Yep, the General was amazing. I think my son may still have his autograph stashed away somewhere…and my son is now 49 years old!
1 Like
Just a pup and almost a year younger than me … don’t forget his next bday!
Oh no, I won’t. I have a 52 year old daughter, too.
I have a story about what a son said to his father on the occasion of the son turning 50. According to the story, the father called the son on the phone and while wishing his son happy birthday, asked the son, “How does it feel to be fifty, son?” To which the son replied, “Well I’m sure it feels a h^lleva lot better than being the father of a fifty year old!” By the way, I’ve learned that being the father of a fifty year old feels a h^lluva lot WORSE than how I felt back when I was that fifty year old son! 
2 Likes
don’t forget your youngest child. Nicholas Coston
5 Likes
No love for Antoine Joubert either.
He made my list.
1 Like
If it wasn’t for his drug addiction Roy Tarpley would’ve had one of the best careers from a Michigan player.
2 Likes
But Nick, you’re not close to fifty yet! 
And sad to say, I’m pretty sure I won’t be around to ask you how it feels to be fifty when you do reach that milestone half century mark. 
Truth be told, I’d love to be around, if healthy, to hassle you about getting old (Ha! Like fifty is old! ) on your fiftieth birthday, but you “screen” my calls and never return them! 
1 Like
The “Judge” may have been my son’s favorite player. He loved the way Antoine would come out of the locker room after the games in a fur coat. Antoine, like all of the guys, though, was very gracious in giving a young boy that cherished autograph.
1 Like
Post more often, man. I appreciate ya! 
And, I sense you might be an older fella like @bobohle @sane1, and me, and, you know, we old(er) folks have to stick together and maybe just gently remind some of the younguns of the history of Michigan Basketball.
P.S. The (er) after the word “old” is in deference to Mrs. Silverblue who, though she KNOWS how old I am, hates it when I refer to myself as being O-L-D. 
4 Likes
I agree. He was a guy who could’ve had a lot of 20/20 games in the NBA, and that Mavs team with kind of the OKC of the late-80’s/early-90’s. They were stacked when they took the Lakers to 7 games in 1988. Derek Harper, Rolando Blackmon, Mark Aguire, Tarpley, Sam Perkins, Detlef Schremph, even Brad Davis was a decent guard off the bench. Their starting center, James Donaldson wasn’t great (made 1 all-star game) but he was huge and ate space.
If they’d retained their players, or at least made better trades (and not taken Randy White at #8 in the '89 draft, ahead of Nick Anderson, Mookie Blaylock, Tim Hardaway Sr., and Shawn Kemp) and Roy had been able to beat his disease, they could’ve won a couple of rings.
1 Like
- Olivier Nkamhoua
- Olivier St. John
0 voters
olivier newton-john
2 Likes
May have already been mentioned here, but just in case, a quick shout regarding Wayman Britt, who started at forward (all 6’2" of him) on the 1976 NCAA finals team. Even played in the NBA for a quick minute. There’s a reason the team’s Defensive Player of the Year Award is named after him.
10 Likes
Hey Ernie, thank you. Yep, I am an older fella (68 in July), who tracks his basketball appreciation back to the mid-60s, when I first saw Michigan in the Final Four on TV. I was hooked on Michigan basketball from that point on.
When my basketball jones took hold in those early days, I used to take the Chene bus downtown from Hamtramck to see the Pistons at Cobo. I sat in the cheap seats in the upper bowl, where I remember watching those great Celtics and Lakers teams play the pitiful Pistons (before Dave Bing, Jimmy Walker and Bob Lanier helped to slightly begin turning things around).
I seem to recall that the Pistons played a fair share of matinee games, making it easier for a precocious/adventurous 11-year old to get a free pass from mom and dad to make that trek downtown using public transportation (about 35 minutes each way).
Or maybe I never told them. That part of my memory is a bit fuzzy
I don’t remember every game I attended, but do remember seeing the St. Louis Hawks, Baltimore Bullets and San Francisco Warriors, who had the great scorer Rick Barry (who shot FTs underhand, as did Wilt and a few others back then). I have a still fairly sharp memory of being at Cobo when Barry went for 50 one afternoon (according to Stathead, that game was on Jan. 14, 1967).
One time I waited outside the entrance to the locker room to get autographs, got Eddie ‘the Man with the Golden Arm’ Miles and Ron Reed (who was also a MLB pitcher and left the NBA soon after and had a long career in baseball) to sign my program. I really wanted Dave DeBusschere’s but he walked right past me, looking frustrated and angry (after a loss, I’m sure), and into the bar across the hall from the locker room!
He was the Piston’s player-coach then and only 25 (he also pitched for the White Sox for a couple years; amazing that he was able to juggle two pro sports and so much responsibility at his age).
Ironically, a few years later I enrolled at Austin, a school DeBusschere put on the map by leading the Friars to the Class A championship (over Chet Walker and Benton Harbor) in 1958. I played baseball for four years but didn’t play basketball.
The program was one of the best in the Detroit area through the early ’70s, beat Detroit Catholic Central (who had future MLB pitcher Frank Tanana, also an excellent basketball player) in the Catholic League title game in 1970.
I followed the PSL back then too, when it was one of the top leagues in the country.
Not sure if it’s an artifact of being ‘older’ but, like you, @silverblue, I feel like once I start tripping down memory lane I just can’t stop. It’s too much fun to endlessly reminisce and reconstruct those memories - and pretty good brain exercise as well.
But I don’t want to bore all the UM Hoops ‘younguns’ so I’ll stop here. Thanks for the nudge to post more. I certainly will!
5 Likes
Yep, tremendous player. Steve Grote, too. Loved those guys! So many special players wore the Maize 'n Blue over the years.
I will say this, and I’m not trying to be judgmental or overly critical, and I’m certainly not trying to “get people off my lawn,” but I wonder if those players would be as critiqued and even criticized as our players are today in the era of the internet and social media. The world and access to information has changed so drastically in the last 20 or 30 years, and, so too has our willingness to express our opinions so freely on what I still believe is a relatively public media platform.
I was in my 20’s in the late sixties and early to mid seventies. I used to take my son to games at Crisler in the eighties. I coached basketball from 1974 to 2005. You couldn’t get much or any information except through newspapers or Street and Smith’s Preseason Basketball Magazine. And there was no platform to express all the opinions so many love to express these days. We didn’t have folks, professionals, like Dylan and Sam back then. I remember sometime around the turn of THIS century is used to look for comments from sane1 and Dot to get basketball information. I appreciate that those guys are still here!
The world has changed so much over the decades of my life, and it’s good. I truly believe it is good, and yet, like everything that is good, there can be a downside, too. I think balance is important. That’s why you’ll find me trying to be mostly positive on here. And, I’m trying to learn everything this modern world has to teach us, but remembering, too, where I’ve come from, and what I’ve seen and experienced. I also think, and I’m speaking mostly to the younger guys now, when you reach the autumn of your life, or even the winter of the years you have left here on earth, you will understand just how important, as you look back upon your life, just how meaningful those memories are.
I want to thank everyone on here for the respect you’ve shown me over the time I’ve been on here. Now, this isn’t a swansong, you’re not gettin’ off THAT easy, but your kindness in not actually verbalizing, or writing, “Just shut up and go away old man,” is something I appreciate. Just remember, as much as you can, just enjoy the time you have now, your wife, your kids, your friends, guys on this board who you really respect and have, maybe, met personally, because those memories will become very important to you, if not so much now in the hustle and bustle of life, then…someday.
And with that, I’m gonna sign off for now and go write @nospectacle a DM so that he and I can reminisce about being kids growing up in Detroit and watching the Pistons and loving the Wolverines, and taking the bus, yes the BUS, downtown, without “boring” the younguns’ on here, or anyone else. As always, and I will never stop saying this, Go Blue!!!
6 Likes
Hey @nospectacle, look for my DM. It may not be tonight because I have this little grand daughter who, like she does so often, perhaps a dozen times already today, PLOP down in my lap and want to play and be silly. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Count on it!
1 Like
If you want a great podcast on Roy Tarpley, here you go https://wondery.com/shows/crime-in-sports/episode/10550-another-one-bites-the-dust-the-calamitousness-of-roy-tarpley/
3 Likes
dylan is busy celebrating man city, post low-resolution photos of bernard robinson, jr
8 Likes
