As a U of M and MSU alum, and as a human being, I thank Michigan State University, its athletics department and everyone involved in the basketball program. I was a student athlete at U of M in the early 1980s; my teammates and I didn't get constant media exposure or play for a national championship. I have appreciated and enjoyed the excitement and hope I experienced because of this tremendously successful basketball season. It's an honor to be a fan--to support these great institutions and the players who work so hard. I cannot imagine how disappointed they must be. I suspect they may never appreciate how grateful and proud we are. In many ways, they are still kids. I wish they could understand how playing a game they love lifted the spirits of so many. I wish they could know that when they are congratulated for a great season, it isn't meant as consolation. It is meant with the deepest sincerity and respect. I lived in Chapel Hill for five years, my first child was born there, he is now an MSU student. My friends and colleagues in both NC and in MI get it. Dave Zirin gets it, and I thank him for putting into words what I cannot.
M. Hogan
Ann Arbor, MI
04/08/2009 @ 07:31am
I attended Michigan State University. I have a degree in economics, 1972. After a couple of negative financial breaks, a bought with cancer and another illness, and aware of the coming economic downturn, I moved back to Michigan in the fall of 2007.
I have a beautiful piece of property above the lakes, Torch and Lake Michigan. What poverty. Clearly Michigan was the canary for the recession we are now experiencing. Even more so than the Yellowstone club construction I had left in Big Sky Montana.
Last spring, my wife and I decided to do some good, and perhaps make a bit of money with our organization www.savethebeesshirts.com. We give a percentage to student scholarships. We chose Michigan State. A year later we are up and running, I have taken no money for ourselves and we hope to help one student, more if the economy turns around and our sales increase.
Last fall we were informed by a Dr. Lovejoy, a professor at Michigan State, that we were abusing Michigan State by saying we were an expanded research site, something we had arranged with the local state extension branch. We were asked to remove any suggestion of any relationship with the university from our site. I did this accept for previous news articles on our enterprise.
In January 2009, I learned from an article in the New York Times that Michigan State has an arrangement with Bank of America, one of the banks responsible for our financial crisis. They sell their logo to the bank for millions and provide a list of their students so the same students may be encouraged to incur credit card debt.
Cowabunga... What a moral place, and what a glorious institution! Selling their students' names and personal information for profit. I am embarrassed I ever attended the school.
Perhaps they lost because of Karma.
J. Matson Heininger
Eastport , Mi
04/07/2009 @ 3:15pm
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