Thursday, October 16, 2008

A2's Angel of Death



Quite a few wacky things have happened to the local school's athletic program since Mrs. VFR and I arrived in town.

So many so, that I'm beginning to suspect that I am unknowingly the Angel of Death in town.

To recap:
  • The day after I was invited to interview in person, Bo Schembechler died. The day of my interview was the day of his funeral.
  • Within my first months here, the men's and women's basketball coaches, Tommy Amaker and Cheryl Burnett, were both fired.
  • No. 5 Michigan lost at home to I-AA Appalachian State, perhaps the greatest upset in college football history. The following week, the team loses 38-0 to Oregon, its most lopsided defeat ever.
  • Lloyd Carr retired after one of the most disappointing seasons in program history.
  • The local paper ran a four-day series that showed how the school guided student-athletes into gut classes for which they did little to no work.
  • Rich Rodriguez arrives after an ugly divorce from West Virginia that's litigated in the courts for months, an inauspicious start for the new coach who loses the $4 million buyout case badly.
  • In 2008, Rodriguez is off to a 2-4 start in his first season, the program's worst start in 41 years and one that threatens the team's 33-year consecutive bowl streak, the longest such stretch in college football. It's fair to say that it's almost certainly going to end this year.
I'm not Lucifer, but if I was, it'd be about time to say, "Hmmm ... I think my work here is done."

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2 Comments:

At 7:06 PM, Blogger Rachel said...

Don't forget that Gerald Ford died the day before you moved there!

 
At 11:51 PM, Blogger Nathan Fenno said...

And there's Beilein's buyout troubles when he was hired from West Virginia, the Les Miles fiasco and the regular drip of off-field issues, capped by the recent football-on-hockey violence. Doesn't seem to be so great to be a Michigan Wolverine these days.

 

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