underground printing

The MGoRadio Show at Moe's 100th Birthday party last year.

This is not sponsored editorial, but it's editorial about a sponsor. I didn't tell Rishi I was even going to write this until like 10 minutes ago.

If you're not familiar with the history of collegiate sports apparel, here's a brief version: People used to go to sporting events in whatever their normal clothes were. Then in 1934 a sports apparel salesman walked into Moe's in Ann Arbor, and together they decided to sew big block M's on sweaters and sell them to Michigan fans.

When Moe retired he sold the store to Harold Trick, who had worked in the store for most of a decade, and adopted Moe's view that the campus sports shop should be part of the fabric of the Ann Arbor community. A generation later Trick sold it to Bud VanDeWege, who passed it on to his son, who was at that time the UM Women's Basketball Coach. Bud wanted to sell Moe's in 2010 to pursue other opportunities, but only to the right people who would continue that tradition of investment in the community as a whole.

If you're at all familiar with the history of MGoBlog you'll know it started as something Brian did in his spare time while holding down a "real" job, and that at some point in 2007-'08 that transitioned into his real job. A big part of that transition was Rishi Narayan and Ryan Gregg of Underground Printing coming on as a full-time sponsor of this site. They've been the difference ever since.

They are extremely good dudes who built UGP on the premise of if you help cool small businesses and charities around this town that everyone wants, people will buy shirts and stuff from you. When Bud Jr. was ready to sell the place where sports apparel began, the place that literally invented referee stripes, the place where Jim Harbaugh would spend all the money he'd saved raking leaves as a kid, the obvious guys to sell to were right there on everything from the local robotics competition, to Pear, to high school field hockey, and the local sports team's blogs.

From our t-shirt store, to our annual book, and even the short-lived radio show last year, all of these things were possible because Rishi and Ryan wanted them to succeed. If you spend enough time around Ann Arbor you can't miss them. They're the guy on a fold-out chair at a local gardening event who supplied the t-shirts to the volunteers. They're the guy with the glorious beard whose kid is dancing on the Crisler fan cam. They're our guys, and this site literally couldn't be our livelihoods without them.

So when this came in my email today:

I thought it as good a day as any to remind you that if you're going to buy Michigan stuff to wear to Michigan things, you should buy it from them.

By the way, our shirts are part of that "everything" that's 30% off this week. Use the same code— FEB30 —through Feb. 30 to stock up on whatever shirt you missed from this season. Like…

If you've ever got an idea for a shirt (and it doesn't violate copyright or NCAA rules) email me—Seth @ [this site].com—and if we got something I'll pass it on to Rishi. Either way, when you're next in Ann Arbor, stop in the store and tell the owners thank you for MGoBlog.