The Big House

This was one of those weeks where you wake up Monday morning with the feeling, "Huh, my throat feels a little funny." Over the next few days your throat gets incrementally sorer and your nose gets snottier and snottier until you finally call it: you're sick. At first you try to go about your everyday life, but you continue feeling crappy until you have no choice but to shut it down. On Friday I woke up feeling so sick that I emailed my students and canceled all my lessons for the day. I spent most of the day on the couch eating hot chicken soup, studying 30 Rock episodes and Follow that Bird (both of which were assignments from my TV Writing teacher - I love that watching TV has become my homework).

After my day of rest I went to bed early. I woke up on Saturday morning feeling miraculously better. So well, in fact, that I took Nick up on his offer of an extra ticket to the Michigan-Delaware State game. This is my last year at the U of M and I was really hoping that I would get another chance to go to a game in the Big House. In my first two years here I only went to one game and it was not the greatest experience for numerous reasons:

1) Last year a friend told me a few weeks in advance that she was not going to be able to use her ticket to the Michigan-Michigan State game and she told me I could have it. In the interim between the offer and the game itself I broke my foot. But I thought that it might be my only chance to go to a game in the Big House, so I decided to go anyways. I was newly confined to a walking boot and I was nervous about walking long distances in it, but I discovered that the U of M provided a stadium shuttle on game days so I hopped aboard. However, the stadium shuttle dropped me off at C.C. Little, which seems about 1.7 million miles away from the stadium when you're making the trek in a walking boot. By the time I staggering into the stadium I was aching so bad that I just wanted to sit down. I found my seat in the student section next to my friend Jake Gee. I started to sit down, and Jake informed me that it is heresy to sit in the student section. So I had to stand the whole game and by the end my foot pain was eclipsed by my hip pain because the walking boot makes your legs unequal lengths and standing for too long throws your hips out of whack.

2) It rainy, freezing day and the sun did not come out at all. I stupidly left the house wearing a green jacket, green being Michigan State's color. Wearing the enemy's color in the student section will not fly, so I had to turn it inside out and wear the gray lining on the outside.

3) Michigan blew a late lead and lost in a very demoralizing fashion, dropping to a 2-6 record on their way to the worst season in the long and storied history of Michigan football.

Here are the ways in which yesterday's game was superior to my previous game:

1) No broken foot. A friend of Nick's at the hospital gave him a pair of unused season tickets located outside of the student section, meaning that we could sit down during the game. Last year it was fun to be in the student section and participate in all their special cheers and shenanigans, but man, it was nice to sit down. Sitting outside the student section also resulted in a serious overheard profanity reduction.

2) On the whole it was a bit of a chilly day, but several times over the course of the game the sun came out and it was pleasantly warm.

3) Michigan absolutely obliterated Delaware State off the face of the planet. At the end of the first quarter the score was 28-0 and it appeared like Michigan would keep up that pace and the final score would be 112-0 (the actual final score was 63-6). I actually felt bad for this poor little school coming into the Big House and getting so thoroughly trashed - I couldn't count how many times they botched a play and were subjected to an infamous chant lead by the student section and marching band - until I learned that Michigan gave them a $500,000 payday just for showing up.

It would have been more fun to watch a game that was actually competitive, but it was also fun to be a part of history. According to espn.com, in yesterday's game "the Wolverines set team marks with 442 yards in the first half and 727 total. They matched a school record with a 28-point first quarter and led 49-3 with their second-highest score by halftime." But the best thing about seeing a blowout in the Big House was being a part of the "Michigan Wave." At the beginning of the third quarter Nick told me that he had done some research the night before on Wikipedia and called out the various stages of the wave to me before they happened. Quoth Wikipedia:

The Big House is known for its Michigan Wave, taught to every student at freshman orientation. If the Wolverines are ahead during the third quarter of a game, the student section begins a pattern of non-traditional crowd waves. The spectacle begins with a counterclockwise wave, then another counterclockwise wave in slow motion, followed by one that that is double the normal wave speed, then a reverse wave that runs clockwise, and then finally it will split into two counter-rotational waves. The Michigan Wave is not performed at every home game, and traditional waves are typically stymied by the student section.

It was an essential collegiate moment and I'm glad I could be there to take part. I searched YouTube for videos of the Michigan Wave and none of could really do it justice, but this clip gives you the basic idea:



This post is so much longer than it ought to have been, so... The End.