Tales of the Mitten State
It seems that contact with the University of Michigan football program just brings out the worst in people. Wayne Woodrow Hayes, for instance, who would be skipping hand in hand with Mother Theresa through the Elysian fields of eternity were it not for a nationally-televised outburst or two in Ann Arbor. (Well, that and that Clemson thing.) It certainly brought out the worst in the architect who designed their stadium. And then there’s the sad case of former UM head coach Gary_Moeller, a good Ohio boy lured to the dark side, and his eventual destruction.
I bring this up not simply because I have nothing worthwhile to say - two news items in the last 24 hours underscore yet again this unhappy affinity. In the first, a fellow has been arrested in Ann Arbor for allegedly stalking coach Lloyd Carr and posting threatening emails. The fact that the guy has never attended the university didn’t immunize him from the curse. The most chilling part of the story for me personally, however, was this:
Akinmusuru was arraigned Thursday on charges of using a computer in a crime, malicious use of telecommunications and malicious annoyance by writing, campus police spokeswoman Diane Brown said. He faces up to one year in jail if convicted. (emphasis mine)
I thought I was reasonably safe prattling away here as long as I avoided slandering or libeling anyone except people everyone hates anyway. “malicious annoyance by writing” lowers the prosecutorial bar significantly. You guys are all having a good time, right? Can I pour you another drink or anything?
The second episode involves the University of Wisconsin band, which is now on Double-Secret Probation for unspecified depravities on its bus ride home from Ann Arbor:
The school is not releasing details on what happened during the trip to the Sept. 23 game. But Chancellor John Wiley described it in a letter to the band’s director as behavior “that can be seen as anything from boorish and offensive to patently dangerous and unlawful.” Wiley warned in the letter he would consider suspending activities and travel of the band or replacing its leadership if there were more reports of “gratuitous vulgarity, sexualized banter or joking, hazing, or other forms of demeaning conduct.”
I may be just another old crock, but I’m shocked and dismayed to hear of this from an august fellow Big Ten musical institution. When I was in the OSU band, our bus rides were used for studying, or writing letters to our mothers, or attending to our devotions. In its more delusional moments, Wisconsin likes to think of itself as the Stanford of the corn belt. Since the Stanford Band is blacklisted at more stadiums than Janet Jackson’s breasts, the Badgers may be making concrete progress toward that goal.
Let’s hope this contagion doesn’t extend westward on I-94 to East Lansing, where my Buckeyes will play the Spartans tomorrow.
