Originally Posted by
scottdude8
I've mentioned this occasionally on this forum, but I was essentially raised in the Big House. My dad and uncle are both alums and have season tickets, so I've been going to games since I was in diapers, and basically every game each season since I was 7 years old. Ironically, this was the year Michigan went undefeated and won a share of the national title, so I was quite spoiled (as a funny aside, my 7 year old brain took this to mean that Michigan, quite simply, always won... so I was quite confused when we started losing the next season, haha). I was regaled with stories of Bo seemingly from legend, and have heard the "The team, the team, the team" speech more times than I can count.
And now, I want to bleach my brain. I want to vomit knowing that I venerated a man who could apparently push these atrocities to the side in the name of winning a game. My Ph.D diploma from U of M now feels a bit less meaningful knowing it comes from an institution that, either directly or indirectly, allowed this to happen for so long.
I've said it before but it bears repeating: Michigan alums (and to some extent fans) really do view themselves as the "Leaders and Best" (which is part of why I think many Duke fans on this board find them, and in turn me when I put that hat on, so irritating, haha). Michigan fans thumb their noses at Ohio State and Michigan State as not just inferior athletic programs (although obviously in the case of Ohio State not any time recently), but inferior schools. Somewhat distastefully, there was a lot of minimally veiled schadenfreude when both schools had their own reckonings with similar skeletons in their respective closets. Now it's time for the administration, and to an extent alums/fans, to put up or shut up. If Michigan truly is "better" than these other B1G rivals the school and athletic program will move clearly and swiftly on this, and the athletic department should look very different come the first football game of the season. If it doesn't, Wolverines will no longer have ANY claim to a moral high ground, and I hope there will be a large portion of the alumni/donor base that revolts.
Put succinctly again, I'm just sick about all of this, and find myself feeling completely helpless as to where to go from here.