[As you may be aware, Michigan won the national championship. I've said my bit on what this means to me, and now it's everyone else's turn. We're inviting everyone who's contributed to the blog over its existence to write whatever they want about the 2023 football team, and hope to roll out a series of these over the course of the next few months. We start with Ace Anbender, because we could not start with anyone else.
--Brian]

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“I’m impressed by how fast you moved” — my dad.

My dad spearheaded our family’s move to Ann Arbor in 1993, when I was five years old. He attended Michigan from 1967 to 1971, focusing much more on academics and campus protests than the early teams of Bo Schembechler. Still, one of his first actions after finding a house was to request season tickets, and through a stroke of luck we had two seats behind the South end zone in 1994. My brother and I switched off home games; Dad was the constant.

We never tailgated, instead throwing a football around the yard until it was time to begin our walk. We passed the girl selling 25-cent lemonade on Wells, the heart of student off-campus housing on Dewey, and the field hockey complex — always stopping for a free program to read “Punt/Counterpunt” — before reaching our gate.

With authentic 1994 photo development issues. [Anbender Family Photos]

He’d watch with a headset tuned to the radio broadcast and tell me what happened when the stadium announcement wasn’t sufficient — videoboards didn’t replace the classic scoreboards until 1998. I’d stand on the metal bleachers for big plays, peering over the lovely married couple who usually sat in front of us.

For road games, we’d gather in the living room around the box television, except that time we listened to the radio because nobody bothered to broadcast the 1994 Purdue game. On cold days we’d get the fireplace going. My dad would settle into one of the two living room chairs. I’d usually perch on the couch, where I had more space to emote.

My dad’s intention, he later admitted, was to use the football team to influence our desire to attend U-M. This worked on me with unintended consequences.

[Hit THE JUMP]

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I don’t have a clear memory of the moment I discovered MGoBlog. I know it was the blogspot days because I was in high school; I graduated in 2006. By the time I was admitted to U-M, I was a religious reader/lurker. As a freshman I started my own blogspot so I could poorly mimic some combination of Brian Cook and Bill Simmons.

In the summer of 2011, months after a December graduation ceremony in Crisler Arena, I was living at home, blogging with no real income, and waiting for an opportunity to fall from the sky. By that point I’d been diagnosed with ME/CFS. My inbox contained a standing, unofficial job offer to do marketing for a Cincinnati-based business. I knew I wasn’t up to taking on both the job and living in a new city on my own.

When a job opened up here, I wrote a resumé specifically for the site and submitted it within a day or two of Brian’s posting. He held the interviews in a now-defunct coffee shop at the corner of Packard and East Stadium. I wore a tucked-in collared shirt, khakis, and loafers, which should make you laugh if you’ve met either of us. I had notes. Brian asked why I looked so nervous. He couldn’t know I believed he was my only shot.

A couple weeks later, I was in the Michigan Stadium press box for the dawn of the Brady Hoke era. The following Saturday night, I stood next to the flagpole behind the end zone as Roy Roundtree beat Notre Dame in the venue’s first night game. I watched from about the same spot when the team snapped Ohio State’s rivalry winning streak. That was the last year U-M allowed reporters on the field before the final whistle.

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Michigan’s championship run occurred while I experienced a number of dramatic changes. I began 2023 by indefinitely leaving work due to my health and applying for disability, a process that’s still ongoing. My entire focus the first half of the year was resting enough to serve as my brother’s best man in August. I spent much of the year after the wedding recovering and adjusting to an alphabet soup of new diagnoses. The best man’s speech was the only writing I did all year.

My live-in girlfriend and I broke up in mid-December. I slept at three different houses the week of the Rose Bowl. I’m still moving my belongings back home. Yes, the same one.

The road was meant to lead here.

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I’ve always been Like This. [Anbender Family Photos]

For the better part of ten years, this site provided me many remarkable experiences. We held events with players I grew up idolizing. One of my photographs from the Fire Dave Brandon rally made it into a John U. Bacon bestseller, as did some of my writing. Marc-Gregor and I drove to Indianapolis for the exhilarating Oklahoma State/Louisville opening weekend of the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament; an unbelievably generous reader paid to fly me to and from Kansas City to cover the Sweet Sixteen.

Along the way, Brian gave me the platform and freedom to tell my story and grow as a writer. Save for game days and podcasts, it didn’t matter where, when, or how long I worked as long as I did my job. Over time I dumped my writing about recruiting, the beat I was hired to cover, in favor of increased basketball coverage. Between my health, my unconventional hours, my desire for my job to evolve, and my penchant for butting heads with authority, there isn’t another workplace on the planet that would’ve kept me around so long, or where I would’ve remained willingly.

While I left after a disagreement, I was also ready to try something different. Nothing can take away from the sweat we poured into this together, the endless hours in Slack, the many online-turned-IRL friends, and a camaraderie that can only be formed through years of dissecting Al Borges offenses.

After the title game, I received a number of messages from friends and strangers alike who expressed their appreciation for me and my work. I thought of this place, the people here, and their seismic impact on my life. I anticipated feeling some emptiness from not working the national championship season I’d hoped and never expected to cover. Instead, I was full of joy, and fulfilled.

A couple days ago, friends I’d made through working here told me I should check out the final segment of the MGoPodcast, which I must admit I hadn’t tuned into since I left. I listened, cried, texted Brian and Seth, and now I’m writing a piece for MGoBlog again.

 

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My New Green Coat

In 2013, I covered football games with Heiko Yang, one of so many talented coworkers with whom I shared this space. (You know who you are. I love and appreciate all of you.)

That was not a good season. Michigan squeaked by Akron and UConn in September and lost a four-overtime farce against unranked, heavily sanctioned Penn State in October. The offense relied on predictable Borges frippery. The defense gave up 47 points to Indiana.

Alas, East Lansing was too close for Heiko and I to avoid applying for press passes, which Michigan State granted. Knowing what we were heading into, we made an arrangement with then-ESPN writer Chantel Jennings. We’d carpool for the round trip in Heiko’s trusty Prius; she’d serve as our designated driver on the way home. A fifth of Buffalo Trace and two red Solo cups awaited while we watched Michigan rush for a school record negative-48 yards.

By the time Chantel got back to the car, Heiko and I were already drunk and engaged in a sad song contest, which ended on Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah” with her arrival. That miserable day remains one of my favorite memories.

In October, Heiko was in town and stopped by my place. While we’d kept in touch, we hadn’t seen each other in ten years. He brought a fifth of Buffalo Trace.

 

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My dad and I fell out in the middle of my time at MGoBlog. We hardly talked for years and often turned vicious when we did. I made no effort to mend our relationship. Between work, managing my health, and finding some time and energy to socialize, I gave it no space. I took control of my life during this time, and I told myself I was better off without him, but that rang hollow.

We reconciled in 2023. Without getting into details, a significant misunderstanding was the root of our differences, which we realized as we talked through it. After the breakup, it was my parents who suggested I move back home.

 

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So, football.

I watched most of this season either on my own or with my now-ex, making little outward reaction and sitting in a silent ball of nerves, trained by my time in the press box. Stoicism has been my style for a dozen years now.

Moving out after a breakup is unmooring. I haven’t slept in my bed in weeks because my new room, which used to be my mom’s office, isn’t ready on such short notice. Half of my belongings are in a storage unit. I miss the dogs so much.

This Michigan team not only gave me something to anticipate with excitement, it connected me with my people when I needed them most.

The Rose Bowl came together with serendipity. One of my closest friends, and the closest in proximity, was scheduled for commercial pilot training in Florida through the first week of January. A few days before the game, he was one of two trainees sent home because the flight simulator schedule was backed up. Another childhood friend was in town for the holidays. The three of us are tighter than a Motown bassline.

My brother tagged along to watch the game with those two and their wives. We reverted to the old ways, yelling at the television and drinking “rally shots.” I remember screaming HE FUCKED THE SNAP during the game’s final play, and I flew off the couch as the defense converged on Jalen Milroe, and then it’s a blur of hugging and shouting.

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My favorite shirt. [Anbender Family Photos]

When it comes to Michigan football, and only Michigan football, I’m superstitious enough to keep as many gameday rituals constant as possible following a big win. Unfortunately, the holidays weren’t extended for devoted Wolverines and flight training resumed. For the national championship game, I’d have to be content with wearing the same outfit from hat to socks.

I wasn’t sure of my plans until the day of the game, when I learned my parents — who normally are in bed before night games kick off — were excited to break curfew. My mom and dad took their usual chairs, which have changed since my childhood. I perched on the same couch as old; the “new” upholstery dates back to high school, which is also the last time I watched a game at home.

It’s been a while since I did anything with much speed. My neck crackles like Rice Krispies when I turn it. I wear compression sleeves on my knees and elbows. A few years ago, I dislocated my thumb pushing a door closed.

By the second play from scrimmage, the couch had turned into my personal launching pad. When Donovan Edwards ran into the end zone, I ran out of the room. I maintained that energy through Blake Corum’s final touchdown, talking through the action with my parents in the few moments I sat still.

The three of us watched the trophy presentation together, saying how happy we were for the players, especially Corum and Mike Sainristil. My parents went upstairs to bed.

I stayed downstairs, read my messages, and sobbed with happiness.