I was raised a Spartan. For that reason, I know what it means to have a football team that struggles sometimes. Growing up, the Spartans rarely had a season far above .500.
However, we supported our team. There were no protests calling for the jobs of our coaches or athletic directors. We loved winning just as anyone else, but we did not demand it above all else. Protesting because your football team isn’t winning? That’s the Michigan Difference.
Right about now, those who bleed maize and blue are probably turning red. They will claim that the protests on Sept. 30 were due to quarterback Shane Morris reentering the game after he suffered a concussion. Never mind the fact that it was the athletic trainer’s job to clear Morris for play, not head coach Brady Hoke’s and certainly not athletic director Dave Brandon’s; Michigan faithful marched to the university president’s house demanding Hoke and Brandon be fired, with “Protect Student Athletes” as their rallying cry.
This is where I call BS.
As even some Michigan students have noted , if Michigan was having a less embarrassing season, these protests would never have happened. I’m sure there are some out there that are truly horrified about what could have happened to Morris if he had sustained another serious hit, but for the most part, Morris and this blown-up “scandal” have been used as a facade.
Legendary coach Bo Schembechler once said, “When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing.”
Michigan, despite rightfully revering the man, ignored his words. They got soft from winning; now they’re losing, and they are not sticking by their team.
The petition that received over 3,000 signatures said Dave Brandon was responsible for alienating fans. However, one has to wonder how they think a different AD, even one who restores all of the “lost culture of Michigan”, would manage to pack the Big House in order to watch the football team lose to teams like Utah and Minnesota. By claiming the “state of the athletic department” has ignored alumni, students, fans, and student athletes, it ignores every other program and student athlete within the athletic department.
This directly relates to the final ironic twist to the petition: it claims the athletic department has produced “overwhelmingly negative attention.” However, it seems to me that although the football team has gotten negative attention, the athletic department was doing just fine until it was smeared. Now, instead of hearing about all of the good things happening athletically over at U of M, people instead read about students and alumni complaining about their lousy football program and almost abandoning their team on game day.
If the Wolverines were undefeated, climbing in the rankings, and actually had something to play for, the Big House would be packed every game and fans would be happy. Almost no one would be talking about Morris and Hoke’s job would be safer than ever. Thanks to Brandon, revenue would be up and people would be calling him a genius for helping the football program and the non-revenue generating sports improve their facilities. Michigan football would be “back,” Walmart Wolverines would once again don their maize and blue gear, and Michigan fans everywhere would once again be saying “This is Michigan.”
The protesters who are using Morris’ injury for their own purposes need to be honest: this is not about your outrage about an injured quarterback playing, it is about your healthy players losing.
