Michigan Radio: Sports
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Ann Arbor bowling league team goes for championship...
We have seen droughts in sports in this state, that is for sure. The last time the Lions won the NFL championship, for example, was 1957. Well, there’s
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From out of the sewers, Michigan finds its man in John...
It wasn’t that long ago that Michigan’s basketball program was not merely unsuccessful, but the shame of the athletic department. Bo Schembechler fired
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Why the Wolverines are at the Championship, and what...
Wolverines across the country will be watching the NCAA championship game tonight, but what's happening with the team when their off-screen? There's no
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Michigan won, let's talk about what's next
Yesterday, Ann Arbor was buzzing with maize and blue fans as Michigan made its way to the Final Four for the first time since the Fab Five era. Now, we all
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Michigan Hockey: A salute to consistency, the most...
Sports columnist Rick Reilly once wrote that weekend golfers invariably claim, “I’m a good golfer. I’m just not consistent.” Well, he said, if you’re not
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March Madness has begun!
March Madness here! For many of us, it's like Christmas in March. Sixty-eight teams vying to make it to that Final Four. For others, it's time to say
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A tip for amateur athletes: The pros are way better than...
A lot of amateur athletes think they’re not that far from the people who play their sports for a living. Well, when Michigan Radio Sports commentator John
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The astounding success of Southeast Michigan skaters
In less than two weeks on March 10th, the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships will begin in London, Ontario. That means the eyes of the world will be
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An unqualified success: The story of Eddie Kahn
In the Michigan hockey program’s 90-year history, some 600 players have scored more than 10,000 total goals. But the man who scored the team’s very first
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Super Bowl XLVII: A 20-to-1 ratio of ads to action
Super Bowl XLVII provided us with thrills, spills and record electric bills – plus a football game somewhere in there. Congratulations! You not only
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'Bo's sons' face off in Super Bowl next Sunday
With Ann Arbor’s own Harbaugh brothers about to square off in the Super Bowl, you’ll probably start to hear lots of stories from the folks who met them
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The new year in sports: A good man is hard to find
With the college football season finally behind us, I wanted to write a simple college football roundup, ending in a sweet little story about a very good
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Hockey: The greatest sport, run by the dumbest people
I’ve played hockey my entire life, so I’m biased. But when you combine ice skating, stick handling, passing, shooting and yes, body-checking, in one game, you’ve got it all.Until they start playing lacrosse in the water or golf on skis, hockey will remain the hardest sport to play, and the most impressive to see played well.There’s nothing like it.So, for Detroit Red Wings fans, the NHL lockout was a nightmare.This started the way all these things do: the players thought the owners made too...
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Sports in 2012: The best, the worst, and the just plain...
2012 was a remarkable year in many ways, and the sports world was no exception.Just a few hours into the New Year, Michigan State and Michigan both won bowl games in overtime, and both finished with eleven wins. A good start.Not all the news was happy, of course. We said goodbye to some legends. Budd Lynch, who lost his right arm in World War II, announced Red Wing games for six decades, right up to his death this fall, at 95. Another Bud, VanDeWege, ran Moe’s Sports Shops in downtown Ann...
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Big money pushing kids out of the Big House
A 'seat license' is a fee fans pay just to reserve the right to buy the tickets.They call it a donation, even though every single one of us apparently decided to donate the exact same amount, or lose our tickets. But that allows us to call it a tax deduction.It's hard to call that honest, or cheap.In fairness, Michigan was the last of the top 20 programs to adopt a seat license program, in 2005.It started gradually, and left endzone fans alone.But this week, Michigan pushed the seat license...
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Commentary: College football bowl games are a sham
The people who sell bowl games need us to believe a few things:Their games are rewards for great seasons;They offer players and fans a much-wanted vacation;The bowls are non-profits, while the schools make a killing.These claims are nice, and would be even nicer if they were true.Forty years ago, college football got by with just eleven bowl games.The 22 teams they invited were truly elite, and so were the bowls – like the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl and The Granddaddy of...
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Brady Hoke's sophomore slump
This time last year, Brady Hoke was the darling of Michigan football fans.He’d charmed everybody at his first press conference, then led a team that had averaged just five wins a year to a 10-2 regular-season record, with thrilling wins over Notre Dame, Nebraska and arch-rival Ohio State.Then he capped it all off with an overtime victory in the Sugar Bowl.The man could do no wrong.When he referred to injuries as “boo-boos” and Ohio State as “Ohio,” fans did not conclude he was an ignoramus...
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Stateside: A growing Big Ten
The Big Ten Conference will soon include 14 teams.Michigan Radio's John U. Bacon addressed the conference's decision to bring Maryland and Rutgers into its competitive network.“On the Michigan chat boards, it is 98% apocalyptic disgust. It should be noted, that is in great contrast to Nebraska joining last year. They are not against expansion, per se,” said Bacon.The potential financial gains are of great interest to the conference, said Bacon.“The whole reason why they are doing that is the...
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Politicians need to learn from sports
Whether your candidates won or lost this week, we can all rejoice that it’s finally over.Or, we think it is. We can’t be sure anymore, can we?All this made me ponder the relative craziness of politics versus sports. I got to thinking: Which is sillier? Playing politics, or playing sports?As silly as sports are – and I seem to devote half my commentaries to that very subject – after watching the 2012 campaigns, I can tell you, it’s not even close: Playing politics is sillier, in a landslide....
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Stateside: A team's resilient owners and fans
As a collective groan of disappointment issued last night from Detroit, Tiger fans were left to focus on the positive moments of the past seasons. They still have a lot to be happy about.The San Francisco Giants concluded their sweep of the Tigers last night in a 4-3 victory. Regardless of their team's defeat, many Tigers fans expressed their gratitude for a great season.Denise Ilitch, daughter of Detroit Tiger’s owner, Mike Ilitch, spoke with Cyndy about the team’s impressive year.“Although...
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Stateside: Sportistas seek entry into a male-dominated...
Women’s place in sports is an important one, claim Andy Markovits and Emily Albertson, co-authors of “Sportista: Female Fandom in the United States.”Markovits, a Sociology professor at the University of Michigan, and Albertson, a U of M law student, coined the term “Sportista.”According to Markovits, a “Sportista is a female who loves sports and is knowledgeable about them.”As a child, many of Albertson’s friends were male and closely followed sports. From an early age she was steeped in...
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Ann Arbor high school football players show better...
Last week, the Ann Arbor Pioneer high school football team went across town to play long-time rival Ann Arbor Huron. It wasn’t the players’ performance during the game that made news, however, but the coaches’ behavior afterward. And the news wasn’t good.Ann Arbor Pioneer came into the annual rivalry with Ann Arbor Huron, sporting a solid 4-3 record and a good chance to make the playoffs. Huron hadn’t won a game all year, and was simply playing out the season. The only stakes were bragging...
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Remembering Budd Lynch
His parents named him Frank Joseph James Lynch—but everybody knew him as Budd.He passed away this week, at the age of 95. No, you can’t call that a tragedy, but you can call it a loss—one thousands are feeling.In a week that included no Big Ten teams ranked in the top 25, the idiotic NHL lockout and, far worse, Jerry Sandusky’s sentencing, I’d rather spend my few minutes with you honoring a man who lived as long as he lived well.Lynch was born in Windsor, Ontario, during World War I. He got...
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Notre Dame v. Michigan rivalry ends: It's not about...
Notre Dame announced this week the school is suspending its century-old rivalry with the University of Michigan after the 2014 season.The only constant is change.Yeah, yeah. We know that – and in case we didn’t, there’s always some office blowhard too eager to say it, as if it’s some profound truth.But that’s why, the more things change, the more we appreciate things that don’t.When Carole King sang, “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place any more?” she probably wasn’t talking about NFL...
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Denard Robinson, enjoy him while you can
Last week, the University of Michigan football team beat up University of Massachusetts, 63-13.Okay, U-Mass was pretty bad.Even lowly Indiana crushed them.But the Wolverines did exactly what they were supposed to do, and did it very well.Many Michigan fans complained anyway.This is not uncommon.A few years ago, Michigan blew out 15th-ranked Notre Dame team 38-0, the first shut out over the Irish in over a century. The next day, I challenged listeners on a sports talk show to find something...
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Veteran Crim racers find friendship, pride in Flint event
Former Michigan Speaker of the House Bobby Crim launched his 10-mile road race in Flint back in 1977.Crim wanted a world-class race in his hometown, but he also wanted to create a foundation to support mentally handicapped athletes. He accomplished that goal -- and more.Today, the Crim Festival of Races includes an 8K race, a 5K family walk and a Teddy Bear Trot for children.The event attracts thousands of participants and spectators, and is a family weekend destination, with entertainment,...
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Reunion 2012
Lots of people look forward to high school reunions, others dread them, and still others just avoid them altogether.My brother falls squarely into the third category. As he says, “If I was that eager to see you, I wouldn’t have waited five years.”Now that we have Facebook, we already know who gained weight and who went bald, so what else do we really need to see? Maybe that’s why reunion attendance nationwide has dropped dramatically.But I like reunions. Yes, high school was often traumatic,...
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Olympic gold medalist Allison Schmitt happy to be home...
With the London games behind us, cities across the country are welcoming back their hometown Olympians. This week, Canton, Michigan welcomed home swimmer Allison Schmitt.At 22, Schmitt won three gold medals, one silver medal, and one bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She won gold in the womens 200m freestyle with an Olympic record time.Ive been training for it and I knew I was ready for it, and I knew I had strong legs to finish, so I just wanted to swim out the race and...
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Flint's favorite daughter: Claressa Shields takes gold
Seventeen-year-old Claressa Shields has won the first US womens gold medal in boxing.And her hometown of Flint is celebrating. Residents came together to watch Claressas triumph in a standing-room-only bar downtown. Everyone was there, from the mayor, to families with babies strapped into high chairs.And for the millionth time, Clarence Shields is tells the story of how his daughter became a boxer. I taught everybody else how to fight, and nobody picked up the torch. And I told her the story...
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The Olympics and The Things You Actually Want to Watch
The London Olympics features 26 summer sports, with 39 disciplines, and 302 separate competitions, in a desperate attempt to get everyone to watch.So youve got the Ancient Sports, or the Events No One Watches Anymore, like horse riding, rifle range, and archery -- also known as, Things You Did in Summer Camp, But Stopped Doing After You Learned How To Drive and Talk To Girls. Why not include making moccasins and key fobs?The Modern Penthathlon has got the complete collection: fencing, horse...
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Michigan Olympians
In the opening ceremonies next week, when the United States flag bearer declines to dip the Stars and Stripes for Queen Elizabeth, he or she will be following the lead of Ralph Rose, a Michigan alum who refused to lower the flag in the 1908 London Olympics, for King Edward VII.Rose explained, "This flag dips for no earthly king."Wolverines have also made their mark on the podium, winning 138 medals, including 65 gold. This year, Michigan is sending 26 athletes and coaches to London, who will...
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College Football playoff problem solved!
A committee of 12 university presidents recently approved a plan to create a four-team playoff for Division I college football the last major sport to have one. That has Michigan Radio sports commentator John U. Bacon wondering what good will come of it if any.Well, its finally upon us. No, not the apocalypse Mayan calendar be damned but a bona fide, Division I, college football playoff.Its true that college football has somehow survived from its inception in 1869 without a playoff. Thats 22...
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Remembering Bob Chappuis, WWII hero and 'Mad Magician'
One of Michigan Footballs most famous players died earlier this month. BobChappuisplayed for the Wolverines in the 40s. He was a College Football Hall of Famer and a World War II hero. But thats not howChappuisdescribed himself.You can read about Bob Chappuiss heroics as a World War II tailgunner, or as a Michigan Wolverines tailback, just about anywhere -- from his Time magazine cover story in 1947, to his obituary in the New York Times last week. But my favorite stories are the ones he...
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Commentary: Baseball and Politics
You may not have realized this, but the best thing President Obama may have going for him in November is that the Detroit Tigers are having a pretty disappointing season.That may sound nuts to you, but there is documented evidence of this: Throughout history, whenever the Tigers have done spectacularly well in an election year, the Republicans almost always win. When theyve disappointed fans, the Democrats usually triumph.
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Why Michigan's softball team knocks it out of the park
The University of Michigan softball team won the Big Ten title this year for the fifth year in a row, and 15th time overall. It went to the NCAA tournament for the 18th straight season. Winning titles is what they do. And this was not even one of head coach Carol Hutchins best teams.
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Running down a dream
Nick Stanko is a small guy with a shaved head. Hes an art teacher at Haslett High School, east of Lansing, and he also coaches the track team.Stanko is hard-core about running. Hes tried out for the Olympic team twice and even the kids on his track team admit hes a big deal. Senior Ryan Beyea told me he likes to brag to kids at other high schools that he gets to train alongside the legend, Nick Stanko.In January, Stanko traveled to Texas to compete in the Olympic trials for the marathon and...
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Kids need to learn how to lose
Remember Field Day?For most of us, it was a hallowed year-end school tradition, right up there with ice cream socials, and signing yearbooks.The kids loved it, of course, and looked forward to it every year.But not at Burns Park, one of Ann Arbors oldest, most desirable and most educated neighborhoods and occasionally, one of its kookiest.There is a reason many townies jokingly refer to it as The Republic of Burns Park.
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Women in sports: Title IX and the "Battle of the Sexes"
This week, the University of Michigan celebrated the 40th anniversary of Title IX, with a host of speakers and panels discussing the historic legislation and its impact on girls, women and the United States itself.Before Title IX, only one in 30 girls played high school sports.Today, more than half do.After a single paragraph, and an unforgettable tennis match, that changed our nation forever.It all started pretty quietly.Just a sentence buried in the back of the Education Amendments Act of...
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Life lessons from South Africa's Makana Football...
A few weeks ago, I visited Cape Town, South Africa. Its a famously beautiful city, right on the ocean but thats not what I took away from this trip.
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Going the extra mile to get that interview
While I was writing Three and Out, the Michigan football players challenged me to join their workouts in the weight room.I did and soon discovered it was one of the dumbest decisions of my life and one of the best career moves.Id heard so much about these modern gladiators and their weight room heroics that I wanted to find out for myself just how much harder it really is compared to what the average weekend warrior puts himself through just to avoid buying relaxed fit jeans.The plan was...
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Saying goodbye to a tradition, Ann Arbor's Parthenon...
Ann Arbors Parthenon Restaurant closed last week after almost forty years at the corner of Main and Liberty.For me, it marked more than the passing of a favorite spot, but the end of a time-honored ritual for the guys.We filed in, and walked to our favorite table in the back.A little warmer, and wed sit outside, but it was still March, so whatya gonna do?The owners and waiters nodded. Theyve seen us more than a hundred times.
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Shawn Hunwick's unlikely run at Michigan ends, and new...
One of the most unlikely careers in the history of University of Michigan sports ended last weekend, in overtime.Two years ago, Michigans hockey team was in danger of snapping its record 19-straight NCAA tournament bids.They finished seventh in their league unheard of, for Michigan. So, the only way to keep the streak alive was to win six straight league playoff games to get an automatic NCAA bid.Oh, and they had to do it with a back-up goalie named Shawn Hunwick, a 5-foot-6 walk-on who had...
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Madness: Three Big Ten rivals share the title
The Big Ten basketball experts knew exactly what was going to happen this season before it even started. Michigan State would battle for another title, while Michigan would be stuck in the middle, fighting for a tournament bid. And thats exactly how it started. The Spartans jumped out to first place, and had it all to themselves with just two games left. The Wolverines spent most of the season in the middle. The experts looked pretty smart until Michigan started mastering head coach John...
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A sad step backward in Michigan football history
When Ann Arbors own George Jewett, an African-American, made Michigans football team in 1890, he would not have predicted it would take more than four decades for another black player to follow him.The biggest reason was Michigans head coach from 1901 to 1926, Fielding H. Yost, who had unequaled ambition and ego, and six national titles to back it all up.But he also had a blind spot: he was a racist.Perhaps we shouldnt be surprised. His dad fought for the Confederates, after all. But Yost...
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Hockey from different sides of the rink
Ive coached high school boys hockey teams for almost a decade. But a few years ago, I spent two years helping out the Michigan womens hockey team and I learned a lot more than they did.Its worth noting that Im comparing only high school boys and college women, based solely on my observations of two hockey teams. Your mileage may vary.My education started on day one.
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National signing day is like game day for college...
Themost important day of the year for a college football coach is not the home opener, the big rivalry game or even a bowl game. Its national signing day, which falls on the first Wednesday in February.On signing day, the end zone is not grass or Astroturf, but a fax machine tray. Only when a signed National Letter of Intent breaks the plane of that tray does it count.A couple years ago I got a chance to see the sausage get made and its not pretty.
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Joe Paterno: The noble, and the ignoble
When an 85-year old man dies, you cannot call it a tragedy. Sad, yes, but tragic, no. But Joe Paternos passing might be an exception. Born in Brooklyn in 1926, he enrolled at Brown University, where he played quarterback. He still holds a school record — for interceptions — with 14.After graduating, Paterno was supposed to go to law school, but instead followed his coach, Rip Engle, to Penn State. His father was beside himself. For Gods sake, what did you go to college for? That was 1950. 62...
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Money is stripping the fun out of college football
The college football bowl season has always been a little crazy - but most of that used to be fun crazy.Now its bad crazy.Michigan played in the first ever bowl game against Stanford on New Years Day in 1902.The Wolverines won, 49-0 but didnt play another bowl game for 46 years. Pasadena didnt host another game until 1916, and no one else sponsored one until 1935, when the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Sun Bowl started, followed two years later by the Cotton Bowl.The games were just...
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Michigan football and their bowl games, those who stayed...
The Big Ten is still considered one of the nations top leagues, despite its frequent belly flops in bowl games.This year, the Big Ten placed a record ten teams in bowl games then watched them drop, one by one.And not just in the storied Rose Bowl, but in games like the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl, the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, and the Insight Bowl.When Iowa got whipped 31-14, I wonder just how much insight they had gained.
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Wayne State football: Go Warriors!
If you are a football fan, you probably know that the Detroit Lions won a thrilling comeback victory yesterday, and are having their best season in something like a million years.
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A look back at the year in sports
Former Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren said, I always turn to the sports pages first, which records peoples accomplishments. The front page has nothing but mans failures.But this year, the sports page had plenty of both.Sad to say, bad news tends to travel faster.So lets start with some good news. In mens tennis, the rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, already one of the best, was joined by a man named Novak Djokovic, who won three majors this year on a gluten-free diet no joke.
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UM vs OSU game not the best, but one of the most...
Last week, the Michigan football team beat Ohio State for the first time since 2003. While it wasnt anything like the half-dozen Games of the Century these two rivals have played, I believe it might be one of the most important.Just a few years ago, ESPNs viewers called the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry the best. Not just in college football, or all football, but in all sports. Period.But this years game wont go down as one of the best. Michigan entered the game ranked 17th, but the Buckeyes...
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The most powerful people in sports: Joe Paterno and the...
College football coaches are far from the richest people in sports, but they could be the most powerful. That might seem far-fetched, but not to the disciples of Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, and Tom Osborne, among others, who rose to become almost spiritual leaders at their schools.
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Into the woods - Michigan's firearms deer season starts...
Todayacross Michigan many businesses are closed, absenteeism is up and even state legislators are taking the day off. This is Michigans unofficial state holiday, the first day of firearm deer season. Hunter Gabe Van Wormer and I recently wentwalking through some woods just north of Lansing. The area is hemmed in with suburban neighborhoods. But there are deer in these woods.
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Athletic scandals and the culture of sports
A student riot erupted this week at Penn State following the firing of the universitys longtime coach, Joe Paterno. He was fired after details surrounding alleged child sex abuse emerged involving the universitys former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky.Michigan Radios Jennifer White talked with Dr. Cheryl Cooky, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health & Kinesiology and Womens Studies Program at Purdue University. She specializes in sports sociology. Cooky talks about how we view...
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The game ball goes to "Bump" Elliott
At last weeks Homecoming Game, Michigan had planned to honor one of its great alums, a man named Chalmers Elliott better known as Bump.He was an All-American football player and a Big Ten champion coach, but earned greater fame as the athletic director at Iowa, Michigans opponent this weekend.Pneumonia kept the 86-year old legend from making it, however, so were honoring him today.Michigan football has produced a lot of big name coaches and players, but one of the finest men who played and...
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"Three and Out": Rich Rodriguez's tenure at the...
In the summer of 2008, Rich Rodriguez granted me unfettered access to the Michigan football program so I could write a book.Three years later the book is finished, and not with a happy ending.Similar to just about everybody else connected to Michigan football these past three years, I had no idea what I was getting into.During my three years following the Michigan football team, the working title of the book changed from All or Nothing, to All In, to Third and Long, before Rodriguezs last...
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