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Wolverines NCAA World Series 1962
The 1962 NCAA University Division Baseball Tournament was played at the end of the 1962 NCAA University Division baseball season to determine the national champion of college baseball. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the College World Series, a double-elimination tournament in its sixteenth year. Eight regional districts sent representatives to the College World Series with preliminary rounds within each district serving to determine each representative. These events would later become known as regionals. Each district had its own format for selecting teams, resulting in 27 teams participating in the tournament at the conclusion of their regular season, and in some cases, after a conference tournament. The College World Series was held in Omaha, NE from June 11 to June 16. The sixteenth tournament’s champion was Michigan, coached by Don Lund. The Most Outstanding Player was Bob Garibaldi of runner-up Santa Clara.
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1989 Michigan Basketball Champs
The 1989 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men’s NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 16, 1989, and ended with the championship game on April 3 in Seattle. A total of 63 games were played.
Michigan, coached by Steve Fisher, won the national title with an 80–79 overtime victory in the final game over Seton Hall, coached by P. J. Carlesimo. Glen Rice of Michigan set an NCAA tournament record by scoring 184 points in six games and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
Just prior to the start of this tournament, Michigan coach Bill Frieder had announced that he would accept the head coaching position at Arizona State University at the end of the season. Michigan athletic director Bo Schembechler promptly fired Frieder and appointed top assistant Fisher as interim coach, stating famously, that “a Michigan man is going to coach a Michigan team.”
Winged football helmet – Famed football coach Herbert “Fritz” Crisler is credited with popularizing the winged helmet nationwide. In 1935, while head coach at Princeton University, Crisler ordered stock helmets bearing leather wings out of the Spalding catalog. He had the leather panels painted in contrasting orange and black colors, believing the design to have practical advantages on the field. In 1938, Crisler became head football coach and athletic director at the University of Michigan, where he added maize and blue coloring to the stock design. These helmets made their debut at the Wolverines’ 1938 season opener against Michigan State and have been worn ever since. It has become an icon of Michigan’s football program, which held it exclusively for more than seventy years.
College Sports Established
1879
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
College Name
University of Michigan
Collegiate History
1973 – Present / NCAA Division 1
1907 – 1973 / University Division of the NCAA
Conference History
1896 – 1907, 1917 – Present / Big 10 Conference
1907 – 1917 / Independent
Nickname
Wolverines – Since the earliest days of recorded University of Michigan history (as early as 1861), the students and alumni have been referring to themselves as “Wolverines”. How the ferocious animal came be associated with the state and adopted as the university mascot remains a bit of a mystery, but there are several theories.
The simplest reason for the wolverine nickname would be that the animal was abundant in Michigan at some time. However, all the evidence points otherwise, as there has never been a verified trapping of a wolverine inside the state’s borders, nor have the skeletal remains of a wolverine been found within the state’s 96,705 square miles. The first verified sighting of a wild wolverine inside the state of Michigan ocurred in February of 2004.
The great Michigan football coach Fielding H. Yost had a theory for the nickname, which he wrote about in the Michigan Quarterly Review in 1944. Yost felt that the reason for the nickname concerned the trading of wolverine pelts which occurred at Sault Ste. Marie for many years. The trading station served as an exchange between the Indians, other trappers and fur traders, who would eventually ship the products off to the Eastern United States. Because many of the furs were in fact wolverine pelts, the traders may have referred to them as “Michigan wolverines,” leading to the state nickname and ultimately to the University of Michigan symbol.
NCAA Championships
Baseball 2
1962, 1953
Men’s Basketball 1
1989
Women’s Basketball 0
Football 0
Soccer 0
