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Football
4000 and Counting
By Tony Gerdeman

Dateline: November 4, 2014

Well, here we are--Day 4,000 since Michigan’s last victory over the Buckeyes. Funny, I remember Day 2,000 like it was just a few of weeks ago. And now we’re already celebrating a second 2,000. Simply amazing.

And through it all, the domination has yet to become boring. Not that I thought it would, mind you. I just thought at some point it might stop being so fun. But I’m man enough to admit when I am wrong, and I was very wrong about this. Blooper reels are always entertaining.

But these 4,000 days haven’t just been about buffoonery, they’ve also been about mastery. And how can you not be in awe of Jim Tressel’s mastery over the Michigan coaches that he has faced through the years? He was 6-1 against Lloyd Carr; 4-0 against Rich Rodriguez; 2-0 against Tim Brewster; and this year he gets his first crack at Jay Paterno.

I simply cannot wait. My lungs are collapsing from the sheer excitement. (Though some would probably argue that it’s from the recent Equine Tuberculosis epidemic. Look a gift horse in the mouth, get coughed on, and now you’ve got Horse TB. Thank you, Canada.)

And my anticipation for this next meeting with Michigan is even more ramped up after Jay Paterno practically guaranteed victory earlier this year at an alumni gathering/job fair when he proclaimed, “I have come to Michigan to chew bubble gum and beat Ohio State--and I‘m all out of bubble gum“.

That game is still a few weeks away though, and there will be plenty of time to talk about it--but I’m not here to talk about the future so much as I’m here to talk about the past.

Just thinking about what we’ve all been through over these past five and a half years makes me appreciate where we are even more. The ups. The downs. The wars of words. The failed Rich Rodriguez reality show. And will any of us ever forget “Manatee Gate”? I know I won‘t.

I am also reminded of Tate Forcier’s impassioned speech at the 2010 Heisman Trophy ceremony. The image of him leaping up on stage in street clothes imploring Terrelle Pryor to take a good hard look at the NFL draft will forever be burned into my memory. As will the subsequent and repeated tasering administered to the trespassing Forcier. (I still have the next week’s Sports Illustrated framed on my wall. You know, the one that featured the melee on the cover with the headline “Tase Forcier”.)

A couple of days after that fracas, I remember talking to a reporter who was writing for the last newspaper in Michigan, The Marquette Mining Journal, and he told me that because of the small stature of so many of Michigan’s football players, the Ann Arbor police actually had to have their tasers dialed down because they were intended for use on normal-sized humans and they could be potentially fatal if used on a Wolverine. (Sadly, this of course explains why those same tasers were of no use against the Wisconsin fans who stormed Michigan’s field earlier in the season and tore down both goal posts in celebration of their victory.)

So much needless tragedy that day. Hilarious, but needless.

If not for Forcier’s outburst--and the Badger fan rampage, the most replayed moment over these past 2,000 days would probably be Rich Rodriguez’s tearful press conference where he announced that he was leaving Michigan and returning to West Virginia.

To this day, it’s the only Youtube video with a six-star rating.

I’ll never forget, in between sniffles and snorts, Rodriguez’s reasons for leaving.

“I want to be a medium fish in a medium pond because then you seem bigger than you are because the pond isn’t as big as a big pond on account of it only being a medium-sized pond, and with me being a medium-sized fish, I’ll seem bigger by comparison. Especially since there are no big fish in my new pond. Also, I just really miss playing in bowl games.”

It’s still hard to argue with that logic. Especially since Rodriguez has laughed his way to the Liberty and International Bowls over the last couple of years.

Even though he is now gone, he will forever be remembered

People ask me what my favorite on-field memory of The Game has been over these last five meetings, and I usually tell them it was 2009 when things were fairly close in the fourth quarter until Terrelle Pryor eventually put things out of reach with a 74-yard touchdown run that saw Stevie Brown miss six tackles on the play.

Either that, or the 2012 game where Tim Brewster was Twittering his halftime adjustments, which were then put up on the scoreboard in Ohio Stadium for all to see. And then his subsequent tweets of incredulity at what was happening.

But it hasn’t been all great memories over these last 2,000-odd days.

For Michigan, who has as proud a legacy of wide receivers and offensive lines as anybody in college football history, it was painful to watch the last of their wide receivers and linemen transfer or “graduate” in 2010.

While having an offense composed entirely of slotbacks and quarterbacks may have been exactly what Rich Rodriguez wanted, in all actuality it just wasn’t a wise course of action. And yes, I know you’re going to remind me that Martavious Odoms was a Lombardi Award finalist, but you can’t convince me that there was any sound thinking going on there.

So many of life’s lessons can be taught by what we’ve all been through since that fateful day in 2003 when Michigan last savored the flavor of tasty victory.

That’s why, when you get home tonight, I want you to gather your family together and really think about what these last 4,000 days have meant for each of you. I want you to ask your children what their favorite memory is over these last 4,000 days, and if they tell you anything other than something involving beating Michigan, then you should probably get them enrolled into your local Boren Family Re-Engineering Summer Camp right away, be it certified or not. Remember, the children are our future.

Despite it all, time trudges forward. And here we are, just a few short weeks from Jay Paterno’s initial run at Jim Tressel, or as The Mining Journal called it, “Baptism By Tire”, and I apologize if I’m having trouble focusing on what’s coming over the hill.

So much has happened over these 4,000 days, which is why I wanted to revisit where we were and what we’ve gone through. Memories are the only things we have that are free and yet priceless at the same time. That’s why we take pictures on vacations. You can stand on your destination and look back the way you came, but without pictures and memories, all you can see is your last couple of miles.

After all, the faster you look for your next step, the further you leave your last.

And I’m not ready to leave for my next step before I’ve had time to appreciate this one.

I guess that’s what happens when you’re just too busy enjoying the journey.

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