AN EVENING WITH SAFA AL AHMAD NOVEMBER 19, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. | RACKHAM AUDITORIUM FREE | NO REGISTRATION | WALLENBERG.UMICH.EDU 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