And now for something completely different

I grew up in a house where, when you first enter, there was a Michigan banner (more like a door mat type of thing) hanging on the wall, complete with a wolverine.  As far as I know, my dad was always a Michigan fan, even though he was never college educated.  My fandom was cemented through Bob Ufer on Fall Saturdays road hunting pheasant, bball games at Crisler watching Johnny Orr's many teams, and the occasional treat of a game at the Big House.  I remember snippets of Denny Franklin, and I've never looked elsewhere for a college team to follow.

My Michigan fandom is just a fact of my life, I have no plausible point in time that formed a connection.  It's just always been there...  It will just always be...

I grew up in the northeast so college football wasn't big. But my parents are from Ohio so one of my earliest cfb memories is cheering for OSU against Miami.

I ended up going to college in Ohio and my roommate freshman year was from Michigan and loved UM (and this blog in particular). They slowly got me more into cfb throughout freshman year. And there were some obnoxious OSU fans on campus. So rooting for UM just made sense. This was in 2006.

So my first full season rooting for UM was 2007…

There were definitely times I told myself I’d made my life much harder by becoming a UM fan instead of sticking with the team my entire family liked.  
 

But the past 3 years have made it all worth it!

My first memory of watching Michigan was in the 1983 Rose Bowl against UCLA on TV.  Michigan lost, but I remember watching Anthony Carter play and kept thinking how good he was.  My Dad took me to the 1984 Michigan/Washington game at the big house for my first game when I was 9 and I was sold on Michigan being my team.

Ironically, that was the only game I got to attend with my Dad. In the Fall of 1985 he was diagnosed with cancer and passed away when I was 11.  When he was sick we enjoyed watching the 1985 and 1986 Harbaugh teams play on TV and I think that has always kind of stuck with me.  The last game we watched together was the 1987 Rose Bowl against Arizona State.  He passed away 2 months later.  

Earliest memory was listening on WJR to Ron Johnson break the rushing record in 1968 - I was nine years old

Earliest TV memory was watching Michigan beat Woody's team of the Century in 1969 - I was 10 years old

Earliest in-person game memory was trying to get a drink of the cider my brother's fraternity brothers were passing back and forth in 1971 when Michigan was playing Navy.  I remember my brother practically knocking it out of my hands yelling "YOU DONT WANT THAT CIDER".  I was 12 years old.

1985 season. I remember the Ohio St Michigan football game and also being dimly aware of other games as they created a hard stop for Saturday cartoons. 

A couple events led me to choose the good guys: 

1. parents had a lake house in Houghton Lake. We’d come up in the summer and the people met there for 20+ years were die hard UM and Red Wings fans. As I was getting older they wouldn’t shut up about UM. My family are not big into sports and I’m the only outlier with them so the friend family engrained it to be the way. 

2. Growing up in Columbus, everyone and their grandma told you, you have to be a die hard osu fan. It’s a religion. I do not like being told what to do so I’m sure this had something to do. 

3. starting out watching football, my fondest memory as a child was Desmond Howard’s run. From there, I really went down a rabbit hole once Chris Perry and Navarre were at Michigan. CP was/is one of my all time favorites 

It was November 22, 1969. I was nine years old. My parents left me home alone for an hour or two. I turned on our new Zenith color console television. When I got to ABC (Channel 7 in Detroit) I saw an intense football game being played. One team had striped helmets; the other team was coached by a fat man in a white short-sleeved shirt. I think you know the rest. 

Attended alumni Camp Michigania growing up, from age 1 onward. I remember singing the victors as a toddler looking out at Walloon Lake. Attended my first Michigan football game at age 7. Earliest sports memory is Michigan beating OSU in 1995 to send Northwestern to the Rose Bowl. I was never not a fan of Michigan sports.

Didn't give two shits about college sports until I enrolled at U of M in 1999. First Michigan sports memory was the opening game of the season against Notre Dame. Game was great, but remember weird peripherals, like students throwing marshmallows. 

I became a fan when I was accepted and my first memory is my first football game.

November 22, 1980, as an 8 year old growing up in Genoa Township on the outskirts of Westerville, Ohio, with a mother who was a 1965 graduate of tOSU, and my 2 brothers, who are 1 and 2 years older than myself, was my earliest memory of The Game. While I do not remember a whole lot from the game... I do remember the names Butch Woolfolk and Anthony Carter, I remember Michigan winning, or considering the setting, Ohio State losing, and I remember the tears that were shed by my brothers. I had a decision to make that day, and I chose Michigan! I could not root for a team that made you cry like that, though I am sure I did many times in the years following. The bonus was, Michigan's uniforms were way better. 

Over the years, while I am viewed as a traitor to my family, the choice has been what has made The Game so fun in our family... and when Michigan loses.... so miserable!

I grew up in a college town where the local school played Michigan, so I actually despised Ricky Leach and Butch Woolfolk growing up (don't ask me why, probably 'cuz they ran rampant and scored ALL the touchdowns).  When it came time to pick a college, though, I fell in love with the campus the moment I stepped foot on it.  Over and done.  Applied and accepted a year later, queue fandom, and now my veins are filled with only maize and blue.

Whenever asked if I'd do it all over again, the answer is 1000x yes.

I want to go back, I gotta go back, to MEE-CHI-GAN.

Born in Denver, CO.  Dad retired from Air Force and moved us to Battle Creek, MI (the first time).  Moved back to Denver and grew up there until I was 10 where we moved back to Battle Creek so my dad could be a part of the family Miller Bros service stations.  

I remember having Wolverines, Tigers & Denver Broncos stuff all over our many homes that we lived in Denver.  Whenever my dad could get a Michigan game or Tigers game we were watching.  

The move back to Battle Creek and being IN Michigan allowed me to get more entrenched in my Wolverine's and Tigers fandom.  Not sure if it was my first game at the Big House, However my earliest memory that stuck was the Colorado Hail Mary game.  I was decked in both teams gear being young and rooting for both teams.  I remember though when Colorado won that I was mad and I KNEW I was a wolverine fan first!  

I wonder if we ever met eachother both of us gowing up in Battle Creek? 

My dad went to UofM for his MSW. He was a seminarian for 6 years followed by 2 years at UofD for his bachelor’s degree. After that he went to UofM for a transformational experience. That was also around the time that the Schembechler era started. In 8th grade, Dad was described by the Hazel Park newspaper as “Tank” Thomas, the two-way tackle. But a bad knee injury ended his career early. And to be fair, not many 5’ 8” guys go very far playing in the trenches.

Anyhow, he took me to a Michigan-Service Academy game in 1976 when I was 6 years old. Michigan won something like 70-7. I know I could look that up, but I’m just stating what my memory is, faulty as it may be. 
Dad’s famous line (one of them) was, “I don’t care where you go to college, as long as one of your degrees is from UofM.”

Warning, humblebrag time, his 3 children collected 6 Michigan degrees, married 2 more (the one spouse piker got his degree from Princeton, but we forgive him for that) and are on track for 3 degrees from his grandchildren.

I have Michigan in my DNA. My paternal grandfather attended Michigan as an undergrad during Yost's first four years at Michigan; this is a photo in the scrapbook he maintained during his college years. I don't believe he took the photo, since I've seen the same shot online, so I think he bought a print from the photographer. 

My dad didn't attend U-M but he always had a strong rooting interest in Michigan football, so he would regularly listen to Michigan games on the radio when we lived in the Detroit area in the 1950s and early 1960s. I would listen as well, but unfortunately, this was during the era when Michigan was routinely getting its ass kicked by either OSU or MSU, and I can still hear my dad's groans at how the games went. He despised Woody Hayes before it was cool to despise Woody Hayes.

Sister and future brother-in-law went to UM, Music/LSA '71. They pretty much got me hooked before I turned 10. First sports memory was Michigan-OSU '71. First game was UM-Texas A&M October 1977.

Mercury Hayes last second TD!

My Dad took me to a Michigan game in 1969 when I was 11 years old. No it was not the Ohio State game. But I fell in love with EVERYTHING MICHIGAN and I was hooked at that point. I graduated from UM in 1981.  I have had my own season tickets since then, but now I sit in the same seats my father bought in 1969 (I had them transferred to me prior to Dad's passing in 2011), so the family butt has been there for 55 years this fall. I live in Fort Wayne and make the trek every home game and many away. Also attend the other sports as well from time to time. Almost all my friends are the people I have met that sit together in Michigan Stadium. We are an awesome bunch and get together many times during the year outside of football.  I Love Michigan, as does my converted Hoosier Wife, now an MGoWife of 31 years.

Blessed. Go Blue!!

My grandfather got his JD at Michigan.  His daughter, my mother attended Michigan for a semester or two before my grandfather decided he didn't want to pay for it.  I did find a Michigan law school journal mentioning my grandfather's donation to the school right about the time he was cutting the money off for my mother's education.  Dirtbag grandfather.

Anyway, my mother really pushed for me to attend Michigan.  I applied there and other places (to include Penn State and I'm glad I never attended that cult of a university).  So that's how I ended up in Ann Arbor.

First recollection of Michigan Football was listening to the radio broadcast of the 1977 Michigan - Ohio State game in the car riding with my family to my dad's parents' place for the second Thanksgiving feast.  Good game, that one.

I was in the MMB my freshman year and I think the moment I became a huge fan was when Wangler hit AC or the game winning touchdown with no time left.  It was homecoming I believe and my parents had traveled from Pittsburgh (through the wasteland called Ohio) to Ann Arbor to see me.  Great game for them to see after traveling that far.

Didn't watch college sports growing up, but liked the Michigan colors and then went to Michigan.

Battle Creek Central? My mom probably went to HS with your dad. I think she was c/o '72.

Anyway, my first memory of Michigan was when I was 7. I grew up in Lansing and my dad went to State, so we had season tickets to their football games the year they won the Rose Bowl.

I basically became the ball boy and got to hang out with Rison, James Moore (Big Red Family), McCalister, etc. after games. 

I was being groomed as a Spartan ruffian and didn't know even realize it! Pure Evil. I remember the week that they played us (UM), hearing about this big, bad team in blue named the Michigan Wolverines.

I remember it being explained that Michigan usually beat State, but this time, Sparty would come out on top. They did, then went on to win the Rose Bowl.

I ended up on the front page of the Free Press greeting my big cuz, James Moore, at Capital City Airport when they returned. I've since burned the evidence haha. This was obviously a huge deal to me at the time. By now you're ready to spit up because you'd think that it was settled, I was a Sparty. But nope! 

I have an older brother who'd moved away to Houston years earlier, and he moved back to Michigan right around the day of the MSU Rose Bowl. I worshipped him. He was a huge UM fan from the Anthony Carter days. I watched our bowl game that year with him (was it the HOF Bowl vs Bama year?)and we won. 

The following fall, he bought me a McMurtry football costume for Halloween and took me trick or treating. I was sold. My Mom was in on the fix, and she eventually decorated my entire room in UM colors and accessories. 

My blood turned a deep blue shade, and my eyes jaundiced. 

Shortly after that, we went on a Harbaughian run against the B1G in football, won the natty in hoop, Dez and the pose happened, the Fab Five danced on Sparty's shit, etc. What a time to be alive!

Forever Go Blue!

I grew up in Flint.  My earliest Michigan memory was watching the 1974 UM-OSU game on TV, when I was nine.  In 1975, my teacher took his 5th grade class to the UM-Missouri game, my first time at Michigan Stadium.  I was hooked, especially with Flint native Rick Leach as the QB.

Later, I went to UM as a student and my youngest son is a student there now.

My first TV memory of UM sports was the sick 13-12 loss on a last second FG in the 1972 RB to Stanford. A team we should have beaten by 10-14 points. 

Thankfully, my first game in attendance was the home opener vs. Iowa 1974, when you could buy tickets pre-game at Crysler ticket office. We sat in the open level of the S EZ and won 24-7.

The real fun was going with dad to the games in late 70s when I was in HS. He would park at the golf course and hang out with my uncle, the two of them enjoying pre-game and halftime martinis while tossing the FB to my cousins (yes, in those days, you could leave and return during the game with your ticket stub). Was kind of fun going to a game w/o TV timeouts dragging it along.

The coolest thing was being in the MMB as a FR in 1981 and entering into the stadium before kickoff to ND. What a scene being on that field and a full house. 

How I became one of the many actually precedes the earliest sports memory I have re UM.  As my cousins, sibling, and I were growing up they started going to UM for college.  It was a natural fit for me to follow suit but that was after changing my mind on the college choice as it wasn't the first on my list due to what major I was intending to pursue.  It was after I was accepted and enrolled that I became immersed in all things Michigan.

That then leads to the earliest memories of seeing some of the games of the late Bo era and passionately supporting Glen & co as they won the title.  It was in the very early 90s when I first attended games at the Big House and have been hooked ever since.

In the end it took me going to UM to start really caring about the school and its sports teams and now it is so ingrained I'm pretty sure if I did a DNA test they'd find a new gene that screams GO BLUE.

Like many here, my UM obsession came through my dad, who never went to UofM or even college.

Dad immigrated to Detroit in the late 50's, worked in the meat packing industry in the Eastern Market.  Back in those days (mid-60's, early 70's), there was one meat packing outfit that would load up a busload of folks and cruise up to A2 early Saturday morning's for gameday. Getting an occasional invite, this was dad's first real exposure and immersion into American football.

My first memory of UofM football is boarding one of those busses in Eastern Market in the early 70's (guessing about '74), getting handed a corned beef sandwich box-lunch, riding to the Big House (remember sitting in the SW endzone).  Dad had his transistor radio and earphone in, listening to Ufer on the broadcast. I was just a youngster at 7 or 8, but vividly remember the bizarre scene of all these strangers singing the fight-song in unison, toilet paper streamers in the student section. I was an amazing & strange feeling, and I was hooked.

Wanted to take dad to the Rose Bowl this past January, as a gesture of gratitude and repayment of the UM fandom gift he bestowed; it was always on his bucket list but he never went to a past UM appearance.  I bought two tickets after the B1G championship and told him to pack his bags, but at 87 years, he decided he couldn't do it based on physical condition.  My only regret is that he wasn't there with me to experience the euphoria of beating 'Bama in OT, hugging and high-fiving all those similarly devoted strangers, singing the Victors in the final moment madness.  Was hoping for one more time with dad.

I became a fan the day I was accepted to a UM grad school in 2010. I'm from NYC but a few guys from my high school went to UM. I'm pretty sure a pitcher I caught way back when (I played catcher) went to UM for baseball. I was a fan of the '89 basketball team and fell in love with the Fab 5 and continued to root for the team prior to my admission. I'd rooted for FSU in football and originally attended (and dropped out of) BC but the day I got accepted to UM is day I gave my heart to Michigan and only Michigan.

My M love is organic.

We moved to Grand Haven when I was 4, in 1961. Neither parent went to M, but my Dad was a big sports fan. My first memories were of watching Cazzie Russell on Saturday afternoons on a black and white Magnavox. You could not get jerseys back in the day, so I made one with a white t-shirt and blue marker. It looked like a 2nd grader made it because I was in 2nd grade. My loving Mother was not amused. 

My first in-person game was in 1967, a loss to Navy.

Going to college at M sealed the deal, Class of 79.

Grew up in Flint. My parents liked sports but weren't big into local sports really since they just moved here from Minnesota in the late 80s. But they watched enough that I watched a lot of Michigan growing up. My earliest sports memory of any kind is the 1998 Rose Bowl that won us the 97 Championship. After that, I switched bedrooms out of my old little kid room and wanted to decorate it maize and blue. I was all in from age 6.

Never had the grades to actually get into Michigan (3.4 GPA, 25 ACT, meh), so I didn't bother applying. I guess I'm what Bo called a "friend of the University."

Grew up going to the game. My mom was a huge fan, and really drove my fandom, and my grandma and aunt had season tickets which allowed to go to a ton of games as a kid. Honestly I was young enough that I don't even remember my first game, would have had to have been in the early 90s. I feel like I remember a game against Indiana, which would have been 1991 I guess (would have been four at the time), but no idea if that was my first one. The first game I definitely remember attending was OSU in 1995, as an eight-year-old. By 1997 I was such a hardcore fan that my family took me to the Rose Bowl for the National Championship...

In 1970, my folks divorced, my mother re-married, and we moved to a new school district in Flint. The rule of thumb among the boys in the 5th grade was that you had to be either a Michigan or MSU fan. Until that point I had no allegiance to either. However, State sucked, Michigan was a powerhouse, and I guess I was a little bit of a front-runner, so Michigan it was. Besides, Michigan had the much cooler uniforms, and especially THOSE helmets.

Because of such an insignificant reason, a lifelong passion for all things Michigan was born. Plus, I graduated from UM-Flint in 1982, so I come by that passion honestly.

First memory was of Don Moorhead handing off to Touchdown Billy Taylor. The most vivid memory was of Mike Lantry breaking my heart twice.

Started following Michigan in 1973.  I was 14, and my sister had entered U-M.  By 1975 she was bored with the football thing, so she gave her season tickets to me.  I attended every game in 1975 and 1976.  I vividly recall the 1975 Northwestern game, which Michigan won 69-0 ... it was a cold, wet, and glorious day for football.  And Harlan Huckleby rushed for something like 11.7 miles.

My dad went to law school at the U of M and had season tickets since I think Bump Elliott's last year--I grew up going to most home games. I was born in Ann Arbor and was a townie on and off until middle school, and my mother lived in Ann Arbor when I was in high school.

I wound up going to school out of state, which was good for me for a variety of reasons, but I remained a fan.

I became a Michigan fan when I enrolled in 1989 (post BBall championship).  I wasn't much of a college sports fan prior to that except for DePaul basketball, since my dad played for Coach Ray.  My earliest Michigan sports memory is probably the 1 vs. 2 game against Iowa (in 1985?).  I didn't pay that much attention, but I was vaguely rooting for Iowa since my mom was from Iowa and her brothers are all big Hawkeye fans.

Nothing too interesting, parents were both UM fans and started watching when I was around 7. I think I watched other games in 96 but the Biakabutuka game against OSU is the  one that sticks out as the first vivid memory. 97 was the first year I watched every game and can remember most of them, was a long wait since that first year fully watching for another NC.

Walking to my first class as a freshman I crossed paths with Phil Hubbard.  He was the tallest human I had ever seen IRL. Crossed paths daily at the same place by the Union. Joel Thompson hung out on my hall at South Quad.  Watched both of them on a tiny B&W TV in my dorm room against Indiana in the ‘76 NCAA Championship game.  No spoiler alert required.

Oh man ...  story time...  my path to being a Michigan fan went like this:

I dated a girl in HS from Crooksville, OH and she and I were going to go to Ohio State together.  I was visiting her on the weekend of the 1991 game between Michigan and Ohio State.  It was a big deal to them and family and friends were at their house.  Well, the game was a runaway, and I remember everyone losing their shit when Desmond ran back that punt and did the Heisman pose.  It was a sad day in Crooksville haha.  Fast foward about a month - and she broke it off with me.  Out of spite I became a Michigan fan and Desmond Howard fan.  Then that was about the time the Fab 5 came through, and I just loved the swagger that surrounded Michigan and I was hooked. 

Fast forward to 1999 and I am a student at Penn State but STILL a Michigan fan.  Michigan came to town to play, and I went and scalped a ticket and then went and sat in the MICHIGAN student section.  I was hammered and had the time of my life with all the Michigan students, and witnessed one of the greatest comebacks led by Anthony Thomas and Tom Brady.

I have now worked at Virginia Tech for 20 years...  I pulled for Michigan in 2012 when VT played them in the Sugar Bowl.  I believe I'm Maize and Blue to the bone.  I'm a donor and made the 8 hour drive up for the championship parade and the celebration that night at Crisler Center.  Bonus - I got a hat and football signed by coach Harbaugh in the parking lot of Schembechler before the parade, and Blake almost backed his truck into my wife when he parked haha.  She was able to get him to sign a Natty ball.  I went onto the floor after the celebration at Crisler and got blue and maize confetti to put with my memorabilia display in my office.

I was 10 when we moved to Ann Arbor.  I was showing some interest in football, and my dad had a coworker who was moving.  He bought their season tickets and figured it might be fun for us to go to games together.

I had never been to anything like that before - even pro baseball games and the one NFL game I'd seen to that point were nothing like the experience of 100K plus people packed into The Big House cheering for Michigan.  By the end of the year, when Leach stretched the ball across the goal line for the TD, I was hooked.  (And by the time I left Ann Arbor for college, I had been part for 8 of the 10 largest sports crowds in US history :<)

To this day, my favorite sports memories are Michigan related - Carter v. Indiana, Wheatley v. Washington, and so many more.  Yeah, the Phantom Touchdown and a host of others sucked, but the highs are worth the ride.