I’m watching WolverineHistorian’s video of Michigan – Ohio State from 1997 and trying to ascribe the proper adjective to it. Old men in Michigan berets and horselike steams of breath and that all-too-familiar industrial gray sky of the oncoming Michigan winter that I wouldn’t know firsthand for another nine years. It looks cold—you can tell, even though the footage is a VHS recording transferred to a computer and uploaded to YouTube. Keith Jackson’s timeless voice shines through the monaural fuzz of the speakers, defying any and all technological miscues. It might be beautiful.

I was nine years old on November 22, 1997, closer to ten. We had a cable box on our TV set, the oldest kind possible, with the rectangular digital numbers whose corners didn’t connect, the numbers you might find on an old alarm clock or a microwave. My mother was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt, but not the one I can remember. The one I remember was a National Champions sweatshirt with a list of all opponents and final scores from the 1997 season on the back and some roses adorning the winged helmet on the front. That sweatshirt didn’t exist yet. Her mood was likely cautious; she went to Michigan, she rooted for its success. But she often couldn’t tell what was a successful play and what was a disaster so she consigned herself to yips of indeterminate emotion.

We were in the basement. Our basement was strange, and we never spent time in it. We once watched Moulin Rouge in that basement together as a family, but it was dark, and its wooden walls were bloated and too heavily lacquered. The floor was cold linoleum that often spawned pools of water for inexplicable reasons. No journey down those basement steps was complete without turning on the space heater no bigger or more powerful than a toaster.

And of course my dad. Dad was scurrying around. Noises of vague approbation and revulsion fell out of his mouth all at once. I don’t remember what Dad was wearing other than a stiff-billed Michigan hat, with the thin M that Lloyd Carr would come to prefer in place of the blockier one. Beyond that, I only know that he was wearing Michigan all over. And boat shoes, undoubtedly, because he loves those.

And that dirty plush football was around somewhere, possibly clenched in my hands. It was old and beaten and weathered beyond responsible use even twelve years ago.

I can remember what the cascade of tortilla chips looked like as my mother dumped them into a wooden bowl before kickoff as well as Marcus Ray’s hit on David Boston. As well as Charles Woodson’s endzone interception or his punt return touchdown. That game was just a moment, a central and unifying memory in a series of memories in which I often find myself swimming.

Football games are a series of moments. Michigan’s win over Ohio State on that day exists now only as a memory. Every game I watched as a child is only a memory. Even my games in Michigan Stadium’s student section, from that surreal first game against Vanderbilt to the Appalachian State loss which confined me to a metal bench in Section 32 for an hour, is a memory. And after tomorrow, every game I’ve ever watched as a student will be nothing more than a memory. They will all be moments forever lost to the rotation of the earth.

Guess what: it means nothing. The passage of time is not a variable. I used to be a child; soon I will be a college graduate. No amount of sorrow or regret can alleviate this, nor should it. Though football games and the memories they leave behind are no more than moments, a life cannot be lived within them. It took me awhile to learn this; hopefully you already know.

In truth, there is no reason to despair. Not on my end, nor on the end of anyone who has ever felt an inkling of admiration for the University of Michigan. You might be an alumnus of a university other than Michigan. You might be a high school student shipping off to another part of the country for the next four years, leaving Ann Arbor behind. You might watch Michigan football because you like the helmets; it doesn’t matter. That is not a moment. That is you. That is me.

I might be old and stupid and toothless by the time Michigan wins another championship, just as I was young and stupid and overtoothed for its last. That my four years of undergraduate life here have seen turmoil on and off the field is merely a momentary penance for the bright days of the past and the even brighter days of the future.

I really enjoy this Pacino hype video, but I have to say I disagree with the dialogue. We’re not in Hell–just purgatory. And as any good Catholic can tell you, purgatory is only a temporary location of the soul. You can climb out of it, and Michigan will.

I say this with a certainty that can only spring from the lips of an utterly subjective asshole, the kind of guy who actually throws down money for a beer cozy with the Michigan logo on it and makes people stop talking for Michigan offensive drives even during away games and he’s merely looking at a television screen.

I’m taking a class this semester with Ricky Reyes. For those who don’t know, he’s technically a wide receiver. He wears number 37. Ricky has one career touchdown, on a punt block, and two career receptions, both thrown by David Cone against Delaware State. Ricky doesn’t play much.

I’ve been sitting next to Ricky in this 10 am class for the past three months. I congratulated him on his two catches against Delaware State and on his captaincy for the Purdue game. He’s been very gracious both times. On Tuesday I gave a presentation to the class as a slice of the participation grade. I don’t know how to speak publicly without attempting to inject humor into whatever boring subject upon which I’m forced to ramble. So I did, and the class appreciated my efforts to lighten the discussion, including Ricky. He said I did a nice job. So I told him something.

I don’t know that many members of the Michigan football team very well, and it appears now that I never will. I don’t think I could call any of them friends, and only a handful would recognize my name if you said it to them.

But they are still my peers. They’re students with backpacks and not enough sleep and unshaven lumberings into 9 am classes. They are guys, experiencing the same awkward and difficult leap from childhood to manhood as any of us, with so much more at stake than most students could imagine.

They’ve also bled, and broken bones, and sacrificed, for this school. Whether they win or lose, they’ve given more to Michigan than I ever could. And for that, they deserve more than a moment. I hope somehow I can give that to them.

I’ll be 21 on November 21, 2009, closer to 22. I can’t claim to know what the final score will be. All I know is that I will never be more proud or more grateful to stand in Michigan Stadium than I will be tomorrow when that refurbished scoreboard ticks down to a line of zeroes in the fourth quarter and Carl Grapentine thanks me for coming.

Tomorrow is not the end. It’s only the end of a moment. And I want to thank everyone for making it wonderful.