SPORTS

Tuesday, September 29, 2015
The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com

6A

1865

The University 

introduces baseball as 
the first competitive 

varsity sport.

1901

The football team wins its 
first national championship.

1879

game, beginning a rich 

tradition.

 

1902

Michigan football 

Bowl.

1908

The men’s basketball 

team is formed.

Inside 125 years of Michigan sports history

By JAKE LOURIM

Managing Sports Editor

The 
history 
of 
Michigan 

athletics 
is 
told 
through 

moments.

People remember where they 

were when the Michigan football 
team outlasted Notre Dame 
under the lights at Michigan 
Stadium in 2013, one of the 
greatest games in Michigan 
Stadium’s storied history. They 
remember watching as the Fab 
Five rose to prominence in the 
early 
1990s, 
captivating 
the 

nation in the process. They even 
remember tragedy, like the day 
legendary football coach Bo 
Schembechler passed away on 
the eve of the historic matchup 
between No. 2 Michigan and No. 
1 Ohio State in 2006.

Bob Ufer’s radio call of John 

Wangler to Anthony Carter in 
1979 still rings through people’s 
minds. 
Photos 
of 
Charles 

Woodson’s No. 1 salute in the 
1998 Rose Bowl hang on walls 
throughout America. Desmond 
Howard’s Heisman pose during 
the 1991 Michigan-Ohio State 
game is a fixture on college 
football highlight reels even 
today.

These moments have filled the 

pages of The Michigan Daily for 

125 years now. Hundreds of Daily 
sports writers have been inside 
all the action in all that history.

Arguably, nowhere is that 

tradition more important than 
Michigan. This is a school that 
holds onto memories of past 
glory as a standard for the future. 
It cherishes the connections 
forged between teammates and 
coaches over the years. It even 
measures current success in 
relation to the past, most notably 
by comparing football coaches 
to Schembechler, the program’s 
patriarch.

Over the years, Michigan has 

laid a foundation of remarkable 
consistency. At present, three 
varsity coaches are in their 32nd 
year at the University: hockey’s 
Red Berenson, softball’s Carol 
Hutchins and women’s track and 
field’s James Henry. From 1921 
until 1988, Michigan had just 
three total Athletic Directors — 
Fielding H. Yost, Fritz Crisler 
and Don Canham. The Daily 
provided 
consistent 
coverage 

of their rise to the stature they 
occupy today.

* * *

The 
University’s 
athletic 

history predates even the Daily’s 
by 
a 
quarter-century. 
This 

year, Michigan Athletics will 
celebrate its 150th anniversary 
while the Daily celebrates its 
125th.

But the Daily has documented 

sports from its outset. It covered 
Yost’s famous “point-a-minute” 
teams in the early 1900s, back 
when a printing press below the 
newsroom was used to set type. 
A Nov. 12, 1905 story headlined 
“SUBSTITUTES 
SCORE 

FORTY POINTS ON OHIO 
STATE” details one of Yost’s 
teams’ victory.

“The 
most 

brilliant 
run 

ever seen on 
Ferry 
Field 

and the longest 
run ever made 
anywhere 
… 

was the one 
feature 
of 

yesterday’s 
game with Ohio State,” the Daily 
wrote about a long touchdown 
run by Al Barlow. “Two forty-
yard 
runs 
for 
touchdowns 

made by Garrels complete what 
was 
undoubtedly 
the 
most 

spectacular game ever seen in 
Ann Arbor.” 

Circumstances have changed 

immeasurably 
since 
then. 

Football is different, the Daily 
is different, the writing style 

is different, and the University 
is different. But the concept 
of recording the highs and 
lows of Michigan athletics has 
remained constant.

Many more stories since Yost’s 

teams have garnered much more 
attention as the media and the 
sports landscape have expanded. 
One of the highest-profile stories 
was the rise of the Fab Five and 
their success during a two-
year run from 1991 to 1993. In 
their second year together, they 

started 
the 

season ranked 
No. 1 in the 
country 
and 

took opponents 
by storm.

“It 
was 

one of those 
situations 
where 
their 

experience 

just whipped our behinds,” 
legendary Purdue coach Gene 
Keady said after the Wolverines 
beat 
his 
ninth-ranked 

Boilermakers on Jan. 8, 1993.

“I would not under any 

circumstances want to play 
Michigan again if they were 
playing like that,” said another 
legendary coach from the same 
state, Bob Knight, after his top-
ranked Hoosiers squeaked past 

Michigan a month later.

The Fab Five rolled into the 

NCAA Tournament and past 
Kentucky in the Final Four. 
“A-MAIZE-ING,” 
read 
the 

headline on the front of the 
SportsMonday section on April 
5, 1993, with a photo of Chris 
Webber embracing Jalen Rose 
after the game. 

The next day, the headline 

read “TIME TO LOSE,” with 
Leon Derricks consoling Webber 
after the star tried to call a 
timeout in the final seconds of 
the 
National 
Championship 

Game.

So it has gone for the 

Daily’s coverage of Michigan’s 
triumphs and struggles every 
day for 125 years.

* * *

The Fab Five era was a 

momentous 
period 
in 
the 

University’s history, but the 
moments 
extend 
to 
many 

different ages, sports and issues.

There have been moments 

of pride. In 1989, near the end 
of the men’s basketball season, 
Schembechler fired coach Bill 
Frieder for agreeing to become 
the head coach at Arizona State 
after the season. “A Michigan 
man will coach Michigan!” 

Schembechler said.

There have been moments of 

change. In 1934, Michigan had 
scheduled a football game at 
Georgia Tech, but the Yellow 
Jackets refused to compete if 
the Wolverines played Willis 
Ward, a black player on the 
team. Michigan forced Ward 
to stay home and traveled to 
Atlanta for the game, sparking 
outrage on campus.

There have been moments 

of redemption. In 1968, Ohio 
State routed Michigan, 50-14, 
when Buckeyes coach Woody 
Hayes opted for the two-point 
conversion late in a 48-14 game. 
He said he did it “because I 
couldn’t go for three!” The 
next year, Schembechler’s team 
stunned No. 1 Ohio State to win 
the Big Ten and make the Rose 
Bowl.

The rest of Schembechler’s 

tenure went down in history 
just like the beginning, as he 
went 194-48-5 in 21 seasons 
and served as an icon for the 
Michigan program.

Those icons are all around, 

both the presence of current 
ones and the memory of past 
ones. The Daily has always told 
their stories, and will continue 
to do so as long as there are 
stories to tell.

“A Michigan 

man will coach 

Michigan!”

FILE PHOTO/Daily
FILE PHOTO/Daily

