Punt-Counterpunt: Rutgers 2014

darling, I'm sure you misinterpreted my jest

PUNT

By Heiko Yang

I’m too tired to form an opinion about all the wonderful things that have been happening in Michigan football this past week. However, since we are on the subject of concussions, I do have a fabulous story about the time I got a concussion. Want to hear it? It’s a good one!

It was July of 2011. I was in a summer tackle football league. (Ahem. Just kidding it was softball. Tackle softball.) … I was in a summer tackle softball league, and I was playing center field. I think. Actually I can’t remember, because this story ends in a concussion, and it’s hard to tell a story in the first person about a concussion. Most of this is reconstructed from hearsay and/or imagination.

So let’s just say I was somewhere in the outfield. Dude stepped up to the plate and hit this bomb that sort of split the difference between me and one of my teammates whose name is Owen, as I would find out afterwards, not that it’s important. Owen and I both ran to the ball without taking our eyes off the ball and then boom! We collided. I did some sort of kickass ninja flip and landed on my head. I am told that I got up pretty quickly, was “out of it” for a few seconds, but then acted pretty normally. I didn’t feel injured or hurt. In fact I played the rest of the game.

The only thing anyone noticed was that I kept asking how I hit my head. I guess its because my head hurt, but I couldn’t remember why it hurt, and my brain couldn’t hold onto anything for more than 30 seconds. Clinical pearl: this is called perseveration! And anterograde amnesia! Most of my friends -- all med students, by the way -- thought I was just trying to be funny, because apparently confusion is hilarious, but none of them recognized that I was showing signs of a whopping concussion. Genuine concern arose only when I started asking how I had driven myself and where my car was, at which point I was brought to the emergency department.

Yes, some of this was caught on camera:

I was admitted to the hospital overnight to monitor for intracranial bleeding (which I did not have, thank goodness), and I began to recover the next day. Slowly I started remembering what people were telling me, and I developed a dull headache that subsided by evening. I’m fortunate that I never experienced any neurologic or psychiatric sequelae such as recurrent headaches, irritability, or sleep disturbances despite the severity of the concussion, although I did join mgoblog about a month afterwards, so I’ll have to check if “impulsive blogging” is an official symptom of post-concussion syndrome.

Anyway, I do think it’s kind of interesting to think that there will always be an 18-hour segment of my life during which I was conscious and sober that I have zero recollection of. Now if only someone could find a way to accomplish that to erase only negative memories, such as the last two weeks of Michigan football, that would be great.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, am I right?

Go Blue!

Michigan 34, Miami 10

COUNTERPUNT

By Nick RoUMel

In tribute to Heiko’s brilliant deployment of his specialty, medicine, allow me to analyze the program in light of mine, employment law. Our once storied athletic department has all the hallmarks of a dysfunctional workplace.

When David Brandon took over, he cleaned house. He fired an alarming number of athletic department coaches and staff, including long term employees going back to the Don Canham years. He did this with little tolerance; employees were fired for minor and subjective offenses—or, significantly, for failure to exercise appropriate supervision over subordinate employees. I know because I and our firm represented a few of them. Sure, any new boss has the right to have his own minions, but this purging seemed to be done with little regard for employees’ loyalty, nor their valuable institutional memory.

Double standards are another feature of the dysfunctional workplace. In contrast to the scrutiny afforded lower level employees, management is free to commit a multitude of boners with no consequences. Examples are easy to tick off. Botched coaching searches resulting in the inability to land candidates that wanted to come here. Assaults on the game day tradition also turned off the fan base, like the well-documented student seating fiasco. Game day blunders ranging from the advertising noodle, to bans on water and seat cushions, the Coca-Cola ticket giveaway, to overdone productions, and unnecessary, meaningless old rock songs played ad nauseum.

Our coach, who is hired to win with integrity, doesn't win. And now the integrity part is in question. Not only does Brady Hoke’s team perform worse than the sum of its parts, but the man seemingly lied to us about Brendan Gibbons. Lying, meanwhile, is the best case scenario regarding Shane Morris. Brandon fired former star and loyal athletic department staffer Jamie Morris for allegedly lying. But maybe Brandon needs to keep Hoke around, because a classic boss is always happy to let his subordinate managers twist in the wind to take the heat.

Another classic sign of a dysfunctional workplace is micromanagement. Why does the Athletic Director attend practices, and hover during locker room meetings? Why is he the one hiring the coordinators, and not his head coach?

Ignoring customers is another symptom. Good leaders solicit input before making changes, and learn from constructive feedback. This administration plugs its ears and goes “Nyah, nyah, nyah.” To its partial credit they reversed decision on smaller issues like the noodle and seat cushions – but only after fan outcry. But why aren’t they seeking feedback before making these changes?

Retaliating against critics on the inside can be done in secret. But how do you explain such actions as taking away the press pass of John U. Bacon, who bleeds Maize and Blue, in apparent reaction to Three And Out? If they’re doing this petty garbage to journalists, imagine what they might do to anybody who dares speak against them from within.

For the most part, nothing can be done about a dysfunctional workplace. But at a public university, we have a trump card - at least theoretically. The athletic department is answerable to the President of the University and the Regents. The question will be whether they will have the courage to do the right thing and clean house, or whether they will bury their heads in the sand and do nothing.

Uncertain. Our new President, Mark Schlissel had no experience with a high profile athletic department while at Rhode Island. As such, the risk is that his ears will be bent by a select few with access. Former Texas coach Mack Brown explained that at his University, a cadre of four to five influential donors had the leaders’ ears and were able to accomplish their agendas. At Michigan, I don’t believe the power structure is that linear, but do worry whether anyone can be the change agent that is so badly needed, especially with powerful and generous donors like Stephen Ross backing Brandon.

The bottom line is that the Michigan Regents are government officials. Raise your hand if you still have faith that government officials will ever do the right thing. ... Anyone?

Fans who feel helpless can only vote with their feet. An under-100,000 attendance threatens this administration. But they believe last week’s crisis has blown over, and that the Penn State night game will provide a solid attendance figure, and then all will shortly return to normal.

Do Michigan fans have the guts to boycott? I believe that the public outcry, culminating in the impromptu rally against Dave Brandon this week, shows that people who care about Michigan football still have collective power.

With all this, the result of today’s game against the Scarlet Knights is almost superfluous. While it would be nice to win, it should not divert from the legitimate criticism that lies at Brandon’s feet. It is our duty to speak out and do what we can to end this dysfunction. That does not make us fair weather fans. When one party to any relationship is treated with such disrespect, they have the right to rise up and resist. That does not make you disloyal, or a fair weather fan – it means you care.

I for one cannot take this anymore. Yes, I wrote earlier this season that I was past the point of having a Michigan loss ruin my week. But when the entire department is showing signs of being rotten to the core, it hurts - as a fan, an alumnus, and a writer who tries every week to bring a light hearted approach to this sport.

Today, my heart is not light. I ache for the players who try their damndest and those of us who support them. And I will not bear this dysfunction without dissent.

MICHIGAN ALUMNI FANS - HALF A MILLION STRONG,

ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT – 0