THE MICHIGAN DAILY A rts & Enterta inm ent Tuesday, December 9,1975 Page Five Ufer: Spreading football's gos el By DAVID WEINBERG JUST A FEW MINUTES earlier, when little Ricky Leach had tumbled into that Ohio State end zone to put Michi- gan ahead 14 to 7, the announcer had been on his feet screaming hoarsely into the WPAG microphone: "THE WHOLE STADIUM . . . THE WHOLE STADIUM IS IN A MAIZE- AND-BLUE ATMOSPHERE RIGHT NOW!! OLD MAN YOST, WHEREVER YOU ARE, YOU'VE GOT TO BE SMILING DOWN ON YOUR GREAT B I G MEECHEEGAN FOOTBALL TEAM ...!"> But now it was 4:00 o'clock and the game was over and here he was dog- ging it through a funereal wrap-up speech - the 301st game was over. "I want to thank my friends and asso- ciates who have done so much . ." he was intoning, but he barely heard his own prepared words, scarely could believe what his own voice was say- ing. "Final score, Ohio State 21, Michigan 14 . .. This is Bob Ufer wishing you a happy and prosperous new year," he said. And that was it. THEN UFER SAT, with his face in his hands, his head shaking gently back and forth, his whole body clench- ed tremulously. For a moment he wept. Then he stood uhthe yellow golf hat falling one way, his shirt coming un- tucked, balancing periously on his feet. "o will never beat him!" he rasped. "He'll never beat him... He's got him so psyched." Then Ufer sat down heavily and stared out from WPAO's Booth No. 7 onto the now- empty-field. "He'll snap out of it," a friend whis- perebd to someone. But the thing had happened again and it was an open wound - something gushing out of him - it was more than just another loss to Ohio State. It stood for every battle left unfinished, every time you had to endure what wasn't just. A few minutes later he was putting on his striped yellow and blue tie and pulling his things together. He walked into the hallway. The sportscaster from Ohi6 was there and he had said some- thing like "Did you cry again Bob?" and he had yelled something back as they moved off and took the long walk downstairs. * * * IF CHARLES DICKENS were writ- ing "A Football Carol" and had to choose a Ghost of Football Past, Pres- ent and Future, he could get in the whole trinity with Bob Ufer. For Robert Poorman Ufer, 30-year broadcasting veteran of Michigan foot- ball, has seized Wolverine tradition singlehandedly by the tail, and though it threatens at times to carry him off screaming to the North, the 55-year- old insurance salesman shows no sign of letting up.- More than anyone else he is the Voice of the Wolverines and on any Saturday afternon just about any- where across town, that voice can be heard spitting out an unceasing flood of words - words that sound like a mad transcript of 100,000 fans' thoughts. "GENERAL BO GEORGE-PATTON SCHEMBECHLER AND HIS TROOPS ARE ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE!!" he'll be crowing. Up in the booth he'll be half standing with his arms lovingly around the necks of his two spotters, seemingly ready to plunge out of the third floor window of the press box and he'll be saying, "DAVIS CLOSE AND BELL DEEP ANT) RICK LEACH UNDER CENTER AND OLD MAN UFER, OH AM I KEEPING MY COOL!" HE'S NEVER BEEN very good at keeping his cool. None of this objec- tive stuff for Bob Ufer -- he's a "hom- er in the truest sense of the word, a sportscaster whose moods and thoughts are inevitably shaped by the fate of his team. used to call it: My MEECHEEGAN. It goes all the way back to the turn of the century. 'Who are they to dare to think they could do that to My MEE- CHEEGAN?' he used to say it with that southern accent of his. And I guess I've sort of always had that with me." As a track star, Ufer was no less than phenomenal, breaking six all- time records, one of which - the quarter-mile - stood until last year. Fielding Yost was athletic director in those days, and Ufer remembers the many afternoons when resting be- tween time trials he would see the old man standing out by the track Something about that figure -- the aging Yost with the perpetual cigar in his mouth and felt hat on his head- stays inexplicably locked in his mind. Because of his eyesight, Ufer couldn't serve in the armed forces during World War II, and he's not proud of that. He remained in Ann Ar- bor, helping train troops who were go- ing overseas. You'd never know it listening to him. His Saturday monologues sound more like a parody of World War III than He's never been very good at keeping his cool. None of this objective stuff for Bob UIfer-he's a "homer" in the truest sense of the word, a sportscaster whose moods and thoughts are inevitably shaped by the fate of his team. - .}'} .. ti:}v. . ..v:.9:.. .:11.. ..". vr:..5= ". :h""'. MORE THAN once he's been called a Human computer, but Bob Ufer can do something that would leave most com- puters tearing their tapes out; he can breathe life into numbers and statistics -he can make you feel on any Satur- day afternoon as if the whole fate of the planet hangs in the balance. "You wanna cry, cry. You wanna sob, sob. You wanna yell, yell. That's what the average guy does when he has a bottle of beer in his hand," says Ufer. He learned that from Bill Stern, the 1940s NBC commentator, who he started out spotting for. Back then it was only three or four games a sea- son. Now, from September to Novem- ber' broadcasting is a fulltime job. It has been said' that a university president's three most critical respon- sibilities boil ¢lown to providing sex for the students, a parking lot for the teachers and a football team for the alumni. If Robben Fleming ever sought ways to meet that third responsibility, he would not have to look any farther than Bob Ufer. And don't let Ufer kid you. He's as aware as anybody else how much prominence a football team can bring to a university. "MICHIGAN STATE opened up an engineering school for Earl Morrall so they could get him as a quarterback in football," he declares. "If you can get the eyes of the world looking at you through the vehicle of football ... $90,000 for one 60-second commercial during a Rose Bowl game? "If it's worth $90,000 to Gillette for one minute, what's it worth to the University of Michigan who's exposed: for two-and-a-half hours on TV Janu- ary 1 when 87 million people are going to watch us play Oklahoma?" He knows that, but he's not in it for that. He does it because football is his other religion, because he sees the world through maize-and-blue colored glasses. And what do you do with a guy who compares the sending of Ohio State to the 1973 Rose Bowl with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941? - who com- pares the anguish he felt when Mike ILantry missed that critical field goal last year with how he would feel if his own mother were burning on a cross? SO YOU WALK downstairs, and tell yourself that it's ended again, the bub- ble's burst, the sorelipped tuba players have packed it in. There will be a few lonely Saturdays over the next eight months, but between his family and recruiting and Michigama, the Ghost of Football Past, Present and Future will limp through to next season. "It's my life," he says simply. And even Bob Ufer can't add much to a statement like that. David Weinberg is the senior night editor of The Daily's Arts and Enter- lain ment Department. Daily Photo by KEN FINK t~nn tor CivicT heatre PRESENTS THE NEIL SIMON COMEDY With Music by BURT BACHARACH PCOmISe , PrmiieS December 17-2.1 Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre TICKETS $3.50 & $4.50 ADDED PERFORMANCE DEC. 21, 7 P.M. Tickets Go On Sale TODAY ! I All that twisting and turning in his seat have cost him something. Both discs in his neck are gone. He's had a hiatus hernia, and a couple of near heart-attacks. But Ufer isn't worried about that. "I'd never give it up," he once said. "If it kills me, it kills me. As long as it's the final score against Ohio State and Woody Hayes that's on the other side of the field, let it happen." Where, one begins to ponder, does anyone get such a passion for a foot- ball team? Is it through brainwashing, breakfast cereal - through the genes? "RUNNING NOSE" UFER, as he is called in the university society Michi- gama, came to Michigan, not surpris- ingly, on a football scholarship in 1939, having been a standout at his Penn- sylvania high school. He played one year of football here. But then a combination of poor eye- sight and a remarkable season in track caused him to reluctantly give up the sport. "YOU KNOW HOW I say that word MEECHEEGAN?" he recalled in a re- cent interview. "My daughter once said to me - 'Why do you use that word MEECHEEGAN?' That's what Yost a football game. "THESE BATTLES ARE WON IN THE TRENCHES," he'll exclaim. Yet he remained a spectator-to col- lege football, to the war effort, two things he cared about terribly, and the wild enthusiasms of his broadcast- ing can perhaps be. linked to a certain frustration he has felt on that score- that gnawing desire to participate. NOT THAT HE'S ever an average snectator. Up in the booth, Ufer is al- ways moving, craning as if a couple armies of ants, are having it out on his back, He talks, lie screams and shouts, and he is completely absorbed, hardly referring to the statistical cardshtaped all over his desk. For the names and numbers come effortlessly, like some- thiup he has known and practiced all his life. "THE GREAT AND LATE FIELD- ING YOST, he incants, "WHO WON 84 PER CENT OF HIS GAMES OVER TWENTY-FOUR YEARS, FRITZ CRIS- LER WHO WON 81 PER CENT OF HIS GAMES OVER TEN YEARS, AND BO SCHEMBECHLER, WIN- NING 92 PER CENT OF HIS GAMES OVER THE LAST SEVEN YEARS, 67 GAMES IN SEVEN YEARS, FORTY- NINE BIG TEN VICTORIES." I eening vitl Nikki Giovanni poems and conversations and the Trotter House Choir Tuesday, Dec 16 8:00 pm Power Center for the Performing Arts ticket prices $2.50 and $3.00 patron seats $5.00 presented huy William Monroe Trotter House, U of M International Women's Year and the University Activities Center (UAC) Tickets at Michigan Union Box Office, 763-2071. Open 11:00 A.M Arts Briefs: PTP's 'Long Day's Journey' I didn't believe in cliches, old wives' tales or famous adages until Saturday night. I do now.i For nothing like that ancient truism, "You get what you pay for" sums up the Professional Theatre Program's c u r r e n t presentation, Long Day's Jour- ney Into Night, quite so com- pletely. But then, it makes sense. Given some of the hottest acting talent in modern theatre, this Kennedy Center revival of the Eugene O'Neill autobiographical. classic should sparkle-as in- deed it does. The production, which continues its tryout run through Saturday at the Power Centet, still has some rough spots, but promises to develop into a memorable version of a George Washington, first President of the United States, made his only journey away from the coatinent in 1751 when he accompanied his half-broth-' er, Lawrence, who was serious- ly ill with tuberculosis, to Bar- bados for his health. great American drama. O'Neill covers a broad spec- trum of thematic territory in Long Day's Journey. Each of his characters represents a different level of individual psyche, from a miserly old actor constrainted by the ghastly memories of his immigrant background to a severely ill poet turned increas- ingly introspective by the clam- oring pressures of an impatient outside world. But O'Neill's principal focus is on the mixed love-hate feelings, that lie at the center of all, family relationships. For all five of his individually complex char-1 acters share the same house,' and must interact continually7 with each other-living together and making accommodation for! the peculiarities and peccadillos, of each other.j Jason Robards brings an un- usual and remarkable subtler y to his fine performance as the leader of the embattled Tyrone family. Zoe Caldwell portrays his wife, a morphine addict, with delightful sensitivity and a I strong sense for the deep re-I ligious guilt that permeates Mrs. r Tyrone's temperament. Michaelz Moriarty and Walter McGinn< capably evoke feelings of des- pair and sorrow as the wayward' sons. Ken Billington's discreet light- ing design, largely in ice blue, complements the sorrowful at- mosphere beautifully; costumes and settings seem rather or- dinary. -David Blomquist A full review by drama critic Andrew Zerman will ap- pear in tomorrow's Daily. Rthis __ek THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GILBERT AND SULLIVAN SOCIETY PRESENTS The Pirates of Penzance December 10-13 Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre For tickets call 763-1085 MINORITY AFFAIRS and THOT Productions with International Women's Year and Trotter House PRESENT NIKKI GIOVANNI and THE TROTTER HOUSE CHOIR TUESDAY, DEC. 16 POWER CENTER Tickets: $2.00, $3.50, $5.00 Tickets available at UAC Ticket Central ARS COMEDIA Ars Comedia will be presenting four original one act plays during Winter Term. MASS MEETING Auditions for Time of Your Life Dec. 10 at 8:00 p.m. Dec. 11 at 7:00 p.m. UAC Offices, 2nd floor Michigan Union Back Room of UAC Offices EVERYONE WELCOME MEDIATRICS SHAKESPEARE CINEMA Dec. 12/13-ALICE IN WONDERLAND Dec. 15-Roman Polanski's MacBETH Time: 7:00 p.m., 8:30 p.m. ,10:00 p.m. Time: 7:00 p.m., 9:15 p.m. Price: $1.00 Natural Science Auditorium MUSKET GODSPELL-Dec. 4, 5, 6 If you missed it tough luck 1i I - inm m -r - - - - a-- - -COUPON- 2 for 1 Special -COUPON- GOOD ONLY THRU DEC. 18th Buy 1 Super Salad-GET 1 FREE A large portion of fresh greens, tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, cauliflower, olives and sprouts with our famous yogurt dressing.