"Hate Week" Starts Now, and It's 2 Weeks Long - Your Best Sparty Stories

I was working in Lansing and the boss and I were in the car heading out to one of our accounts.  We stopped at an intersection and a guy with a Michigan jacket crossed the road in front of us at the crosswalk.  Boss says “look at that arrogant asshole” and pointed at the guy.  So at this point in my life i just had no idea how much they hated us, so I’m looking around going “what?”  He pointed the Michigan jacket out to me and went on and on about us.  I said “I’m a Michigan grad,” and he said “you’re one of those arrogant assholes too?”  Then he shook his head, said “great,” and we went on with the day. Mostly with him talking about how that guy probably didn’t even go to Michigan and me wondering wtf.  That was the first time I was introduced to the Sparty mindset.  Gross.

My favorite Spartan memory was yesterday. My younger brother, an MSU grad, texted me “Our time has come and gone, I freely admit it.”

Sure beats getting texts of the punt muff over and over 

In 2011 I was walking to Spartan Stadium before the game and 3 MSU bro homophobes tried to get in my face and called me a "gay fa---t."  I just said "opposed to a straight one?" and kept walking.  Then I had to sit through that game where MSU took cheap shot after cheap shot.  I've been watching football for decades and I've never seen a team play as dirty of a game as MSU in that game.  I had to sit there in that trashnado stadium while their fans encouraged the thug actions.

You can't expect better from a school that has its mascot based on a society that had more slaves than citizens and to become a man you had to murder a slave.

The Spartans are pure trash.

E5

In all my years of sports watching never have I seen one team with a horseshoe lodged so deep up their arse against one other team year in and year out.  The volume of gifts that gave wins or kept games close is nauseating.  That’s the source of my “hate”.  I hope JH can run it up so as to avoid any impacts of questionable actions on the field. 

Going to East Landfill to see the hockey team destroy FYS 9-2.  I was right behind the goal with a big block M on my jersey and when I went home to watch the telecast watching myself on TV celebrating.

A Michigan State alum said to me, "You UM grads are all the same. You just brag about the cars you drive and how great your jobs are."

I just flipped $5 in his cup, drove away in my Steel Grey Mercedes AMG GT R to my black walnut paneled penthouse office, poured myself a generous single malt that was older than my intern and tried to forget about the whole thing.    

I just hope we beat these bastards in two weeks so I can walk the streets again

My favorite story is that 100% of MSU students also got into Michigan, but chose MSU for some reason or another. 

Remember those three big PSU plays yesterday?  I'm expecting a game full of them against Sparty.  I hope we don't take them lightly.

During the 9/17 UConn game, a Spartan fan made a pathetic attempt to troll the U-M fanbase by wearing a #tuckcomin T-shirt to the game.  Consider the lengths he went to:  he probably spent at least $60 for the ticket in section 22; he wasted at least 6 hours of his own life, if you include the time fighting the traffic.  His reward for all this effort was to be completely ignored by everyone around him.

I imagine he didn't enjoy the Washington game that night.

I'm looking forward to creating a new memory this year. I now work at a company that is founded by Sparties and has a lot of Sparties employed there. I know because they mention it every chance they get (been very quiet the last several weeks, though). Good people, hard workers, very competent. But the constant "go green go white" banter is so annoying--almost like a daily affirmation.

I'll take any kind of win but would love a serious drubbing. And then on the first day back at work I will say absolutely nothing about the game. Always found that what drives them crazy is that we expect to win that game, just another stepping stone to the real challenges ahead.

As I have mentioned before, I have less antipathy towards Sparty than most on this site, as my parents met there and acquired five degrees between them from there, and I grew up in the Lansing area. I attended neither big school, preferring the comfier confines of a MIAA college, where I met my late wife, who of course grew up in the Ann Arbor area. She helped convert my loyalties, but it was not difficult. I always hope for a clean game with neutral officiating (I'm an eternal optimist!) and a solid Michigan victory. My wife was a big Michigan football fan, and I hope that now in her new role she has the ability to exert a tiny bit of infuence on the outcome of the game.

How do you keep the MSU football team off your lawn?

Put up goalposts.

Went to Braylon fest when I was in college. After the game I was with a group of 6 guys standing outside a casual dining restaurant waiting to get food all decked out in Michigan gear. An extremely intoxicated Sparty by himself mutely walked up to us, stared at us intently for about 30 seconds then proceeded to pick up one of those sandbags that are used to keep temporary street signs upright. The guy  then choose the largest member of our group (6’6’ 270ish at the time) to throw this sandbag at. Our guy casually sidesteps, catches it and tosses it back at this guy, it hits him square in the chest and he falls over with the sandbag on top of him. It take this guy a good 30 seconds to roll the bag off himself, stand up and brush himself off then he just walks off without saying a word. 

Only this.

It lives in my 16 year old mind to this date as the most iconic Michigan football moment.  I watched this with my high school friends, two I recall specifically being State fans (neither got into MSU). 

Mr. Peabody, we're setting the Wayback machine for the mid-70s, just a bit after the Arab oil embargo ended but gas prices were still "high" (yeah, right); a Wolverine is about to move into the White House; the Friese building is still standing and hosting classes.

So, for some unremembered reason, I am walking cross campus around the Diag and I come upon three yutes (ref. My Cousin Vinny) trying to get a spray can of paint to prime and start working. They are shaking the thing like demons, pressing the button at the top and nothing is happening. I slow down to watch the show for a bit - shake, shake, shake, nothing. Foul words are spoken by the yutes. Still nothing. I move on wondering WTF that was about, then enjoyed a game the next day in the Big House watching the good guys beat the yutes from East Lansing.

I only found out the next week about the probable uses of spray paint by visitors to our campus the weekend of the game. 

Fun times at a good game in the Big House.

Based upon the post game comments the Team seems to be appropriately focused on MSU.  Little likelihood that the Wolverines will be caught napping.  

Hide your tires.

Great stuff, but I just want a win, and I want us to come out of the game healthy.

They will pull out all the stops and all the college crappe. Also, I don't put it past them to try and get dirty hits on JJ and Blake.

The year was 1980. My dad and I were sitting in the student section nosebleeds holding our Bursley box lunches while the pregame festivities unfolded below.  

The Sparty mascot back then was a huge head made of what I assumed was fiberglas but could have been papier-mâché. As he danced around the north end zone I looked into my lunch. An orange looked back at me. 

Before my dad could say “don’t be an idiot” that orange left my hand in a split fingered fast ball. I knew it was good in azimuth but worried that I’d hadn’t put enough elevation in.

Initial trajectory was as one would expect, but then gravity came to the party. The velocity the orange acquired during its downward arc was something to marvel at. 

Direct hit on target! I had never seen an orange spatter before and haven’t since but all that was left of the evidence was a cloud of orange mist and a staggering Sparty.

Nope, not the smartest nor most sensible thing to do but 18 year olds aren’t known for their risk mitigation strategies. Michigan won that day 27-23 and went on to defeat Washington in the Rose Bowl. 

1985 31-0 

1975 sitting in the bleachers in East Landfill.  As I recall it was raining but I could be wrong.  It was a few years ago.   Gordie Bell and Rob Lytle rushed for about 216 yards.  (Corum & Edwards?)  Rick Leach QB.  Guy by the name of Mike Kenn was on the offensive line.  Went on to play multiple years in the NFL.  Backup offensive lineman was Les,Miles.  Don Dufek on defense.  He was an All American and his sons ended up at Michigan.  I think the score was 16-6.  Michigan win.  That’s the year Michigan beat Minnesota which was,quarterbacked by Tony Dungy.  Michigan was a very good team and ultimately lost to Oklahoma the 1975 Champions in the Orange Bowl.  Michigan’s record was 8-2-2 with two ties to Stanford and Baylor.  Wouldn’t happen today.

the old adage was that the team which could successfully run the ball would win this  game.  I like our chances.  

Sparty has a thread on 247 Sports where they are posting what everyone says here, and mocking the stories as whether factual. 
 

They complain no inferiority complex but obsess over what we say here.  
 

Quite fascinating really.