Michigan opens the 2010 Big Ten season this week at Indiana. As of now, this season has exceeded my expectations. I knew Denard was going to be fun, I had no idea he was going to become a living and breathing (and smiling) embodiment of a video game character. This week we need to continue to roll on offense and grab a road win. Doing so will be another big step towards bowl eligibility and respectability. Indiana is hungry to beat us after blowing a late lead to us last year.
Historically, Michigan has simply dominated this series, we hold a 51-9 all-time series lead. We have won 16 games in a row going all the way back to Coach Bill Mallory and the 1987 Hoosiers. Here is what you need to know about the University of Indiana:
History: The 1816 Indiana state constitution gave birth to Indiana University when it required a "general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation, from township schools to a state university, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all."
Four years later (1820) that mandated "state university" was opened as the “State Seminary”. Part of the reason for the four year delay was an ongoing battle between Indiana’s original land-grant school (Vincennes University) and this new public university. The legal battle raged for years winding its way into the US Supreme Court. Eventually it was decided that despite their best intentions, the state could not pull the original land-grant charter from Vincennes. The state legislature eventually got it’s way in 1889 when it “clarified” the mission of VU re-chartering it from a four-year university to a two-year university. Ouch.
The first buildings were built in 1822, the first professor was hired in 1823, and the first classes were offered in 1824. The first graduates received their degrees in 1830 -- establishing Indiana’s long held tradition of the “six year plan”.
When it opened the State Seminary was an all-male school. In 1828 the school was renamed Indiana College, and then in 1838 it became known as Indiana University. In 1867 Indiana became one of the first public universities in the US to admit women.
Other notable events in the history of IU: In 1883, as was the case with many schools of the era, a fire destroyed the original building enabling the school to be relocated to another part of town. Indiana’s first president Andrew Wylie actually died while he was in office in 1851 after chopping off his own foot in a wood cutting accident.
Location: Bloomington, Indiana is located in south central Indiana, about 50 miles from Indianapolis. As you would expect, the actual town is dominated by the university. In 1991, Thomas Gaines, a landscape artist, published a book, The Campus As a Work of Art, in which he named Indiana's campus one of the five most beautiful in America. Most of the campus buildings, built by the WPA during the Great Depression, are made of local Indiana limestone.
The movie Breaking Away, (1979 Academy Award for best screenplay) was filmed on location in Bloomington and the IU campus. The film featured a reenactment of the annual Little 500 bicycle race filmed in the "old" Memorial Stadium on campus, which was demolished shortly after the filming of the movie. The Italian restaurant in the film is now a Thai restaurant (Siam House at 430 E. 4th St). Dave Stoller's house in the film is located at the corner of Lincoln and Dodds. Other scenes were filmed outside the TriDelt house (818 E. 3rd St).
Nickname: They call themselves Hoosiers. What the heck is a Hoosier? Quite simply, it is the official demonym for a resident of the State of Indiana. Although residents of most states typically adopt a derivative of the state name, e.g., Texan or Michiganer, the citizens of Indiana never did. It is important to note, that down river in St. Louis, the word is used in a derogatory fashion (nicely translated into "white trash").
The term Hoosier originated in England to refer to someone who lived in the hills or mountains. In colonial America, the term was widely used to refer to white farmers who did not own slaves or large plantations. By the early 1800s it was widely used in Indiana to refer to the poor illiterate farmers that made up most of the population in the state. As sometimes happens, a nickname that originally had a negative connotation was adopted and used with pride by the bearers of the name. By the time of the Civil War this nickname was firmly established to proudly describe anyone from Indiana.
Mascot: Indiana does not have an official cartoon or characterized mascot. They have never attempted to put a cute costumed farmer or haystack on the sidelines to hold the attention of children and annoy people trying to watch the games. Speaking of children, I did find an children's book available for sale called I found U.
Colors: Officially the Indiana colors are Cream and Crimson, but to me they just wear Red and White. I guess given the fact that we claim Maize and Blue as our colors, but really we just wear Yellow and Blue -- I should keep my mouth shut.
Interesting tidbit on IU uniform colors, the 1958 Indiana football team came out for their first home game in light blue jerseys against West Virginia. They won that game 13-12 and decide wear the blue jerseys at home for the remainder of the season. I tried, but I could not find a color picture as proof. I will keep my eyes open for a Big Ten Vault program on that season.
Logo: The traditional University of Indiana logo is a classic interlocking I and U. The university has used the same logo for a very long time, although the football team had used a block “I” on their football helmets on several different occasions. I searched and could not find any other official historic logos for IU.
Helmets: For a school that has had the same classic logo since the dawn of time, they sure do redesign their helmets a lot. Indiana is yet another example of my correlation theory of football helmet designs and program success. Simply put, the more often you change your design the less successful your football is. In the Big Ten you need to look no further than Indiana, Minnesota, and Sparty for supporting data. Since 1983 Indiana has made major changes in helmet design no less than six times, including a five year dalliance with black.
Fight Song: The name of their fight song is Indiana, Our Indiana. The lyrics were written by IU band director Russell P. Harker to the tune of "The Viking March”. The song was first performed at a 1912 football game against Northwestern, which according to their media guide they lost 6-21. The song has since been played at every Indiana football and basketball game.
They call their band The Marching Hundred, even though there are over 250 members. They won the 2007 Sudler Intercollegiate Marching Band Trophy.
We're quick to point out the asshattery of Buckeyes and others here on the MZone. But sometimes, sadly, the douchebag label falls on one of our own. Case in point: U of M alum and Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell.
As I college football blog, I normally wouldn't put something like this up. But I happened to catch this story the other night on CNN and was so absolutely appalled by this guy - and because of the U-M angle - I had to post something for folks who might have missed it.
I'm not going to summarize or recap the story, if you're interested, watch the video below. If you're not interested, totally cool. This is (allegedly) a college football blog so I get you don't come here for news stories like this. But this jackhole's going around calling himself a "concerned Michigan alum" so, I guess this Michigan alum felt obligated to say something, too.
Since Mr. Shirvelll is so fond of the First Amendment, we here at the MZone are going to exercise our First Admendment right as well: Hey, Andrew, get a fucking life, dude. And quit hanging around outside the house of a 21-year-old year old college student. And combing over his and his family's Facebook pages. And drawing swastikas on people. Seriously, the shit's beyond creepy. It's obvious to the rest of us that even your issues have issues.
And while it may be only October 1st, I think it's safe to bestow upon you the MZone Assclown of the Month Award for October.
To follow Jenn's example and compare myself to one of my characters, I'd say I was a lot like Kara in BALLADS OF SUBURBIA... just without the heroin addiction. But in truth you'll find pieces of the high school student I was in many of my teenage characters. As you can see in this picture, I had the same boots that were on the cover of I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE.
I had a love/hate relationship with high school, which made me the rebel who got straight A's. (Almost. Freshman year I got a B in my honors Biology class during the first semester. I stopped taking honors science courses after that. Oh and I got C's and D's in gym unless I was taking dance classes, but that didn't count for your GPA.) I loved learning, I always have, even though I struggled a bit more with Math and Science. (Like everyone but Jenn, who is clearly a genius who is going to rule the world so be nice to her.) I adored English and History and elective classes like Psych and Philosophy. I loved to adapt them to my interests. I petitioned for a Women's History class, which they did institute... the year after I graduated. I did a huge presentation about the ethics of veganism for philosophy and convinced my entire class except for the kid who hung on to some religious idea that animals were put on earth for man to dominate and a hippie girl who worried if it would turn out that vegetables have feelings. Sigh. My English papers were the most fun. Senior year, I did a comparison of Fahrenheit 451 and Trainspotting, two of my favorite books for Humanities. For my junior theme (the biggest English research paper in our high school career, which I actually wrote sophomore year because I was an honors student), I compared and contrasted the lives and art of Sylvia Plath and Courtney Love of Hole, my two biggest idols at the time.
The way I loved and related to those two women, both of whom were misunderstood and struggled with anger and depression, says a lot about my state of mind in high school. So now we are coming to the hate part of high school. I hated the majority of my peers. I hated the system. I didn't fit in. BALLADS OF SUBURBIA is set in the town where I went to high school, the very middle class and proud Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway was from there as well. They have a classroom dedicated to him, kept in the style it was when he was there with this big stained glass windows. I had English class in it my senior year and I used to fantasize about bullets or bombs or something raining through those windows and shattering them and giving the whole pompous school/town a big black eye. It didn't help that I hated Hemingway. I was a Riot Grrrl and I thought he was a misogynist and his writing bored the crap out of me. I'd read newspaper articles that were more interesting and eloquent. But the one thing that we both agreed upon was our hatred for Oak Park. He said the town was filled with "wide lawns and narrow minds." I concurred. I also thought it was ridiculous the way they put him up on a pedestal when he probably just wanted to spit on them.
My issues with Oak Park and my high school were very similar to Kara's in BALLADS. Like her, I moved to the town from a working class neighborhood in the middle of grade school. (Kara moves from the South Side of Chicago in second grade. I moved from the South Grand neighborhood in St. Louis in third grade.) My parents didn't share or raise me to share the materialistic values that my classmates had. I was teased relentlessly through grade school and junior high, clinging to enjoyment I found in my studies and the few smart but different kids that I met. I was shy, but eventually like Kara I found my way to a park a few blocks from the high school called Scoville where all the freaks and geeks and punk rockers and skaters and ravers and stoners hung out. And those became my people. The friendships I formed there helped me survive high school.
And when I started hanging out at Scoville my sophomore year of high school, the more rebellious side of my nature came out. Before I'd expressed it only through the punk music I listened to and the poetry I wrote. I started to act out a bit. I ditched the classes I didn't feel like going to. I smoked pot and went to school stoned. I refused to sit inside the classroom during homeroom which I thought was just gossip period for the mean kids. But because I'd always been the good kid, I got away with all of it. When I got sent to my dean, he'd chastise me a little bit, but then turn to talk of college, which liberal arts schools he thought I should attend. While I was glad that I didn't get into serious trouble, I was also troubled by the injustice I saw at my school. Several of my friends, a few of them non-white and/or non-middle class, all of them artistic and very smart just not people who learned in the traditional way were actually encouraged to drop out of high school while I was being encouraged to go to college. Our high school's dropout rate was low, so it wouldn't look back if the "bad" kids dropped out, but it would bring down the school's academic reputation if they continued to fail their classes and bomb standardized tests. Rather them try to reach these kids, I saw the school trying to sweep them under the rug. And I knew they would have done it to me, too, but my grades never slipped. I never ditched so much school that I failed classes and I never got so deep into drugs and partying that I didn't do my homework. I rode the razor's edge. And speaking of razors.... Depression was a huge problem for me in high school. Like Kara, I self-injured. As you can imagine, if they wanted the weirdo kids to drop out of school, there wasn't a lot of help for those of us dealing with emotional issues.
But like Kara and her friends, I did use writing to cope. In addition to short stories about kids sitting in diners and poetry about unrequited love and razor blades, junior year of high school, my friends and I started making zines. We had a series of feminist political zines called Kill Supermodels (about killing the idea that women should look like supermodels, not killing actual supermodels of course). I wrote a few personal zines about my struggles with depression and self injury and the emotionally and sexually abusive relationship I'd survived during my sophomore year of high school.
So high school had a lot of ups and downs. Maybe I could have been valedictorian if I applied myself more (I was in the top one-percent of my class), but I was more concerned with escaping. I graduated a semester early and moved to Wisconsin with a friend. I didn't come back for graduation because my school had this silly tradition where girls were required to wear white dresses at the ceremony. I thought it was sexist and only wore black during that time of my life anyway and most of my friends were either older or younger than me and wouldn't be there.
High school by that point had been taken outside for me. I learned from the people in a park that meant so much to me I would eventually write a book about it. And our version of the prom was dressing up in the finest thrift store suits, vintage dresses and fishnet tights, and combat boots and going to the middle of Scoville Park with a boombox where we danced to a mix of ska and punk until the cops came to kick us out. As much as I hated high school at the time, it's memories like that one that allow me to look back happily now.
Why We Care: Once upon a time, when giants walked the earth (1959), a man named Steve Filipiak called our Michigan games from the box. He started reporting the scores from around the country, and particularly those from that funny-named school in Western Pennsylvania, and continued to do so until his retirement in 1971. The tradition of reporting the Slippery Rock scores stuck, and in fact was a veritable cult classic around the nation.... But for some reason, the Rock score dropped right off of our scoreboard in the late 1980s. Enter Dave Brandon. (And cue, Tevye: "Traaaa-di-tionnn, Tradition!!!") The Slippery Rock scores are back !!!! And the love of SRU blooms once more. For the dear old university, not "our" rock-dwelling regular......just so we are VERY clear. As such, your crew at The M Zone thought it best that we get to know our friend, Slippery Rock University, once more.
"In 1779, a certain Colonel Daniel Brodhead was in command of Fort Pitt at the present site of the City of Pittsburgh. Col. Brodhead begged General George Washington to allow him to lead an expedition against the Seneca Indians, who were raiding settlements in the area. The troops encountered the Indians and were forced to feel for their lives. In the pursuit, the soldiers crossed a creek at a place where the stream bed was composed of large, smooth rocks. Wearing boots, the soldiers were able to cross the creek safely, but the Senecas - wearing smooth moccasins - slipped and fell, which enabled the cavalry to make its escape. Historically, the Indians called the stream "Wechachochapohka," which means "a slippery rock." Since the location of the stream is in the heart of land once occupied by Delawares, many believe the authenticity of this legend. Shortly after the Slippery Rock Creek was christened, the adjoining town also became known by the catchy name. "
Location: The borough of Slippery Rock, PA 16507 is situated in the Northwest corner of Butler County sorta near the intersection of I-79 and I-80 in Western Pennsylvania. A bucolic, agricultural area located over veins of coal, it is your typical small American town. It is a bit north of Pittsburgh, and much too close to Youngstown, Ohio if you ask me. The campus sits on approximately 660 acres close to the burough which occupies only 1.7 square miles.
Academics: As with most liberal arts colleges, Slippery Rock opened in 1889 as Slippery Rock State Normal School focused on teacher education. In 1926 it became Slippery Rock State Teachers College and became a four year institution. The school developed expertise in health and phys ed education. In 1960, the school graduated to Slippery Rock State College and finally attained university status in 1983. Recently the school has focused on increasing its selectivity and educational offerings. Average SAT scores are 1026 and the average GPA is 3.39. Even more amazing? No teaching assistants...only profs. The most recent head-count puts the school at about 7800 undergraduate students. US News and World Report has SRU ranked 93rd in the Regional Universities (North) category, tied with Robert Morris University in Moon Township, PA, William-Patterson University of New Jersey in Wayne, NJ and Gwynedd-Mercy College, Gwynedd PA. SUNY Potsdam is #91 and Buffalo State University-SUNY is #97
Alumni:Rutgers Women's Basketball Coach, C. Vivian Stringer, has two degrees from SRU. All-American Mike Butterworth, is listed as a 2nd year man for the Dirty Birds in Atlanta, although I couldn't find any playing stats for him. Robert J. Stevens is the top dog at Lockheed Martin Corporation. There are no astronauts or presidents, but Brigadier General Kevin J. Jacobsen, head of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, is an alum...shhhhh.
Colors, Helmets, Mascot, and Fight Song: The University is a D2 school with 17 teams--10 of them for women. (Title IX victims??). Unfortunately their preferred colors are green and white. Big thanks to the fine folks at The Helmet Project---as usual!
Their fight song is kinda weak, you gotta wait for it after the 1970s Rocky Rendition:
But Rocky the Mascot---with the Green Mullet, is kinda neat. They are known as The Rockets or The Rock.
Football: On September 29, 1979 The Rock came to Michigan Stadium in 1979 to face their rival, the mighty from Shippensburg. A Division II attendance record was set that day as 61, 143 fans watched Slippery Rock University go down. Slippery Rock played a second game at the Big House in 1981, drawing 36,719 fans in a 14-13 loss to Wayne State.
This year's squad (and twenty-bazillion before it) is coached by George Mihalik (147-90-4). They play in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, Western Division and are at Clarion this weekend after a 3-1 start. The Golden Eagles are 0-4 on the season. FSN out of Pittsburgh will be televising so set your DVRs! Akeem Satterfield is their big-time running back with per-game averages so far this season of 14 points and 162.7 yards. Those numbers actually place him 2nd and 3rd in the nation in each category.
Other Sports: Andy will be happy to note that The Rock has a women's volleyball team AND softball team. While not an athletic powerhouse, The Rock does ok for itself. And they've got a loyal, if not bizarre following. Now you know why the crowd cheers for the Slippery Rock Score. So get your swag here.
Back during the halcyon days of the original MZone (OMZ! Represent!), when Benny and I were introducing the college football blogosphere to wayward cheerleaders and new terminology such as the Buckstache, we used to get a fair number of requests to advertise on the site. However, I always turned them down because then I'd actually have to keep this thing going. And we all saw how well that went for the last 2+ years.
We also got a lot of inquiries about reciprocal linkage with other blogs. A lot of them were betting sites that I wouldn't visit so I wasn't going to send our readers there.
Since our return with MZone 2.0: The Blog Who Shagged Me, I received one advertising inquiry and the linkage request below that I simply had to share. Oh man. Judging from the sentence structure and grammar, either the Nigerian dude who clogs all of our inboxes has started blogging, or Borat is a fan and wants to woo the audience here on the MZone. Behold...
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Hello Sir/Madam,
While I am searching for the fantasy football related blogs, I viewed your blog
Title: Fantasy Football Url: http://REMOVED Description: REMOVED.COM offers fantasy football information, Football player ratings, football updates and more.
Expecting positive reply from you. Thanks Tom
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Now, while this may come as a shock, I didn't take "Tom" up on this awesome opportunity to get the MZone in front of his obviously massive group of hackers audience and present our readers with the chance of getting a virus put on their computer great fantasy football information when they clicked on "Tom's" link .
But the very offer itself from such a respected blogger such as "Tom" shows that the MZone is back, baby!
So I'm reading the October 4, 2010 issue of TIME magazine and I come across the ad pictured below.
Now, I can't read sheet music and thus don't know about the melody, but the lyrics sure seem like they were inspired by another fight song...
I'm not exactly sure why an insurance company needs a fight song. I'd rather they fire their in-house lyricist and spend that money on a guy who understands you can't get a loaner car for $15 bucks a day.
In a related story, Allstate claims there is no truth to the rumor they're working on their own fight song called "Don't Give A Damn If Your Whole Car Got Totaled Again."
Michigan opens the 2010 Big Ten season this week at Indiana. As of now, this season has exceeded my expectations. I knew Denard was going to be fun, I had no idea he was going to become a living and breathing (and smiling) embodiment of a video game character. This week we need to continue to roll on offense and grab a road win. Doing so will be another big step towards bowl eligibility and respectability. Indiana is hungry to beat us after blowing a late lead to us last year.
History: The 1816 Indiana state constitution gave birth to Indiana University when it required a "general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation, from township schools to a state university, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all."
When it opened the State Seminary was an all-male school. In 1828 the school was renamed Indiana College, and then in 1838 it became known as Indiana University. In 1867 Indiana became one of the first public universities in the US to admit women.
Location: Bloomington, Indiana is located in south central Indiana, about 50 miles from Indianapolis. As you would expect, the actual town is dominated by the university. In 1991, Thomas Gaines, a landscape artist, published a book, The Campus As a Work of Art, in which he named Indiana's campus one of the five most beautiful in America. Most of the campus buildings, built by the WPA during the Great Depression, are made of local Indiana limestone.
The movie Breaking Away, (1979 Academy Award for best screenplay) was filmed on location in Bloomington and the IU campus. The film featured a reenactment of the annual Little 500 bicycle race filmed in the "old" Memorial Stadium on campus, which was demolished shortly after the filming of the movie. The Italian restaurant in the film is now a Thai restaurant (Siam House at 430 E. 4th St). Dave Stoller's house in the film is located at the corner of Lincoln and Dodds. Other scenes were filmed outside the TriDelt house (818 E. 3rd St).
Mascot: Indiana does not have an official cartoon or characterized mascot. They have never attempted to put a cute costumed farmer or haystack on the sidelines to hold the attention of children and annoy people trying to watch the games. Speaking of children, I did find an children's book available for sale called I found U.
Logo: The traditional University of Indiana logo is a classic interlocking I and U. The university has used the same logo for a very long time, although the football team had used a block “I” on their football helmets on several different occasions. I searched and could not find any other official historic logos for IU.
Sponsored by
Akeem Satterfield is their big-time running back with per-game averages so far this season of 14 points and 162.7 yards. Those numbers actually place him 2nd and 3rd in the nation in each category.
