Know Your Foe - Western Michigan

The 2009 Michigan Wolverines open the new college football season this week by hosting the Western Michigan Broncos. Everyone is looking to erase the memory of the 2008 nightmare season. All indications are these Wolverines have practiced long and hard (although not too long to break any NCAA regulations) and are more prepared to face the season. Michigan has played Western Michigan on four other occasions. We have won each of these games.

Before we start knocking heads, here is some more information you should know about our friends from Kalamazoo:

History: In 1903 Dwight B. Waldo established the Western State Normal School. Waldo firmly believed in diversity and opened the doors to many females and minorities to attend the college. Western was also the first school in the country with a specific department designed to prepare teachers to effectively educate students in rural parts of America. Twenty-four years after opening its doors (1927) the school was renamed Western State Teachers College. Waldo is credited with keeping the school open when many government officials wanted to shut it down during the Great Depression. The school's football stadium and library are named in his honor.

In 1941 the school became known as Western Michigan College of Education. On February 26, 1957 Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams signed a bill making Western Michigan College the state's fourth public university. It was officially re-named Western Michigan University sometime after that.

Location: WMU's main campus is located in Kalamazoo, which is the largest city in the southwestern region of our great state. As of the 2000 census the city had a population of just over 77,000 people, which will considerably less than the total number of Wolverine fans sitting and sweating in the big stadium on Saturday.

The city is named after the adjacent Kalamazoo River. There is disagreement regarding where the actual name Kalamazoo came from. It is generally believed to come from either the Potawatomi or Odawa Indians who were native to the area before the Europeans fur traders came through.

In 1829, a Connecticuter named Titus Bronson became the first white settler to build a cabin in the area. He chose a spot near the fork of the river because several Indian trails converged there. It lay along the route of the Territorial Road (and present day I-94) that ran between Detroit and St. Joseph. In 1931 he surveyed and laid out the town naming it the Village of Bronson (not to be confused with the much-smaller Bronson, Michigan which was about fifty miles (80 km) to the south-southeast). He was generally described as eccentric and argumentative. He was especially outspoken against the imbibing of alcohol and was later run out of town. The village of Bronson was renamed Kalamazoo in 1836. Today, the main hospital and a park are named after Titus Bronson.

Nickname: They call themselves the Broncos. Prior to this, their athletic teams went by the nickname “Hilltoppers”. Apparently the original campus grounds resided on Kalamazoo’s Prospect Hill. This nickname led to confusion with other schools (Western Kentucky) sharing a similar nickname and became outdated when the school expanded beyond its hilltop confines.

In 1939 the “Broncos” nickname was selected by the athletic board. This was considered the best of the many suggested names were turned in for consideration at the time. The entry was submitted by assistant football coach and legendary WMU alumnus, John Gill. Gill later served as the Bronco head football coach and associate athletic director until he retired in 1969. For his naming efforts, Gill was awarded a check for $10.00. He promptly turned the money over to the Waldo Stadium building fund.

Mascot: Since 1988 a stoned looking costumed horse named Buster Bronco has been the official mascot. It is interesting to note that is the same mascot name is used by Boise State. Everywhere I looked on the web stated that Buster is considered part of the cheer team, although he was not sanctioned by the NCAA. His web page claims he is the world’s largest Bronco fan, which I can’t dispute. He also explains that there may be a small fee if he is asked to attend a community event, to help pay for transportation and weed supply.

Colors/Logo/Helmets: From 1907 to 1998 the Western Michigan official school colors were Brown & Gold. In 1998 they fell prey to the fad of adding black as an accent color to the traditional brown and gold. It is my opinion that black is NOT a color. Black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them to the eyes.

Their primary sports logo is a demonized brown horse head, which looks nothing like the mascot walking on the sidelines, rolling joints and generally scaring the little children of Kalamazoo.


This angry horse logo has been used on their gold football helmets since 1998. Prior to the gold helmet, Western had a series of Brown, Yellow, and White helmet designs.

Fight Song: The appropriately named “WMU Fight Song” was born as a result of a 1959 contest to replace existing songs. The contest was open to the University community, and won by Walter Gilbert a WMU Alumnus. Quite frankly is sounds like a generic college band fight song used in the background of a video game.



Fight on fight on for Western;
take the ball, make a score,
win the game.
Onward for the Brown and Gold;
Push ‘em back, push ‘em back
bring us fame.
Fight on fight on for Western;
over one, over all we will reign.
Fight, Broncos fight,
fight with all your might.
Western win this game!

Traditions: I swear I looked, but it wasn’t easy to find any significant gameday traditions associated with Western Michigan. If you go to the official WMUBronco website and click on the traditions link you are sent to a page with general university facts and the words to their fight song. They have a Hall of Fame game (page last updated before the 2007 season) and a local business fair game (again, not updated since before the 2007 season). They have something named “Puck Boy” for their hockey team. If you click on the link for the marching band, you get a 404 (page not found) error.

Don’t get me wrong…. I am sure there are time honored football traditions in Kalamazoo – I just couldn’t any on the internet. If you are a Western Alum and reading this, please feel free to educate the rest of us.

I did find an effort to establish an official WMU ring on the Alumni Association page. They also put a bronze horse statue outside their stadium in 1997. It looks like they have a strong greek structure and I appreciate (as most of you will agree) the WMU SAE recruiting efforts.

Academics: The university offers 254 degree programs through 9 colleges. They produce an incredible number of school teachers. I think every teacher I had from kindergarten thru high school went to Western.

A couple of weeks ago they issued a press release celebrating the fact they made the US News and World Report list for the 19th consecutive year. The fact is they don’t actually have a ranking – instead they fall into the Tier III category along with Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, and Kent State. MAC rival Central Michigan is in the Tier IV category, so they have that going for them.

Don’t take my comments as negative -- if you want to go to college, this place will take you. The USN&WR reports an 84.9% acceptance rate. I grew up not far from Kalamazoo. I had many many friends that spend at least one semester at Western Michigan. I don’t think I can ever recall someone that wanted to go to school there not getting admitted.

Football program: The first college football game I ever saw was in the mid 1970s at Waldo Stadium. Western was playing Marshall. I am sure Western won because Marshall was still recovering from the tragic plane crash of 1970. The thing I remember most about that day was listening to Bob Ufer call a Michigan/Purdue game on the radio while I was sitting in the stands.

Western started playing football in 1906. In 1909 they went undefeated and outscored their opponents 194-8, which is very impressive until you realize they played both Dowagiac and Benton Harbor High School during that season. They also went undefeated in 1913, 1914, 1922, 1932, and 1941. In 1946 they helped form the Mid-American Conference (MAC). Since then they have won 2 overall MAC championships and have recently won the MAC’s Western Division twice. The program has appeared in four bowl, including each of the last two years. They have never won a bowl game, but they have beaten Michigan State (twice).

In 1976 a sophomore tailback named Jerome Persell finished second in the nation in rushing yards (behind Heisman Trophy winner Tony Dorsett). They have also produced NFL players John Offerdahl, Greg Jennings, and most recently Louis Delmas (Lions 2nd round pick in 2009). They currently claim 8 active NFL players and 3 CFL players.

Other Athletics: It looks like they field six men’s and nine women’s varsity sports. We regularly play the WMU hockey team in the CCHA, where we hold a 25-60-10 record advantage. In 1964 and 1965 Western Michigan won the NCAA Championship in Men’s Cross Country. These are the only NCAA titles for the school. The 1955 Bronco baseball team finished second in the nation.

Famous alums: Prominent former Western Michigan students include Jack Clifford (founder of the Food Network), Robert Bruininks (President of University of Minnesota), Tim Allen (actor), John Saunders (ABC Sports), the late Luther Vandross (musician), Jim Bouton (baseball player and author), Dave Dombrowski (Detroit Tigers GM) and our own baseball coach Rich Maloney.

If you have any teenage girls at home (I do) -- they would recognize Matt Giraud. He finished in 13th place for American Idol season eight.

Sadly, Western Michigan can not claim any astronauts or presidents.

The Game: So here we go. To say this is an important game for the program would be an understatement of biblical proportions. This is the first step needed to erase the nightmare from last year. Western Michigan believes they can beat us because Toledo did. But we are different team. Still young but better prepared. Although we have a one game losing streak against the MAC, we have never lost to an in-state directional school.

For some unsubstantiated reason I am confident this week: I think that at least one of our young freshman quarterbacks is going to perform at a high level. I assume the offensive line will be able to continue the maturation process they started last year. I believe our running backs will be able to find open space and our receivers will make catches (now they have someone to throw the ball to them). I hope our punt and kick returners will hold onto the football. I know Zoltan will pin them back inside the 10 on every drive. I expect our defense to give up some points, but in the end they will create havoc and force turnovers. I really expect Brandon Graham to have a great game and believe we are going to win.

But what the hell do I know?

Michigan 27
Western Michigan 18