“The process of our 2004 National Title began 400 days earlier with a loss to Arkansas. Every second of that process led us to a championship.” –Nick Saban, recently retired head football coach of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide.

Yes, this is going to be a sports column, and yes, it is going to center on the Michigan Wolverines football team.

But not to spike the ball.

In fact, I hope and encourage the Buckeyes among you to read on, because there is a broader and relevant theme here.

As often as “narrative” is bandied about these days, almost to the point of cliche, the search for narrative and its use has long been an important part of sports writing. Without it, the scenery would not change. Sports writing would be a rote re-telling of the actions of players in games whose rules never change much. Outside of your narrow tribal rooting interest, or perhaps if you actually know a coach or player personally, there would be nothing to encourage reading sports writing without it.

Fortunately, sports lends itself well to narratives. Too well, some have argued. Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined “the ludic fallacy” to describe the frequent over-extrapolation of models developed with games and sports to the real world. The source of that error is that sports and games are strictly limited, in time, and by rules. A single game. A single season. The rules are agreed to by all parties, and do not change in the middle of a game. Basketball does not morph into tennis in the third quarter. The stakes are very different as well. Excluding the known consequences of reckless gambling on sport and game outcomes, and injuries to players, the stakes are comparatively low. Billions of people are blissfully ignorant that Michigan won a national title this year in American college football–and will be none the worse for their ignorance.

The real world is not like this. Consequences for many real world problems are more serious, more lasting. But you don’t get a rule book, or a defined time frame, or a score board, to tell you how you are doing on those kind of problems. Every time you connect, truly connect with your kids, your friends, your spouse–there’s no points added to a board that anyone can see. No band playing the fight song. You are left putting points on those boards and hope, in the end, they are enough. You try not to think about if you are leaving proverbial points on the field, as things happen in life and you make choices. Similarly, there is no field position, no first down marker, to let you know your new change in company or career is advancing the ball. In the real world, the results are not often black and white, who won, who lost. No one is keeping score, and if they are, well, what score do you use? Money is used a lot, but there are many reasons to argue that is not the best way to keep score. There are people well ahead of all of us on that scoreboard, and we would not trade our life for theirs.

Clear results. Clear, short time-lines. Rules that do not change. New casts of characters every generation. Yes, sports make models simple, and some narratives easy.

Are sports and sports narratives good models for the real world? Well, as the famous saying goes, every model is wrong.

But some models are, occasionally, useful.

By analogy.

So let me start by introducing the analogy we will use here:

And introduce our archetypal heroes. Entr’acte.

Number 2 is Blake Corum. Number 90 is Mike Morris. To the right, number 9 is JJ McCarthy. To the right of JJ, somewhat obscured, is Donovan Edwards. These are some of the players who just won the national championship. Indeed, three of the four scored multiple touchdowns in the championship game last Monday night.

Brian, of MGoBlog, is a rarity among sports writers. Certainly among college football bloggers. Brian can write. I have (shamelessly) stolen a couple turns of phrase he coined from time to time. “About obviously” being my favorite. Brian wrote of the Michigan Wolverines players in that picture thusly:

“They run like my kids run. My kids do not have keys, or a wallet, or a phone. They do not have objects they carry around every day that represent demands, obligations, responsibilities. Mortgages, credit card balances, texts you have to answer from people you do not want to talk to.

Unlike my kids, they do have all of those objects, and all of those demands, obligations, and responsibilities. They’ve signed up for an order of magnitude more than their fair share by playing football at the University of Michigan™. But they do not seem burdened by it. They are joyful. They run like there is nothing in their pockets, nothing at all.” https://mgoblog.com/content/edge-space-0

With all due respect to Brian, he’s not describing the guys in that picture above. He’s talking about these guys, during the 4th quarter theatrics at the University of Nebraska one fall night in 2021. You can’t tell from this video, but as this was being shot, heading into the fourth quarter of the game, Michigan was losing. In the way Michigan had been doing for about a decade — a night where everything was going wrong, and all the easy plays were suddenly hard. No rhyme. No reason. For a decade, Michigan succumbed to the Fates’ conspiracy against them in games exactly like this one. The Cornhusker crowd could sense the blood in the water from the foundering Wolverines, and roared to AC/DC that night. So often had Michigan lost games like this lately that the same Brian of MGoBlog coined “BPONE” — the “black pit of negative expectations” — to describe the now familiar sensation of loss shambling inexorable towards you, a Michigan fan.

I wish I could find now the version from the stands, shot by a different Nebraska fan that night, and not this take from the field. For in that version, the camera is panning, taking in the fireworks and stadium jumping in unison to AC/DC. Then, you hear one of the nearby Nebraska fans off camera say “Oh my God. Look at Michigan.” The camera pans back to the field in response. The Nebraska sideline is still. They’re watching Michigan too. As you can tell from the version I did link, the 18-22 year old boys, the Michigan Wolverines football team, were bouncing to the song. They were lost in the moment, taking in their unique 4 year window for stupid fun moments in a football game like this. The whole team was bouncing and singing to AC/DC. Breaking out cell phones to record it. They were bouncing and singing all the way to midfield. That’s why you see the refs at one point in the video I did find and link.

Damn the score. Forget BPONE. They were having fun. Playing a game. And they were happy to play the game some more.

They danced. They sang. Then they ran.

Like there was nothing in their pockets.

Nothing at all.

Michigan came back in the fourth quarter, and won that game against Nebraska.

These kids are in that video, by the way. The ones from this picture. They’re there:

But look closely. Because in this photo, you’ll see the keys in their pockets.

This photo was taken at the end of their season in 2021. Nebraska was a distant memory by then. All of the players in this photo had not played much in the game from this photo. They were young, and mostly back ups then. This was one of several similar images taken by various Michigan Twitterati (Xati?) who went to this game, where the University of Georgia Bulldogs stole all the joy from the Nebraska video above. Georgia blew Michigan off the field that night, on the way to a Georgia championship.

What you see in that picture are a handful of Michigan players who stayed to feel hurt. They watched the entire Georgia celebration. Silent. They wanted to see what it was like to win games like this, to win championships. See, sports again are easier than real life. You can tell when you won. You can see a goal, feel the miss, but at least know you were near. Real life isn’t always so clear.

Like the loss to Arkansas 400 days earlier that Nick Saban started us with, this photo at the end of 2021 is where the Michigan National Championship in the 2023-2024 season started.

With those who stayed on the field. Stayed to feel the hurt of falling short. Stayed to promise to themselves that though it hurt now, they would not feel this way again.

From 2021 to now, the University of Michigan Wolverines football team has gone 40-3. This season, they became only the 6th team in college football history to go 15-0.

But the season was far from perfect. They had to rally to win in overtime against Alabama, standing on 4th and goal from the 3. Ohio State, the best complete team they would face all season, was driving the field for the win with less than 2 minutes to go. I, as a fan, was aged so much by just those two games this season that I no longer measure time in laps the third planet makes in orbit around Sol, but by the birth and death of galaxies. You should listen to Joel Klatt describe the moment Michigan lost a senior team captain to a season ending injury. And that’s just some of the on field adversity. The problems you expect within the rules of the game.

Off the field, Michigan’s head coach was suspended twice during the season. For 6 of those 15 games, including the Ohio State game, the guys in the photo were without their mentor. Through those scandals, like the real world, were many voices rushing to judge and condemn them for actions they, as players, had nothing to do with. The more major of the scandals was advance scouting in violation of NCAA rules. I won’t litigate that here; Michigan played, and beat, every top 10 team they faced this year long after those teams could adjust to any advantage Michigan might have had from it.

But the adversity off the field became so pervasive and voracious that the team leaned into it, adopting this as their motto:

“Everybody.”

Not sure if the ambiguity was intended, but I hope so.

For that “everybody” includes Michigan. They did most of the off-field damage to themselves.

Much as in real life, Michigan was not always a good friend to Michigan. Indeed, this season, it seemed Michigan was often another obstacle Michigan would need to overcome.

Yet, as the Stoics say, the obstacle became the way. Michigan’s head coach would later claim that the adversity was the unfair advantage–uniting the team, the university, and the fans as one. I will spare the Buckeye readers the podcast snippets and articles describing how uniquely team focused this made the individuals on the football team. How the Michigan Wolverines’ culture was different, and they were truly playing for each other. After all, you can go watch that Nebraska vid again and see that. Or you can read the New York Times guest essayists’ transformation as a new fan.

That doesn’t make the way easy though.

By the end, this is how the way looked:

That’s Blake Corum, #2 in the picture from the Georgia celebration above, in a photo taken near the end of the regular season.

It felt as it looks.

Even in sports, the fairy tale rarely happens. There is a cost levied. The champion will be tested. Some will fail. Many are the sports teams or greats undone by misfortune on or off the field.

But sometimes… sometimes, you do get happily ever after.

The kids on the 144th football team to take the field for the University of Michigan went from this:

… through this…

…to be champions.

The heroes’ journey.

Now again, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

Those few, those happy few, on that Michigan team know the price they paid in that journey. They know the lows that brought the highs. They know perseverance through the hard times, on the field, off, external, internal, can be done. They know they have proven the will to do so. They were lucky enough to see the clear, tangible reward of that.

We’re not always so lucky to get the juice from the squeeze in the “real world.” This is the ludic fallacy–the limit of our model.

But if you will indulge me, I’ll risk the errors to extend the metaphors some. For the real world is made of two kinds of people. Those who have stayed while Georgia celebrated — and those who will. Those who have looked, and felt, like that photo of Blake Corum. And those who will. None of those people, no matter which group they are, will always have a finite game, a scoreboard, and a season to know if, in the end, they have finished as champions. In the real world, the rules can change. Even the game that’s being played. There’s not the easy binary of wins and losses. What’s best won’t even always be clear, to know if progress, for the price, is even happening. They will have challenges. They will have opponents. Sometimes, that opponent will be themselves.

But now they know they can persevere. They can make the obstacles the way. They can stay.

For it was Michigan versus everybody.

And –we– won.

Ambiguity intended : )

***

Now, I know in this, the year of our Lord twenty twenty-four, some of you look and feel like Blake now. I know all of you, at some point, will.

Remember the metaphor of Team 144.

When you’re low, when you’re down bad, remember Team 144. Lean on the team. Play for each other. Do what is hard — because you can, and you will. The first step back is small and easy.

First, take the keys out of your pockets…

***

Finally, I don’t know when “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers became the unofficial second fight song of the Michigan Wolverines. I have seen some internet blog historians postulate. I picture them pulling down a cob pipe, rocking back in the chair, and looking up from a board of checkers to stare off into mists of time, to the far off shores of 2018. But no one knows for sure. Suddenly, in the 2021 season, the song was there and stayed. Now, the chorus is sung at Michigan games like they are watching European league soccer. The other football.

But I do know why, lyrically, it has lasted. The part of the soul it has touched, those few words that found truth in this particular journey:

“But it’s just a price I pay

Destiny is calling me

Open up my eager eyes

I’m Mr. Brightside.”

All models are wrong. Some are useful.

Hail to the Victors, valiant.