Today I finally developed some Michigan school spirit (sorry, Dad). One of my duties as a member of the Women’s Glee Club is to sing “Blues” at the tailgates before the home football games and ask for donations. Not to be confused with something Billie Holiday might sing, Blues are all of the Michigan school songs — Laudes Atque Carmina, Yellow and Blue, I Want To Go Back To Michigan, Varsity, and (of course) Hail To The Victors.
We started the day off with a brief radio gig on WOMC, the “flagship station for U of M football,” before splitting off into smaller groups and wandering around the tailgaters. People had RVs and tents, grills and coolers, lawn chairs and car bumpers. Some groups were grilling hotdogs, others, including a friend of mine whose father used to play football for Michigan, were a little more upscale with pulled pork sandwiches and large platters of appetizers and dessert. (In fact, I made it a point to end my group’s travels there so I could mooch off of them.) This was definitely an aspect of college life we didn’t have at MIT.
Because it was the Michigan State game, the crowd was particularly riled up for good natured rivalry. Lansing is only an hour away and many parties had a pretty even mixture of maize and blue and green and white. I saw one man who apparently couldn’t make up his mind who to cheer for — his sweatshirt was split down the middle with the left half green for the spartans and the right half blue for the wolverines. One woman grabbed us, brought us over to her friends, Michigan State fans, and gave us $10 to sing Hail to the Victors for them. Another man in a green sweatshirt offered us $40 to sing the Michigan State song, which I didn’t know, but two girls did and thus sold their voices to the green and white.
Victors was the most requested song by far, as it’s the one everyone knows and claps along to, but occassionally someone would surprise us with their knowledge of our repetoire. An alum of the Men’s Glee Club asked if we knew the “Go to College” song, which apparently was written back when he was a student in the 1970s. We didn’t, but he gave us money anyway for singing “Yellow and Blue.” By the end of the day, we had close to $200 in our bucket — and that was just my half of the group.
As for the football game itself… heck, I didn’t have tickets. I have no idea who’s winning. I came home to watch the Tigers-Yankees game instead.