HSR on Treehouse Fort

Tonight I'll be appearing on the Treehouse Fort radio show/podcast to talk about the upcoming Frozen Four. I'll be talking with Tuffy about all the teams left in the tournament and what we can expect in Denver, and hopefully I won't embarrass myself too badly. The show starts at 8:00 EDT and I'll be the first guest.

On Maize

HSR details the history of Michigan football season t-shirt design and its effects on the football program.

ON SHIRT DESIGN

Back in 2003, the athletic department offered the chance for students to design a t-shirt for the football season. The incentives were obvious for both sides: Free labor for the U, a chance to make a buck (you don't hate supporting Michigan, do you?) and a portfolio boost for the winner.

The 2003 student-designed season football shirt got the program off to an excellent start, with its now-iconic winged helmet logo, the flashy-but-still-traditional block lettering, the old-school thin block M, and the Space-Bitches list of football facts on the back. The 2004 shirt took a step backward with its absurd lowercase sans serif font and blurry abstraction of a running back (the exact opposite of the iconic graphic from 2003).
The 2005 shirt had an oddly cropped oil painting on the back, but at least the front had an appropriate image and font. Although they took the design out of the students' hands for 2006, that season shirt returned to its proper maize roots. Unfortunately, the listing of University stats on the back made it sound like a collaboration between Nike and the Alumni Association. When I'm traveling the country on road games, sharing the fact that UM has students from 80 countries is not going to convince anyone our football team is great. 2007's shirt is nothing exciting, with a decent logo and just the home games on the back. It doesn't do anything wrong, either, though. Except that it has "Appalachian State Mountaineers" listed among our opponents, which is weird because they're a I-AA team, and Michigan doesn't schedule them. I'll have to contact Bill Martin about that one. ON BLUE

The University started promoting color unification with the 2002 with a "Blue Out" against MSU and "Maize Out" for the Penn State game. However, selling a blue season shirt or encouraging people to wear anything besides maize (jerseys are the one exception) is a terrible idea that should never have happened. Here's why.

1. The 2005 season shirt should never have been blue.

The designer submitted a maize shirt, which, after it became University property, was announced as the winning design... on a blue shirt. They pulled it out from under her. After enough backlash, the athletic department held a poorly publicized vote to determine the winning color. A whole 3,000 people voted in it and blue somehow won by 100 votes.

Of course, this vote was based on something that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. The t-shirt design contest information packet said "the color of the shirt will be designated by the submitter," which means we were free to choose the color. The winning design was submitted as a maize shirt and then it got mutilated (with the swoosh added and the color changed). The athletic department had no intentions of letting the winner pick the color; they wanted a blue shirt all along.

2. "Blue Outs" have always sucked.

Aside from the entire 2005 season, presumably a year-long Blue Out because of that year's shirt, we've had two officially titled, publicized, big game Blue Outs: 2002 vs MSU and 2005 vs Notre Dame. Here are the results.
Yawn.

The goal of the blue shirts, we were told, was to "unite the team with the student body." Which is not accomplished by darkening the student section. Blue is dark, maize is bright. On top of that, not nearly enough people participated, so it extrasucked.

Even if it had succeeded in draping everyone in blue, it wouldn't have been impressive. You could smear mud on everyone in the section and they'd be 'uniform,' but they'd still all be smeared in mud. The goal should be to stand out in one united block. Notre Dame's student section wears an unnatural shade of green that stands out. When they all wore it, it looked awesome, so the project was a success even though it didn't match the team uniforms. Well, that and their constant cheering and perfect interaction with the band.

Consider some maize out pictures.
Penn State in 2002:
Penn State in 2005: Michigan State in 2006:

3. Consider the team's records for games in which maize was either the season's shirt color, or the promoted "* Out" color.

In maize shirts: 2002 vs. PSU, 2003, 2004, 2006 seasons, 2005 vs. PSU: 22-0
In blue shirts: 2005 season, 2002 vs. MSU: 4-3

22-0 vs. 4-3. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but Q.E.D. Please wear maize, or whatever that color Steve & Barry's makes, inside the stadium.

Weekend Update with HSR

1). Michigan baseball's magical weekend...or not.

Brian pretty much nails it, a complete 180 from last Monday, losing a no-hitter with one strike left (and missing golden opportunities to cash in some runs earlier in the game) leaves Michigan down one game in the best of three. I'd write more about tonight's game, but I am worried that the NCAA might break into my house and bust up my laptop for LiveBlogging.

2). No Cinderella run for HSR in the Ladies... tournament

I lost. I mean, not badly. We garnered 31% in our game, but for the love of Mike, we were up against a blogger in eye black! I mean, come on! Clearly, the voters went for supporting freedom.

So, it is with great pleasure that we throw our support here at the HSR behind Caesar himself, Brian Cook from MGoBlog. The man has a good shot, let's back him up.

Beyond that, have a great week, and we'll see you soon.