FOOTBALL SEASON BRINGS BACK HALCYON COLLEGE DAYS

By Juan Montoya
I attended the University of Michigan quite by accident.
I originally applied to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo under the United Migrants for Opportunity Inc. program that would guarantee in-state tuition for former migrants. The UMOI program not only lowered the tuition, but also provided a stipend for students from out of state.
At the time I was at TSC under the GI Bill starting undergraduate work toward a journalism degree. I had just read Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," an eminently readable tell-all book about the New York Yankees.
If you've read the book you know that Bouton, besides being a keen observer, tore the cover off professional baseball and did it in a hugely entertaining way. It is considered to be one of the most important sports books ever written and the only sports-themed book to make the New York Public Library's 1996 list of Books of the Century. It also is listed in Time Magazine's 100 greatest non-fiction books of all time.
I though to myself that if they could teach a jock how to write so well then they

could teach me how to write for newspapers. So I applied there.
Something, however, had gone wrong and as August came, I hadn't received notice of admission. Apparently, there had been some scandal on the expenditures of the director of the UMOI program and it had been put on hold. I was caught in the middle and for a while there, it looked like I might have to spend another semester at TSC.
It was during one of the phone calls I made to admissions at WMU from journalism professor and former newspaper man John MacAllister's office in mid-August that they asked if I had applied anywhere else. I hadn't and the woman asked if she could send my application in inter-university mail to the University of Michigan. She asked if I knew where it was and I told her I didn't. She said it was in a city called Ann Arbor and said she'd put the application packet in the mail.
About a week later I received a call from Sandra Applewhite, the woman in charge of admissions at the UM. With a week left until the beginning of classes, she said I had been accepted there and to come on over. So I got on the bus at the Greyhound station the next day, a Thursday, and left for Michigan.
Three days later  (on a Sunday) I arrived in Ann Arbor. Life was sure different in the Midwest than in South Texas. Instead of mesquite and sabal palms and  Spanish Dagger, there were elm, black walnut and birch. And since it was the beginning of Fall, the leaves were changing colors. It was beautiful and then started turning cold, ungodly cold. But I digress.
At the time you register as a student, you are also handed a packet of tickets to attend all the home football games. There were games with Big 10 rivals like Purdue, Wisconsin. Northwestern, and, of course, the worthless nuts from Ohio State, the Buckeyes. Since we left South Texas in April, and returned in late October, I was never much of a football or baseball fan. There was simply no time for extracurricular activity when I attended school.
So the packet of tickets to the games often ended up in a desk drawer unused. If a roommate wanted one for a visiting relative I let them have them.
All that changed in 1977, my last year at the UM. The Wolverines were playing Ohio State for the trip to Pasadena at the Rose Bowl. The week before the game, Ann Arbor took on a look of a carnival. The kiosks were filled with postings from students and fans selling and buying tickets to The Game.
I decided to go to and find out what all the commotion was about.
That Saturday, I joined the rest of the students and game-goers on the wide, tree-lined  sidewalks of Ann Arbor to Michigan Stadium. From a distance, it looks like a huge gray battleship sunk into the ground. When you walk in, it seems like you are in a small city. The attendance that day was more than 100,000 and it sounded like it. On one side the colors of Michigan – maize and blue "Amazing Blue" – prevailed. On the other, the scarlet and gray predominated. The stadium was ablaze with color and noise.

I had never seen a college or a professional football game before. But inside the park with that crowd, the game took on a secondary importance to the festive atmosphere. Students were not allowed to bring alcohol to the stadium, but a few got around that by bringing sheepskins filled with their favorite libation. These were passed around the student section freely. Ann Arbor was one of those cities that made possession of marijuana a misdemeanor that carried a $10 fine or an ounce way back then. Each April 1 (April Fools' Day), students gathered by the Cube at the Diag in front of the graduate library to celebrate the coming of Spring and warm weather at an event called the Hash Bash. Hundreds of students crowded the square and smoked hash, or pot, if they didn't have that. So a few of the the students were primed up before they entered the stadium.
Pacing the sidelines for Michigan was Bo Shembechler. On the Buckeye side was legendary Woody Hayes. Schembechler had previously been an assistant at Ohio State under Hayes.
Once the ball was kicked off, the frivolity stopped and everything was football.
Ricky Leach was the UM quarterback and names like Harlan Huckelby and Russel Davis topped the UM offensive roster.
On the Ohio State side, Rod Gerald, Ron Springs, Ricky Johnson, Doug Donlery and Tom Caousineau battled for the Buckeyes.
It was an amazing mixture of sights and sounds. You heard the clash of shoulder pads echo through the bowl in the crisp cold air and before you knew it, some guy was catching the ball 30 yards downfield. Even if you weren't a football fan, the athleticism and skill of the players was amazing.
After a game filled with drama, Michigan, won 14–6. The Wolverines would go to Pasadena and lose to the University of Washington Huskies by a touchdown 27-20 on New Year's Day with 105,312 in attendance.
I haven't attended another college football game since. But my football friends tell me that game was the next-to-last of the Schembechler-Hayes 10 Years War between UM and Ohio State. The next year Hayes would end his career after striking a player in anger in the sidelines.
Those were the Glory Days Bruce Springsteen was singing about. At about this time each year, memories of that gridiron battle still come to mind.