AN EVENING WITH SAFA AL AHMAD

NOVEMBER 19, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. | RACKHAM AUDITORIUM

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D

ear Only News Source in 
Ann Arbor,
To be honest, I’m 
impressed. 
Finding 
time to go 
to class, 
prepare for 
a football 
game and 
bike to city 
hall meet-
ings in the 
rain — all 
while bal-
ancing being 
one of four (four!) city gov-
ernment reporters — must be 
exhausting. 
The thought of carrying one 
whole fourth of really any beat 
while attending the prestigious 
University of Michigan — wow. 
They should write stories about 
people like you in The New 
York Times.
It’s not just your city govern-
ment reporters I would want to 
single out, though. Unless you 
were, well, craving the atten-
tion of being singled out by 
being featured in the Times.
It’s also this quote — which I 
had to re-read twice — because 
I couldn’t believe it wasn’t said 
in jest, even by someone at your 
notoriously humble university.
“We’ve been given this 
mantle of holding the powerful 

accountable, five nights a week, 
with no department backing us 
up,” your managing editor said. 
When it comes to the rivalry 
between The Daily and The 
State News, you might want 
to pipe down about holding 
the powerful accountable. 
That’s kind of our thing. That’s 
why we win Pacemakers. And 
unlike the one in Schembechler 
Hall, our trophy case is full of 
awards from this century.
What department, by the 
way, do you speak of? Are you 
referring to the fact that your 
university, with its 200 years 
of history and presidential 
alumni, still doesn’t have a 
journalism school? Your uni-
versity cured polio, so ask them 
to invest in its journalists!
We don’t have a department 
backing us up, either. The State 
News is wholly independent, 
both from our university and 
our journalism school. We 
“carry that mantle” also, and 
we do it without histrionic, 
self-important quotes.
I wonder how you get by 
with just a $4.5 million endow-
ment and a staff of more than 
250 students.
According to the Times arti-
cle, you only elected your most 
recent editor-in-chief after she 
was able to successfully name 
the 11 members of city hall, 

along with their wards and 
party affiliations. I assume she 
was one of 17 or 18 people cov-
ering the city the year before, 
but maybe not. 
That is not a test to see if 
someone is fit to lead. That’s 
the kind of pointless memo-
rization I had to do when I 
joined a fraternity. 
So, now we come to the 
football game. A touch football 
game played to prove, well, 
what exactly? I couldn’t tell 
you. 
That your staff of 250 has 
better athletes than our staff 
of 40? 
It’s like a school from the 
Football Bowl Subdivision los-
ing to a team from the Football 
Championship Subdivision — 
there’s a difference in scholar-
ship count. 
You guys are the favorites 
this year, looking for your 15th 
straight win in this very impor-
tant, not at all farcical, game. 
But The State News could 
win. Crazier things have hap-
pened, like a Michigan team 
under Jim Harbaugh winning 
an important game on the road, 
or a Michigan alumnus going 
through one whole dinner 
party without mentioning their 
degree. It happens once in a 
blue moon.
And, besides, no team repre-
senting the University of Mich-
igan has ever lost a football 
game when they had a substan-
tial advantage in the number of 
participating athletes.
So, with that, I will wish 
you good luck Friday night. I’ll 
wish good luck to the real team 
representing your university 
with actual athletes on Satur-
day afternoon, too. 
I’ll be there. So will your 
14 football reporters. In all 
seriousness, in this day and 
age, where journalists from 
all schools are under attack, 
I think it’s important that we 
stick together. We’re all trying 
to do the same thing — keep 
the public informed.
Some of us just recognize 
that other people do it, too.

Michaelson is a spring sports 

editor for The State News. He can 

be reached via email at chase.

michaelson@statenews.com or 

on Twitter @Chasemarino13.

L

ast week, our editor-in-
chief, Maya Goldman, and I 
received an email from The 
State News 
asking if we 
could play 
our annual 
touch football 
game — which 
has never let a 
little weather 
change things 
before — 
inside this 
year. 
Forgetting 
for a second the fact that this is 
newspaper football and nobody 
has the time nor the means to rent 
a damn dome, that actually sums 
up the current state of this news-
paper rivalry quite well: one side 
humming along, business as usual, 
the other desperately looking for 
any excuse to feel slighted.
Every year, their quips in this 
column take on a similar tone. This 
year, as with most, they will fall 
remarkably flat.
The State News will claim to 
not care about the annual touch 
football game, which I suppose is 
the correct stance for a group that 
had recently graduated diapers the 
last time their team won. They’ll 
show up to chant expletives at us 
anyway, take their 15th-straight 
loss and drive back to East Lansing 
assured that next year is the year.
They’ll lament our large staff, 
because offering opportunities 
to eager, young journalists is, 
of course, a bad thing. Awfully 
rich coming from the paper that, 
as of the publication of this col-
umn, hasn’t covered its school’s 
women’s soccer team in 26 days, 
its volleyball team in 13 days and 
its field hockey team team in 78 
days. They’ve written two stories 
all year — one of which was a 398-
word Big Ten title game story — 
about the women’s cross country 
team, which is the most successful 
team at the entire school.
You might want to grab any 
riffraff off the street to help you 
out there.
Maybe, in a fit of desperation, 
The State News will turn to the 
Michigan State football team’s on-
field product, which seems, uh … 
off the table this year. It’s always 
been weird when your writers 
have gone that direction in the 
past, considering you’re supposed 
to be objective, but I suppose it’s 

particularly hard to do this year 
when the Spartans are a living, 
breathing embodiment of the “this 
is fine” GIF. 
They’ll hold up their J-School 
as if it somehow portends a better 
newspaper, which is easily dis-
pelled by, I don’t know, a cursory 
scroll through statenews.com.
Sometimes they’ll stress their 
collection of awards, which seems 
like the wrong course of action in a 
year we won the award for the best 
college sports section in the coun-
try — not to mention best gamer, 
best columnist and best front page.
One year, they even drew a 
little Spartans/Persians metaphor 
that made for quite the read. One 
excerpt:
“Mark Dantonio is King Leoni-
das, and has been for his Spartans 
since his arrival to the throne 
of head coach in East Lansing. 
A great leader — the men he has 
recruited were not the best ath-
letes, nor the greatest students, 
but dedication to his process of 
intense, hard-nosed training and 
conditioning has led him to glory 
no Spartan coach in the modern 
era of MSU football has achieved. 
‘Those who have stayed are 
already champions.’ ”
Nailed it. Just a couple thoughts:
1) Be more of a homer. I dare 
you.
2) Help me brush up on some 
history — was King Leonidas also 

forced out of his role after blowing 
a 25-point lead at home to Lovie 
Smith?
In reality, I harbor no disdain 
for Michigan State. I’m not from 
Michigan. I did not apply to Michi-
gan State. I’m sure it’s a fine school, 
and I’m sure you’re all totally, 
completely, entirely pleased you’re 
there and not here. I’m sure you’re 
all good people, and I’d love to grab 
a meal or beer after we make it 15 
on Friday.
You can have your robotic 
J-School ledes, I’ll take our creativ-
ity. You can have your haphazard 
profiles, I’ll take our deeply-report-
ed features. You can have your 
professors, I’ll take the best alumni 
base out there. You can have your 
smaller staff (weird flex), I’ll take 
the best college sports section in 
the goddamn country.
So, by all means, rehash the 
same flimsy insults this year; 
there’s not a single leg to stand on. 
We’ll just be over here beating you 
on the field, off the field, in the 
classroom, in the newsroom and 
just about everywhere in between.
Hopefully you can find some 
dignity in that defeat.

Marcovitch is a co-managing 

sports editor and football beat writer 

for The Daily. He can be reached via 

email at maxmarco@umich.edu or 

on Twitter @Max_Marcovitch.

Dueling columns: The Daily vs The State News

CHASE

MICHAELSON

MAX

MARCOVITCH

Michigan preparing for cold weather

As the Michigan football team 
practiced outdoors in single-
digit windchills this week, snow 
and ice still on the ground, Chris 
Partridge didn’t hear a single 
complaint.
But the safeties and special 
teams coach couldn’t help but 
notice that he hadn’t quite dressed 
for the weather.
“I don’t understand (when 
coaches wear shorts),” he said. “I 
don’t want to freeze. I want to have 
clothes on when I’m coaching.”
In bad weather, Partridge has 
to worry more than most other 
coaches — not just because of 
his apparel choices, but because 
special teams plays like kicks and 
punts are affected more by the 
weather than others. Rain, snow 
and cold all make kicks harder 
due to reduced aerodynamics, and 
wet conditions make returns more 
difficult without fumbling.
The 
Wolverines’ 
coaches 
have always embraced whatever 
weather may come and hope their 
players follow their lead. This is 
Michigan, after all. And Saturday 
— when the Wolverines suit up 
against Michigan State with a 
forecasted high temperature of 31 
degrees — it won’t be their first 
brush with bad weather.
Michigan took the field before 
a tilt with Notre Dame on Oct. 
26, 
wearing 
blue 
warm-up 
jackets. Some coupled that with 
white gloves or long socks to 
shield from the rain and mid-40s 
temperatures.
For that game, the Wolverines 
were more pumped up than usual. 
“That’s our best warmup we’ve 
ever seen,” Partridge said.
In 
the 
end, 
Michigan 
game-planned 
perfectly 
for 
the conditions, sticking to an 
aggressive rushing attack until 
the rain slowed and ultimately 

running all over the Fighting Irish.
But this week, the team will 
face a different sort of weather 
challenge in the bitter cold. While 
Ann Arbor isn’t exactly known 
for balmy weather in November, 
most games are at least in the 40s. 
You’d have to go back six years, to 
a game against Iowa at Kinnick 
Stadium in 2013, to find a game 
that kicked off with temperatures 
below freezing.
To 
make 
matters 
worse, 
Monday blanketed Ann Arbor in 
nearly a foot of snow — and not 
all of it is expected to melt before 
Saturday. So, to be ready for 
anything come the weekend, the 
Wolverines have been switching 
off between indoor and outdoor 
practice.
“Coach (Jim Harbaugh) does 
a really good job of going in and 
out and being outside,” Partridge 
said. “It was great yesterday, I 
don’t think it sucks. I mean, we’re 
in Michigan, we’re not gonna say, 
‘Oh, it’s gonna be warm,’ we’re 
gonna go out and we’re gonna 
deal with it, and I think that’s 
important for the players, too.
“It’s like, ‘OK, well, it’s cold 
out, so we’re gonna stay inside 
the whole time?’ No. You play in 
Michigan. This is what it is. So you 
go out there and enjoy it. I didn’t 
hear one complaint.”
According 
to 
quarterbacks 
coach 
Ben 
McDaniels, 
cold 
temperatures, and even snow, 
don’t affect game plans as much 
as rain. Wet weather causes the 
ball to become slippery, which 
can cause problems in the passing 
game and with ball security, so 
safe running plays — like what 
the Wolverines ran against Notre 
Dame — are the best bet. As part of 
pregame preparation, the coaches 
check the forecasts, cross their 
fingers that they’re accurate, then 
adjust on the fly if needed.
There’s no snow in the forecast 
Saturday, at least not for now. But 

cold weather can still change the 
feel of the ball, so it’s important 
to get reps in for all kinds of 
conditions.
“My experience is, cold is 
cold, so it’s gotta get pretty darn 
cold to factor in, in my opinion,” 
McDaniels said. “Some guys wear 
gloves, some don’t, that’s a topic of 
discussion for quarterbacks. But 
my experience coaching guys and 
some playing experience, once you 
get running around, you’re pretty 
comfortable and you get used to 
being in the environment and 
those frigid, frigid temperatures 
might affect, at some point, your 
ability to hold a ball. The feel of the 
ball is different as it gets colder, 
but we should be in great shape for 
this weekend.”
McDaniels 
was 
careful 
to 
note that cold weather didn’t 
necessarily mean ball security 
was harder, just that the texture 
of the ball could be different and 
quarterbacks 
need 
to 
adjust. 
Senior quarterback Shea Patterson 
is one signal-caller who does wear 
gloves in low temperatures. He’s 
done it ever since he was a little kid 
when the thermometer dropped 
below 30.
Harbaugh is a perfect poster 
child for Michigan’s weather 
mentality. Look at him, and it 
might as well be 70 degrees and 
sunny. When Harbaugh and the 
other coaches adopt that attitude, 
the players follow suit. If the 
Wolverines have their way, they’ll 
play like they don’t even notice the 
temperature.
“That’s really Jim’s personality, 
right?” Partridge said. “He can 
walk outside and everyone else is 
like, ‘Damn, it’s pouring out,’ and 
he’ll be coaching his butt off, not 
even noticing it’s raining.
“You’re like, ‘Does this guy 
even 
know 
it’s 
raining 
and 
freezing?’ But the team gains that 
personality. The coaches, that’s 
who they become.”

FILE PHOTO/Daily
The Michigan football team will play Michigan State on Saturday, and on Friday, The Michigan Daily and The State News will play their annual touch football game.

FOOTBALL

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor

8 — Thursday, November 14, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

