unique and complex don’t know that you can prepare for something like this
“Unique and complex, obviously,” Poggi responded. “Multiple levels of complexity that our young people are dealing with and our university is dealing with, our athletic director, Warde Manuel, is dealing with. And our team, our coaches and our kids. I don’t know that you can prepare for something like this.”
more importantly what do you believe? and what … what will you become
“To be able to tap into that source, that part of who you are that transcends thinking — that’s what I’m talking about. We’ve all done it; we’ve all seen it. Faith is belief without proof. Something deeper than your own thoughts. Giving your all, win, lose, or draw—that takes some version of faith, whatever that means to you. And sometimes that faith is the only way you’re going to win that game, or the only way you’re going to get that contract. It’s the only way to reach a new level of excellence. So I ask you: What is your big dream? More importantly, what do you believe? And what will you become?”
Excerpt From Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to Control the Controllables and Thrive by Greg Harden.
Greg Harden was known as Michigan’s Secret Weapon.
According to Wikipeda, Assoc Athletic Director Harden was best known for his work with 7-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. He also worked with Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard, and 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. Brady, Howard, and other athletes credit Harden with inspiring them to overcome obstacles and achieve success in their professional and personal lives.
Harden began work as a student-athlete counselor in 1986 when Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler brought him in after hearing of the work Harden was doing in Ypsilanti, helping people deal with the challenges of everyday life and work. In the years since, Harden has been named associate Athletic Director and Director of Athletic Counseling for the University of Michigan Athletic Department.
Sorry to say that Dr. Harden died a year ago.
Seems like his role and importance in that athletic program, was somehow, greatly underestimated.
When I was a student, I had one Art History Professor who could not resist a Monday morning comment about that weekends game.
One week he approached the lectern and popped open a can of Coke and took a big swig, then said in a VERY HOARSE voice … “I mean really … 72 points.”
Then Michigan lost to that team down south.
This Professor stood at his lectern that next Monday and stared out at us a while then said, “It is good to remember there are all just kids like you.”
So I ask you: What is your big dream?
More importantly, what do you believe? And what will you become?”
And always remember, Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
naw, he said, now what would I want to remember … a thing like that for?
In 1966, George Plimpton wrote a book titled Paper Lion as an inside view of pro football by going through the pre-season with the Detroit Lions.
He came out with a follow up book in 1973 titled Mad Ducks and Bears that told the story of the years after 1966 through Plimpton’s friendship and interviews with Detroit Lions Alex Karras (The Mad Duck) and John Gordy (The Bear).
In Mad Ducks and Bears, Plimpton writes about what it was like for Karras and Gordy to play with Quarterback Booby Layne who both men acknowledged was a masterful football player but a pretty nasty guy otherwise.
Both men carried long grudges against Layne that lasted through their careers.
Plimpton relates this story told by Alex Karras, writing:
The two of them sat quietly, thinking back on those days. Finally Karras said, “You know something crazy? Bobby Layne was traded away by Detroit to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He ended up his career there. We played them one Sunday, and this play came up where he was chased out of the pocket and ran out of bounds. I was chasing him, really reaching for him, and when we got out of bounds I still went for him. I racked his ass. Back behind the bench somewhere. Knocked a water bucket over, I remember. I don’t know why I did it. It was crazy. We got a big penalty and I was chewed out plenty.”
“What about Layne?” I asked.
“I can remember him looking at me out of that crazy helmet he wore. ‘Hey, what did you do that for?’ he says. “I couldn’t have told him. No way.”
Later in the book, Plimpton recounts how he had the chance to meet Bobby Layne, spend some time with him and interview him.
Plimpton writes:
“Bobby,” I asked, “do you remember a game when you were playing for Pittsburgh in which you were run out of bounds, and Alex Karras came out of nowhere and really belted you one? They damn near threw him out of the game for it? A water bucket went over. It was way out of bounds. Do you remember that?”
Layne was silent for such a long time that I thought he had his mind on something else and had not heard the question.
“Naw,” he said finally. He reached for the door handle of the jeep.
“Naw, now what would I want to remember a thing like that for?”
Folks, the next time someone suggests that the Lions’ wear throwback uniforms, throwback to those great Lions’ teams, throwback to those great Lions’ games, throwback to those great Lions’ memories that we all say:
“Naw, now what would I want to remember a thing like that for?”
but beating the team that you hate the most? That lasts the rest of your life
It’s also college football in a nutshell, and it’s worth keeping in mind as we enter Rivalry Week: In the end, what makes this sport so deliriously wonderful is this sort of irrational emotion, this primal and eternal bile. We have become accustomed, already, just in the second year of the 12-team Playoff, to gauging every week’s results by how they affect the ever-shifting CFP bracket picture, and we’re fully primed to do that again this week.
But the thing about those games is that, in the long term, what they mean for Playoff positioning will be the least interesting thing about them. What matters is beating those other guys’ brains in. What matters is getting to talk trash all year.
This would seem like an obvious thing to say — college football is about tradition and rivalries — but it is one that, because of college football’s wild changes over the past few years, needs to be repeated and, perhaps more than anything else, cherished.
But beating the team you hate the most? That lasts the rest of your life.
From the New York Time article, College Football Playoff bids are great. Making your rival miserable is still better by Will Leitch.
Of last year, Mr. Leitch wrote:
Maybe Ohio State beat Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame to win the national title last year. But it didn’t beat Michigan, which means a huge chunk of its glorious season was a complete and total failure. That is hilarious. It is also kind of wonderful — and one of the best reasons to love this deranged sport.
I was born and raised in a Michigan family.
My first big sports hero I remember was Michigan basketball start, Cazzie Russel.
And the first big sports memory was that Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1969 when Michigan beat an Ohio State team that hadn’t lost in 2 years.
I like to say that when I was a kid I was told that Woody Hayes was under my bed if I got out, he would grab me and take me off to Ohio.
Reading biographies as a kid I had to wrestle with the fact that General Grant, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and James Thurber all were born in Ohio.
It didn’t make any sense.
Until I figured it out that none of them achieved much success until they LEFT Ohio.
Mr. Leitch quotes William Hazlitt called “On the Pleasure of Hating.”
Mr. Hazlitt once wrote, back in 1826:
Nature seems made of antipathies.
Without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action.
Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit.
Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits.
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust:
Hatred alone is immortal.
With that in mind, I am thankful this Thanksgiving for something so worthy of my hate.
I live in a seaside resort community that oddly enough has a large Ohio contingent.
Up the coast a bit in Charleston, SC, then even have a MEME of GBTO or Go Back to Ohio.
Its kind of goofy but when the concept arose back in the late 1970’s that timeshare vacations were invented, the fellers in charge took a map and estimated the furthest a father might drive their family and their research led them to focus their marketing efforts on the state of Ohio.
And it worked!
But as one local blogger put it … Tourism is the bread and butter of the lcoal economy, but Ohio’s arrival seems like adding five extra sticks of butter. Sure, we’re richer for it, but at what cost?
Anyway, what this means it that this is a great place to wear an M coaches cap.
And when I say coaches cap, I mean what is now called the ‘SKINNY M’ coaches cap.
It is great fun to walk the beaches and parks and hear from all sides folks yell out GO BLUE.
Especially … ESPECIALLY when there some of those OH IO people around.
You know them.
The group that needs two people to spell O H I O.
BTW, having worked in the world on Online News for 20 years, I was always happy to report that any story on Ohio State Football had twice as many reads as any other sports story.
There was the Ohio State Fan … and the person who read the story to them.
I’ve got the best seat put my hands up when he was seven yards down field
Jahmyr Gibbs rescues Lions with long TD run in OT for 34-27 win over Giants by Larry Lage DETROIT (AP) — Jahmyr Gibbs to the rescue. Gibbs ran for a 69-yard touchdown on the first snap of overtime and had a career-high 264 yards from scrimmage along with three scores, lifting the Detroit Lions to a much-needed 34-27 win over the New York Giants on Sunday. “He bailed us out in a big way,” Detroit coach Dan Campbell Detroit took advantage. With 28 seconds left, Jake Bates kicked a career-long 59-yard field goal that matched a franchise record, giving Jared Goff another opportunity to put the ball in Gibbs’ hands. In overtime, Goff handed the ball to Gibbs for a run up the middle, Detroit’s much-maligned offensive line opened a huge hole, and one of the NFL’s fastest players took it from there. “I’ve got the best seat in the field,” Goff said. “I put my hands up when he was about seven yards down the field.”
Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs (0) runs past New York Giants safety Dane Belton (24) for a touchdown in overtime of an NFL football game in Detroit, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Rey Del Rio)
Kind of like wanting to see an overtime basketball game where one team comes out of nowhere and scores 20 points, I love it when you see something unexpected in OT.
Like a 70 yard run from scrimmage on the 1st play.
Especially when its my team.
I think I saw Goff with his hands up calling touchdown a few seconds after the handoff.
That was fun.
Back in 1996, Brian Griese took over after halftime of the Ohio State game down 0 to 9 and on the 2nd play of the 2nd half, from the Michigan 20, Griese threw an in route to Tai Streets at about the 30 yard line.
The OSU defender fell down and Streets took two more steps and calling the game for ABC Sports, Keith Jackson said, simply, “he’s wide open and gone for a touchdown.”
At that point, Streets was at the 50 yard line but Jackson had seen enough football in his life that unless there was an earthquake and some 200 foot ravine suddenly opened up, Streets was going to score.
50 yards of watching your team, knowing its a touchdown.
Jackson, unlike most sportscasters, shut up and let everyone live in that moment as Streets ran down the middle of the field to the endzone.
And for some reason, no one said, AND NO FLAGS.
Maybe back then, just because they had flags those guys didn’t think they needed to call a penalty on every play.
