OT: How did you become a Michigan fan?
Title says it all.
Whether you signed on when you got an acceptance letter or the first thing you saw coming out of the womb was a Block M.
I was raised a Michigan fan.
My first game was September 18, 2004 against San Diego State (W 24-21). Mike Hart's breakout game.
I really really really got into it to the point where it became my one and only interest with a bullet when I got my first history book when I was 11 years old. Just looking through the history and records amazed me, seeing the 1901 team just kill people 119-0 and 128-0.
It inspired me to write down the results against opponents on spiral notebook paper so I could organize records against teams from what conference and then erase team records and write in new ones when they were broken. That notebook eventually became the SuperGuide.
I think it all started when Rick Leach committed to Bo.
And was in Traverse City at Jellystone Park for the annual Fall Weekend, which happened to be on the same weekend as the Michigan v Michigan State game. My father put a UM and MSU sweatshirt in front of me, told me to pick, and I pointed to the glorious maize and blue - because I liked the colors better. 5 year old rationality. It probably didn't hurt that my parents subliminally suggested that, given that my room walls were yellow and everything linen was blue. But there you have it.
I still have that hoodie hanging in the closet 33 years later.
Can't hear enough about that SuperGuide™!
I grew up in Ohio in a Catholic family. My friends all liked OSU, my family is huge into ND. Thus - I became a Michigan fan when I was about 15 years old.
No family connection to the University or the state whatsoever, but I did have a Sega Genesis when I was 7yrs old, and my dad had bought me "College Football USA 96" (soon to become NCAA Football). I was instantly attracted to Michigan's uniforms and the fact that Tim Biakabutuka was an animal and the only way I could do anything against my dad was through him. Fast forward to Nov. 25, 1995 when Tim ran for 313yrds against OSU ending their National Champ bid and my love for Michigan was solidified. That was just the start of my fandom and a string of my favorite players.
Fast forward again to 2005 when I'm applying for uni and get back my acceptance letter from Michigan; that was a bittersweet moment - sweet knowing I got accepted into a premier university and one that I desperately wanted to get into - bitter knowing that I couldn't afford tuition without a whole hell of a lot of debt. Regardless of my lack of attendance to the school I’m still one helluva Michigan nerd thanks to this site.
following Rick"the peach" Leach from Flint Southwestern high school. I also went to the same high school as Steve Smith his senior year and was destined for season tickets ever since.
Go Blue!
Rick "the peach" Leach ???? Where did that come from ?
say "Rick the peach Leach".a few times,
To answer the question:
My dad was a California child who went to UCLA. He played tennis there, he always raved about it, told me too many times about how he graduated with Lew ALcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabbar. If I didn't make it into any Ivys (lol) he wanted me to go out west to UCLA or Cal or USC, but Michigan was "the next closest thing" available.
He talked about how UCLA was the best basketball school in the country and that Michigan was the best football school. I played both football and basketball, was better at football but preferred basketball, and my dad was disappointed that tennis was a distant third.
He stated that there were differences between the kids and families that went to and/or rooted for Michigan State and those that were for Michigan, and I started to observe the trends...
He took me to the game against Penn State in 2005 when Henne-Manningham won the game at the last second, and I learned that I loved college football, I loved the Big House, I loved Michigan.
After that, I attended the school and lived through the Rich Rod era, and here we are.
I was born there.
I grew up in an NFL city so I didn't really even notice football until Northwestern made their run in 1995. My dad was an NU alum.
My grandpa lived and breathed Michigan and was from Detroit (U of D alum). I remember him screaming at the television the day Kordell Stewart took Michigan out with his hail mary. My grandpa looked and acted like Bo.
I got into Michigan and was overjoyed. Wound up going there over NU even though I grew up with the Cats. First game was against Miami-OH at the Big House in 2001 - I walked into that stadium from the top and meandered down to the student section with my newly made buddies and was forever a Michigan Man. John Navarre hung a number on Roethlisberger that day.
I think my grandpa wore a "Michigan Grandpa" shirt roughly 4 days a week while I was there. He was going in for surgery for bladder cancer on Friday 1/28/05. For whatever reason, I decided to get in my car and drive from Ann Arbor to Northville to watch the U of M-MSU basketball game the night before just to make sure I saw him before that surgery. Michigan lost but we ate steaks, laughed and had a great time. I remember emerging from the house into the bitter, bitter Michigan cold and looked up at the stars - reminding myself that I hadn't attended my ridiculous Astronomy mini-course in about a month (pretty par for the course for me).
He died in surgery the next morning, a Michigan Man to the very end, to be sure.
I was born into a Michigan family. Everyone is at least a casual fan with many hardcore ones as well. It goes back generations. There's photos of me in a Michigan onsie as a baby. I remember wearing Michigan football jerseys all through school. Good thing my mom let me where whatever I wanted to school. I wouldn't go a few days without wearing some Michigan jersey. I moved away for college and my fandom has grown even stronger. I love being the minority fan in Big 12 country. And I meet so many great Michigan fans when I wear my gear. Go Blue!
I've said this before on this blog, but Charles Woodson was soooo dang good, he made a 7 year old stop and watch him. He hooked me like a hardcore drug into Michigan fandom and I never turned back.
I guess I was born into it, to some extent. I'm a much bigger fan than my dad ever was. But I was raised around it. My dads friends had Michigan season tickets. I vaguely remember watching the Michigan Colorado game in 1994. More for how my grandparents and dad flipped the eff out, but also for the fuzzy picture and dull green grass field. It was only much later in life that I realized that memory (my first memory of him) wasn't Kordell Stewart playing in a Super Bowl, but Kordell Stewart dunking on my future favorite team.
I'm from Napa so I've met him few times as a Raider player and wine owner
because my grandfather watched Yost's first four seasons as a Michigan undergrad.
A page from his college days photo album.
Neither do I. Why get sore about it?
I moved a lot as a kid, no interest in college sports, got into Michigan, attended the games. So I don't know exactly I became a fan. I turned around one day and there I was, a Michigan fan.
It happened somewhere in the middle of these memories:
• Attendance was sparse enough, that on Band Day, the stadium could hold full high school bands from around the state, who filled the field with the Michigan Band at halftime.
• Frosh were always obvious on Saturday nights, as our faces were sunburned from the late afternoon sun shining on us in the north end zone.
• During the VERY cold & VERY wet game when Ron Johnson set Michigan's single game rushing record, I felt courageous as one of the few who stuck it out, then I left at halftime. (Thanks, LB, for reminding me of the date, Nov. 19, 1968.)
• Senior year, waiting overnight in a group with Carl Grapentine, getting 50-yard seats 2/3 of the way up. I think at the MSU game, the governor sat across the aisle from us.
• Rose Bowl: loss. After graduation, another Rose Bowl: loss. I'm sorry. I won't attend the Rose Bowl again.
• My conscientious objector application denied, the Army was a shock to my system and Michigan games helped me through. (The Army did teach me that Ohio has good people, that not everyone from the state is like the tOSU fans I encountered in Ann Arbor.)
• Teaching at UM-Flint and living in Ann Arbor, I took my sons to the '95 Virginia game. Sweet introduction.
• Living in New York, vacationing in Michigan, deciding to stop for the first game of the season, could only get a room in a hotel full of App State fans. The morning of the game, they were humble, almost apologetic. Less so later.
But as we know, we like to win but losses don't change things.
Go Blue.
I think I'm going to aim for 100 points, then retire from commenting, and maybe people will think it's 100%.
We moved away from Michigan when I was 12. In the following 3 years I lived in WV, PA, and finally TN. When I first moved away, the Fab 5 were in the Final 4. I didn't watch any football or basketball for a long time, but Michigan became a symbol of the state and my connection to it.
When I moved back to WV in my 20's, all my friends were obsessed with football(WVU). So I started paying attention again in 2007(bad timing I know) and have slowly turned into a Michigan obsessive around the time Hoke became coach.
I grew up a mile away from the stadium. The stadium was wide open on weekdays back then. Used to ride bikes there in the summer and play football. Sometimes they kicked us off the field, sometimes they didn't. We even played softball once, until one of the maintenence guys heard a home run bouncing off of the seats.
My first football game was in 1963 vs. Navy. Roger Staubach was Navy's QB. I was 6. All I remember were Michigan's helmets and Navy's gold helmets. I think Navy won.
In junior high I would walk to games, buy $2 student tickets and meet my friends inside the stadium. I think the price went up to $3 when I was in 8th grade. Basketball games were also cheap and easy to get into. Johnny Orr's early teams would score a lot. But so would the other team.
In other words, I really didn't have a choice.
Hooked for life
My family moved from Boston to Ann Arbor when I was 6 for my mom to get her Ph.D at Michigan. One of the first things we did was go to the Big House for a game, and every other kid I knew was a big Michigan fan so it wasn't hard to fall in. Then, a couple years later, 1997 happened and that's the kind of thing that'll hook you for life.
My early teen years in the mid-seventies was all about watching Michigan from "Beautiful Ann Arbor, Michigan". It seems like they were always on tv, especially the years with #1 Anthony Carter.
I grew up a huge WMU fan in Kalamazoo. Yes, really. Both my parents got multiple degrees there and one of them worked there for decades. We had season hockey tickets most of my childhood (1990s) and occasionaly season football tickets.
On the other hand, my grandmother was a huge UM fan who had lived in Ann Arbor since the 1950s and, while not a graduate, had done coursework there for her career in nursing. So I inherited this weird outlook on Michigan that combined deep animosity toward the hockey team with a sort of general well-wishing toward football and basketball and a love of Ann Arbor. I went to a few football games as a kid but never felt any huge devotion.
Anyway, as I got on toward college I realized UM was basically ideal for my goals. And they reciprocated with an acceptance and scholarship. My freshman year was 2004 and certainly by the end of Braylonfest I was hooked for life.
... it took me about five years to really be able to genuinely cheer for UM hockey, though. Seriously, they were my mortal enemy from ages 6 to 12.
Grew up in Saginaw, surrounded by sparties. Became an ND fan just to be different from everyone else. Couldn't afford ND out of HS and chose UM over MSU for the academics. The best decision I have ever made.
1967 my brother who lived in same dorm as Dierdorf, took me to a game against Navy, I believe. I saw people being lifted up and passed up and down the stadium. I was sold.
Grew up in PA, during the JoePa heyday, but I wanted to go to a better school and to the Rose Bowl, and loved the campus on my visit. Felt like home. The real game changer was walking into the big house for the first time. There's just nothing like it.
My dad accepted a position at Michigan and we moved to A2 in 1978. His two conditions before accepting were an electron microscope and 4 season tickets to UM football. Turns out the tickets were the tougher request.
Ricky Leach was my first Michigan gridiron hero, though I still owned a few Stanford #16 shirts after growing up with Plunkett.
Family is from Ohio, moved to Michigan, so they root for OSU. I wanted to be different. I am suprised that they never tried to influence me growing up.
last conference game of the year. I was an eleven year old. My dad was a big Michigan football fan. I have been ever since. Happy!!!!
Had no interest in attending college anywhere in state and ended up at a small school in Tennessee that many of my cousins had went too. While there my loathing of SEC became grounded and I chose to become a Michigan fan, circa 1988.
Been a fan ever since. Had I not chosen UM it likely would have been Notre Dame. Best choice I ever made other than marrying my wife.
Went to a Rose Bowl in the womb and never looked back. I wore nothing but UofM clothes at least until I got to college.
My dad is a huge U-M fan, and I was born Blue in Troy. Even after we moved away from Michigan, he was able to mold me as a Wolverine.
My earliest memory of watching U-M was watching the Capital One Bowl against Tebow when I was 7 years old. Soon after, the RichRod madness happened. I remember the exciting days of Denard Robinson and occasionally the Devin Gardner magic.
I've always been a fan of college football, and with Harbaugh it's only been amazing for me.
Unrelated- As a highschooler I do plan on trying to get into U-M. I want to become a Wolverine and be proud to say that I'm an alumnus.
Growing up on Long Island as I did, there are no university/football programs that you are a generational fan for like you are professional teams. When I was about 14 or so ('95 season), every Saturday Notre Dame played on NBC and it always seemed like Michigan was playing on ABC.
Well, for some reason, I grew up hating Notre Dame so while it was fun for a while to root against them everyweek, I didn't have a team. I needed a team and once I started watching Michigan, I knew that was my team. The Big House, the fans, the Winged Helmet, it drew me in!
I immediately became the biggest fan in my area of guys like Tim Biakabutuka, Scott Dreisbach and Jay Riemersma, amongst others.
Finally made it to Michigan Stadium for the Ohio State game in 2015 and while their performance and the result were disappointing to say the least, that day and that trip to Ann Arbor was nothing short of a complete thrill for me.