John U. Bacon

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.

Pioneer came into the annual rivalry with 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 rights – and even those weren’t much in question.

With a minute left, Pioneer enjoyed an impressive 35-6 lead. At that point, it’s customary for the winning coach to tell his team to run out the clock by taking a knee, instead of trying to score again. But Pioneer threw a pass, and then another, and then another – one of them to the endzone – in a clear display of poor sportsmanship. That was the night’s first mistake.

This made Huron head coach Cory Gildersleeve apoplectic. He yelled across the field to Pioneer head coach Paul Test to knock it off. That was the second mistake made by the men that night. If your team is getting crushed, and you’re the head coach, you don’t worry about the other guys. You get your team to the locker room, and start working to get better.

When the game ended the players had no problem shaking hands, and saying good luck. But not the head coaches. At mid-field, Gildersleeve started pointing his finger and yelling at Paul Test – a coach I’ve known and admired for years. Test told Gildersleeve he didn’t call those pass plays – and that was the third mistake. That answer simply doesn’t fly. When you’re the head coach, you’re responsible for everything that your coaches and players do – and that certainly includes the plays your staff calls.

It turns out Test has a history of running up the score, and leaving bad feelings behind. Just ask Dexter, which Pioneer beat 69-0 this year. After the game, Pioneer’s players put one of their assistant coaches – who had been released as Dexter’s head coach, but still teaches there – on their shoulders, and marched him right in front of the Dexter bench, as if to ask, “How do ya like me now?” Dexter’s answer: Not very much, thank you. But no fights broke out.

The Huron-Pioneer game probably would’ve ended the same way – with some hard feelings, but nothing more – until an unnamed Pioneer assistant coach saw the two head coaches arguing, broke from the handshake line and ran up to Huron’s head coach. It’s not clear whether he pushed Gildersleeve or punched him, but there’s no question he made contact. A Pioneer player pulled his coach away, but the coach jumped right back in – and just like that, a bench-clearing brawl broke out. Call those mistakes four and five.

That’s the bad news. The good news is just about everything that followed. No students rushed the field. The players, with only a few exceptions, tried to break things up. The schools’ athletic directors – both women – bravely jumped into the middle and helped end the melee. Since then, everybody’s apologized, and both teams’ captains have met to mend the fences.

Both head coaches received two game suspensions – one from the state, and one from the district. A few players will also be suspended for the next game – which, for the Pioneers, could be costly, as they push for the playoffs. Perhaps most important, the offending Pioneer assistant coach, who seems to have absolutely no idea what high school sports are supposed to teach, has been fired. Good.

But when I take a step back, I’m struck most by who started it, and who ended it. I can only hope that the men who run these teams start acting more like the women who supervise them and the teenagers who play for them.

On Friday night, it was women and children first. The men finished last.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” He also co-authored “A Legacy of Champions,” and provided commentary for “Black and Blue: The Story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward, and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game.” 

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

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 the most profound truth of the universe.

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 franchises, but she could’ve been. From 1982 to 1995, seven NFL teams moved – about a quarter of the league – which is just one more reason I’ve always preferred college football: universities don’t move.

During that same stretch, Michigan played Notre Dame in the first or second weekend of the season every year, and the games were so good Sports Illustrated gave the game four of ten cover stories, and four features – eclipsing the NFL’s opening weekend, and tennis’s U.S. Open.

The rivalry had almost everything going for it, including history. In 1887, the men from Michigan were traveling to play a game against Northwestern. When they found out, en route, that Northwestern had canceled, they got off in South Bend – and literally taught those boys how to play the game. It remains the oldest rivalry among major college powers.

It had tension: In 1910, when Michigan’s Fielding Yost accused Notre Dame of using ineligible players, he cut off the series. The tear grew bigger at a track meet in 1923, when Yost got into an explosive argument with Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, over…the gap between the hurdles. (I’m not making this up.) Yost vowed to keep Notre Dame out of the Big Ten – and unfortunately for the league, he succeeded.

After that, Michigan played Notre Dame just twice, during World War II. But at a banquet in the late sixties, Notre Dame athletic director Moose Krause sat next to his Michigan counterpart, Don Canham, and leaned over to say, “Don, Michigan and Notre Dame should be playing football.” They were the two best teams in the game’s history, they both had reputations for doing it the right way, and they were only three hours apart. Canham couldn’t argue against the obvious logic of it.

After a few years of tricky negotiations, they re-launched the rivalry in 1978, and it was an immediate hit. The game held a special place at the beginning of the season, giving Michigan a perfect symmetry of rivals: Notre Dame to start, Michigan State in the middle, and Ohio State at the end. It also kicked off college football nationwide, and gave even casual fans a marker of the seasons: when Michigan plays Notre Dame, fall has begun.

The rivalry had everything college football fans love: In addition to history and tension, it boasted classic uniforms and stadiums – designed by the same architects – and unequaled parity. The night before the rivalry restarted in 1978, Moose Krause said, “When we look back 25 years from today, we will probably see that Michigan won half of the games and Notre Dame won half of the games.” Thirty-four years later, we see that Michigan has won 14, and Notre Dame 14.

Years later, according to John Kryk – who wrote the authoritative book on the rivalry, “Natural Enemies” – when President Gerald Ford spotted Krause at a golf tournament, he praised him in a room full of dignitaries for restarting the rivalry. “It’s good for Michigan, it’s good for Notre Dame, and it’s good for college football.” On all three fronts, President Ford was right.

After the Big Ten admitted Penn State in 1990, giving it an awkward eleven teams, the league reached out to Notre Dame. The Irish returned the Big Ten’s original snub, so the league gave Notre Dame’s spot to Nebraska a couple years ago. Last week, Notre Dame joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in every sport but football, though the Irish have agreed to play five ACC teams a year. The deal revealed that both of these once-proud and stable institutions – Notre Dame and the ACC – were willing to sell their histories. They also sold out their fans, alumni and athletes – all for a few more bucks.

An hour before Saturday’s kickoff, Notre Dame handed Michigan’s athletic director a letter, ending one of the greatest rivalries in sports. Notre Dame will replace Michigan with teams like Wake Forest and Clemson, while Michigan will replace Notre Dame with – well, probably teams like Wake Forest and Clemson.

The NFL was created as a business designed to make money, but the college game was supposed to have higher ideals. That’s getting harder to argue.

I’ve said it before, but I have to say it again: The people who love college football seem to have little in common with the people who run it.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” He also co-authored “A Legacy of Champions,” and provided commentary for “Black and Blue: The Story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward, and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game.” 

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

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 that’s 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 of the pack.

The experts were looking pretty smart – until Michigan started mastering head coach John Beilein’s unconventional system. The Wolverines beat Michigan State at home by a single point, then knocked off sixth-ranked Ohio State – just two of Michigan’s 15 straight home victories. With just a week left in the regular season, the Wolverines had a chance to win their first Big Ten title since 1986 – the longest drought in school history.

On paper, this team had no business competing for a banner. Before the season started, they lost their biggest star, junior Darius Morris, to the Los Angeles Lakers. They replaced him with a freshman – from Columbus, of all places. But they bought into Beilein’s system, and it’s working, thanks to great senior leadership, a lot of grit, and a little luck.

But with everything to gain, they lost their last home contest to a mediocre Purdue team. They needed a minor miracle to grab a share of the title: the Spartans had to lose their last two games.

State got creamed at Indiana. One down. Then, on the last day of the season, the Spartans faced Ohio State for all the marbles. If they won, they would secure their seventh Big Ten title in 15 years, and their third outright. But if they lost, they’d have to share it with both Ohio State and Michigan.

I’m guessing they probably didn’t want to do that, any more than Wolverine fans wanted to root for the Buckeyes. But desperate times require desperate measures.

After blasting out to a 15-point lead, State lost third-leading scorer Branden Dawson to a knee injury, then lost their lead. But they fought back to tie the game with less than a minute left. The Buckeyes, however, walked right down the court, hit a jump shot at the very last second, and won the game.

As one Michigan fan said on Facebook: “I’ll go back to my [Buckeye] jokes tomorrow, but a giant thank you to Ohio State for helping deliver the Big Ten (co-)title back to Ann Arbor.”

It was over. Yes, the Spartans had earned a share of the title, but when they posed in front of their banner, they looked more like a team that had just lost a two-game lead and a 15-point advantage, and had to share their title not just with the despised Buckeyes, but with the truly hated Wolverines.

It echoed the football season, when the Spartans beat Michigan, won the division, and almost won the conference title game – then were rewarded with a lesser bowl game than Michigan’s. In basketball, once again, State had a better year, and once again, Michigan got what State wanted.

And that’s why, even though they got the exact same thing – a share of the title – the Spartans are despondent and the Wolverines are ecstatic.

Gore Vidal once said, “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” The Spartans succeeded, but denied themselves the deliciousness of Michigan’s downfall. It’s a safe bet they are determined to get the last laugh in the Big Ten tournament this weekend.

The Madness is just beginning.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

The rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State in football is one of the best in the country. But it obscures the fact that, in just about every other sport, Michigan’s main rival is Michigan State.

In men’s basketball, there’s no team either school would rather beat than the other. The problem is, for a rivalry to really catch on, both sides need to be at the top of their game. Think of Bo versus Woody, Borg-McEnroe and, of course, Ali-Frazier, which required three death-defying fights just to determine that one of them might have been slightly better than the other.

The Michigan-Michigan State basketball rivalry, in contrast, usually consists of at least one lightweight. When Michigan got to the NCAA final in 1976, Michigan State had not been to the tournament in 17 years.

When Michigan State won the NCAA title in 1979, Michigan finished in the bottom half of the Big Ten.

When Michigan won back-to-back Big Ten titles in 1985 and ‘86, State wasn’t close. And when State rolled up four straight Big Ten titles under Tom Izzo, Michigan was headed for probation, and yet another coach.

Around that time, Izzo told me there was no reason, given the basketball talent in this state, that this rivalry could not be every bit as good as Duke and North Carolina. But for more than a decade, it was anything but. Izzo owned Michigan, winning 18 of 21 games through 2010.

But Michigan managed to sweep State last year for the first time in 13 years. And on Tuesday night, for only the fifth time in the rivalry’s long history, Michigan and Michigan State both entered their contest ranked in the top 20.

This was it. The rivalry finally looked like a rivalry.

The stage had improved, too. Crisler Arena used to be too dark and too warm, with seats that were too soft and students scattered high among the gold seats, with a jazz band, for some reason, playing standards more suited to a smoky night club than a basketball arena. Crisler was set up not for an intense basketball game, but a Saturday matinee – or a nap.

But the place has been redone. They added lights, then tore out a section of cushy seats and replaced them with wooden benches nobody wants to sit in, and put the students there – who stand the entire game anyway. They’ve reserved the endzone for the pep band, which plays – here’s a novel idea – band music. Now the place actually gives an advantage to the home team.

But none of the improved “atmospherics” could change the fact that the Wolverines hadn’t beaten a top 10 Spartan team since a guy named Magic Johnson played for the green and white. Yes, that’s 1979.

Tuesday’s game actually lived up to its billing, with the battle raging for the full 40 minutes. Michigan built an 11-point lead, State erased it, then it was back-and-forth the rest of the way. With just 36 seconds left, the Wolverines took a one-point lead. But with just one shot, State could take the game.

The arena was electric – something it had not been for decades. With just three seconds left, State’s Draymond Green drove to the basket, jumped up, and fired. The ball hit the backboard, then the rim – and out. They got the rebound, put it back up – and missed. The ball landed into the hands of Tim Hardaway, Jr., who launched it into the air to start the celebration.

To be sure, it was a big victory for the Wolverines.

But it could be bigger than that: the start of a truly great rivalry.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” 

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

Ten years ago, ESPN viewers voted the Michigan-Ohio State football game the best rivalry in the nation. Not just in college football, or football in general, but in all sports. Since 1935, it’s held a privileged spot as the last game of the Big Ten season. More college football fans have seen this rivalry, in person and on TV, than any other.

HBO has produced dozens of sports documentaries, but only one on college football: the Michigan-Ohio State game. They titled it simply, “The Rivalry.” They did not feel they had to explain it.

But when the Big Ten added Nebraska, everything seemed up in the air, including the Michigan-Ohio State game. Next fall the Big Ten will have 12 teams, playing in two divisions, culminating in a title game – all new.

So that raised a few possibilities – not to mention plenty of rumors and fears.

If they kept Michigan and Ohio State in the same division, the teams could never meet in the title game. But if they put them in different divisions, they might have to play again in the title game just one week later. One rumor had them moving the game from its traditional date at the end of the season – or even interrupting the rivalry, instead of playing every year.

The fans, former players and reporters – including me – responded with their “usual level of cool maturity,” as Dave Barry would say, “similar to the way Moe reacts when he is poked in the eyeballs by Larry and Curly.” One Ohio politician even went so far as to introduce a resolution demanding the game never be moved.

Rob Lytle, an Ohio native turned Michigan All-American, said, “Bo would have hated this. I’m glad he and Woody don’t have to go through it. They’re probably marching around throwing tantrums right now.” He was probably right.

College football is famous for fixing what ain’t broken, but the idea of moving or even interrupting the greatest rivalry in sports would have been the dumbest idea since New Coke. Actually, that’s not fair – because no one made you drink New Coke.

Fans expect to see the Rose Bowl in January, the Super Bowl in February, and March Madness in, yes, March. And they expect to see Michigan play Ohio State in late November. If they moved it, it would be no better than, say, Tennessee-Florida, or Oregon-Southern Cal. Those are not classics, just games, and no one cares when they play them. Not so The Rivalry.

Besides, the odds of a championship rematch are actually pretty small. In the last 22 years, the two rivals have finished first and second only four times – less than twice a decade. And on those rare occasions when there is a rematch, it won’t dampen interest, but ignite it.

Take the most recent example: in 2006, Michigan was undefeated, and ranked second in the country. Ohio State was undefeated, and ranked first. The Wolverines’ comeback attempt fell just short, and they lost, 42-39. But the game was so good, almost half the country wanted them to meet again for the national title. So who wouldn’t watch them tee it up a week later for the Big Ten title? The ratings would be astronomical.

So what’d the Big Ten honchos finally decide? They stunned everyone – including me – and came up with a format that’s intelligent, even elegant. They listened to their constituents and left the Michigan-Ohio State game at the end of the season, right where it belongs.

There’s only one downside: I had written my commentary a few days ago blasting away in anticipation of the sporting world’s dumbest decision, and instead I have to close this by saying: “You fooled me. Well done.”

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

In their century-old rivalry, Michigan holds a commanding advantage over Michigan State. But since 1950, the margin is much closer. Michigan has won 34 games, and the Spartans 23.

The rivalry is special not just because of the many Big Ten titles it’s determined or the national coverage it attracts. What sets it apart from other long-running feuds is the relationship between the schools, which fuels this duel with more emotion than any other.

The Spartans will tell you it’s their biggest game of the year. The Wolverines will tell you no loss is more painful. Unlike Michigan’s other rivalries against Notre Dame and Ohio State, this duel depends not on the teams’ records but on a constant regional turf war. It is a sibling rivalry, not subject to change. That’s why, even when one team is down, the tension is still high.

Chris Hutchinson, one of Michigan’s former All-American defensive tackles, once said, “Ohio State and Notre Dame were rivalries, but Michigan State was a war, almost a civil war, a real hatred.” He explained that most of the players on both teams were recruited by both schools. Once they pick one, they become polarized. “We just out-and-out didn’t like each other.”

The dislike – okay, genuine hatred – undoubtedly started in 1947.

That was Fritz Crisler’s last year as Michigan’s head coach, and Biggie Munn’s first year leading the Spartans. When Crisler had coached at Minnesota, Biggie Munn was one of his captains. When Crisler came to Michigan, he hired Munn as one of his assistants. So you’d think they would have been close. But for reasons I’ve never been able to determine, they hated each others’ guts.

In that 1947 game, their only contest against each other, the teacher made sure the student remembered the game by sending the Spartans home with a 55-0 pasting.

Crisler got his wish: Munn never, ever forgot that game – nor Crisler’s attempts to keep the Spartans out of the Big Ten. And he vowed to avenge both dastardly acts.

He did – many times over. During the ’50s and ’60s, the Spartans dominated Michigan, losing only four games over those two decades.

The Wolverines have since regained the upper hand, thanks mainly to Bo Schembechler’s 17-4 mark against State, but only Ohio State has beaten Michigan more often than have the Spartans. In the entire history of college football, only the Michigan-Ohio State games have attracted more fans. And no one, not even the Buckeyes, have upset the Wolverines more often than the Spartans have.

It’s an underrated rivalry – but not to the players.

Almost everybody who’s played in it, on either side, would agree with former Michigan defender Ian Gold: “That was truly the hardest hitting game we played every year.”

Whoever wins tomorrow, it’s a safe bet that both teams will never be as sore all season as they will be on Sunday. But it’s just as certain that, whoever wins, will feel a hell of a lot better about it.

Editor’s note: Saturday’s Michigan-Michigan State game will be played in East Lansing, with a noon kick-off and TV coverage on the Big Ten Network.

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.