One hundred seven years of edmonarzjfredom
.
, : F:,t
.P
News: 76-DAILY
Advertising: 764-0554
Friday
October 24, 1997
xcitement builds as
big game nears
decade
kter, this
ame is
stilspecial
n years and 14 days. That was
the last time anybody in East
Lansing has been this excited
about playing Michigan. Ten years and
14 days ago, more than 77,000 people
crammed into Spartan Stadium, a com-
plex that somehow looks even more
gigantic than Michigan Stadium, to
watch what was the greatest Spartan
team in two
decades.
I was IIyears
old that day. I
remember that it
was very cold. I
remember my
brother and I
JOHN stuffing our-
LEROI selves into sweat
Out of pants and turtle-
Bounds necks that just
had to be green.
I remember
D etrius Brown throwing seven
interceptions that day and I asked my
dad, "If Bo is such a good coach, why
didn't he yank that guy after the first
five?"
For more than 18 years, I lived just
around the corner from Michigan
State's campus. When your father
works there and your mother takes
classes, it's hard not to bleed Green.
I remember everything about the
I* season, when Bobby McAlister,
Lorenzo White and Michigan State's
famed, but forgotten, fourth-quarter
defense took the Spartans to the Rose
Bowl. They beat Southern Cal and fin-
ished with a No. 8 ranking, the first
time they cracked the top 10 all year.
They haven't been back since. A loss
to Northwestern last week ruined the
Spartans' chances of making a return
apearance.
re, Michigan State has beaten
Michigan since that day; in 1990 when
the Wolverines were the top-ranked
team in the country, and again two sea-
sons ago with a 28-25 victory in East
Lansing. But not since Oct. 10, 1987
has there been so much anticipation
and such an outpouring of support.
This game means everything to fans
who who have lived in East Lansing.
Forget Ohio State. This isn't just about
war cooler bragging rights and silly
bf between colleagues. It's about I I-
year-old kids who grew up loving one
team and hating the other, even though
See LEROI, Page 7
A
Regardless of
records, MSU
rivalry bitter
By Danielle Rumore
Daily Sports Editor
The talk this week has been about the
tradition, the rivalry and the bitterness.
Michigan and Michigan State mix
together about as well as oil and water,
and the animosity between the two
teams and their fans has been the week-
long focus leading up to tomorrow's
game at Spartan Stadium at 12:30 p.m.
There's also been talk about the hope
that this would be a game between two
undefeated teams, both ranked in the
top 25, both looking to grab a lead in
the Rose Bowl race, both looking to
secure state bragging rights.
That hope died last week when No. 15
Michigan State (2-1 Big Ten, 5-1 over-
all) fell to Northwestern, 19-17. But
after the initial disappointment subsided,
the talk returned to the intrastate rivalry
- how a Michigan win would destroy
the Spartans' Rose Bowl chances and
how a Spartan win would keep things
interesting in the conference.
The players have been saying many
of the same things.
Michigan quarterback Brian Griese:
"We've been waiting awhile to play this
game. It doesn't matter (if Michigan
State isn't undefeated) for this game;
you throw the records out the window.
This is the first really big rivalry in the
season. A lot of people call us rivals,
but this one is bitter."
Michigan tailback Clarence
Williams: "This game is annually
marked off on our schedule."
Michigan linebacker Sam Sword:
"Look for an all-out war. This is the
game we've been looking forward to
since the summer."
Putting such talk aside, the focus is
shifting to the game at hand, to the
strategies and especially to the defenses
that could single-handedly dictate
which way the game sways.
Amidst all the talk remains the fact
that the fifth-ranked Wolverines (3-0,
6-0) and the Spartans are almost defen-
sive equals, and that should be what the
game comes down to tomorrow.
Michigan State has the best rushing
defense in the Big Ten, giving up just
64 yards, and Michigan is a close sec-
ond (68.2).
Michigan is tops in the conference in
scoring defense (5.2 points); Michigan
State is second (10.8).
See SPARTANS, Page 7
PAUL TALANIAN/Daily
Chris Miller (left), an Engineering junior, changes the game day countdown while LSA junior Andy Yosowitz (center) and
Engineering junior Bill Reeves (right) watch. Many students view the intrastate rivalry as serious business.
Coverage has evolved over 50 years
By Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud
Daily Staff Reporter
Fifty years have passed since the first
televised broadcast of the Michigan-
Michigan State game, and the excite-
ment surrounding the rivalry has not
abated.
When WWJ-TV first broadcast the
intrastate game, only 2,500 homes in
the Detroit area saw Michigan
trounce Michigan State 55-0.
Saturday's contest will probably be
viewed by more than 1.6 million
households, a far cry from the game's
humble beginnings.
"It's a wonderful matchup," said
Dean Diltz, senior publicist for
ESPN, which will be televising the
game. "Any time you have a state
rivalry, that heightens the excitement
level."
For the first televising of the
match-up, WWJ-TV only had five
workers and two cameras inside the
stadium. When ESPN crews come to
East Lansing on Saturday, they will
carry quite a larger load. They expect
to bring at least 12 cameras and
upwards of 85 people for the entire
production. ESPN's broadcast of the
event will include a pre-game show,
and is expected to be one of their
higher rated games of the college
football season.
Fifty years ago, in order to beam the
broadcast from Michigan Stadium all
the way to WWJ-TV's 5,000-watt sta-
tion in Detroit, relay dishes were
mounted on top of a windmill at the
crest of Tuomy Ridge. Two extra crew
members were assigned the task of
operating the dishes in the basement of
a nearby farmhouse.
"I think that first televised game was
part of the ongoing saga of the infor-
mation age," said Bruce Madej, assis-
tant athletic director for media rela-
See TELEVISION, Page 7
Who:
No. 5 Michigan (3-0 Big Ten, 6-0 overall)
vs. No. 15 Michigan State (2-1, 5-1)
Where:
Spartan Stadium (cap, 72,027)
When:
Tomorrow, 12:30 p.m.
Line:_
Michigan by 2 1/2
Weather:
Chance of rain, high around 55.
Television:
ESPN
Series history:
The last time both teams were ranked this
high, Michigan prevailed, 17-10, in 1964.
Michigan leads the all-time series, 58-26-5,
but lost on its last trip to East Lansing.
The uiatit choice
U
Alumni celebrate
RC's 30th birthday
By Janet Adamy
Daily Staff Reporter
When RC graduate Danny Thompson
entered East Quad yesterday for the first time
in nearly 10 years, it seemed to him that little
had changed.
"The place smells the same," Thompson
s as he hugged former classmates. "It's
s.e strange combination of carpet and
cafeteria."
Dozens of alumni returned to Ann Arbor
yesterday to celebrate the 30th anniversary of
the Residential College - the University's
first living-learning community, which is a
part of LSA and housed in the East Quad res-
idence hall.
Prof. Janet Hegman Shier, the anniver-
sary's coordinator for special events, said the
end-long festivities will be more than a
coration.
"We're hoping that some initiatives may
grow out of it," Shier said, adding that she has
spent the year uniting current students with
RC alumni to plan the weekend.
RC philosophy Prof. Carl Cohen, one of
the college's founding fathers, said the idea
for the college crew from a feeling among a
growth of the University was threatening the
camaraderie between students and faculty.
"(Other professors) and I were concerned
that we were going to lose some of the close-
ness we prized," Cohen said, adding that a
small living-learning college would help pre-
serve notions of decency and humanity in the
University. "By and large, I think it's fair to
say that we've succeeded"
Economics Prof. and RC Director Thomas
Weisskopf said that while a number of uni-
versities started similar living-learning pro-
grams during the 1960s, the RC is one of few
that have survived.
"A lot of schools are very much interested
in, and somewhat jealous of, what we have
here at Michigan," Weisskopf said.
Cohen attributes the college's success to
the close relationship the RC has maintained
with LSA.
"We did this with the financial and intel-
lectual support of LSA," Cohen said, adding
that other programs cut themselves off from
the universities that supported them.
Expanding from 100 students in 1967 to
nearly 1,000 students today, the RC has
undergone numerous changes but retained its
Students ready
for Million
Woman March
By Katie Plona
Daily Staff Reporter
The voices of many black Unrversity women will join oth-
ers when they gather tomorrow in Philadelphia to participate
in the Million Woman March.
Two buses filled with students are departing this evening
from the Michigan Union. They will meet with two other
busloads of women from the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area
and make the 400-mile tek to Philadelphia.
"This is one day to bring all of the issues not just to the
attention of the women there, but bring it to the conscience
of the nation who might not be aware," said LSA and Music
senior Dee Dee White.
Local participants registered at Originations Gallery in
Arborland Mall, the area's designated MWM registration and
information site.
White said that besides the planned presentations, the
event will be a means of discourse for not only black women,
but for all women of color to discuss issues relevant to them.
"Issues tend to be 'dealt with in a different way," White
said. "We have to understand how the experiences started and
try to resolve it from the same direction."
White said she and a few other women are videotaping the
event, and have already started recording women as they pre-
LOUIS BROWN/Daily
RC sophomore Jessica Bodzin (left) and RC junior Colin Zyskowski (right) discuss Madame
Bovary in their class on Arts and ideas of the 19th century.
Since it was a new program, the RC first
attracted liberal students who were interested
in an exciting and different experience,
Weisskopf said.
"They tended to be quite outspoken, quite
political," he said.
With much of the RC student body opposed
to former President Richard Nixon's re-elec-
tion in 1972, RC students held a mock inau-
"It was all very sardonic and terribly bit-
ter," Cohen said.
RC students sent a letter to the former
president inviting him to the festivities, but
Nixon sent the students a telegram declining
the invitation. Students read the telegram and
poked fun at Nixon during the ceremony,
Cohen said.
Cohen said the biggest change in the RC
I