it’s OK unless
overly convoluted
entirely stupid
David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer, in his article, College football Week 11 highlights: Top plays, games, takeaways, commented on the the University of Michigan and sign-gate writing:
It’s a story that will be adjudicated — by the Big Ten, by fans, by media, by courts, by Connor Stalions’ vacuum company investors — with only a passing nod to due process, objective truth or reasoned context.
After all, it’s OK to discern the opponent’s signs from TV copy, or the all-22, or to call up former graduate assistants to dish on their old team, but it’s not OK to buy a ticket, sit in the stands and watch. Whether that makes sense might be a worthy question, but the only issue at hand is whether Michigan broke a rule — a literal written rule and, perhaps, the unwritten rule in which gamesmanship is OK unless it’s overly convoluted, entirely stupid and executed by a guy with a hilarious name.
Whether any of this makes sense might be a worthy question.
I am reminded of something my brother Jack once said.
Jack went to Michigan in late 1960’s as was as close to being a hippie as any one in our family.
Not sure how much, but I do think he took part in the anti-war protests that made Ann Arbor and Port Huron famous.
All I know for sure is that there is a story of Jack talking with one of his Ann Arbor buddies, both of them now respected lawyers, and the buddy said my bother, with some relief, ‘aren’t you happy that Ann Arbor Police announced they had just cleaned house and threw out all those records from when we were in school?’
I also remember a summer afternoon where Jack fell in the lake with his wallet in his back pocket.
Like you do in those moments, he emptied his wallet of everything and spread it out to dry and wonder of wonder, there was his 15 year old draft card.
He looked at if for a minute.
Then he got some matches and lit it on fire and watched as his draft card burned up.
“I thought it would feel like more,” he said.
But I digress.
Jack would watch Michigan football games with us as a family and he was such a fan, he made notes of almost every play on a yellow pad as he watched.
I asked him once what he did with his notes and said “nothing, he just took notes to keep from falling asleep.
So about 20 years, in a marketing effort, the University of Michigan made these cutouts, twenty five feet high, out of steel panels from the words of the Michigan fight song.
These panels were fastened to the outside of the stadium is what became known as the ‘Halo’.
It lasted two years as the the fans and alumni went nutz.
How ugly.
How crass.
How stupid.
How dumb.
Awful.
Didn’t seem to be particularly well executed.
Ugliest.
I I asked Jack what he thought.
He was silent then he said, “Entirely Appropriate!”
Wading through sign-gate, I know exactly what he means.
No Haiku For You 