was an actual need
bigger, bigger, bigger, best?
wasn’t that at all

When I was a kid growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the 1970’s, fall afternoons meant football.

Michigan football.

University of Michigan football.

It was hard to miss.

My Dad was into what was called Hi-Fi or High Fidelity sound systems and he had wired our whole house and with a click of a button, his sound system would play in any room, or as he liked it, all of the rooms of the house.

Just before noon on Saturday’s he would tune into WUOM Ann Arbor in time to hear the words, “The Wolverines are on the air” and then the deep bass of the voice of Michigan Football (for UOM listeners) Tom Hemingway would welcome us either to Ann Arbor or West Lafayette, Indiana or Champaign, Illinois or wherever Michigan was playing that day and the broadcast of the game would be the backdrop to another fall weekend afternoon.

Every week.

The format of the broadcast more or less got embedded into your subconscious and when game breaks were made, the same breaks used year after year, you could recite them along with the broadcast.

One game break always came at the end of the 3rd quarter.

“Highlight films of todays game” it would start, “will be available this …” and a list of the locations and times across the state where fans could go and watch FILMS … 16mm movies of the latest game.

My memory says that Grand Rapids fans could go the University Club at Noon on Thursdays.

I never knew anyone who went to see these films but that was what fans had to do to WATCH the Wolverines.

Unless, by chance, the game was TV.

Back then there was only one or two college football games on any Saturday.

Televised games were seen as so powerful a recruiting tool that every team was limited to just two appearances a year with an extra game every other year so no team could be on more than 5 times in two years.

If you wanted to see the Wolverines on a weekly basis, it was game films.

It was game films, OR, you went to see the game.

There was time when going to see a Michigan Football game, or any professional athletic team or concert was all about the event.

Over 100,000 people would pack themselves into Michigan Stadium to do one thing.

Watch a football game.

100,000 and everyone, for the most part, focused on what was going down on the field.

Talk about unity.

Talk about one out of many.

Talk about a shared community experience.

One of my college roommate’s was from Ann Arbor and his folks had a set of 4 seasons tickets and in the years after college, I would often get a call and be invited to a game.

One year, due to wedding, my buddy’s folks couldn’t go to a game and the tickets were offered to me and my wife.

It was the 1991 Michigan – Notre Dame game.

As an aside, we got to our seats and I greeted most of the fans sitting around us.

My wife asked, ‘How do you know all these people?’

I told her that these were seats that Scott’s (my roommate) Parents had for 20 years and everyone who sat there knew everyone.

I then added, ” … and they know if you are NOT supposed to sit here.”

A guy in front of us turned around and caught my wife’s eye and with a big smile, nodded a very firm agreement.

This was the game that is known for a 4th quarter touchdown catch that won Desmond Howard the Heisman Trophy.

One play that won the most valuable player of the YEAR award?

One play in the first game of the year that won the most valuable player of the YEAR award?

YUP!

And I can see it like it was yesterday.

Up 17-14 late in the 4th QTR with 4th down and ONE FOOT at the ND 25, Michigan went for it.

This alone brought 110,000 people to their feet.

Quarterback Elvis Grbac dropped back to pass and looked right, cocked his arm, the crowd held its breath … and pulled his arm down.

The crowd exhaled, thinking the pass play was gone, but maybe maybe maybe, Elvis might fall over and get one foot for the 1st down.

Then Grbac half turned and leaned over so far backwards he almost fell and threw the ball hard and high.

And the crowd again sucked in all the air in Michigan Stadium.

The disappoint of Michigan fans rippled through the crowd like a wave that broke against the jubilation of any ND fan in the crowd.

With the ball in the air going towards no one and no where but the empty corner of the end zone, there was blur along the right sideline.

Like a genie out of a bottle or the sudden appearance of a ghost, teeny tiny #21, Desmond Howard flew and I mean flew, and I mean from the 15 yard line to the corner of the end zone, little Desmond FLEW, parallel to the astro turf surface, flew, never more then 3 feet off the ground.

Now there was no oxygen in that stadium.

Time stopped.

It was like those flashback scenes in a movie where what I saw was like still pictures played in fast succession instead of real life in real time.

The stadium, 110,000 people, for a split second went silent.

The blur that was little Desmond met up the football and he caught the ball with both hands, hugged to his body and fell into the end zone.

And that place exploded!

Everyone as one, focused on that one single second, that moment in time, all part of one collective thought.

Pandemonium, as the papers would report, ensued.

There was no waiting for a review.

There was no need for any other decision by a ref other than TOUCHDOWN.

There was no replay in the stadium.

My memory tells me that is how it happened and that is good enough for me.

The game day experience.

What, really, WHAT could be better than that?

30 Years later, Michigan has the answer.

Bigger, better TV scoreboards in the Stadium.

According to a story in the Detroit Free Press, Michigan is putting the final touches on what will be the 3rd largest scoreboards in the country.

Oh Boy!

According to the story, “This wasn’t ‘how do we spend more money, how do we go bigger, bigger, bigger,’ it wasn’t that at all.”

It was this paragraph that gave me pause.

As for the function of the boards, the plan is to use the additional space to have more in-depth stats available to fans during games, as well as show other games’ scores more consistently, to compete with the at-home experience.

This was done, the giant scoreboards, to compete with the at-home experience.

Big College Sports on the Big Stage in the Biggest Stadium needs the BIGGEST scoreboards to compete with the at-home experience.

The story goes on, “We’re really trying to prioritize what’s done for the fans,” said Jake Stocker, U-M’s director of game presentation and fan experience. “Using this new technology to make it a better fan experience, knowing that people can’t always connect to their cell phones at Michigan Stadium, so we’re giving them that experience.”

Michigan has a Director of Game Presentation and Fan Experience?

I guess they do and he said “Using this new technology to make it a better fan experience, knowing that people can’t always connect to their cell phones at Michigan Stadium.”

Isn’t there anyplace, ANYPLACE on EARTH, where the ability to connect to a cell phone takes the 2nd seat?

Certainly not at a college football game.

To me, for the Leaders and Best, bigger bigger bigger, doesn’t add up to best.

The game I went to in 1991 had over 100,000 focused on one thing.

Today, the Director of Game Presentation and Fan Experience wants you to be at Michigan Stadium and fell like you never left home.

Really.

Then why leave home?

To paraphrase George C Scott in the movie Patton, “God, how I hate the 21st Century.“