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Thursday, July 21, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS
school records, two each year
until almost most of the sprinting
marks were hers: indoor 60-meter
dash, indoor 200-meter dash,
indoor 60-meter hurdles, outdoor
100-meter dash, outdoor 100-
meter hurdles and 4x400-meter
relay (along with her team).
Male athlete of the year:
Mason Ferlic, track and field,
cross country
Ferlic might not be the most
recognizable name in Michigan
sports, but how do you pick against
the NCAA Champion in the Stee-
ple Chase?
The man they call Big Bird made
up for his fall in the 2015 NCAA
Track and Field
Championships
by winning the
3,000-meter
Steeple Chase in
2016. He topped
off a dominant
career as a Wol-
verine,
which
has
seen
him
take home UST-
FCCCA
All-
America honors
five times and win five Big Ten
Championships to match. And
that’s only on the track.
In cross-country season, Ferlic
also won the Great Lakes Regional
10,000-meter run and helped the
Wolverines to win the Big Ten title
for the first time since 1998. In the
end, Ferlic’s NCAA title this sea-
son was enough to edge Connor for
male athlete of the year honors.
Team of the year: Softball
It seems strange to give the
softball team this award in a year
that Carol Hutchins’ team actually
underperformed from its previous
season. But when you make the
Women’s College World Series an
annual destination, as the Wolver-
ines have in recent years, you get
the benefit of the doubt.
For most of the season, Michi-
gan jockeyed with Florida for
national supremacy. The Gators
had knocked off the Wolverines
in the World Series Final one year
ago, and they seemed destined for
a rematch in Oklahoma City.
But when Georgia upset Florida
in the Super Regionals, Michigan
looked poised to make a serious
run at a title that has eluded them
in their dominant Romero Era.
Instead, a pair of early losses sent
Wolverines to an early exit, and
Oklahoma’s Sydney Romero —
Sierra’s younger sister — captured
the title in the year Sierra was
National Player of the Year.
With stars like Romero, Sierra
Lawrence and Sara Driesenga on
their way out, the program could
be looking at a regression in 2017.
But with Hutchins at the helm,
Michigan is a threat year in and
year out to leave Oklahoma City as
champion.
They’ll have to settle for a
Schefter in the meantime.
Career Achievement Award:
Sierra Romero, softball
This award isn’t ambiguous.
Almost half of Michigan’s women’s
sports teams have won Big Ten
titles in the past four years, but only
two have won all four, and Romero
has accomplished the most.
From moment she arrived on
campus, she has started all 253
games.
Once,
during
the
NCAA
Tour-
nament in her
sophomore
year,
she
was
severely ill and
needed IV fluids
beforehand, and
she still helped
Michigan upset
Arizona
State
twice to move
onto the Super Regional.
She broke records every year:
single-season home runs (23) as a
freshman; batting average (.491)
and runs (74) as a sophomore;
RBI (83) as a junior; and a series
of career marks as a senior until
she had almost all of them. In each
year she was consistent, in each
year she seemed to play a different
role for the team and yet in each
year she was equally valuable.
Romero swept the national play-
er of the year awards as a senior
and earned All-American honors
in each of her four seasons at two
different positions, moving to sec-
ond base early in her junior year.
She leaves as the NCAA career
record holder in runs and grand
slams, and she is the only player
ever to amass 300 runs, 300 hits
and 300 RBI.
More
significantly,
Romero
served as the face of the program,
starting almost right when she
began her career. She sparked the
Wolverines when they were play-
ing well, and carried them when
they weren’t. “She has more swag
than anybody on the planet,” coach
Carol Hutchins said of Romero this
year.
Hutchins has spoken as highly
of Romero as any other player
in recent memory, and in one of
Michigan’s most successful pro-
grams, it says a lot that Romero
will go down as likely the greatest
player in school history.
M Den provides preview of Nike gear
By ORION SANG
Summer Managing Sports Editor
Pay a visit to the M Den web-
site and you’ll be greeted with a
countdown clock to Aug. 1, the
first day Michigan’s apparel con-
tract with Nike begins.
Pay a visit to the M Den ware-
house and you’ll find that most
Adidas products have already
been moved to make room for the
scores of boxes containing the
newest Nike gear.
Out with the old and in with
the new, as they say.
Wednesday, the M Den hosted
several members of the media
to discuss the store’s upcoming
release of Mich-
igan-themed
Nike apparel as
well as provide a
preview of vari-
ous products.
The M Den
has been plan-
ning its launch
of the new gear
for over a year
now, according
to Scott Hirth,
the co-owner of M Den.
It will begin a week-long prod-
uct release next week, starting
with an extravagant midnight
release on July 31.
According to Hirth, State
Street will be blocked off between
Williams and
Liberty
from
10 p.m. to 2
a.m. to accom-
modate
the
large amount
of consumers
that
is
cur-
rently
antici-
pated.
There
will be a roll-
out party that
will include 60
members of the Michigan march-
ing band, members of the dance
team, special guest appearances
and a DJ.
Most of the
fall
line
of
products
will
be unveiled at
the
midnight
release
with
the exception
of the football
jerseys. Michi-
gan’s
agree-
ment
with
Nike includes
a
stipulation
that calls for the football and
both men’s and women’s bas-
ketball teams to be outfitted by
Jordan Brand, a division of Nike
characterized by the famous
Jumpman icon in place of the
Nike Swoosh.
Instead,
the
football jerseys
will be unveiled
separately
on
Aug. 2 at the M
Den located on
State Street in a
ceremony open
only by invita-
tion. In addition
to the reveal of
the football jer-
sey, the Aug. 2
event will also present the new
Michigan-themed shoe designed
by Jordan Brand, dubbed the Air
Jordan Trainer 1.
The jerseys and Air Jordan
Trainer 1 will then be made avail-
able to the public on Aug. 6. The
jersey will be available at all M
Den locations while the shoe
will be available at just the State
Street location and on the M Den
website — which, according to
Hirth, has been recently beefed
up to deal with the flood of visi-
tors expected during the launch
week.
Hirth
believes
that,
even
though a large order was placed,
the shoe will be one of their
quickest selling items and will
most likely sell out in a brief peri-
od of time.
Romero was
national player
of the year as a
senior.
COURTESY OF THE M DEN AND NIKE
Starting Aug. 1, the M Den will have a week-long release of new Michigan-themed Nike products — including the shirt above.
The M Den will
host a midnight
release event
July 31.
Michigan’s
apparel contract
with Nike will
begin Aug. 1.