2B — October 24, 2016
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

Cleaning up the Big House

L

ike clockwork, the cars 
start showing up at 7:30 
a.m. sharp.

Before that, the streets of Ann 

Arbor are 
quiet but for a 
single garbage 
truck. The sky 
is dark, lit only 
by a crescent 
moon. At 
Michigan 
Stadium, the 
lights are still 
on.

A few 

more garbage trucks circle the 
concourse inside the stadium and 
the parking lots outside, picking 
up the trash from dumpsters. 
Later, volunteers from Eastern 
Michigan will come to finish the 
job on the parking lot. And then 
there is the stadium bowl.

At 10 p.m. the night before, 

hours after the Michigan football 
team polished off a 41-8 win 
against Illinois, the bleachers 
were a mess. After every home 
game, it stays that way until early 
the next morning, when families 
from nearby Father Gabriel 
Richard High School come to 
clean it up.

Fewer than 600 students go to 

Gabriel Richard, but before sunrise, 
many of them are already in the top 
rows of the bowl. Often more than 
300 people come out to help every 
Sunday — today, that number is 323. 
One hundred ninety-seven of them 
will stay for Mass.

But the Catholic school’s 

religious foundation goes beyond 
Father Richard Lobert’s hour-
long service. In the mind of 
Cindy Pressprich, one of the 
coordinators of Gabriel Richard’s 
effort, the school pairs the clean-
up effort as a community event 
with the usual Sunday Mass. The 
students can even use the hours 
as credit toward their service 
requirement.

“It really has to put our belief in 

action about respecting each other, 
being charitable, believing the best 
about people,” Pressprich said.

Pressprich arrives with sign-up 

sheets and paperwork for all of the 
volunteers. The school has asked 
families to help out after five of 
Michigan’s eight home games this 
season. The Michigan Athletic 
Department pays Gabriel Richard 
— Pressprich doesn’t know how 
much, perhaps, she says, because 
it has been a near-constant 
agreement since the mid-1970s — 
through the school’s general fund, 
which helps defray tuition costs.

There’s little talk of 

administrative matters when 
everyone shows up in the dark, 
though. When Pressprich brings 
the forms, some families are 
already in the stands, using 
brooms or blowers to confine the 
trash to the lower part of the bowl. 

Then, other kids help out with 
picking up garbage, recycling pizza 
boxes and throwing away half-
eaten pretzels.

Meanwhile, Pressprich directs 

people at the entrance and 
co-coordinator Jerry Bonar drives 
a golf cart around the concourse 
to supervise. Both parents 
are central figures in Gabriel 
Richard’s effort, each with seven 
kids. Both have been helping 
for years, with some kids now 
graduated from college and some 
just entering high school.

Pressprich’s leadership 

at the front gates helps the 
operation run smoothly. Bonar’s 
enthusiasm — in the early 
hours of the morning after the 
Chicago Cubs clinched a trip to 
the World Series, he cried out to 
one volunteer, “Hey, hey, how 
’bout them Cubbies?!” — keeps 

everything upbeat.

It’s a tough job, but within two 

hours, the trash is all in bags at 
the bottom of the stands as the 
dumpsters come by to pick them 
up. The 197 volunteers all shuffle 
off to Sunday Mass at the Junge 
Center between the Big House 
and Crisler Center. Sometimes, 
Mass is in the north end zone if 
it’s not too cold. Those days are 
probably over for this year, but the 
temperature won’t keep Gabriel 
Richard away.

“Attitude is everything,” Bonar 

said. He recalls a famous quote: 
“Pain is inevitable. Misery is 
optional. Choose joy.”

For Bonar, though, it can also 

be tough to manage hundreds of 
volunteers.

“It’s the balance of motivation 

without any type of tangible 
reward,” Bonar said. “People go 

to work, recognition and money. 
I don’t have any money to work 
with. I just have recognition. I 
have thank-yous. I have a smiling 
face. I have enthusiasm. I have all 
those intangibles.”

Naturally, in cleaning a bowl 

that seats 100,000-plus, the 
Gabriel Richard volunteers must 
account for variables. When the 
Athletic Department renovated 
Michigan Stadium in 2010, it 
added space to the concourse, 
which now requires 30 or 40 
people to clean up instead of six 
or eight.

Stadium promotions 

sometimes add wrinkles, too. If 
Michigan hands out pompoms 
for big football games, Gabriel 
Richard shows up the next day 
to find thousands of them on the 
ground. Another time, the fans 
held up individual posters that 

together honored Lloyd Carr. 
Gabriel Richard had to peel them 
off the bleachers and clean them 
up. “That might have been the all-
time rough one,” Bonar said.

The biggest hope Bonar has 

every week, though, is for the 
weather.

“I don’t care what you have — 

(we want it to be) dry,” he said. 
“I don’t care if it’s minus-3. If it’s 
dry, we’re OK. Wet is the worst.”

Gabriel Richard has cleaned 

the bowl with 70 people and 
with 400, in hot weather and in 
cold. The seasons change over 
the course of the football season, 
sometimes until debris has frozen 
over on the bleachers and the 
volunteers have to chip it off.

But Bonar doesn’t have a 

problem with variability. That’s 
part of the appeal of the job — it 
comes after every home game, no 
matter the weather, no matter the 
year, between all kinds of people. 
According to Bonar, some parents 
who help out are chief executives 
or presidents of companies, but 
they still spend their Sunday 
mornings at the Big House. 
The families team up, three to 
a section, and it’s clear most 
everyone knows everyone else.

“We’ve got all walks, from the 

whole gamut,” Bogar said. “These 
folks could easily write a couple-
thousand dollar check and stay 
home, but they don’t, which I 
think is really good.”

Added Pressprich: “This is 

a pretty lowly task. Everybody 
wants to be better than garbage 
— I mean, ‘Why am I here on a 
Sunday morning?’ ”

In two weeks, Michigan returns 

home to play Maryland. At some 
point between the end of that game 
and nightfall the next day, the Big 
House will be spotless again. It 
doesn’t happen on its own.

Lourim can be reached 

at jlourim@umich.edu and 

on Twitter @jakelourim.

JAKE
LOURIM

JAKE LOURIM/Daily

Michigan Stadium ends Saturday still littered with trash from the game, but 300-plus volunteers come to clean up early on the morning after each game.

A tribute to Drew Sharp

The Detroit sports commu-

nity lost an icon this weekend. 
Detroit Free Press columnist 
Drew Sharp passed away at 56 
years old. He was many things 
to many people — a husband, a 
name to curse when you didn’t 
like what he wrote and a friend 
to so many in this business. It is 
my deep regret that I never got 
to know him personally.

What I do know is that 

Drew also once worked for The 
Michigan Daily. Traditions run 
strong at the Daily, and one of 
those traditions is a pervasive 
connection with the writers who 
came before you. So even though 
I didn’t know Drew personally, I 
felt that it was important to get 
to know who he was from those 
who did.

To them, he was a giving 

mentor. One of the younger 
writers when Drew worked at 
the Daily was Bob Wojnowski, 
now a sports columnist for the 
Detroit News. After Saturday’s 
game, I spoke with him.

He talked about a Daily trip 

to Champaign where they were 
snowed in after a basketball game. 
He said that Drew liked to leave 
the “mushy” columns for the 
other columnists. It was his job to 
hold the teams accountable.

I asked what Sharp would 

have thought about the “mushy” 
columns being written about him 
over the weekend.

“He actually would be the 

first, probably, to make a joke 
about it himself,” Wojnowski 
said. “So I’ll go ahead and say it, 
I think Drew left us because the 
Big Ten finally got good and he 
couldn’t stand it. He said, ‘Screw 
this, I’m getting out of here. Big 
Ten’s good? Really?’ ”

Sharp wasn’t at Michigan 

Stadium on Saturday to see the 
third-ranked Wolverines beat 
Illinois, 41-8. We’ll never know 
for sure what he would have 
written if he had been.

But we wanted to try to 

imagine, as a respectful 
homage to a Detroit sports 

legend and an alumnus of this 
student newspaper. So we 
asked Wojnowski: What would 
Drew Sharp have written about 
today’s game?

“He would have pointed 

out how sloppy they got in the 
second half,” Wojnowski said. 
“Guaranteed. Oh, and, he’s not 
wrong on this, what have they 
accomplished? They’ve won six 
home games, who have they 
beaten? And even next week, 
what will that prove? Michigan 
State’s bad, so who have they 
beaten? I guarantee you that 
would have been his angle.”

It’s an absolutely fair take to 

have, and one that’s needed, too. 
You didn’t always have to agree 
with Drew, and often, fans didn’t. 
But no one could argue he didn’t 
try to make you think.

So, here it is. No one can 

replicate Drew Sharp, or his 
irreplaceable style. But in his 
honor, we gave it a college try:

They got sloppy.
They went ahead, way ahead, 

and then the Michigan football 
team thought it could just go to 
sleep. The fans sure wanted to. They 
left early in bunches, and maybe 
that’s a good thing, because they 
didn’t have to see the Wolverines 
take it easy after halftime.

Michigan won the second half 

10-8, which was plenty enough to 
win, but if the Wolverines want 
to contend for championships, 
they can’t take their victory 
laps before the final buzzer. 
Alabama’s still out there, still 
a real powerhouse from a 
heavyweight conference, and 
you don’t see Nick Saban’s bunch 
letting up to Illinois.

Don’t let the final score obscure 

it. Michigan’s second half wasn’t 
up to snuff, not if the Wolverines 
are going to exorcise their demons 
in East Lansing next week in a 
game that should remind them it’s 
not over until the final buzzer.

This Illinois team was in a 0-0 

tie with Rutgers after the first 
quarter last week. In the end, the 
Fighting Illini won by just 17. And 
let’s not forget that Michigan beat 
those Scarlet Knights 78-0 the 
week before.

In that game, Jim Harbaugh 

refused to take his foot off the gas, 
going for two early and letting his 
backups run roughshod over the 
scuffling Scarlet Knights. Even 
if Rutgers wanted to stop them, 
it couldn’t. But on Saturday, the 
Wolverines took care of that 
themselves.

Harbaugh had new glasses 

this week, so he has no excuse 
not to have seen his team 
coasting a bit toward the end. 
On Illinois’ one touchdown, 
which was capped with a two-
point conversion, the Wolverines 
let the Fighting Illini look like 
a competent offense, lobbing 
up a 43-yard pass into the end 
zone right after a turnover. A 
turnover, I might add, that came 
because Michigan couldn’t corral 
a snap on a fake punt.

It wasn’t every Wolverine, of 

course. Karan Higdon flexed his 
muscle by powering for a 45-yard 
touchdown run in the fourth 
quarter. Wilton Speight came out 
of the game after three quarters, 
but until then, he didn’t let himself 
leave it mentally. He had one of his 
best games of the year, and that 
might get lost in the shuffle now 
because the rest of his team didn’t 
finish how it could have.

Illinois had 70 yards in the first 

half. That’s what championship 
defenses do to inferior opponents. 
But they do it for whole games.

This problem is not unfixable. 

Michigan’s still 7-0, and if it plays 
to its potential, who knows what it 
could accomplish?

Maybe, this will be a wake-up 

call. A reminder. A haphazard half 
that fans can look back on as the 
last time their team checked out 
early this year.

The Wolverines would be wise 

to learn that lesson fast. Michigan 
State is not good this season, but 
the Spartans are still next on 
Michigan’s schedule. And that 
should be the ultimate memory-
jogger. The games last 60 minutes.

Drew is gone, far too soon, 

and he leaves a gaping hole in the 
press box.

And even though we couldn’t 

possibly capture his Sharp wit, it 
will surely be remembered.

FOOTBALL

MAX BULTMAN

Managing Sports Editor

FOOTBALL
‘M’ defense shuts down 
Jeff George Jr. in rout

With Illinois’ third-string 

quarterback starting against 
the No. 1 defense in the country, 
the results of Saturday’s game at 
Michigan Stadium were almost 
a foregone conclusion.

But what Michigan coach Jim 

Harbaugh probably didn’t expect 
was to look up at the scoreboard 
heading into halftime and see 
that his team had allowed zero 
completed passes.

“That speaks volumes,” he 

said. “The pressure was good up 
front. I thought our guys really 
played well, executed extremely 
well. Really, (there were) just 
two plays that we did not defend 
well the entire ballgame, so I 
thought it was outstanding.”

Aside from two separate 

43-yard passes to wide receiver 
Malik 
Turner 
that 
helped 

the Fighting Illini finish with 
95 
passing 
yards, 
Illinois 

quarterback Jeff George Jr. 
didn’t stand much of a chance 
the entire afternoon. Though 
he was only sacked one time, 
George was pressured by the 
Wolverines’ 
talented 
front 

seven 
all 
afternoon, 
with 

players like freshman defensive 
end Rashan Gary and redshirt 
sophomore defensive end Chase 
Winovich reaching him so 
quickly that he had no choice 
but to hurry his throws.

The throws that did make 

it into the air didn’t have 
much success either, with the 
secondary’s four seniors — 
cornerbacks Jourdan Lewis and 
Channing Stribling and safeties 
Dymonte Thomas and Delano 
Hill — holding George in check. 
Likely due to his All-American 
reputation, Lewis was barely 
targeted, but each of the other 
three recorded a pass breakup.

Thomas 
— 
who 
has 

dropped a number of potential 
interceptions over the past 
few years — made the biggest 
secondary play of the day in the 
second quarter. On the first play 

after Michigan punted for the 
first time, George attempted a 
screen pass, but Thomas read it 
perfectly and jumped in front of 
it for his first career pick.

“The first thing that went 

through my mind is, ‘It’s about 
time,’ ” Thomas said. “I knew 
that my teammates, every day 
they always make fun of me. 
‘Dymonte, you can’t catch. 
You don’t have no hands.’ So 
as I caught that interception, 
they all said, ‘You know what, 
I’m gonna let you breathe, I’m 
gonna let you go. About time 
you caught it.’ It’s a pretty 
exciting feeling. I was pretty 
happy, pretty pumped.”

The secondary is talented 

enough to make plays on its own, 
but the defensive backs were 
quick to praise their pass rushers 
for making their jobs easier.

Defensive coordinator Don 

Brown’s 
blitz-heavy 
system 

has consistently kept opposing 
quarterbacks 
under 
duress, 

and the inexperienced George 
struggled to avoid the same 
fate. Thomas said the defensive 
backs knew George was capable 
of getting quick throws off, so 
they played tight coverage and 
waited for blitzing linemen 
and 
linebackers 
to 
create 

opportunities.

As for the few big plays 

allowed — such as Hill allowing 
Turner to outjump him for a 
43-yard touchdown — Lewis 
preached the importance of 
keeping a short memory. The 
defensive backs have allowed 
some big plays before this 
season, but they have yet to let a 
game spiral out of control.

According to Lewis, Hill 

shouldn’t 
have 
any 
trouble 

getting over the play, and 
Illinois’ late success through 
the air was simply a product of 
taking more chances. Still, given 
all the success it has had so far 
this season, Michigan’s defense 
has come to expect perfection.

“It bothers us as a defense,” 

Lewis said. “That’s exactly what 
we’re looking for — a shutout.”

JACOB GASE

Daily Sports Editor

Karan Higdon nearly broke one 
for a touchdown on the next play 
but tripped up at the 9-yard line.

Peppers made a cameo at 

running back and ran a flair 
route for five more yards, 
and then he switched back 
to quarterback and gained 
another yard.

Then came the train.
Michigan’s oddest formation 

— quarterback/lead blockers 
included — may be the “train” 
look it unveiled Oct. 1 against 
Wisconsin. It starts with nine 
players in a line behind junior 
center Mason Cole while Speight 
walks down the line calling the 
snap count. The nine players 
then move quickly into their 
positions and run the play. This 
time, Speight emerged from the 
train in an empty-backfield set 
and found senior tight end Jake 
Butt for the 3-yard touchdown.

Every week, the Wolverines 

have 
tweaked 
something 

new — more so than last year, 
when they didn’t use Peppers 
on offense until the Michigan 
State game in Week 7. Now, that 
game has come around again, 
and while Michigan has already 
shown plenty, it doesn’t appear 
that the ideas are drying up.

By now, the players don’t 

see the different formations 
as extraordinary. Peppers on 
offense? “That’s just a really 
good athlete playing the position 
like a running back would, or a 
wide receiver, or a dual-threat 
quarterback would.”

And the train formation? 

Speight admitted that’s a little 
bit out there. But, he said, “It’s 
pretty simple when you break 
it down and you rep it all week 
— it’s nothing to freak out 
about or anything.”

Either way, the third-ranked 

Wolverines are not done. After 
Michigan’s sixth home date in 
seven games, Harbaugh implied 
that his team can still do more 
as it heads into the final stretch 
of the season with three tough 
road trips left.

“It’s an ongoing process,” 

he said. “Never like to think 
the hay’s in the barn or you’ve 
arrived. 
Just 
keep 
forging 

onward.”

ILLINOIS
From Page 1B

