Michigan’s Youth Day

On Sunday, the kids and I went to the University of Michigan’s fan appreciation youth day.  Last year we hit up the garage sale in the morning and then went to the stadium in the afternoon.  This year, along with changing the name, they changed the garage sale to the day before.  Which doesn’t bode well when you have to drive 2 hours one way to go.  I hope next year they go back to doing it all on one day.  It really sucked because I would have liked to pick up some t-shirts at least. Although, Dennis hooked me up with one which was greatly appreciated.

Last year, we tried to get Denard Robinson’s autograph and never made it through the line before they were gone.  This year, our goal was to get a bunch of autographs.  It didn’t matter to us who signed because it was more for the kids.  While I do collect autograph cards of Michigan players, I wasn’t overly concerned with getting these autographs for myself.  They hand out posters as your going in and my mom grabbed those while the kids and I got into lines.

  

My kids and my brothers kids.  It was a family trip.  The first picture is outside “the Big House” waiting to get in, the 2nd one was taken while waiting in line for the autographs.

Autograph sessions VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This is my first attempt and posting a slide show, so let me know if they don’t show up.  These are all the photos from the autograph sessions.  The kids got autographs from Jeremy Gallon (#10), Drew Dilio (#9), Jerald Robinson (#83), Erik Gunderson (#69), Michael Schofield (#75), Jack Miller (#60), Taylor Lewan (#77), Chris Bryant (#58), Ricky Barnum (#52), Patrick Omameh (#65), Elliot Mealer (#57), Kristian Mateus (#70), Joey Burzynski (#56), Graham Glasgow (#61), J.T. Floyd (#8), Marvin Robinson (#3), Charlie Zeller (#19) and Al Backey (#38).  It was a much better plan to go after other auto’s then wasting our time standing in Denard’s or coach Hoke’s line.  Now, in less than a month, I can watch a game with the kids and show them the players that we saw.

One quick story from myself.  We were getting Taylor Lewan’s autograph and he came around from behind the counter to give a hug to some girl he knew.  He walked right past me and the top of my head was at his shoulders, he was freaking huge.  For those that don’t know, I’m 6’3” so I am not used to looking up at someone, let alone having to tilt my head all the way back to see his face.  ESPN has him listed at 6’8”.

     

A shot walking into ‘the Big House”.  I don’t care for all the stuff at the bottom corner, kind of ruins the atmosphere.  That’s one of the changes when they changed it from fan appreciation day to youth day.  Oh well.  The 2nd picture was taken down on the field.  Samantha actually pulled up some turf from the endzone to bring home.

  

Trevor didn’t want to get into this picture, I told him to get in it anyways, he’d appreciate it when he got older.  Then Samantha said she wanted a picture with them because they were all so pretty.

  

Samantha got to bang on a few drums with the band members.

  

Here are the posters autographed by the players.  We told one of the players that Trevor’s birthday was on Monday so in the right picture, you can see where he put “Happy Birthday, Trevor! Go Blue” then signed it “Team 133”  The players were pretty awesome with the kids.  Asking them about school and making conversation with them.  They had a great time.

  

Samantha wanted to get my hat autographed.  She got most of them on there before running out of room.  If we do that next year, we will have to bring a silver sharpie so they can autograph on the blue as well.  Although, I will have to buy a new hat to wear now because Samantha says it’s hers now.

They did a great job with Michigan’s youth day.  My only complaint was moving the garage sale to the day before.  If they do that again next year, we are talking about going up on Saturday and maybe find a place to camp that night and hitting the stadium on Sunday.  Or if finances will allow, to get a room up there.  We’ll see.  But since I don’t feel the need to drop $50 for my kids to go to an actual game yet, they love these trips.

I know this isn’t the typical post over here but I’m hoping Dennis doesn’t mind.  I will get back to posting more cards soon, I have some coming for myself as well as some to ship off to Dennis.  Plus I have to scan the awesome card that Dennis brought to me since I was up in his neck of the woods.  He brought my son a whole box and then some but only 1 Michigan card, but it’s a great card for my collection.  So stay tuned as I’m sure Dennis has some more content coming as well.