John U. Bacon

By beating Penn State on Saturday, Michigan State secured a share of its first Big Ten title in 20 years. It was a big game, but it was far from Michigan State’s biggest.

The biggest game in the Spartans’ long history wasn’t one of their 30 victories over Michigan, their six national title-clinching contests or their three Rose Bowl triumphs.

No, the biggest game in Michigan State history was against Notre Dame in 1966 – and it wasn’t a victory.

A lot of history went into that contest. Both schools had leveraged their football success to raise the profile and prestige of their universities. Both wanted desperately to get into the Big Ten, but Notre Dame was blocked in the ’20s by Michigan’s first big-time coach, Fielding Yost, while Michigan State was blocked in the ’40s by Michigan’s second big-time coach, Fritz Crisler.

Notre Dame finally said to heck with you guys, and went off on its own to become the only independent power with a national following. But Michigan State knew independence wouldn’t work as well for a state school. So the Spartans kept asking the Big Ten to let them in. Watching this unfold, the Irish concluded: Any enemy of our enemy must be a friend of ours.

Thus, in 1948, the Irish told the Spartans: Sure, for the first time in 27 years, we’ll play you. And they’ve kept doing it all but four years since.

The rivalry gave the Spartans added credibility, helping them win national titles in 1951 and 1952. The next year, when the Big Ten finally let the Spartans join, they celebrated by taking the league title in their first year.

The Irish had to wonder if boosting their friends to national prominence had perhaps worked too well. Since the Irish had won their last national title in 1949, the Spartans had won five.

It all came to a head on Nov. 19, 1966, in East Lansing. The radicalism that had already started growing in Ann Arbor, Madison and Berkeley hadn’t yet reached East Lansing or South Bend. Most students there were not yet focused on the draft or civil rights, but on football.

The game attracted 8,000 more fans than Spartan Stadium had seats – and for good reason. Before kick-off, the pundits were already calling it, “The Game of the Century.” Notre Dame entered the game undefeated, and ranked No. 1 in one poll. The Spartans were also undefeated, and ranked No. 1 in the other poll.

The nation would be watching – or trying to. In those days, colleges were allowed only one national telecast per season, and both teams had already used theirs up. But interest in the “Game of the Century” was so great, fans in the South and West wrote over 50,000 letters to ABC. Can you imagine people today writing 50,000 letters – not emails – to anyone, about anything?

It worked – sort of. ABC agreed to show the game on tape delay – which, before the advent of the internet and cell phones, still allowed most fans to watch it hours later without knowing who had actually won.

State scored first, and took a 10-7 lead into half-time. In the second half, Notre Dame managed to kick a field goal – just was enough to tie the game. The Irish got the ball back on their own 30-yard line, with a minute left and a chance to win the game.

But instead of playing to win, Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian started running out the clock. The crowd booed lustily, but Parseghian stuck to his guns. There was no overtime then, and he knew a tie would not cost the Irish a chance at another national title, the way Notre Dame’s narrow loss to Southern California the previous season had given the crown to Michigan State.

Not this time. When Notre Dame swamped Southern California the next weekend, 51-0, Parseghian won his first national title – but he’s been answering for his decision ever since.

The Spartans earned a share of the national title, too. But don’t feel sorry for either team. They played 10 games each, tied one, and shared a national title. Feel sorry for Alabama’s Bear Bryant, whose team won the SEC title, won the Sugar Bowl, didn’t lose to or tie anyone – and won nothing.

And that’s the story of the Game of the Century – the biggest game any college team ever… tied.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

John U. Bacon

From the outside, it looked like a typically dominant Michigan State basketball team. By the end of January, the Spartans were undefeated in the Big Ten, and ranked fifth in the nation. That record hid some problems the public couldn’t see, but Coach Tom Izzo could.

It wasn’t talent. The Spartans returned four starters, including Big Ten player of the year Kalin Lucas, from a team that had already reached the NCAA finals the previous year. The problem was simpler, but more serious: the players just didn’t care enough about each other.

The coaches did. In January, Izzo, his trainer, his video guy and Dave Pruder, his long-time equipment manager, all lost close relatives. And every time, they were there for each other. In the middle of the season, Izzo drove down with his trainer to South Bend for his father’s funeral. Pruder told me, “We knew we could rely on each other. But the players didn’t.”

The team’s problems came to the surface in February, when the Spartans dropped three straight games, and five spots in the rankings. They were able to right the ship, and grind out five wins in their last six games to earn a share of the Big Ten title – Izzo’s sixth. But they still hadn’t solved their central problem.

“Every team has got to learn to come together,” Pruder told me. “Some seasons, it takes longer than others, and some times it never happens. We kept winning, but something was still wrong. Even when we won the Big Ten title, something didn’t feel right.”

Izzo pushed them, and they pushed right back. He didn’t give in to them, but he didn’t give up on them, either – not a bad description of good parenting. But they just didn’t seem to understand that if you don’t care about each other, you will not play the way you should for each other.

Izzo’s concerns were validated when the Spartans lost to a mediocre Minnesota team in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. The NCAA selection committee punished the Spartans with a fifth-seed, almost unheard of for a Big Ten champion.

This time, it wasn’t Izzo, but the players who sounded the alarms. They held a players-only meeting to clear the air, and underscore what a great opportunity they had, if they could just come together in time to seize it.

Their newfound unity was tested in the second round against Maryland, when their star, Kalin Lucas, went down with a torn Achilles’ tendon. Izzo told his team Lucas was done. “So,” he said, “you’ve got to step it up. You owe it to him.”

They responded by beating Maryland at the buzzer. In the next game, they came from behind to beat Northern Iowa, and they took Tennessee on Sunday by shooting a free throw with 11 seconds left. They were not dominant, but for the first time all season, they were unified.

On their way down to Indianapolis Wednesday, the team bus stopped by Lucas’s apartment, where he’s recovering from his surgery with his mom’s help. He’ll join his teammates Saturday, when they play Butler in the Final Four – Izzo’s sixth in the last 12 years, the most of any coach over that stretch.

This is not Izzo’s best team. Far from it. But it might be his best coaching.

And it’s nice to know, as complicated as the game has gotten, that caring for each other is still the most important thing.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami of Ohio, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.