My Michigan Experience (a stream of consciousness)
My Michigan Experience (a stream of consciousness)
Going to a football game at Michigan is roughly equivalent to attending a NASCAR rally. Their stadium lies a good 40 feet beyond a chain-link fence, and because it has no concession stands and inadequate facilities, the interior of that fence is replete with temporary structures and porta-potties, further contributing to a junky carnival atmosphere.
Here are the highlights from my weekend misadventure:
When I arrived some Michigan fan in a papal tiara (with a Michigan logo on it) was making what I can only assume were ‘infallible’ pronouncements in Latin regarding Michigan’s victory. I looked at the guy I was attending the game with and said “I think that’s wildly inappropriate.” He responded to me by saying, “there were anti-Catholic bigots in the twentieth-century and there are anti-Catholic bigots in the twenty-first century, you should take comfort in that.”
Then I got into the stadium... I was sitting in a pocket of Notre Dame fans, but four rednecks two rows up, properly tattooed with the number ‘8,’ proved to be the biggest post-adolescent pudwackers I have ever observed in public. Their collective intelligence quotient probably topped-out at 120.
Now, in front of the rednecks were a couple of guys wearing Bowling Green apparel, and—as the game went on—it became evident that they were Irish fans. The dumbest of the four rednecks began yelling things at them roughly similar to: “y’all gonna git killt today, Rudy!” The Bowling Green guys would respond by pointing at the scoreboard and making pithy zingers that were well beyond the collective comprehension of the redneck imbeciles.
(Incidentally, the lead ignorant redneck hillbilly turned around at one point in the game, saw my friend in a green tshirt, and started yelling “thank you Lord, my dreams have bin answered, it’s gonna be a long day, Irish.”)
Now what was especially humorous was, when anything even remotely good would happen, that redneck would jump up and down and make fun of those two guys, collectively referring to them as ‘Rudy.’ But when anything bad happened, the four of them would just sit there with their ignorant traps shut. At one point in the game he asked the two Bowling Green guys why they were cheering for the Irish, and they said they were Ohio State and Notre Dame fans. Then he said, “I saw Maurice Clarett at McDonald’s and he was takin’ my order.” My friend interrupted that exchange with, “oh, I’m sorry, you must have been mistaken, McDonald’s employees are not allowed to serve other McDonald’s employees.” The redneck turned around and started screaming incoherently inches from my friend’s face.
There were numerous other experiences, as he kept yelling “Notre Dame sucks” during the National Anthem, and—when Rhema McKnight was injured—began jumping around screaming “he’s gonna be out for the season!”
Coupled with the Michigan fans booing Carr at the end of the first half, the students junking up their own field, and the student section cheering as if there were a touchdown when Darius Walker cramped-up, I would rank a football game at the University of Michigan as the most singularly white-trash episode I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing in person.
And then I find out they pelted their own recruits with water bottles too! Michigan sucks.
