Month: September 2025

The Michigan football program has always had great stadium announcers.  For the past 75years, there have only been three public address announcers and they are all legendary.  Carl Grapentine has been holding down the job since 2005.  He was already serving as the Michigan Marching Band announcer and expanded his services to include stadium announcer in 2005.  Carl’s great voice and delivery have been making game day special for two decades.  Perhaps the only voice more distinct and recognizable to current Michigan fans is that of James Earl Jones.  Howard King preceded Carl in the Public Address booth.  Another great resonating voice in the stadium on Saturday afternoons.  Howard served from 1972 to 2004. 

Michigan football is steeped in tradition.  We have the winged helmet, the M Club Banner, the Victors, Varsity and a pregame band ritual which may not have changed since the days of Fielding Yost.  A great part of that tradition was started by Steve Filipiak, the Big House PA announcer from 1950 to 1971.    

Technology was a little different in the 1950’s than it is in today’s mobile phone and Jumbotron environment.  For example, the 1957 Michigan scoreboard did not provide a lot of information.  You could see what quarter we were in, the time remaining, who had possession of the ball, the score for Michigan and the score for “Visitors’.  You could also see the down and yards to go for a first down.  That’s it.  Any other information, key stats, play makers, and the scores of other ball games came from the PA announcer. 

In the fifties, almost all games started at 1:00 PM local time.  Steve did his best to keep the Big House fans updated on the other contests underway in the Big Ten and a few games that had national interest.  This was not easy.  The scores were all provided by a wire service via ticker tape.  In the Michigan press box, the ticker tape machine was three floors below the broadcast deck.  So, to get updates of the scores on the ticker, Steve would send his son Jim on frequent trips to the ticker tape room.  Jim would tear off the most recent printings and run them back up to his dad.  Jim did a little editing.  He would read the tape to identify ones he thought would be of interest to his dad, tear the current prints from the machine and run them back up three flights of stairs.  He would give his dad a “heads up” on ones his father may want to announce.

One day in 1959, the last score on the tape was for a Slippery Rock game.  Jim chuckled and showed it to his father.  Steve said, let’s announce it and see what happens.  Right out of the blocks it was a hit.  The fans were initially a little stunned and then they began to cheer.  Who wouldn’t pull for Slippery Rock?  The rest is history.  One of the hallmarks of Steve’s broadcasts for the remainder of his career was announcing the “Rock’s” scores.  Steve was a master of creating anticipation in the crowd.  If the game was a nail biter, he may dramatically relay the seesaw score two or three times in the course of the afternoon.  For a one sided contest, he may wait until well into the third quarter to give the score.  You could usually sense it was coming because Steve would say something like here is another score and dramatically pause.  Over the years, Michigan fans understood the big rivalry for Slippery Rock was Shippensburg State Teachers College.  A highlight of the afternoon would be Steve announcing a Slippery Rock victory over the dreaded Shippensburg Raiders.  There was always a collective groan when the “Rock” was on the short end of the score.

The tradition has been suspended from time to time.  When Fritz Crisler was the Athletic Director, he thought announcing the Slippery Rock score lacked decorum and suspended the practice.  According to Jim Filipiak, when Don Canham took the AD reins, he interviewed Steve.  Don said that he always enjoyed Steves PA work and he hoped Steve would continue doing the job under the Canham regime.  Steve asked about reinstating the Slippery Rock announcements.  Don said he loved that and he absolutely wanted it back in the program. 

Canham did love the Slippery Rock tradition.  In 1979 he invited Slippery Rock and Shippensburg State Teachers College to play their annual rivalry game in Michigan Stadium.  The game drew more than 61,000 fans, which was the largest attendance at any Division II football game through 2020.  Slippery Rock also played in the Big House in 1981 and 2014.  Sadly, they have never claimed a victory in Ann Arbor. 

So a great Michigan football tradition was started by fate and a sharp eyed young boy helping out his dad on a football Saturday in 1959. 

Strangely, a few years ago, my wife and I were cruising from Ann Arbor to Lancaster PA.  I noticed a freeway exit sign that said “Slippery Rock Next Exit”.  Susan noticed it first and demanded I take the next exit.  “We are going to the book store to load up Slippery Rock stuff!”  We bought tee shirts, hats and sweatshirts.  I asked the book store manager if she knew how the relationship between the Wolverines and the Rock got started?  She replied that she had no idea how it started but she was very pleased that it did and was very thankful for the friendship.  She said she attended the 1979 contest and it was a truly spectacular experience. 

I relayed the Jim and Steve Filipiak story.  We were both very happy to know that fate, ticker tape technology, and a boy helping his father had such a beneficial impact on each of our football programs.               

When we were growing up in Ann Arbor, it was pretty clear that our parents had faced different challenges in their youth than we were experiencing.  They were in their teens and twenties when the great depression hit.  It made a big impression on them and changed their perspective on life forever.  These were brave, hard driving and very principled people.  However, when some shaky news about the economy hit the nightly news, you could always sense a fear and foreboding creeping into their life.  To us it was a foolish over reaction.  Life was great.  We would hit a few speed bumps but nothing could stop the great juggernaut of the American economy and the opportunity it provided to anyone who wanted to work.        

Mom and dad had first hand experience that bad things could happen.  They knew what it was like to get down to peanut butter sandwiches and eventually run out of that.  They became master gardeners not because they enjoyed it.  They needed it.  They valued education and assumed all of their children would go to college.  This opportunity was never open to them.  In their mid teens they had to scruffle for any kind of work to keep their families afloat. My father felt incredibly fortunate to snag a job stringing cable for Michigan Bell when he was eighteen years old.

Through it all, these were not unhappy people.  They were positive, excited and took things as they came.  They were always concerned that the dark days could return and prioritized building a safety net to survive if they did.  The need to have something to fall back on never left them.  Much more than our generation, they always wanted to have something in reserve.  Part of every paycheck went into savings and they worked hard to get the best return on all of their expenditures.    

So my dad became a highly talented shopper.  After fifty seven years with Michigan Bell, moving from line worker to mid management, Pete retired.  After retirement, he put the shopping skills into high gear.  He scoured the local newspapers for sales and coupons.  To him, life never got better than double discount day at the Supermarket.  He carried a large pouch with all of his coupons.  More than once, I got a call from one of my friends saying that they had run into my dad at Meijers.  He checked out their shopping cart, rummaged through the pouch and gave them a fistful of coupons. Pete saved us $23!  

Eventually, Meijers became his favorite store.  They seemed to have everything.  A full blown grocery store and K Mart all rolled into one.  Very quickly, the staff at Meijers got to know Pete very well.  They gave him a “heads up” on next week’s specials.  They recommended great products that they were marking down.  They even provided the weekly store Ad a day before they distributed it to the public.  He could not take advantage of the discounts before they were valid, but he could plan an effective shopping spree.  This was helpful because many of the big sale items had limits.  70% off to the first 20 customers, etc.  While others were reading the Ad for the first time, he was ready to pounce.  

Not surprising, when I visited him one day and asked what he would like to do, he replied; “Let’s go to Meijers, I need a few things.”  On the way to the store, he explained that he was having trouble getting some of the big sales items before they ran out but he had solved the problem.  Today, they have Maxwell House coffee 50% off, Bushes Baked Beans, buy one get two free, and a 40% discount on Contadina tomato paste.  We picked up a cart, put the coupon stash in the child’s seat and started hunting the big discounts.  Pops says; “Let’s get the coffee first. It is over here.”  Now I’m a little concerned.  I said; “Dad, we are in the bread aisle.  Coffee is at the other end of the store.”  He replies that “All the discounted Maxwell House on the coffee aisle will be sold out by now.  People are like vultures.  These big sale items only last a few minutes.  Watch this!”  He moves three loaves of Aunt Millies whole wheat bread and neatly stacked behind them are four one pound cans of Maxwell House coffee.  Incredible!  I asked; “How did that happen?”.  Dad replies, unabashedly, that he gets the sales brochures a day early, he goes to the store and hides the items he wants a day before the thundering herd arrives.  Not a lot of people are checking the bread aisle for coffee.  He get’s the big deal without a hitch.  So we go retrieve three cans of Bushes Baked Beans hidden behind the Cheerios on the cereal aisle and four cans of Contadina paste that have been resting behind the Fritos.  

He says that this is all he needs today.  He forgot that tomorrow is double coupon day.  No sense in firing the coupon bullets now when they will be worth twice as much tomorrow.  He will come back.   

We are about to head to the check out counter when dad realizes he has eleven items.  He says, let me put a can of tomato paste back on the shelf.  We now qualify for the ten items or less queue.  As Dad is putting his larder on the conveyer, a guy jumps in behind us with a half cart of groceries.  Way over the ten item limit.  Pops asks the gentlemen how long he has been playing golf.  A little stunned, the shopper says; “How did you know I was a golfer”.  Dad responds; “Because you can’t count past five.”

We have all been significantly influenced by the experiences of our youth.  For my parents, that was a full time struggle to avoid abject poverty.  They were terrified and pulled out all of the stops to avoid total collapse.  After a narrow escape, they continued solid fiscal policies to protect against another disaster.  Amazingly, they kept a great balance and a very positive attitude through all of the challenges.  When I was young, we got down to peanut butter sandwiches for a few days at the end of the month but we never ran out of bread or peanut butter.  I admire the sacrifices mom and dad made for all of us and I cherish the lessons they taught me about fiscal responsibility and staying positive through the tough times in our lives.

I always find it interesting to see who is advertising on television.  Everyday, I dial in one or two cable news channels to determine if the world has exploded.  In the past, I would use these services to learn what is actually happening around the globe.  However, the days of quality news reporting on television are long gone.  The really big stuff hits the headlines at the beginning of the show and the program quickly spins downward to political drivel. If something big happens, like a massive natural disaster or an imminent shortage of fried chicken, it will hit the airwaves when the show opens.  I turn on the liberal channel or the conservative channel at the top of the hour.  Within two minutes, I know if something big happened.

Very often, I get to the station a few minutes before the top of the hour.  This is prime time for advertising.  Who advertises on cable news? 

Personal injury lawyers for one.  “Marciano and Marciano will fight for you.  We have successfully garnered billions in settlements for our clients.  We will get you every dollar you deserve.”  I am sure that there is a lot of money at stake because many of these firms offer services all around the United States.  I see the same ads, for the same firms, in Jacksonville Florida, Ann Arbor Michigan and Los Angeles.  Maintaining a cadre of lawyers all around the country has to be expensive.  Advertising on the number one rated news show in the nation can’t be cheap.  It certainly appears that large personal injury law firms are highly profitable.

Second, a lot of ads come from Pharmaceutical companies.  “Wonder Drugs Unlimited is proud to announce the release of Euphoria 4U.  This revolutionary anti depressant would turn Eeyore into Mary Poppins.  Ask your Doctor about this magnificent drug and kiss the blues goodbye.  Side effects may include constipation, cessation of heart beat and exploding temples.  Do not take Euphoria 4U if you are allergic to it.”  (I have always wondered how you can determine if you are allergic to something if you have never taken it.)  Again, very high stakes on the line here.  Pharmaceuticals can carry a big price tag.  My physician recommended an anti-inflammatory for an arthritic disease that would cost me $62,000 a year, out of my own pocket. Big Pharma rolls huge numbers.  Incredible development costs but astronomical payoffs for successful drugs.       

A third huge advertiser on cable news are supplementary health products.  There seems to be an endless supply of pills, elixers, powders, pads, braces, exercise devices and ointments that will solve every physical challenge of mankind.  You can irradicate memory loss, speed up and clarify your thinking processes, eliminate joint and muscle pain, restore and enhance your sexual capabilities, drop your blood sugar levels, lower your blood pressure, improve your eyesight, reverse hair loss, eliminate wrinkles, shrink your prostate, minimize the effects of incontinence, and restore feeling to your extremities.  At eighty years of age, you can reconsider a career in professional football regardless of whether you are a man or a woman.  All of this can be accomplished with drugs, topical ointments, or pads that have the following disclaimer regarding their advertisement. “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”  

Wow!  As the nightly news turns to nonsense at 6:03, I see an opportunity.  Three types of businesses dominate advertising around prime time news.  Clearly all three generate such large returns that they can support the massive advertising budgets.  Two of them are very difficult and costly to establish and they have lengthy time periods to initiate.  Starting a national legal firm requires extensive expertise, cash, and legal acumen that I will never have.  Big Pharma is equally challenging.  They literally spend billions in scientific research to ensure that the pharmaceuticals they market are actually effective.  Certainly, not all of them ultimately have efficacy.  It would require many, many years, incredible medical and scientific expertise and billions of dollars just to get a foot in the door.  But the third alternative is fraught with opportunity to amass substantial wealth.

I can offer a product that claims to have the possibility of improving your life.  I can present witnesses that have been paid to extoll the incredible healing powers of my drug. These witnesses may have name tags that say “Dr. Jane Doe” or “John Smith, Senior Vice President of Medical Research”.  Dr. Doe may have an PhD in Music and play poker with me twice a month  but she still carries the title of “Dr.”   John Smith may be my lawn man but I could appoint him to head medical research.  The elixir we develop may have absolutely no provable health impact.  It doesn’t matter because we tell you at the end of the commercial that the FDA has not reviewed our statement and that the product is not intended to treat, cure or prevent anything.                     

Here are the high points of our business plan. 

First, we need to target a malady that is experienced by a high percentage of people around the world.  It will help if the condition is not a well defined medical condition.  We don’t want to claim that we have an effective treatment for hypertension.  That is a very definable problem  and it is very easy for our customers to measure the results with and without our product.  So the malady we will address is frequent frustration and very negative thought patterns.  Who doesn’t have these problems?  Anyone who turns on a computer, adds an App to their mobile device or drives a smart car has plenty of frustration.  Anyone who is interested in politics has off the charts negativity.  It isn’t one side or the other.  It’s both sides.  Conservatives seethe about the way blue cities and states run their communities.  Liberals are apoplectic with any actions taken by their red state counterparts.  This is a huge potential market.

Our product will be a pill because they are easy and inexpensive to produce and distribute.  We will use the same formula as the Placebo tablets used by Big Pharma.  They are proven to be harmless to those who take them.  We will call this miracle mood altering drug Serpens Oleum, an impressive Latin term.

In our drug profile, we will claim that Serpens Oleum is totally comprised of naturally recurring substances.  No fabrication here.  Everything in the universe is natural.  A key scientific law (Conservation of Mass) states that matter cannot be created or destroyed.  It can only be transformed.  Ergo, all matter in the universe is natural.           

We will embark on a significant research campaign.  We will solicit 25 to 30 friends to test the new drug.  We will explain that we have found a compound that should substantially elevate the mood of patients who take a tablet every morning and every evening.  Frustration with the foibles of daily life should be diminished and thought patterns that particularly focus on negative outcomes will be replaced by positive thoughts.  Those of you who find that the supplement has such an impact will be asked to provide testimony to that effect in commercials with five figure monetary compensation.         

Assuming we have very positive results from the extensive scientific research effort, we begin to market Serpens Oleum online.  There are hundreds of vendors who will help us reach the optimal audience through the web. 

We carefully stockpile profits, build a robust sales history and compile a stellar group of user references.  In a year or so we step up to the big leagues and kick off our advertising campaign on the cable news outlets. 

Serpens Oleum will become household words.  Everyone will sing the praises of our homeopathic cure for mood disorder.  Our financial target will be annual bottom line profits of ten to twenty million in four years and fifty to a hundred million in seven years.

As you can see with the business plan, selling supplements has incredible upside potential.  There are very few business ventures that require no measurable value from the end product or accuracy in advertising.  All that is required is positive hype.  After we maximize penetration of the mood elevation market we can move on to another of the seemingly endless health challenges of the Western World.  Move over Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk.  We are going to join the club.     

I know this flies in the face of the old axiom “If it is easy anyone could do it.”  But I have a hard time seeing how this could possibly fail.