The Ultimate “Kick-Off”…
It’ll it be a busy Labor Day weekend for me – not in terms of labor – but this weekend I have been invited to attend the re-dedication of the new Michigan Stadium. While the Wolverines kick-off the season against Connecticut Saturday at 3:30, in the 109,901-seat stadium, tonight Gail and I will be honored to be among just 1200 people attending a private party at the completely refurbished Big House.
The stadium is completely state-of-the-art with all the bells and whistles, and was the brain-child of U of M’s Athletic Director Bill Martin who will officially retire as AD just before the kick-off tomorrow.
Bill, who was in the real estate and construction businesses for years before signing on with Michigan – came up with the idea to massively upgrade the 83-old-year storied stadium when he took over the reigns as Athletic Director 10 years ago. Amazingly, the 226 million dollar project came in on time and on budget.
While modesty prevents me from taking total credit for that achievement, I would be remiss to not point out that during one of our pre-game broadcasts three seasons ago while we were interviewing Bill, I kicked in $20 bucks towards the building fund. Not to be outdone, Jackie (a proud U of M Grad – in four years thank you) and Big Al (a proud 1.9 GPA graduate of MSU) also handed over some some cash.
(Being a true-green Spartan, Big Al wasn’t thrilled about contributing but lost a “thumb war” to Bill Martin and ended up forking over10 bucks.)
So congratulations to Bill Martin on this remarkable acomplishment and best of luck to Bill and his wife Sally in the future. Go Bill! and Go Blue!
By the way… I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new Big Ten (really Big 12) two-division set-up, with Michigan in one Division and Ohio State in the other. (Fortunately MSU is in the same division as Michigan). Post your comments here, or on our Facebook page.
But Wait… There’s More!
The opening of the Michigan Stadium is a big story… wait til you hear this: We haven’t done the “Story of the Week” in a while, but in my humble opinion, this has to be it:
93-year-old Zsa Zsa Gabor is said to be nearing the end, but her husband Fredrick Prinz von Anhalt says he wants to preserve his wife’s body and put her “on show”. He said that Zsa Zsa has always dreamed that her beauty will be immortal and he wants to “plastinate” her with a special cadaver preserving process so that her beauty will last forever. He added, “I would like to show the plastinated body of Zsa Zsa in the context of a scene of one of her films.”
Well she was in “Nightmare on Elm Street III”…
Didn’t Michael Jackson tried to plastinate himself? Of course he was alive at the time!
Von Anhalt says hasn’t made a final decision yet probably because he’s always been a “pro-plastinator”!
And one more thing…
This Monday, Labor Day, marks the 45th annual Jerry Lewis Labor Telethon for MDA – which I’ve been doing for around 40 years myself! Needless to say it’s a great cause and I will be thrilled to be co-hosting with one of my six favorite daughters, JoAnne, for the final 3 and a half hours from 3:00 to 6:30pm on Channel 20. I hope you’ll tune in and donate!
Have a safe, happy and healthy holiday weekend and we’ll see you back here Tuesday morning!
- Dick