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April 10, 2026Can you guess what’s pictured above? Click the image to find out! |
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| | I’ve only been a Wolverine or college sports fan for fourteen years. Growing up on Long Island, the closest team of note might have been over in Queens, the occasional basketball contender St. John’s. Then I went to Northwestern in the early 1990s when our basement-dwelling teams were a proud embarrassment. (The obnoxious, self-soothing refrain in the stands: “That’s all right, that’s okay, you’ll be working for us some day.”)
In 2011, when we first came to A2 for my Knight-Wallace fellowship, I hadn’t even heard of The Game. But then one of my fellows ran a March Madness pool while we traipsed through Turkey and Israel on a fellowship junket, and the social gambling aspect hooked me. At the same time, my husband, who had no prior college affiliation, became an intense U-M fan and earned two degrees here. That block M now adorns most of our clothes, the dog leashes, a shower curtain, and several kitchen items. Our dogs are Maize and Victor; Blue died two years ago.
Still, I’ve struggled to take pride in U-M athletics because of the frequent whiff (or full wind) of scandal surrounding some of its achievements. The 2024 football championship, for instance, was accompanied by Covid-era recruiting infractions, a sign-stealing cheating scheme, and the arrest of a coach for allegedly hacking and mining the social media accounts of thousands of student-athletes for nude images. Oh, later we’d learn that the substitute coach for many of the games that season was a bit of a mess, too. U-M’s deeper history isn’t much better; the 1989 national champion basketball squad’s legacy is as much Fab Five as it is investigations and punishments. And even the greatness of the Bo Schembechler era is marred by revelations the revered coach seems to have looked the other way as the team’s doctor molested thousands of people in his care.
But! Monday night’s national triumph felt different! Some will ding the program for building/buying itself a champion team from transfer-portal parts, but that’s within the rules and the way it works now. Dusty May just did it better than everyone else. The team itself is the real thing, a pleasure to watch, and easy to root for. They seem like nice kids and May seems like a great leader. I’m so happy I convinced my editors at Hour Detroit to let me profile May before the season started.
Speaking of media, I feel like the kids at the Michigan Daily could’ve done better on the homepage on Tuesday morning. You know, something like this. Maybe they were too busy celebrating? The student broadcasters’ reactions at the moment U-M won were priceless and precious, though.
Regardless, congrats to everyone – including a2view readers Kurt and David Kamper, both of whom placed in my annual NCAA bracket pool. They joined up last year when I put out the call and took second and fourth places respectively. It really pays to read those P.S.’s!
Your non-basketball news is here, too. U-M men’s hockey’s season ended last night in a two-OT heartbreaker, an Ypsi dad is in ICE custody, the feds sue Washtenaw County over immigration, football fans have a new local team to cheer on, and a burr oak took a heckuva lightning bolt.
This is last week’s most-clicked link.
– Steve Friess, editor |
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| | | Morning glory. Credit: Steve Friess |
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| How it looked on TV. Credit: Patricia Garcia |
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| | Victors, Exultant: It’s all over but the parade, which is set to run from the President’s House on South University to Yost Ice Arena on S. State starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow, and an already sold-out, ticketed celebration at Crisler Center at 1 p.m. (Heads up: several city streets will be closed for the parade route starting at 8 a.m.) Monday night’s post-victory celebration was remarkably peaceful, with just two arrests and more than forty fires – I still do not understand what all those couches did to deserve this – but no significant injuries (to humans). There was plenty to read, see, and hear this week, from the Michigan Daily’s game recap to the University Record’s write-up of the grassroots place the “Shock the World, Boys” slogan came from, to a nice look at Yaxel Lendeborg’s dark past and bright future from SB Nation. U-M alum and noted NIL contributor Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports got Dusty May to admit something that bugged him. The Maize n Brew crew ask if May is the best U-M men’s basketball coach ever, MLive is among many suggesting this is the school’s greatest men’s basketball squad; even now-chastened ESPN star Stephen A. Smith, who until recently was a high-profile Michigan doubter, also now entertains that notion. And, of course, there is an outstanding Sports Illustrated “digital cover” story in which Pat Forde writes, “We’re still relatively early in the transfer portal era. This Michigan team is the greatest utilization of the portal we’ve seen, and it will be very difficult to top.” |
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| | Trump administration sues Washtenaw County: The fifty-three-page complaint filed in federal court Thursday names county prosecutor Eli Savit, sheriff Alyshia Dyer, and the entire county commission, seeking to void policies the administration says amount to “obstructing federal immigration enforcement operations and shielding criminal offenders from apprehension.” Sheriff department officials failed to honor forty “detainer” notices on jail inmates the Department of Homeland Security planned to take into custody upon their release, the complaint alleges. Dyer denied obstruction in an email to the Detroit News; the paper also quotes her January social media post that read, in part, “We do not ask about immigration status, nor do we engage in immigration enforcement, and we will continue that practice.” Read the entire complaint via ClickOnDetroit. |
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| | Community rallies behind ICE-detained dad: Miguel Rosas Ruiz, the father of a Scarlett Middle School seventh grader and three other children who graduated from AAPS schools, was arrested in March while driving to work, according to an email sent this week by the Mitchell Elementary School PTO. Ruiz, who owns a painting company and has lived in Ypsi for about twenty-five years, is at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin. He came to the U.S. from Mexico in 2001; it is unclear from publicly available information what his immigration status is. The effort to help him remain in the U.S. includes asking the public to sign a support letter that condemns his “abduction”; there were more than eighty signers as of Wednesday. Mayor Christopher Taylor said at Monday’s council meeting that the city is drafting a letter of support for Ruiz, the Daily reports. Also, there are two GoFundMe campaigns in support of Ruiz, one that has raised more than $18,000 to support his family and another that has raised more than $6,000 to pay legal bills. (Disclosure: I’m a member of the Mitchell PTO but I was not involved in this issue.) |
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| | Spring ball of another sort: Eli Trese profiles the Michigan Raptors, a professional arena football team in the American Arena League 2, has taken up residence at WideWorld Sports Center. The Raptors open the eight-game regular season tomorrow at home against Detroit’s Michigan Avengerz. Arena football, according to Raptors owner Jeff Pitock, is a more intense and exciting version of the game: “If you like extreme sports, it puts football right in the forefront of it. … It’s worth coming to check out.”
My Town: In this month’s essay, poet and Ann Arbor native Carlina Duan pays tribute to retiring Pioneer High creative writing teacher Jeff Kass. “Prior to Kass’s classes, I had always loved writing, but poetry seemed out of reach for someone like me: a shy child of immigrants, who had desperate dreams to get out of Michigan and do something ‘useful’ with my life. … Jeff Kass was unlike any educator I’d ever had before. He loved poetry – and he not only taught the craft, but he practiced it.”
What She Said: A letter-writer is panicked because they’re late signing up their kids for summer activities. What does the Observer’s advice maven suggest? Find out here. |
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| | | The top-ranked U-M men’s hockey team lost in the Frozen Four semifinal in Las Vegas in double overtime last night, ending the school’s chances of becoming the first to win both a basketball and hockey national title in the same year.
U-M gymnasts, graduate student Carly Bauman and sophomore Sophia Diaz, compete for individual national titles at the NCAA championships in Fort Worth this Thursday (April 16).
If you’re not already overloaded by basketball content, this is a charming essay about the time Jerry Garcia got stuck in traffic in Ann Arbor after U-M won its 1989 national title.
Dexter has a beaver dilemma.
The ongoing measles outbreak has already cost the county at least $100,000 in testing, contact tracing, and public messaging — none of which, presumably, the unvaccinated people at the center of it will have to pay for.
This fascinating, tragic tale of a group of Jackson County siblings adopted in the 1960s to various families when their father was convicted of assault with intent to murder their mother, who then fled, includes a Chelsea woman raised in Washtenaw County.
A rural Washtenaw County resident hit another court setback in her effort to halt the OpenAI-Oracle data center.
Keeping the hash out of the bash resulted in smaller crowds. Quelle surprise.
If your eyes are itchy, this might be why.
U-M has chosen Huntington National as its official consumer bank.
China is demanding an investigation into the apparent suicide of a U-M researcher and Chinese national who the country says was subjected to a harsh interrogation by federal authorities.
A survivor of childhood sexual abuse facilitated by Jeffrey Epstein spoke at U-M’s Take Back the Night march last week.
Regent Jordan Acker, running for re-election this year, says he’s a friend of labor. The GEO begs to differ.
Check out the wild lightning-induced scar on this burr oak following last week’s storms. |
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| Harvest Market store director Rick Marshall and operations manager Donna Wright. Credit: J. Adrian Wylie |
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| Briarwood’s grocery to open April 15: Harvest Market will not only be a novel amenity at a mall that is also soon to be home to hundreds of apartment dwellers, but it’s Ann Arbor’s first new supermarket in more than a decade, Dave Algase reports in this month’s Observer. The store announced its opening date via social media. It’s the fourth iteration of Quincy, IL–based Niemann Foods’ experiential concept with a mission to connect consumers to the people who make their food, particularly local farmers and artisanal producers.
Twelve-seat wine bar coming to Ypsi: Kula, which plans to open by the end of the summer, will share space with Beara Bakes on N. Washington, What Now reports. Owner Nina Shahin tells the outlet she’ll focus on small plates from Italy, the Balkans, and North Africa.
Ice Cube now serving cold beer: The hockey and skating mecca is for the first time offering alcohol on its premises via CD Top Shelf, a glass-walled sports bar with seating for about 100 patrons, Algase writes in this month’s Observer. “If you want to stay warm and have cold beer and watch your kids skate, that’s the right place to do it,” co-owner Matt Kavanaugh tells Algase. |
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| | | Gamers play for children’s hospitals: The thirty-six-hour event at EMU’s Gervin GameAbove Center features several tournaments where participants bring their own equipment to play from 9 a.m. tomorrow to 9 p.m. Sunday. It’s a benefit for Gamers Outreach, a nonprofit started in 2008 by an Ann Arbor kid with the idea of providing portable video game carts for kids at places like C.S. Mott. Tickets to play are sold out (there’s a waiting list), but the public is invited to watch for free in person or via a livestream or to donate.
5K raises funds for ALS research: The Twinkie Run, along the Huron River in Gallup Park in support of Active Against ALS, kicks off at 9 a.m. on April 19 at the canoe livery, 3000 Fuller. Participants pay $35 (free for twelve and under) in advance or $40 on race day. For more information and to sign up, click here.
Tickets available for comedy benefit for Humane Society: Bow-tie-wearing South Carolinian Mike Goodwin appears at 7:15 p.m. Thursday (April 16) at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase in a show to raise money for the county’s shelter. Tickets are $20 online or at the door. |
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| | | Friday: The annual FoolMoon extravaganza arrives with quirky illuminated sculptures, live music, a parade, and more, all on this year’s theme, “Fools of a Feather.”
Saturday: U-M voice students present the 2023 comic opera Working for the Macbeths, a cheerful mashup of Shakespeare and Monty Python that tells the tale of the Macbeths from their servants’ perspectives.
Sunday: The annual public art parade FestiFools takes over Main with magnificent and strange papier-mâché puppets on the retro- and futuristic-theme, “Back to the FOOLture.”
See the Observer’s online calendar for many more local events. |
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