U of M thread (in the Lions Forum) :)

[SeattleLionsFan]

This version shouldn't be Drew. They were pretty awful last year.

[Drew]

Roger that. It's usually the bad teams that get the win in an upset.

[FVD]

Frank Beckmann is retiring at end of the football season.

[WingsFan]

Yea ^^ 33-year radio play-by-play man Frank Beckmann will make 2013 his final season. He is the only guy I ever heard do Michigan football. I always like it when Jim Brandstatter gets to excited and interrupts him. lol Im to young, or should say not old enough to remember Bob Ufer.

[chemiclord]

Considering the sort of things Beckmann has said recently, I'm frankly amazed he hasn't been fired yet.

[lions&tigers&wings...yea]

Bob Ufer, what a legend..."That was Saturday, November 22nd. The day the Buckeyes came to bury Michigan, all wrapped in maize in blue. The words were said, the prayers were read and everybody cried. But when they closed the casket there was someone else inside. 22 Michigan Wolverines put on the gloves of grey and as Ravelli played the Victors, they laid Woody Hayes away."

[DanO]

LOVED Bob Ufer.

[WingsFan]

Considering the sort of things Beckmann has said recently, I'm frankly amazed he hasn't been fired yet.

His political views are not to popular at U-M and around Ann Arbor, done a good job of keeping them split over the years. Though he apologized for something he said not that long ago.

[chemiclord]

His political views are not to popular at U-M and around Ann Arbor, done a good job of keeping them split over the years. Though he apologized for something he said not that long ago.

Nah, it's not really his political views at all (he had a over-the-web spat with Rachel Maddow a while back that U-M didn't even bat an eyelash at).

It started in 2011, when Beckmann made a comparison of the U-M basketball team as the antithesis of the Fab 5... not because of the whole, ya know, taking money from a booster thing; but because the Fab 5 was (apparently) lazy, entitled, disrespectful, and racist (???).

It turned a few heads, Beckmann backed off the comments, and all seemed fine until he dropped a bombshell in the Detroit News that blacks shouldn't take the "fried chicken" stereotype as demeaning, but instead as a COMPLIMENT.

Word on the street was that Hoke was ENRAGED by the article, and demanded Beckmann be terminated immediately. Beckmann's apology really wasn't much of an apology as it was blaming an intern ghostwriter. As flimsy as it was, it apparently cooled enough heads that the tradition of Frank Beckmann was enough to save his job.

[chemiclord]

Although I will say that the announcement that this season will be his last reminds me of the scuttlebutt I heard that an "arrangement" was made that Beckmann would "retire" at the end of the season instead of be fired.

Maybe there was something to that rumor. I outright dismissed it at the time. Hell, only remembered it just now.

[WingsFan]

Yea that was it, the "fried chicken" comment.


Michigan scolds Frank Beckmann for 'offensive' fried chicken column

Beckmann elected to apologize after the university's Board of Regents expressed concern over the column.

http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2013/05/michigan_scolds_frank_beckmann.html

[WingsFan]

In my 20s I was in '9 Ball' tournaments around Detroit. Beckmann showed up a hand full of times to watch or shoot pool after. I just remember how old he looked way back then, (think he had bad hairpiece on) but seemed to have a good time, I was the only one who knew who he was. I do remember telling him LLLLOYD was an ass hole, I also think I took him for some small $$ like 10 bucks.


Frank Beckmann says News column 'non-issue' in his retiring

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2bX2Mme88

[*JD*]

I'll be happy when Beckman's gone.

[WingsFan]

Scaled down my work schedule on Saturdays finally. Im used to him calling the play by play and liked him. Though it don't matter much now as I won't have to be in the car during the games. :-)

[nhwbrooklyn]

I'm guessing he was quietly forced out. He was getting kinda loopy there with some of his comments lately. Just speculation though.