A certain newspaper in Detroit that I will not mention posted a story this morning in which they unveiled the "model" for the Michigan throwback jersey to be worn in Michigan Stadium's first ever night game against Notre Dame this fall. You can find the story here. This has not been finalized or approved by the University or the Athletic Department and thank Jesus for that because these things are AWFUL. Hideous. Eyesores. Please, no. I don't even want to post the picture it's so bad, but here it is:
I know, I tried to warn you. Please don't make our athletes wear these. It's going to look ridiculous and it certainly isn't going to make any recruits think to themselves "oh cool, I want to wear those."
The idea for having both schools wear throwback uniforms, at least as I understood it, was for Adidas to honor great teams of each school's past. Um, no Michigan team of the past has ever worn these jerseys. Who exactly are you honoring with these? Bumble bees? 70's era Pittsburgh Pirates? You can't just make some crap up and say "this is to honor your past." What?
The real idea, as far as Adidas is concerned anyway, is to create another jersey that they can sell. Part of their design concept has to be whether or not they will be able to move a large number of these things off the shelves. Judging by the overwhelming response I have seen today across the internets, as well as my own horror, no one is going to buy these things. I wouldn't buy one of these if they were 50 cents. They are trying way too hard. I realize that Michigan's uniforms have remained largely unchanged for decades, but there are some past unis that would be very cool and I think much more marketable too. For instance:
Both of these images came from U-M's Bentley Historical Library, so a very big HT to them. On the left, you will see the team photo of the 1910 edition of the Wolverines. On the right, the individual photo of one Mr. Bob Wiese, captain of the 1944 squad. This is a simple design that can be made very cool. I like the large Block M on the front, but notice that there is no terrible looking squiggles that take away from the image and also note that the M is of correct proportion. The M on the Adidas version is skinny and looks like crap. That's not our M! I like the number on the sleeve of Mr. Wiese's jersey and assume that it would be present on both sides. The back of the jersey would no doubt contain a large version of each player's number and the rest could go a couple of different ways in my mind. You could go with each player's last name as we do now, or it might be cool to just have another, smaller of course, Block M above the numbers where the names would go. Obviously the jerseys would not be long sleeve or turtlenecked as the ones in the photo are. Done. That's it. Really not that hard and I would definitely buy one of those. Please dear God fix these before the game.
A sad day for 1987 me
In 1987, I was 8 years old and very much into the things that 8 year old boys are into. Playing baseball, football, basketball, whatever. Collecting baseball cards. Catching bullfrogs in the creek. Playing around in the many houses being constructed in my neighborhood. Riding my bike. And WWF Wrestling. I can remember watching wrestling with my friends on my street and then beating the hell out of each other recreating what we had seen. We even video taped it several times. I think we even held our own Wrestlemania. Of course this fancy did not last more than a couple of years but we were pretty into it for a while. My favorite was Ultimate Warrior.
Another of my favorites was Macho Man Randy Savage. He wasn't the biggest, most muscle bound guy in the WWF and he had some garish outfits (see below), but the man was a showman and it was hard not to like him. He was almost infectious with his enthusiasm. Well, the Macho Man died today. He had a heart attack while driving, lost control of his car, and hit a tree outside of Tampa, Florida. His wife was in the car with him and survived with minor injuries but the Macho Man didn't survive the crash. He was 58 years old. RIP old friend.
Make your peace
So, yeah. The world is supposed to end tomorrow. I guess it's supposed to happen at 6 p.m. I really don't know all the supposed details, I haven't read all the crap going around about it. Many people have and, unfortunately, are believing it to be true. I hope there are no mass suicides or fanatical cult activities tomorrow that cost a lot of people their lives. Some people will no doubt spend tomorrow praying and expecting The Rapture. Me? I'm going to the Jimmy Buffet concert to tailgate, have fun, drink some cold beers, and generally not worry about it with about 75,000 of my closest friends. I'm not going to the show, just to tailgate. If you've never done this, you really should experience it. It is a spectacle for sure and it's really a lot of fun. I'm not really a Buffet fan but I went to this party last year and it was a blast. People really go all out for this thing and take it to the extreme. It's hard to describe. Like I said, just try it out some time. You'll have fun. As far as the end of the world, well, I'm not too worried. I make my peace with God every night. If He's ready, then that's okay by me. I'm gonna be having fun when it happens though!
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