CW: Sexual abuse
The first game I remember was against Maryland. It was probably the one in '89. My dad and I were in the 85th row in the southeast corner of Michigan Stadium. My dad pointed at one of the dots on the field. "That's Bo!"
Ten years later, I was a freshman in the Michigan Marching Band. After two long weeks of drilling the basics of marching into our heads, we practiced our parade down to the stadium as the evening cooled us off. We filed down the tunnel and into our section. The directors praised us for our hard work, and then revealed a surprise: The Man Himself was here to speak to us. He spoke for maybe 10 minutes, dodging sprinklers on what was still natural turf. Bo was electric; I forget what he said, but not how he said it.
On the eve of The Game in 2006, he died, and I tried to hold it together in my cubicle. The next day, Michigan lost an intolerable third straight game against OSU.
Take down the statue. Rename the building. He knew. Either he didn't believe what he was told, or he didn't believe that it was abuse, or he didn't care. None of those are worth celebrating.
