl full of humanity, marveling at how you can see 100,000+ in one quick glance around,
more people than most will meet in a lifetime.
Oddly enough, I don't recall my first time being there, as I was too young, probably two or three. But I do have early memories of the team, starting from when I was about six. In particular,
the 1978 Rose Bowl. Michigan getting further and further behind. My dad so upset he can hardly watch. Finally, Leach pulling them back into the game, throwing like mad, my dad yelling "why don't they ever play like this from the start?", but never quite catching that last break, getting intercepted deep in Washington territory, twice, just near the end. Another bowl loss. My dad went into his study and closed the door, and night settled over the house.
Leach, Handing It Off. Why Not More Passing?
When you love something too much, you can't bear to watch it whither away and die. What this used to mean was simple: losing was death. It used to upset me, ruin my day. Sometimes I would watch a game by myself, the wife and kids out doing something else (two daughters, never much interested in football, perhaps they have avoided this unusual blessing/curse). They'd return and they'd know. Avoid dad for a little bit, he's in a bad mood -- Michigan must have lost.
After the past seven years, though, the losses hardly sting; I'll watch and cheer, sure, but I won't feel the pain. Repeated losses congeal into some kind of anesthetic, numbing you from further damage. Maybe it's easier to be a fan of mediocrity, because you learn to expect so little? Or maybe not:
There is a fantastic quote from Ira Glass about mediocrity. Paraphrasing, he basically says that everything that people do tends towards mediocre, and to overcome that takes an incredible act, some unusual force of will. It's not that the current coaches aren't trying, or even that they are bad; it's just that they aren't exceptional. Merely being pretty good today is the definition of mediocrity in football coaching.
So I wait. We wait. For that 502. Not for the indication that the current guy is gone -- a foregone conclusion if there is such a thing -- but for the hiring of the new guy. A guy who can click the reboot button, reach back into time, and mark the birth of a new era. I watched him play, I've seen him coach, and I know, as you do, that he has that special ingredient, that force of will, to make something out of the ordinary happen. Renaissance, 2.0. Or maybe Renaissance 2.Bo, if you'll permit me. He does quote the team speech regularly, you know. So we wait. For 502. And, for Jim. For Jim to come home.
Come home, Jim. Come home.
And Go Blue. Beat Those Damn Buckeyes.
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