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My Saturday started at 6:43 a.m. 

— a time I usually consider to be 
the middle of the night — to music 
blasting outside 
my door. It’s a 
familiar feeling 
but 
jarring 

nonetheless 
to 

be woken up by 
the first notes 
of Mo Bamba 
or Shipping Up 
to Boston. It’s 
a 
sensation 
I 

haven’t had in 
almost two years. 

While I tried to muster the 

strength to get out of bed, I sat 
listening to the sounds outside my 
window — the yells, the ‘Go Blues’ 
and music from wake-ups in houses 
just like my own — and waited for the 
sun to come up. 

It was game day in Ann Arbor. 
By 10:00 in the morning, almost 

every porch on my street was dotted 
with tailgaters, and stray cans of 
Keystone sprinkled the sidewalk. As 
I walked around, the hallmarks of 
gameday started coming back to me 

with a feeling almost like nostalgia. 
After the past year, the atmosphere 
simultaneously felt familiar and 
brand new. 

“The 
tailgate’s 
been 
great,” 

Engineering 
senior 
Christian 

Marciano said. “I’ve been having 
a great time. It feels a little lowkey 
though.” 

While Marciano felt the tailgates 

were less full than normal, it felt like 
business as usual to me. I walked by 
countless yards of boys playing beer 
die to the tune of songs I remember 
from tailgates past. 

By 11:30, my roommate was 

dragging me down Packard St., 
paranoid we were going to miss 
the pregame James Earl Jones 
video. I let her run ahead without 
me because I wanted to take my 
time. The walk down State Street to 
Hoover might be my favorite part of 
gameday. I love seeing the fans on 
the side of the road with their tents, 
full flatscreen TVs set up inside; the 
carts set up on the sidewalk selling 
food or water; everyone walking to 
the same endpoint. 

After arriving at the stadium, I 

met Ross junior Prat Bhola while I 
was standing in line. While some 
people were anxious to get inside, he 
was savoring the whole experience, 
line and all. 

“It’s electric,” Bhola said.
Electric is a great word to 

describe walking into the Big 
House. The first time I’d ever gone 
to Michigan Stadium was the 

2018 home-opener when I was a 
freshman, also against Western 
Michigan. I’d spent the morning 
walking around Ann Arbor with 
no sense of direction or purpose, 
surrounded by people I barely 
knew, looking for tailgates. I fell in 
love with the music, the dancing, 
the energy; it was everything I was 
hoping college would be. 

I hadn’t grown up as a Michigan 

fan — or much of a college football 
fan at all — but walking into the Big 
House the first time took my breath 
away. It’s hard to describe exactly 
what happens at that moment when 
you see the band and then you’re 
walking into the student section 
and the fight song starts and then, 
oh look, there’s that kid from your 
math class that you really don’t 
know but now, for some reason, you 
feel like you absolutely have to go 
say hi. 

It 
feels 
as 
though 
you’re 

overwhelmed by everything that 
Michigan is. 

LSA freshman Henry Shaver had 

been waiting for that moment from 
the minute he stepped on campus. 

He watched his older brother James, 
also a Michigan student, attend 
tailgates and games for years, but 
nothing could adequately prepare 
him for what it was like. 

“I thought I had an idea (of what it 

was like), but I was pretty surprised 
when I got here,” Shaver said. “… 
There’s definitely a lot more people 
out here than I thought.” 

When I walked into the stadium 

on Saturday, I felt a similar rush, but 
it wasn’t exactly the same. In some 
ways, it was even more exciting. 
After almost two years away, not one 
of the 109,295 people in attendance 
was taking that moment for granted. 

“Walking into the stadium, just 

being there for the first time in over 
a year, it was actually just an amazing 
experience,” junior Jack Mooney said. 
“The crowd, everyone was just so 
happy to be there. The experience was 
probably my favorite game day yet. 
It’s a big part of my college experience 
and it was definitely missing from my 
experience last year.”

But being in a crowd that large 

now means something different 
than it did two years ago. 

Even though I’m vaccinated, I 

didn’t feel 100% confident being 
in that large of a group. Michigan 
announced in March that the 
stadium would have fans, long 
before the delta variant threatened 
to reverse our progress. Despite the 
rising number of COVID-19 cases, 
masks were encouraged but not 
required in the stadium and very 

few students wore them, something 
Marciano found to be contradictory. 
 

“It’s stupid because I’m in class 

with 12 people and then I’m about to 
be in a stadium with 110,000 people 
and it kind of makes no sense (that 
the COVID-19 restrictions are so 
different),” Marciano said. 

Currently, 92% of students have 

reported their vaccination with the 
school, but preliminary data showed 
102 new positive cases within the 
school community last week. To 
put that number in perspective, the 
highest number of positive cases on 
campus was 410 last October. It will 
be another couple of weeks before 
we’re able to determine whether the 
game brings that number any higher. 

Still, the students I talked to 

weren’t 
concerned 
about 
the 

possibility of infection, and I see 
where they are coming from. Looking 
out at a crowd of over 100,000, it’s 
easy to forget that we’re still in the 
middle of a devastating pandemic. 

Even though COVID-19 hasn’t 

disappeared, the students I talked 
to found it refreshing to experience 
“normalcy,” even if it was just for a 
few hours. 

Mooney is a lifelong Michigan 

fan, but last season he felt like his 
heart wasn’t in it. Part of that could 
be the Wolverines’ dismal 2-4 

record, but mostly it was being stuck 
at home, relegated to watching from 
the couch. 

“I think it’s more or less just being 

in the stadium where you’re with 
100,000 people who all have the 
same exact interest to you,” Mooney 
said. “It’s very rare in life where 
you’re in a place that every person 
around you has the exact same goal. 
I feel like people are very divided on 
a lot of different issues nowadays. 
I think sports in general — and 
especially Michigan football — is 
something we can all come together 
and just support at once, and it’s just 
such a really special experience to be 
part of that.”

Mooney left the game after Mr. 

Brightside was played — a song that’s 
become a cult favorite for Michigan 
fans over the past several years — and 
watched the rest of the game from 
home. For him, the game itself can be 
watched at home, but Mr. Brightside 
is a can’t-miss. It’s the traditions that 
define the experience. 

Thirty years from now, I won’t 

remember that the score was 47-14. 
I won’t remember the Wolverines’ 
emphasis on the run game. I probably 
won’t even remember that they were 
playing Western Michigan. What I 
will remember is that this was game 
day in Ann Arbor. 

SportsWednesday: With return of fans, the Big House is back

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily 

Michigan fans watched the Wolverines beat Western Michigan 47-14 on Saturday.

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily 

Michigan fans enjoyed their first game back in Michigan Stadium on Saturday.

LANE
KIZZIAH

10 — Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

