Wolverine Liberation Army

The Smoke of the Chimneys is the breath of the Wolverines

Today, Comrades, we come to you to remind you of the oft-told story of Joseph Stalin. Facing a domestic industrial complex ravaged by the Russian Civil War, Stalin embarked on a program of forced, brutal industrialization. Over the course of nine years, the nation’s coal output (which fueled their manufacturing) more than tripled, employment sky-rocketed, the population’s education level grew exponentially, and vast manufacturing plans began to dot the landscape in Moscow, Gorky, Stalingrad, and Cheliablinsk. Investment in higher education grew vastly, as the Soviet nation refused to rely on foreign help in their technological advances.

This program wasn’t without its costs – minors often needed to work 16 hours a day to meet quotas (failure to do so could result in a charge of treason), safety wasn’t even a minor concern, and the reallocation of resources from farming to industry sparked a devastating famine.

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To me, this is so mindblowing that it could only have come from Eroc and CoachBT.  They are ranking the Michigan quarterback by intangibles.  Let me repeat that, they are RANKING quarterbacks by INTANGIBLES.  Intangibles, which by definition cannot be measured.  $5 to whomever can explain this to me:

Intangibles: In our opinion this is the #1 criteria to look for in quarterbacks! Leadership, swagger, and feel for game.

Intangibles, more important to a QB than arm strength, accuracy, or playmaking ability (this will come up later).

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A contribution from haphazard contributor imafreak.

Exposition:

I came in out of the cold blackness of a life innocent of college football in 1991 when I arrived at the University of Michigan for graduate school. I had 15+ years of NFL experience but I was a college football virgin (now, Bo, he was the one at Michigan? And Woody was the one who punched that dude, Charlie Bauman [because everybody knows Charlie Bauman!] right?) Unlike your standard undergraduate, I didn’t immediately embrace my burgeoning MICHIGAN MAN status. Part of this can be attributed to the odd dichotomy that is graduate school in my field. It is assumed you will work like a dog, be treated worse than a dog, and paid far less. Yet, work you must, the harder the better, because that is the only way out. I also had one foot in and one out of my new life because of a hideously co-dependent long distance relationship. Fortunately, that coupling gave bloom to a noxious death flower that opened its petals late in my first year and then withered to a black husk (for a literary example of the death bloom see Tolkien, Morgul Vale, Minas Morgul, Mordor.)  

It wasn’t until 1994 when I’d hit bottom hard enough, thanks to a series of the first professional failures in my life (part my fault and part lessons learned and messages received about how things work in the world of high powered science) that I became more than a bandwagon Michigan football fan. By then the faculty had impressed on me that I had better embrace my life at Michigan, ironically by surrendering it, to the tune of 7 days and 80+ hours a week. Love for the football team accompanied my acceptance that Michigan and I were inseparable for the time being.   

1991 was a heck of a season to be Wolverine. Sure they got shellacked by FSU and Steve Entman ate the OL but otherwise it was a Buckeye embarrassing, 4^th and 1 history making, Heisman party. 1992 was the weird season of ties (which had the benefit of demonstrating how stupid ties are to everyone but Lou Holtz) but Michigan returned the Rose Bowl favor to Washington with the emergence of Ty Wheatley. 1993 started out badly (and ended Michigan’s run of 5 straight Big Ten titles) but culminated in the first of several mind-boggling season (and sanity) destroying victories over OSU and a bowl blow out win. In 1994 Michigan was finally (or once again, depending on your view point) set up for the Huge Magical Season (HMS). 

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I wrote this last summer but never posted it. Since Uniscorn is starting to creak under the pressure of 4,000 posts, I figured this would be a good time to do another edition of WLA B-Sides.

In the roaring 900s, Vikings led by Erik the Red settled in a then hospitable Greenland after being chased from their previous settlements, most likely for murder and general hell-raising unacceptable even to their marauding brothers.

The Greenland Norse carved out a European style settlement along the coast of the frozen island, relying upon intensive work, imports, and luck to survive. They maintained the latest European fashions, practiced Christianity, and survived for 500 years before disappearing. Looked upon now as a failed or collapsed society, the Greenland Norse survived in the intimidating landscape for a longer period than Europeans have lived on our much friendlier and resource abundant North American home; leading me to question whether they were a failed society or a society that had merely exhausted their use to the world and themselves, succeeding for a period far longer than they had any right to. A massive success, in other words.

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In BSD's world, he would have been an accountant.

The year is 1892. The place is Birmingham, Alabama. The University of Alabama ponders whether to sanction it’s first ever football game, against a team comprised of a hodge-podge of local Birmingham high school players, and a second against a group of east-coast transplants who were much more familiar with rugby. Traditional powers such as Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and Lafayette have a iron-clad grip on the elite football talent – nearly all of it resides in the Northeast. Do they even bother? Football is a sport of the Northeast elite, not the still agrarian south. Well, if you’re Mike at Black Shoe Diaries, you just mix yourself a mint julep and say “fuck it” – that’s too steep a hill to climb.

In the doldrums of the off-season, the Nittany Bloggers have done some cursory research and oddly leveled their sites on…the Michigan Club Lacrosse team (!?) and their quest for Varsity status, coming, ultimately to the conclusion of “it ain’t gonna happen”. Mike tosses out a few points leading with:

The big question is whether the state of Michigan can support the varsity team that so many people up north desire.  The answer is pretty simple: without some type of major east coast pipeline, they don’t stand a chance.

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