Rivalry

My sophomore year at Michigan was 1998, one of only two years during the long and glorious reign of John Cooper that featured an Ohio State victory in the Game. That one was in Columbus and so I watched in a crowded dorm room that quickly settled into a pissed little funk. A few doors down, we heard the wrong kind of shouts coming from another room. Someone was pulling for Ohio State. Loudly.

It's inevitable that a few poor souls who grew up fans of Ohio State want to be engineers or lawyers or American Studies PhDs (#1 in the country, baby! woo!) and common sense leads them to That School Up North even if their skin crawls at every block M they see. And surely there are a few Michigan fans who wish to learn the fine art of motor vehicle repair. They still carry the rivalry in their blood.

In 1957, one Woody Hayes published a 1957 tome titled "Football at Ohio State".* A faithful reader points to the title page of the University of Michigan's copy:

(Click for big.)

Thirty years of back and forth smack-talk. "1968 - ONE WE WON'T FORGET" meets "HOW ABOUT 1969?" Three different people mention that "Roses are Blue." One Ohio State fan scribbles scores from the Ten Year War down. And, of course, "FUCK MICHIGAN." You stay classy, etc.

This is the heart of rivalry, at once stupid and glorious.

*(Which is a totally fascinating book I demand some Ohio State blogger dissect thoroughly. Page 82 is titled "The Causes of Interceptions" and starts "Since the vogue nowadays is to think positively, some pedagogues no doubt will look askance at such an obviously negative approach as this." Woody Hayes may have been a linebacker-punching, hate-filled lunatic but the number of coaches who would deploy "pedagogue" as a snooty put-down in 2008 is between zero and Mike Leach, and you have to respect that.)