I admit it: I tried hard to not become a Michigan football fan. As a freshman in Ann Arbor in the fall of 1996 I found myself turned off by the manic, even cultish obsession with the team and the worship that transpired each autumnal Saturday. This wasn’t what attracted me to choose U of M for college. No, I wanted the great university, the vibrant college town, the oasis for radical politics. Then a funny thing happened. The following season Michigan ran the table and won every single game. What I experienced during the Rose Bowl-bound team’s 20-14 victory over Ohio State on a cold late November day at the Big House wasn’t about football, or even sports. It was the power of unity, of euphoria among strangers, of a trance as thousands of us move together in the same rhythm, with the same objective. I felt it again, albeit this time as an adult, when the Wolverines won the national championship last week. We are in our mid-40s now—adults with responsibilities—but we still need that youthful kinship, that unity.
