Pure Michigan
The NCAA has announced to the Ann Arbor Astros aka the Michigan Wolverines the allegations of cheating done by their football team in the last three years of, Michigan Man, Jim Harbaugh’s tenure. Netflix has also come out with their so-called documentary on Harbaugh’s fall guy, Conor Stalions. Fans of the cheaters up north have been doing mental gymnastics, that would have had them taking gold in Paris earlier this month, to feebly justify their success of the past three seasons despite it being more tainted than a Major League Baseball home run record. It encapsulates the Michigan Man mythos perfectly.
The term Michigan Man was used by two godfathers of Michigan football, Fielding Yost and Bo Schembechler, both of whom were scumbags. The term, having been used by those horrible men, was on its way out because of the association with them. It was only being kept around by Jim Harbaugh and his team’s success* over the past three seasons. But what defines this term?
Yost said it was on Michigan Men to “spread the gospel of their university to the world’s distant outposts.” The actions that define it the most is wrapping yourself in a soiled banner of righteousness and integrity only to have the character of a massively corrupt, hypocritical politician who gaslights anyone who notices, demanding you don’t believe your lying eyes.
Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes
Connor Stalions and Jim Harbaugh are true Michigan Men who epitomize that definition to the letter. Stalions in his show claims that he “doesn’t break the rules, he exploits them.” There’s the gaslighting, telling everyone not to believe their lying eyes. All the while he giggles with Dave Portnoy and admits the evidence against him is real while telling the NCAA he ‘can’t recall’ when the NCAA asked him if it was him in the picture showing him cheating.
Their gaslighting is a shouting admission of guilt. ‘Everyone does it! It gave no competitive advantage!‘ they cry. If everyone does it, then why did the one team they had the least recordings of in the past three years beat them on December 31st, 2022? Everyone tries to decipher opponents’ signs. They wrap themselves in this truth to justify their lies of an illegal cheating operation. No one else launches massive, extensive, illegal data-collecting operations. If it gave no competitive advantage why spend thousands of dollars creating such an operation? Why all of a sudden does the program do a complete 180 only AFTER this scheme started?
The Fallout
And if it gave no competitive advantage why did the NCAA, which usually moves so slowly that they make a sloth look like the Flash, immediately implement the Harbaugh Rule (which was long overdue) to ensure this type of cheating can never happen again?
Michigan is putting everything on Costanza’s Law; “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” The fact of the matter is, deep down, they don’t believe it. They know the brief revival that they’ve had is not only tainted but void. That will be the legacy of Harbaugh and the epitaph of the myth of the Michigan Man. After going 0-5 against their greatest foe, they used a once-in-a-century pandemic to forfeit/duck that foe, and to avoid another loss resorted to the greatest cheating operation in the history of football. “If you cheat to win, then you’ve already lost, according to Bo Schembechler.” Jim Harbaugh, 2013. Here lies the Michigan Man condemned by their own, unmatched hypocrisy.
Whether the NCAA and the mainstream media do the right thing and vacate their wins and titles remains to be seen. I don’t have any faith in them to do so as it would be on par for them to hit Harbaugh with a penalty for buying a recruit a burger and do nothing about blatantly cheating. So it will be up to regular people to uphold truth. If this injustice goes without correction then the message to, and expectation of, every football team in America will be that it’s better to win by cheating and get a slap on the wrist later than it is to have integrity and honesty in your character. Either way, this only add more lies, selfishness, corruption, and low moral and personal character to the measly now-dead myth of the Michigan Man.
