2019-11-15

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Friday, November 15, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Will Sparty?

A desperate Michigan State team comes to town, searching for an upset win and a return to its identity.

» See Page 1B

Student Veterans Panel talks careers, transition between military & college Former service members discuss journey from armed forces to ‘U’ JASMIN LEE

Daily Staff Reporter

ALEC COHEN/Daily Angie and Dan Bastian, co-founders of BOOMCHICKAPOP, give the keynote speech at the 2019 Michigan Marketing Symposium in Robertson Auditorium Thursday.

Popcorn snack company founders speak on disrupting industry model

BOOMCHICKAPOP creators reflect on dieting, marketing products SONIA LEE

Daily Staff Reporter

Angie and Dan Bastian, husband and wife co-founders of kettle corn snack company BOOMCHICKAPOP, delivered the keynote speech to students and faculty in Robertson

Auditorium at the 2019 Michigan Marketing Symposium on Thursday. The talk, moderated by Business lecturer Marcus Collins, focused on how the company disrupted the snack industry to fit with the symposium’s overall theme of disruption.

BOOMCHICKAPOP started in the Bastians’s Mankato,

Minnesota, garage in 2001 to pop kettle corn for carnivals, local markets and events. The company was acquired in 2017 by Conagra Foods for $250 million.

The couple began popping kettle corn to build a college fund for their two daughters, then 3 and 5 years old.

“We were trying to figure out

if there was a solution to creating a college fund for our kids outside of what we were doing,” Dan Bastian said. “It was an $8,000 investment, you got a kettle, you got a tent. So, we set it up outside, turned on the kettle and started schlepping the corn.”

See POPCORN, Page 3A

Four student veterans from the University of Michigan spoke to a crowd of 20 people at the Michigan League Thursday morning.

The event was sponsored by the Office of Veterans Affairs and moderated by Philip Larson, the program director of Veterans and Military Services, for Veterans Week sponsored by the University. The event consisted of a discussion with Larson followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Larson started off the conversation by introducing the panelists and asking them how the military helped them prepare for college life. All of the panelists discussed how the military helped them learn skills for collegiate success.

Panelist Jennifer Phillips, an LSA freshman, is part of the National Guard. She participated

CSG president writes letter in favor of Higher Education Act

in basic training this past summer before starting her classes. Phillips shared that doing basic training for the National Guard made her more mature and made her stand out among her classmates.

“Being a freshman and 18 years old along with all the other freshmen here, I’m in the same age group and everything, but all of my professors have talked to me outside of class and asked, ‘How are you so different?’”

Phillips said. “And that’s kind of when I told them like, ‘Oh yeah I’m in the army, this summer I went to basic training, and I really matured there, and I kind of realized what’s important.’”

Panelist Scott Reel, a Rackham student, served in the Marine Corps as a journalist and had to interact with all ranks of military officers. Reel said he became skilled in communicating and working with a deadline through his work.

See VETERANS, Page 3A

See COMMIS-

Ben Gerstein urges support for bill to make college tuition more affordable, increase availiability of Pell Grants JULIA FANZERES Daily Staff Reporter

Public Policy junior Ben Gerstein, Central Student Government president, wrote a letter to members of Michigan’s congressional delegation in support of the Higher Education Act, which seeks to make college tuition more affordable for students. In the letter, Gerstein stated that his constituents — University of Michigan students — are almost all in agreement regarding college affordability.

“While representing the various viewpoints of my constituents is a tempestuous endeavor, there is one issue where there is nearly unanimous consensus; the paramount saliency of college affordability,” Gerstein wrote in his letter.

Advocating for the students on both the state and federal levels was one of the priorities that Gerstein laid out at the beginning of his term.

In his letter, Gerstein wrote in support of the provisions

of the bill that seek to create tuition-free community college, increase Pell Grants and allow undocumented students access to federal aid.

In his conclusion, Gerstein wrote that on behalf of the students of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, he looks forward to their support on the Higher Education Act and the College Affordability Act. Some students are in favor of Gerstein’s lobbying of the federal representatives.

LSA junior David Carpenter was supportive of Gerstein’s letter and applauded CSG for addressing the issue.

“Regardless of where you come from, regardless or not if you’re the individual that’s putting up the cost and in fellows education, it really does affect every single student that goes to the University of Michigan, and all the students that want to maybe want to come to the University of Michigan but are restricted by costs or by having to work and or other things,” Carpenter said.

See CSG, Page 3A

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Campus lovesick over results from Michigan Marriage Pact questionnaire

Relationship survey provides matches for some, disappointment for others ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter

Students have a lovehate relationship with their Michigan Marriage Pact matches.

The results of the questionnaire, which was developed by University of Michigan students for a class

project, were released Tuesday evening. The pact used an algorithm to find students their future spouse, and the match-ups generated a flurry of discussion on campus and online groups.

After being open to undergraduate students at the University for 21 days, the questionnaire closed last

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week with more than 7,000 participants, meaning more than one out of every five undergraduates completed the survey. LSA junior Elien Michielssen, one of the creators of the pact, said her team never thought their class project would gain this much traction among students.

“Hearing people talk about

Vol. CXXIX, No. 29 ©2019 The Michigan Daily

something that you created without knowing that you created it is really, really cool,” Michielssen said. “If you haven’t taken it, you know someone who’s taken it, or you log into Facebook and see all the memes, so I think it’s something that’s brought campus together.”

See PACT, Page 3A

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B EHIND THE STORY Every Friday, one Daily staffer will give a behind the scenes look at one of this week’s stories. This week, LSA senior Max Marcovitch, reported on Michigan football player Cameron McGrone’s relationship with his younger brother Aaron.

“Cameron’s a 20-year-old guy, I’m a 21-year-old guy, and it’s just humanizing to be able to hear about his life and his upbringing. It’s also very heartwarming to be able to hear about his relationship with his brother and to see how that’s shaped him, as a person rather than as a football player.”

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This is the first day of what will be a months-long process, where there will inevitably be a compromise made on every side. If we, the graduate employees and the GEO members at the University of Michigan, continue to show up every step of the way to show support for our team, for our platform and for our union, the University will hear us. We get what we are organized to take.”

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President of Human Rights First examines geopolitics, global crises Michael Breen discusses role of advocates across the world, obstacles VALENTINA HOUSE For The Daily

Michael Breen, president and CEO of Human Rights First, spoke at the Ford School of Public Policy Thursday as part of a series of lectures sponsored by the Josh Rosenthal Education Fund.

Breen discussed violations of human rights across the world and the challenges facing advocates.

The fund was established in honor of Josh Rosenthal, who died on Sept. 11, 2001, by his mother, a long-time faculty member at the University of Michigan. She aimed to bring insightful discussion around the aftermath of 9/11 and its consequences on human rights.

Breen shared personal narratives about his own experience as a U.S. Army Sudokuofficer Syndication serving in Iraq post9/11. During his service, he was responsible for detaining Iraqi

other democracies to follow and activists to rely on for support.

“The degree of freedom, the upwards trajectory, hard-fought as it was, made it reasonable for the human rights movement to champion American leadership and wise for it to leverage it on behalf of human rights activists in other countries,” Breen said.

The United States was able to use its human rights initiatives to differentiate itself from the Soviet Union and other world leaders during times of political strife and decolonization, according to Breen.

“In the context of the Cold War, it was clear that championing human rights was both the right thing and the smart thing to do — an ethical as well as a strategic imperative,” Breen said.

Breen referenced the Helsinki Accords — a pivotal human rights pact signed in the 1970s — as a document that fought against suppression and coercion and protected EASY notions of human rights to promote peace around the world. He also noted, though, that the end of the Cold War did not translate to the progress of human rights that was envisioned.

“Many forces and tools that we once believed would inevitably favor the advancement of human rights turned out to be double-edged swords,” Breen said. “It was widely believed, for example, that economic growth would lead to democratization and a call for more rights.

The reality, unfortunately, is that some autocrats have succeeded in linking their rule to economic gains and security.”

Breen used China as an © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. puzzle by sudokusyndication.com example of a government that has succeeded in convincing its people that

bomb makers. Breen said he sat down with their families prior to arresting their loved ones.

“I remember saying, ‘We are different from the soldiers who might’ve been here six months ago under the previous regime,’” Breen said. “We’re Americans, we don’t torture people.”

After he learned about Americans torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, he decided to leave the military, enroll in law school and tackle refugee and human rights issues head-on. He became involved in Human Rights First, an organization that had support from the most senior-form military leaders who stood against torture.

He explained the United States played a prominent role in the human rights movement post-Cold War and World War II. The United States became a pioneer for human rights, as well as a national example for

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economic growth relies on the health of the Communist Party JOEL DANILEWITZ and MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA and its rule and that democratic Editorial Page Editors tothedaily@michigandaily.com ideals would threaten that Senior Opinion Editors: Emily Considine, Krystal Hur, Ethan Kessler, Miles growth. He went on to note Stephenson, Erin White authoritarians around the MAX MARCOVITCH and ETHAN SEARS world have been pointing to the Managing Sports Editors sportseditors@michigandaily.com failures of liberal democracies Senior Sports Editors: Anna Marcus, Aria Gerson, Ben Katz, Mark Calcagno, Theo Mackie, Tien Le to strengthen the credibility of Assistant Sports Editors: Bailey Johnson, Bennett Bramson, Connor Brennan, their own regimes. Moreover, Jacob Kopnick, Jorge Cazares, Rian Ratnavale he said the claim the United ARYA NAIDU and VERITY STURM States is the leading example Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com of a human rights-driven Senior Arts Editors: Clara Scott, Emma Chang, Cassandra Mansuetti, Sam democracy can no longer be Della Fera, Trina Pal Arts Beat Editors: John Decker, Sayan Ghosh, Mike Watkins, Ally Owens, supported.

Stephen Satarino, Izzy Hasslund, Margaret Sheridan “The United States began ROSEANNE CHAO and JACK SILBERMAN the century as a respected and Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com unrivaled military, economic, Senior Design Editor: Sherry Chen political and, in many ways, ALEC COHEN and ALEXIS RANKIN moral power,” Breen said. “But Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com consider America’s record in Senior Photo Editors: Alexandria Pompei, Natalie Stephens, Alice Liu, Allison the eyes of the world since Engkvist, Danyel Tharakan the turn of the century: illegal Assistant Photo Editors: Miles Macklin, Keemya Esmael, Madeline Hinkley torture and black sites in the wake of 9/11, the 2003 invasion ANDREA PÉREZ BALDERRAMA Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com of Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis Deputy Editors: Matthew Harmon, Shannon Ors and http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ the subsequent recession SILAS LEE and EMILY STILLMAN that followed, the 2016 election Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com and the continuing awfulness Senior Copy Editors: Dominick Sokotoff, Olivia Sedlacek, Reece Meyhoefer of our politics.”

CASEY TIN and HASSAAN ALI WATTOO Breen claimed the Trump Managing Online Editors webteam@michigandaily.com administration is worsening Senior Web Developers: Jonathon Liu, Abha Panda, Rohan Prashant, Samantha Cohen the human rights crisis in the United States by allowing ELI SIDER Managing Video Editor video@michigandaily.com for multiple human rights Senior Video Editors: Joseph Sim, Ryan O’Connor violations, specifically against NA’KIA CHANNEY and CARLY RYAN immigrants and refugees. He Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com said that as a consequence, Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Lorna Brown, Samuel So, Ana Maria activists in other countries Sanchez-Castillo, Efe Osagie, Danyel Tharakan Assistant Michigan in Color Editors: Harnoor Singh, Nada Eldawy, Maya are no longer using American Mokh values in defense of their CATHERINE NOUHAN protests and are instead having Managing Podcast Editor to appeal to localized rhetoric MADALASA CHAUDHARI and HANNAH MESKIN and goals.

Managing Social Media Editors “Today, we have arguably Senior Social Media Editor: Allie Phillips the first administration since the Second World War to stand in open opposition to human rights,” Breen said. “Human MOLLY WU rights, the concept, the system, Creative Director the universal language and its ZELJKO KOSPIC RYAN KELLY Special Projects Manager Sales Manager greatest traditional champion, the United States, holds less ANITA MICHAUD ROBERT WAGMAN Brand Manager Marketing Consulting Manager promise for activists who are coming up for strategies for their movements today than it The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during did 10 years ago.” the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is

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B O O K TA L K

VETERANS From Page 1A

MONICA BABITS/Daily Philip Larson, program coordinator for University of Michigan Veteran and Military Services, leads a discussion following a showing of the movie “Lioness” as part of Veterans Week in the Michigan League Thursday.

CSG From Page 1A Other students, like Public Policy senior Nicholas Tomaino, urged CSG to ensure they were surveying all groups on campus to get an accurate read of the political dynamics on campus.

“The University of Michigan is a premier research university in the state of Michigan, and obviously it’s important to have some sort of relationship with our elected representatives,” Tomino said. “It’s a respectable thing to be doing. It’s incumbent on the CSG president to seek out the perspectives of various communities across campus whenever he/she aspires to speak on behalf of the entire student body.”

PACT From Page 1A Michielssen and her team created the project for an entrepreneurial creativity course taught by University lecturer Eric Fretz. He said his assignment had no set guidelines other than it must be “cool,” take all semester to complete and must change people’s lives in some way. In the past, he has received final products ranging from a concert at Necto Nightclub to a robot that takes the trash out.

Fretz said he isn’t surprised the pact has gone “viral” on campus — he’s heard other faculty members discussing the pact, though he is not surprised it has gone “viral” on campus. He said he has also had friends with backgrounds in computer science reach out with interest in the project, often offering insight into the security of the website.

Fretz said he expected the questionnaire to either end up with 200-500 participants or break 5,000, but once it started spreading around campus, Fretz knew it wouldn’t stop.

“Once it becomes a thing, everybody talks about it, and then everybody wants to do it,” Fretz said. “That was that hump I knew they would have to get over, but I figured it would happen pretty quickly.”

Michielssen and her group have watched their creation turn into the talk of campus over the last three weeks. Since the results came out, private Facebook pages where students post about U-M campus life, like UMich Memes for Wolverteens and Overheard at umich, have been inundated with content about the pact.

One poster made a poll to see if people participated and, if they did, how they felt about their match.

Another created a meme about being a senior matched with a freshman.

For Michielssen, logging onto social media means seeing a barrage of posts about her team’s creation, which she said she finds hilarious.

However, not all participants were excited about their results.

Several heterosexual participants reported being matched with people

Tomaino said Gerstein’s statement should have specified whether students on campus unanimously agreed that the Higher Education Act was the best solution to solve the college affordability crisis.

“While I’m sure that there is near-unanimous consensus that college affordability is an important issue for folks on campus, I’m largely skeptical that there is near-unanimous consensus on the Higher Education Act being the most effective method for solving it,” Tomaino said.

Gernstein said in his conversations with student stakeholders at the University, the dialogue was largely centered on improving campus affordability. He said there wasn’t a specific survey on how the entire student population felt.

“I would say that among the 40,000 students we have on campus, a good majority, a large amount of students would say at least the campus affordability is an issue that exists here at the University of Michigan and in higher education across the country,” Gernstein. “And so, I didn’t have specific polling numbers to show that the entire student population thinks campus affordability is a large or larger issue, but just in terms of campus advocacy, and what the dialogue has been on campus around campus affordability the last couple of years and institutional barriers to access for low socioeconomic status students.”

Communications director of the University’s chapter of College Democrats Camille Mancuso, Public Policy junior,

who identify as the same gender, as well as people being matched with their siblings or cousins.

LSA sophomore Natalie White, who found the pact through her roommates, said she felt swept up in the excitement of the mass engagement across. Because all of her roommates were filling it out, she decided to as well, but her match was not what she was expecting.

White identifies as a heterosexual woman, meaning she would be interested in matching only with heterosexual men, yet her match was also a woman. She reached out to the email the results were sent from and was told someone must have inserted the wrong gender or sexual orientation, which made White question if she had completed the questionnaire incorrectly.

“We all got our matches, and I went to look, and I was matched to someone named Rachel, and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s not usually a guy’s name,’” White said. “I was pretty sure it was a girl, so I looked her up on Instagram and it was a girl. … I don’t know if I screwed up and she was actually looking for girls, because I feel like maybe I deprived someone of finding their Michigan lover.”

Michielssen said her team received emails similar to the one White sent and immediately checked the algorithm. She said they found no errors and concluded that people either completed the questionnaire for their friend and entered the wrong sexual orientation as a joke, or people could have simply clicked the wrong option by mistake.

She noted the algorithm used MCommunity, an online resource for finding contact information for members of the University community, to verify participants were undergraduate students. She said this worked for most cases, but in some circumstances, they were unable to verify their grade level.

Additionally, Michielssen said approximately 8 percent of participants were not matched, the majority of which were heterosexual female students.

Public Health junior Renata Terrazzan was one of the female students who did not get matched.

When the creators sent out an email to all participants early on in the

process noting many heterosexual women might not get a match, Terrazzan said she had a feeling she might fall into that category.

“When I first got the email about 700 girls (not being matched), I was like, ‘Oh, of course it will be me,’” Terrazzan said. “Then it was, and I just thought it was kind of tea and a good story.”

Michielssen attributed this mainly to an imbalance in the number of heterosexual male and female participants. She also noted the purpose of the questionnaire is to find potential future spouses for participants, so if a large number of students of a particular gender and sexual orientation were not in the participant pool, it would make sense for there to be no match.

While she wanted everyone to find someone through the pact, Michielssen cautioned participants not to take the results to heart. She reminded people the questionnaire is for a back-up person to marry in 20 years, not to be the participant’s next significant other.

“I really want to remind people that this is a marriage pact, and it’s not meant to be taken too seriously,” Michielssen said. “In no way, shape or form are we trying to set people up right now. Our whole goal of this was if you’re single in 20 years, and you’re lonely, well, this is your person.”

She said her team hopes to do a similar questionnaire next year, though they still have to work out the logistics as two team members are graduating. For Michielssen, this has become almost like a parttime job, with her team putting in multiple hours each day on the questionnaire since the beginning of the semester.

As for the team’s grade on the project, the jury is still out. The project lasts until the end of the semester, so right now Michielssen and her partners are working on responding to any issues people run into, gathering feedback from participants and preparing a presentation.

When all is said and done, Michielssen said she is hoping they get an A. “I hope all of campus is crossing their fingers for us,” Michelssen said.

Friday, November 15, 2019 — 3A

commended CSG’s support of the Higher Education Act. “College inaccessibility and unaffordability is a crisis faced by students all across the country, and that crisis is amplified at the University of Michigan. College Democrats is excited to see a commitment to solving this crisis in our Central Student Government,” Mancuso wrote. “The Higher Education Act is a step toward increasing college access for all students--specifically for lowincome and undocumented students. It is both important and necessary that our Central Student Government President ref lect the interests of students by advocating for the Higher Education Act.” The Daily reached out to the College Republicans for comment several times but received no response.

POPCORN From Page 1A The Bastians sold kettle corn at local events and markets but made a breakthrough when they started selling at Minnesota Vikings trainings.

“They loved it enough that the sales and marketing team came over the next day and offered as a contract to be the kettle corn of the Vikings, with the caveat that it costs a grand,” Dan Bastian said. “We were excited that we could make some inroads, realizing that if we got connected with the Vikings that will help build our outreach to other potential customers. … We would pop right outside the stadium … and have lines of people. And that’s when things kind of started to change for us.”

While moving into retail, the Bastians found a space for a popcorn targeting women. The brand focuses on using clean ingredients and empowering female consumers, aiming to encourage them to have a positive relationship with food.

“We went in 2004 and we looked at what was popcorn called,” Angie Bastian said.

“At the time on grocery store shelves popcorn was Vick’s, Orville, Dale and Thomas, Harry and David, Cracker Jack. This is my punch line.

I said every time, I said to Dan, ‘Where are the popcornwomen on the shelf?’ So, we named it Angie’s, created a small label and started out with just a plain cellophane bag with a label on it and started to sell in stores.”

Angie said she felt the company truly disrupted the popcorn and snacking industry when it began working with salespeople and marketers to target female consumers.

While snacks targeting men were permissive and those marketed toward children and adolescents were playful, Angie Bastian

“Being a journalist, there’s kind of a pipeline for work. You have to contact the units, and then you have to figure it out,” Reel said. “You have to film it, and you have to write it. You have to, if you’re doing video editing, do basically everything yourself. There’s a deadline because this is journalism, so I got pretty good at prioritizing projects and task management.”

Panelist and nursing student Warren DeLong went straight into the Navy after high school and served in a hospital in Okinawa, Japan. He said being in a foreign country without his family at 19 years old helped him develop as a person.

“My first duty station was Naval Hospital in Okinawa, Japan, and I loved it,” DeLong said. “When you’re living in a foreign country, as a 19-year-old, it’s not hard to find fun, new, exciting things. I really liked the people I worked with … and they guided me, they mentored me, and they got me on the path that I am today started taking college classes.”

Engineering graduate student Ian Carter attended the event and told The Daily that discussing the different types of military careers emphasized the diverse opportunities the military offers.

“My favorite thing is that they all had different experiences, and I think that is important to highlight when you are talking about people in the military,” Carter said. “You can have a Marine that was a journalist and you can have a Navy corpsman that was working in a hospital.

The variety of stories really help to highlight to regular civilians that the military is really a profession and

said snacks targeting women assumed they were on diets — a marketing technique she wanted to avoid.

“Our sales team said, ‘Why don’t we just do it?’ ‘Angie’s Nearly Naked’ or ‘Angie’s Skinny’ or something like that, because that’s what was happening in the marketplace at the time,” Angie Bastian said. “I’ll just say at that point there were 72 trademarks for food with the word ‘skinny.’

And I just said, ‘You know what? I don’t want to do that, like, we are not going to do that.’”

“For us, just continuing to move forward was what worked for us. Our success lies oftentimes in the fact that we move fast.”

In the wider food industry, Angie Bastian added, advertising and marketing toward women is either hypersexualized or focused on dieting. Her goal was to remove the barrier between women and snacking built up by marketers.

“Women and food were depicted in a couple of ways, and one of those ways was a ‘moment of conf lict,’” Angie Bastian said. “If a woman is going to eat, it’s conf lictual for her, or it’s sexualized for her, and we are not like this.

This is going to be food for women every day: normal, natural.”

Business graduate student Georgia Cassady, one of the vice presidents of the Marketing Symposium, said her team wanted to focus on finding a disruptor in the consumer-packaged goods

that you can accomplish other things.”

During the discussion, panelists also talked about adjusting to University housing on campus.

Engineering student Stefany Escobedo, panelist and president of the University’s chapter of Student Veterans of America, said she had to do her own research to find out whether she was eligible for graduate housing.

“I did not know because I was so old, that I could be in graduate housing as an undergraduate. And it took — it was the first year — after the first year, year and a half maybe, that I was reading through the policies and procedures of housing for some reason,” Escobedo said. “And that’s when I saw if you’re out of high school for six years or something, then you can apply for graduate housing. And I said, ‘Why did nobody tell me?’ That was very frustrating for me because instead of moving around from, like, this little room and my summer storage to this apartment that cost $1,400 and that was really far away from North Campus.”

Business sophomore Michael Geraci attended the event and told The Daily it was helpful to hear positive and negative perspectives of being in the military.

“I thought it was interesting to get insight from enlisted and active duty people,” Geraci said.

“I’m not contracted with ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) yet, which means I don’t have a commitment with it. I’m still kind of considering that option, and I’m considering what route I would want to do. I also like hearing the negatives, too. You get the positives shoved down your throat, and I wanted to get a whole perspective.”

industry. The Business school emphasizes the Consumer Packaged Goods industry for marketing recruiting, she said, but the industry is sometimes perceived as stagnant and slow-moving.

“A lot of people think it’s an industry that’s just chugging along,” Cassady said. “Tech is the big thing these days, but we wanted to remind people that there’s opportunity for change and disruption within CPG and all types of marketing, regardless of the industry you’re going into. … Since we’re all going to be managers after our MBAs, how can you continue to disrupt and challenge the status quo?”

Cassady said the Bastians were able to disrupt a seemingly stagnant industry like snacking while providing an empowering brand for women.

“Right when you think that snacking, and especially popcorn, that there’s not much more you can do, that there’s so many people in the industry, these people came in with a brand that was entirely new,” Cassady said. “One of the big things was that Orville Redenbacher, SmartPop, they were all kind of masculine. So, they came in with this really feminine brand and that was really different.”

Dan Bastian said BOOMCHICKAPOP’s early success came from long hours of work and dedication to the brand, along with fast adaptation to obstacles they faced entering the CPG industry.

“I think so many people get stuck on needing to nail it, perfect it,” Dan Bastian said. “For us, just continuing to move forward was what worked for us. Our success lies oftentimes in the fact that we move fast. We didn’t take shortcuts, but we would adjust on the f ly, and if we made mistakes or had challenges, we would revisit and fix it and keep moving forward.”

Opinion

4A — Friday, November 15, 2019

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RILEY DEHR | COLUMN

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EVAN STERN | COLUMN

The impending nightmare of Medicare-For-All

Y

ou’ve probably heard of the Affordable Care Act, a legislative measure signed by former President Barack Obama that sought to address some of the underlying issues in our national health care system.

Now, however, Democrats are overwhelmingly supporting “Medicare-for-All,” a dramatic replacement of the alreadycontroversial “Obamacare” program that would effectively move all control of health care to the federal government.

Health care in our nation undoubtedly needs some finetuning. In a December 2017 survey, Gallup found that 71 percent of Americans believe our system “is in a state of crisis” or “has major problems.” Though the situation has improved in recent years, tens of millions of people remain uninsured, while households continue to be plagued by rising health care costs.

Supporters of this proposal widely argue its ability to bring coverage to all Americans (including those who have experienced difficulties with accessing care), reduce costs and improve public health across the board. And they seem to be winning over supporters, with some poll numbers revealing that 70 percent of Americans support enacting the Medicare-for-All system.

But while Medicare-for-All is well-intentioned and aims to deliver a better health care system — especially for struggling Americans — its promises seem to exist more in fantasy than reality. I’d like to challenge this broad support and argue why such a model would wreak havoc on our economy and our lives.

A good place to start is the sheer cost of Medicare-forAll. PBS NewsHour reported that under the plan outlined

by Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the cost would near “$34 trillion dollars over 10 years, more than the total cost of social security, medicare and medicaid combined.” With the United States already in the midst of a dangerous national debt crisis (our total deficit already stands at nearly $23 trillion), many puzzle over how our fiscally irresponsible government would be able to handle this hefty price tag.

In addition, it’s clear this amount of money won’t materialize out of thin air. It is going to have to be covered somehow, and amid existing financial problems, many experts agree that our economy is going to suffer. According to Robert E. Moffit, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, substantial tax hikes under Medicare-forAll are inevitable. “Taxpayers would face enormous burdens,” Moffit stated. “Roughly 70 percent of working households would pay more than they do

today.” While advocates have assured the American people that most people will be saving money somehow, a Bloomberg article published in July advises readers to take a closer look.

“The 181 million taxpayers with employer-sponsored coverage could miss out on the benefits of the Sanders plan, and even those receiving Medicaid could pay more,” according to writer Laura Davison.

Ultimately, without substantial tax hikes (including on the middle-class), the bulky Medicare-for-All system won’t even be able to get off the ground.

Even a 100-percent increase in federal individual and corporate income tax revenue would not be enough to pay for Sanders’s plan, as Charles Blahous, former member of the Medicare Board of Trustees, predicted. Blahous went on to conclude that this kind of increase in the scope of the federal government operations would precipitate a correspondingly large increase in federal taxation or debt and would be unprecedented if undertaken as an enduring commitment.

More than anything else, rising taxes and expanding debt equals

Its promises seem to exist more in fantasy than reality bad news for our economy.

And if this isn’t enough to sway your opinion, there’s even more evidence against the Medicarefor-All model. With the idea gaining popularity, many health systems across the country continue to warn Americans that they will see dramatic reductions in the quality of their care.

According to Lauren Crawford Shaver, executive director of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, “Medicare for all would force Americans to pay more and wait longer for lowerquality health care” (Shaver notes a public option could potentially have this issue as well). We have already seen from other countries, such as Canada, that these singlepayer systems can produce greatly undesirable results.

“Waiting for treatment has become a defining characteristic of Canadian health care,” as stated by the Fraser Institute in a December 2018 account of the issue. “Wait times can, and do, have serious consequences such as increased pain, suffering, and mental anguish … In many instances, patients may also have to forgo their wages while they wait for treatment, resulting in an economic cost to the individuals

themselves and the economy in general.” While Sanders and others argue that access across the board to health care will widen, it is clear that there will be a significant underlying cost that we don’t hear about much.

On top of this, all Americans, even those who are happy with their current health care plan from the private market, will be forced to switch to the singlepayer platform, something that will surely be a logistical nightmare and lead to extensive frustration. Single-payer health care advocate Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., affirmed this, telling NBC News that Medicarefor-All is “a system where there are no private insurance companies” whatsoever.

Finally, if history is to serve as a guide, it tells us that central government control of large programs is a perfect recipe for substantial waste, fraud and abuse, and Medicare-forAll will be no exception. One of the most glaring examples of this is the Veterans Health Administration, which takes after the single-payer model and truly displays the inability of our federal government to effectively manage large-scale programs.

Furthermore, the current, smaller Medicare system has already seen significant abuse that officials have been unable to effectively deal with.

Many people may wonder how a plan this absurd, with such evident flaws, could gain such prominence and make it this far, to the point that it is one of the centerpieces of the Democratic agenda.

Ultimately, broad misunderstanding exists over the sheer price tag of Medicarefor-All and who will have to bear the burden of this health care system. In the end, proponents of this system have routinely dodged facts, cut corners and disregarded the greater effect on the American people.

Already, a number of more modest proposals have been floated, and while I do not personally support many of them, they offer some of the benefits of Medicare-for-All and are safer and truly better options for the American people.

Many Democratic presidential candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden and others, realize the inherent limitations of Medicare-for-All and have set forth more modest options that deserve serious consideration.

In the end, it is obvious that something needs to change. It is our duty, as Americans, to help our fellow citizens and work to deliver quality health care to those in need at a fair cost. But given our wide range of options, that duty assuredly does not entail implementing this disastrous proposal.

Evan Stern can be reached at erstern@umich.edu.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds.

Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

W

e drifted around campus, feeling the glares of college students rushing past us to class. Everyone was in awe at the overload of information that spouted out of our tour guide as we spun the cube and tiptoed over the block ‘M’ in the Diag. From the grandiose architecture to the towering trees, everything seemed special, even the legendary friendly squirrels.

Now a junior, I still smile at the tiny, tree-dwelling rodents that seem to outnumber humans in Ann Arbor. On a daily basis, as I drive home to walk my dogs, I find myself slamming on my brakes as one of those fluff balls darts into the road. I haven’t killed one yet, but occasionally I’ll see a squirrel who wasn’t so lucky. Each dead squirrel is a sad reminder of Michigan’s disastrous roadkill problem.

I see it on my weekly drive to Ypsilanti to volunteer: the mangled corpses of almost a dozen animals in the span of a few miles. Skunks, possums, deer, coyotes, foxes, turtles, dogs, cats and every other roadadjacent animal in Michigan, smeared onto the highway.

It’s no surprise these busy highways are almost insurmountable obstacles for Michigan’s critters, with a cement median blocking them from reaching the other side and effectively trapping them on the road. In Ann Arbor, animal vehicle collisions have become so frequent that they’ve impacted a major local issue: the deer cull.

This man-made issue, caused by the extermination of the deer’s predators like gray wolves, has caused the number of deer-vehicle crashes to rise 73 percent between 2015 and 2016 and has pushed the government to hire professional sharpshooters to thin out the herd since 2016. They have killed hundreds of deer so far, but not without a fair amount of outcry from animal-loving

Bone appetit! citizens who point to the lack of crash fatalities as reason to call off the $370,000 program.

Roadkill has become a major issue throughout the entire nation, costing $5.75 billion each year. The solutions, like wildlife crossings and preventive fencing, are relatively cheap compared to the effects of animalvehicle collisions, which cost Michiganders alone more than $130 million in 2018.

While it may seem taboo, eating roadkill is legal in some form in 30 states Unlike in the forest, where scavengers and decomposers eat the corpses, roadkill often rots on the road or is taken to a landfill. Without the other critters of the forest able to recycle the corpses’ nutrients into the ecosystem, the carbon dioxide stored in these organisms is released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Without preventative measures in place, some folks have come up with their own unique and delicious way of alleviating the issue, opting out of the deli for the open road by choosing to eat roadkill.

While it may seem taboo, eating roadkill is legal in some form in 30 states, including Michigan. Michigan state law allows people to keep all forms of roadkill after undertaking the proper legal procedures.

This allows venison and bear meat enthusiasts to use the hundreds of pounds of fresh, free-range meat that may happen to find itself strewn across their bumpers.

Environmentalists are in love with the idea. By consuming what would have otherwise gone on to harm the environment, this eating habit has the potential to be more environmentally friendly (and a lot easier) than even veganism. Advocates even call the animals’ cause of death “humane” in comparison to the horrific practices used to raise and slaughter most storebought meat.

There’s already a thriving subculture based around eating a wide variety of roadkill. I was surprised by how good the recipes sounded, from fox lasagna to Pennsylvania possum pot pie and a dish featuring my friends in the Diag: squirrel in cream. Some communities have chosen to utilize this free and nutritious source of protein to help solve hunger in their communities.

In the parks of Denver this summer, thousands of geese were rounded up after extreme measures to depopulate them failed. About 1,662 were killed and donated to local food banks to feed the city’s homeless population. While this is perhaps a cruel example, it reflects the idea of feeding vulnerable populations with fresh, wild game while saving cities thousands of dollars on meat that would otherwise have been donated or purchased.

Programs using the country’s vast amounts of roadkill make financial and moral sense for communities with chronic deer problems like Ann Arbor. Instead of making these animals’ deaths mean nothing, perhaps they can be used to better our society and help those in need. A program similar to one already in place for the city’s culled deer could bring the community together over the smell of delicious venison stew rather than fracture it over the stench of rotting deer corpses.

Riley Dehr can be reached at rdehr@umich.edu.

MARY ROLFES | COLUMN

T

Tea parties and tampons

he first time I visited Boston was the summer before my junior year of high school, and I was far more interested in the city’s opportunities higher education than its history. However, my mother mandated one day must be spent on sightseeing rather than solely college visits.

After walking the entirety of the city’s Freedom Trail — a 2.5-mile walk that felt much longer — we went to a museum dedicated to the Boston Tea Party, commemorating Dec. 16, 1773, the night alleged members of the Sons of Liberty destroyed an entire shipment of East India Company tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor in protest of taxation without representation.

The visit included a cheesy re-enactment of the protest — my chance to throw a fake box of tea, attached to the ship by a rope, into the harbor while giggling and weakly shouting “Huzzah!” just like a real Founding Father.

I wonder if the Sons of Liberty had any idea that nearly 250 years later, it wouldn’t be boxes of tea their nation’s daughters would want to throw into the harbor. It would be boxes of tampons.

Currently, 35 states — including Michigan — continue to classify tampons and other menstrual products as luxury goods. Unlike lip balm, anti-dandruff shampoo and even Viagra, tampons can still be taxed as non-essential items in most of the country. I am certain any person who menstruates can agree that tampons are not a luxury. The amount of money added to the purchase of a box of tampons by this tax may seem inconsequential, but over time that extra charge on already overpriced period products adds up. For example, Michigan’s 6 percent sales tax raises the average price of $7 for a box of tampons an additional 42 cents.

Consider that many people are buying multiple products, often for multiple people, and the unnecessary burden this tax is imposing on individuals becomes clear. For the many people in this country living on tight budgets,

this tax can mean the choice between period products and medications, diapers or dinner for the week. It’s time to bring an end to this senseless and sexist tax in Michigan and throughout the country.

The Sons of Liberty certainly got their message across through their protest; unfortunately, they destroyed a whole lot of perfectly good tea in the process. Instead of protesting through destruction, let’s protest through support.

Rather than throwing that box of tampons into the Huron River, we can demonstrate our dedication to ending period poverty by donating our extra tampons to

I am certain any person who menstruates can agree that tampons are not a luxury a local women’s shelter or food bank. Through activism, we can empower ourselves and our fellow menstruators to bleed without shame. In fact, you don’t even have to menstruate to be a supporter of the tampon tax reform. We need men to be more than just comfortable talking about periods. They should be willing to fight for an end to period poverty.

Around the world, this fight has already begun. Other countries, such as Canada and Australia, have abolished taxes on period products nationwide, starting an important trend that is also beginning to catch on in the United States. Several states have passed legislation ending the tampon tax, including Minnesota, Nevada and — the home of the fight against unfair taxation — Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the rest of the

states, exemplified by the 22 bills introduced in state legislatures to repeal the tampon tax that ultimately were not signed into law. Here in Michigan, the journey has been especially rocky, with the bill to end the tampon tax becoming known as a “zombie” in the state legislature, returning session after session only to die on the floor, or even in committee, every time due to concerns about lost tax revenue.

Michigan’s state legislature has seemingly demonstrated that reforming tampon tax and taking the first step toward menstrual equity isn’t worth the effort of rearranging the budget. We can change this attitude through action and advocacy. It’s time to steer a smoother course for tampon tax reform through political activism. Whether you hail from Michigan or one of the many states that still tax tampons, call your state representative and let them know you’re not just going to go with the flow when it comes to menstrual equality.

It’s time for the rest of the nation to catch up to the international trend and bring an end to the taxation of menstrual products across the country.

A safe, healthy period is fundamental to wellness. Being unable to afford period products can significantly hinder one’s ability to thrive — nearly one in five girls in the United States miss school due to period poverty, and women in situations of homelessness and incarceration must face additional hardship due to menstrual inequality. Like access to nutritional food and clean water, access to feminine hygiene products is a basic human need. The tampons that many states deem non-essential goods are demonstrably and absolutely essential. Menstrual products are not a choice — they are a health care necessity. The removal of the tampon tax is an imperative first step on the path toward ending period poverty. No more taxation of menstruation. Huzzah!

Mary Rolfes can be reached at morolfes@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Friday, November 15, 2019 — 5A

CONCERT REVIEW

NOTEBOOK

Wilco at Hill was a little bit The winter lurking within boring, but also pleasing?

CLARA SCOTT

Daily Gender & Media Columnist

JONAH MENDELSON Daily Arts Writer

On Tuesday, Nov. 5, Wilco took to the stage at Hill Auditorium for a stop on their Ode to Joy tour, following a strong opening set

by Deep Sea Diver (featuring a particularly enthusiastic and capable drummer). The opener “Bright Leaves” set the tone for most of the evening — relaxed and melancholy.

Ode to Joy, while perhaps the strongest project Wilco has released since The Whole Love (2012), does not translate well to a live show. The album is fairly low-energ y, more suited to background listening than to a concert performance. Most of the cuts from that album felt obligatory, given that the tour is nominally in support of it. Wilco played “Citizens” live for the first and, God willing, last time ever. Luckily, they included plenty of crowd-pleasing numbers off of their earlier albums as well. Highlights of their set included a moving rendition of “Jesus, Etc,” a face-melting version of “At Least That’s What You Said,” and an unexpected yet gorgeous performance of the sparse “Reservations.”

In contrast, their decision not to play what is by far their second-most popular song (“California Stars”) was curious yet powerful.

They reeled off almost thirty songs in total; concertgoers certainly got their money’s worth in that respect.

Nels Cline is one of the most talented guitarists of his generation. If you hadn’t been aware of that entering Hill Auditorium, you were certainly aware of it by the time you left.

He fired off blistering solo after solo, a truly impressive display. That said, I think he is far from alone in the unfortunate belief that the

amount and frequency of notes you play in a given amount of time are directly correlated with the quality of a guitar solo. At a certain point, the melody is neglected in favor of technical prowess, and it begins to feel as though I’m watching a g ymnastic exhibition rather than a musical performance.

Jeff Tweedy cuts an unassuming figure on stage, his relaxed demeanor likely a product of over 30 years of experience. His interactions with the audience were minimal yet radiated a quiet confidence. Tweedy gently ribbed the crowd for being low-energ y a few times during the set — with the exception of the people at the front who rocked out for just about every song (and who Jeff Tweedy lightheartedly accused of sneaking in alcohol), the audience was barely capable of remaining on their feet, let alone displaying any sort of passionate enjoyment of the music. Unfortunately, this was not the case with the man behind me who doggedly clapped along enthusiastically to each song, unaccompanied and off beat.

While Hill Auditorium is undoubtedly a beautiful venue with superb acoustic qualities, I have never seen a show there that was not lacking in crowd energ y. I attribute this to a combination of the older clientele it attracts as well as the cramped layout of the seating, which does not provide sufficient space for the audience to stand up and get into the music.

Diehard Wilco fans will undoubtedly have left Hill Auditorium satisfied, while more casual listeners likely enjoyed the experience but could have gone for less extended guitar freakouts (e.g. “We Were Lucky”). A few questionable setlist choices aside, it was a largely pleasing performance; a nice snapshot of a band, and its audience, ageing gracefully together.

GETTY IMAGES

In the house where I spent my first ten years, there was a big stove and oven contraption set into the wall of the kitchen. The behemoth was surrounded by terracotta tiles, Tuscan floral reliefs that only the seventies could produce. It was a suburban fantasy that any housewife would cry before. The stove, in its cave of orange sunflowers, had little red lights near the knobs of each of the burners to tell when they were hot, as most stoves do. My first experience of being burned came as a result of this.

When my parents got married, they received a perfectly-curated set of kitchen supplies including several shiny Calphalon pots and pans. We ate a lot of pasta. Every time my mom would boil water for dinner, I would sit in front of the stove as she cooked, entranced by the red light that reflected up onto each pot’s perfect silver surface. This went on for months when I was around four years old until I finally worked up the courage to see what those lights truly were. I waited until she moved to the other side of the kitchen to grab the butter and went for the prize. My hand reached out slowly as I stared at the red swirl of the light in an almost hypnotic trance. I smelled barbecue and suddenly felt a jolt of pain run up my arm.

“Clara!” My mother exclaimed. I felt tears running down my face as I realized what had happened. Of course it wasn’t a ghost orb or some fancy jewel, I said to my four-year-old self, and now I have to wear a Band-Aid. In that hundred-year-old house with the bay window, I grew up happily, for the most part.

There is a tendency to romanticize what you can’t completely remember, but the snippets of summer in that home are something I have always treasured.

The only problem was that we were in Michigan, a state whose reputation is relegated to few things other than Detroit, lakes, cherries and brutal winters. Every year, like clockwork, the snow would blanket that house like a low-hanging fog, draping the stucco in a dreamlike curtain of cold.

My parents would climb out onto the flat roof of our mudroom to cut ice off of the asphalt surface, pushing it past the ornate windowpanes and into the frost. I watched in awe as they managed not to fall off and die, as they warned we would if my siblings and I even thought about mimicking them.

But even when the ice melted, when the birds came back out and we started to have a groundhog breeding problem again, my hands stayed cold.

They say in the laws of thermodynamics that cold is not a concept on its own — instead, it is the absence of heat. If that is true, my whole life has been devoted to chasing what I don’t have.

Although my mother did not believe me until high school, we share the same genetic syndrome called Raynaud’s, a minor yet annoying affliction that prevents blood from circulating completely through our hands and feet. Because of this, I will most definitely have cold feet on the night before my wedding and every other night of my life, too.

Maybe that’s part of why I have been burned so many times, from that moment in the kitchen at age four to a curling-iron mishap only two weeks ago. I don’t feel a fire until I smell smoke, and I don’t realize I’ve been burned until it’s too late to go back.

There has been a fireplace in every home my family’s lived in, and I have always sat too close, waiting in front of the flames until I couldn’t stand it anymore. When the temperature drops each year, I prepare myself for the inevitable white fingertips I’ll end up with after five minutes outside, the numbness, the apologies I’ll make for my vampirish touch. My friends have taken to calling me “skeleton woman” every time I grab them, my pale hands like ice on their skin. They recoil, and my stomach flips over inside my core as I wonder if I’ll ever hold someone in comfort.

I’ve always remained at a cool 97 degrees, even when I wanted to be anything else. My fevers only reach 100, and I was always sent to school as a sick child because of this. My mother texts me “are you staying warm?” on an almost-daily basis. It’s laughable the way that heat, or the lack of it, has colored my life. The first time I dated a boy I really, truly liked, I avoided public affection in fear of his response to my temperature. He wanted to hold hands on the street, and I feigned an arm cramp.

I almost burned myself again trying to warm up my freezing fingers with a hairdryer before dinner one night. We kissed, we laid next to each other, I strategically hung my feet off the edge of the bed.

It’s stupid, childish, for me to do these things, but I always fear what my aura of cold will tell someone what my own words don’t: that I’m nervous, uninterested, that my heart isn’t beating a million miles a minute when that should be clear.

Those who know me would describe me as warm, but my body doesn’t hear it. Instead, I sit by the radiator, by the space heater, by the fire. But at least there are glimpses into the heat that my blood is supposed to run at, a signal that I’m still alive.

And I think that’s the thing that really scares me: If being human is wrapped up in our heat, our passion, anger, love, what does it mean to be cold?

Am I any less alive because my touch doesn’t say so? I have fought for my life as it is, through illness and unhappiness, but it seems that my body hasn’t caught up yet. When that day comes, there will be a celebration within me. But for now, I will wait and live, even if my hands feel like those of a corpse.

The first time I dated a boy that I really, truly liked, I avoided public affection in fear of his response to my temperature.

ALBUM REVIEW

Wiki struggles to hold his own on solo album ‘OOFIE’ DYLAN YONO Daily Arts Writer

When I first heard Wiki featured on Run The Jewels’s “Blockbuster Night Pt. 2” and Earl Sweatshirt’s “AM // Radio,” I was pretty stoked — he reeked of the underground hip-hop sound that I vibed with so hard. Then his first solo tape, Lil Me, dropped, and its mediocrity eradicated all my interest in the up-and-coming New York rapper with the quirky drawl. I passed over his debut and never really dived into his past work with Ratking.

But I would never skip anything with Madlib’s footprint on it, so when Wiki dropped the Madlibproduced “Eggs” last September, I was excited to see him bring his A-game.

Right away, OOFIE doesn’t set itself up for success. “Downfall” is a standard “I failed but I swear I’m bringing it back this time” type track, not unlike something you might find on an Eminem album.

It’s unclear what failure he’s talking about: Maybe disappointment with himself because he’s never had a break-out single or album, although that doesn’t seem like the kind of worry Wiki would have. Regardless of what it concerns, hearing themes of selfdisappointment at the very beginning doesn’t set a good tone for the album. At best, it’s uninteresting, and at worst, it’s cringe-y (remember J. Cole’s “Let Nas Down”?). I want to grab Wiki by the collar and say, just show us what you got already!

Digging into the music, most of OOFIE is underwhelming, and not in any particularly interesting way. Every song is in a sort of weird middle ground where it’s hard to tell if it’s supposed to be a chill kickback track or something that slaps in the car. Not that all hip hop has to fit neatly into those categories, but the album just

It took a Madlib beat to put Wiki back on my radar, and it’ll take something better than OOFIE to keep him from falling off again.

doesn’t seem very sure-footed in its direction. I think I’m supposed to have the windows down in the car during “Pesto” and I think I’m supposed to drink a beer on the porch to “The Routine,” but a good song should make me think, I can’t wait to blast this in the car or I can’t wait to listen to this while I’m chilling with the boys. The only thing that crossed my mind was I could probably do the dishes to this.

Something that holds this album back is a lack of progression in the production on most of the tracks. Typically the beat you hear at the beginning carries the music all the way through. This is fine for bite-size tracks but it’s easy to lose interest during your typical three-minute-30-second song. Wiki’s focus on making lyrical lemonade can only carry a song so far, especially when so many lines don’t land well (“When you poppin’ Perkies, she pop her pussy / She drop her tushy, she almost hurt me” … really?). None of the beats are interesting enough to carry a listener through the whole track, which is dangerous — in today’s era of hip hop production, lackluster production is a death sentence. Tracks like “The Routine” have an interesting, quirky lead sample, but the rest of the production doesn’t do it justice. More uninteresting drum patterns and woozy, unexciting pads. It’s no wonder the album ends up feeling purposeless.

The only beats that are juicy enough to carry through an entire song are on “Dame Aqui” and “Way That I Am,” but I still probably wouldn’t listen to them again if it weren’t for their features. Princess Nokia blesses the beat with her own sixteen bars on “Dame Aqui,” while Your Old Droog and Wiki hold down an entertaining back-andforth on “Way That I Am.” At some point, it became clear that I was waiting for Wiki to finish and his features to start. That should have been obvious on “Grim” where Lil Ugly Mane and Denzel Curry outshine Wiki to an embarrassing degree.

Wiki’s choruses are also a stain on every

OOFIE Wiki Wikiset Ltd

song. Typically signified by Wiki layering his vocals, it’s mostly annoying. There’s no saving the hook to “4 Clove Club.” It would have been more interesting if he went the MF-Doom route and just cut the hooks out from the start. I want to give Wiki more credit — some of his writing is really slick, like “Grand maestro of the metro / Damn, your hand swipes slow, while I get dough” on “Pesto.” It just doesn’t have any room to stand out, especially put next to pen game demons like Your Old Droog spitting burns like “Lames on Rap Genius wanna speak for the God like televangelists.”

When it comes down to it, OOFIE has only convinced me of something I was pretty certain I already knew: Wiki is a feature rapper and doesn’t have the creativity to hold down a track on his own.

He fits in a cool niche of underground rappers with a strong pen game, yeah.

Your Old Droog fills the same space, though, and he executes his ideas way better. It took a Madlib beat to put Wiki back on my radar, and it’ll take something better than OOFIE to keep him from WIKISET ENTERPRISE falling off again.

Arts

6A — Friday, November 15, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

FILM REVIEW

Theatre kids are alright ‘Playing With Fire’ is fun ELI RALLO

Daily Arts Writer

At my public high school everything around me attempted to dissuade me from becoming the quintessential “theatre kid.” My school left our arts programs severely underfunded and, as collateral, underespected. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to transfer some of the athletic funds to the drama club, but I often stood in the athletic director’s office pleading for help. Would money remedy the problematic treatment of theatre kids? No. Would it help foster the respect needed from the administration to make theatre kids feel worthy of our choice to participate in drama club?

Yes. High school students who participate in arts programs are sometimes considered inferior by peers, and it isn’t so easy to rise above the stereotype when the school system itself doesn’t want to aid in promoting success for choir, drama club, band and other arts groups. Football players are rendered god-like and have their successes announced on the loudspeaker in the morning, inflating their ever-growing egos. They take rides in plush buses to travel to games comfortably and have fully-packed stadiums of fans. The school drama club fights for enough money for a single bus to attend competitions. Our mothers held bake sales because they felt as though it was our only choice to cover the cost of new microphones. Overall, high school drama clubs feel a consistent lack of support from school activity coordinators and the larger community.

In the social ladder of high schools, the theatre kids are often on the bottom, just above the chess players or the band geeks. At the top rest the lacrosse players, below the “popular for no good reason” girls who are just beat out by the football players. It never made much sense to me why, in the world of high school, my desire to participate in the musical over the soccer team automatically made me a loser — someone who shouldn’t be invited to cool parties and didn’t attend football games or have as worthy a presence as someone who played a sport. Just because I’d opted for rehearsal and showtunes over pasta parties and practice, I was an outsider.

Given that I was involved in both cross country and theatre, I saw the immense benefits of both institutions.

Ever since I was young, despite my desire to be athletic, I’d always been more drawn to the arts. I loved my cross country team in high school. I craved the sweat and the competition, the sense of unwavering teamwork and ultimate thrill we felt upon winning. But often times I

felt like I didn’t belong. Sports teams at my school were cliquey and always looked toward the win, not the journey it had taken to get to that final game or match.

Something about athletics seemed too serious and grave when to me it wasn’t that deep. A loss was a loss, a win was a win. In theatre, I didn’t have to deal with the crippling anxiety that we wouldn’t win or that we had to. We were just making art, we were coming together to stretch our minds and ourselves. And it was beautiful.

As someone who split her time between artistic and athletic pursuits, I can’t quite understand how in American high schools the latter automatically makes you hot and the former makes you lame. Sports games will always be sports games. They will always be American pastimes, they will always add entertainment to our lives. I will always enjoy football and basketball.

But will these events and groups provide culture? Will they provide wider understanding and open the door to communicating on the basis of art? Will they provoke people to change their minds, to think? Will they inspire?

Upon graduating from high school I attended a Big 10 university in the midwest to study theatre and was hit with a massive realization: The theatre kids aren’t losers. The artists aren’t unworthy. The musicians aren’t geeks. Here at the University of Michigan there is talent pouring from the walls of our drama building, our music building, our dance building, and the high level of creative excellence produced by student artists is simply unmatched. The community respects theatre kids, acknowledges their hard work, applauds them. The vapid high school notion that my choice of extracurricular made me ultimately less likeable, less “cool,” less worthy of friendship had subsided. I was now among a cohort of people who, for doing the arts, were cool, trendy, fascinating and unique. Constantly, though, I wonder how many students from my high school (and ones like it) decided not to pursue drama club because of the downtrodden social status that comes along with it. I wonder how many students give up on their artistic dreams because high school is a time when, for the most part, we hope to blend in and not make ourselves known.

The theatre kids will stick together, always. We will be a united front, we will push past the 16-yearold bullies of our high school hallways and continue to create. We will continue to wonder, to inspire, to write and direct and perform. Because in the deep of the night, it has nothing to do with who will fund us, who will support us, who won’t laugh at us — it has to do with the impact we make when we make art, something that is and always will be a win.

SABRIYA IMAMI Daily Arts Writer

“Playing with Fire” is a movie that does exactly what it’s supposed to do: entertain. Directed by Andy Fickman (“Race to Witch Mountain”), it may not be a cinematic masterpiece with a heart wrenching plot or clever camerawork, but it succeeds in capturing your attention and making you laugh (despite admittedly cheesy stunts and dialogue).

As a Nickelodeon movie, I expected it to be a short, feel-good, family-friendly movie, which at first concerned me. I’d thought that since the target demographic was primarily kids, it’d be predictable and not worth watching. It was predictable, but in the end, it was also worth watching. It’s another movie with a tough guy with a “manly” job, Jake Carson (John Cena, “Bumblebee”), who is forced to take care of some kids and eventually learns to love them and to open himself up to vulnerability. We’ve all seen that movie before. It was never the plot that was going to make the movie worthwhile, though.

That will always be the job of humor.

“Playing with Fire” may have been a movie with humor made for 12-year-old boys, but I will admit with no shame that there was at least one 18-year-old girl in the theater laughing harder than probably all the other kids in the audience.

For me, the best part of the movie was hands down Keegan-Michael Key’s portrayal of Mark. I’m not sure if it was the hilarious kissing-up nature of his character towards Cena’s character or the exaggerated exasperation he had towards the kids in the movie, but nearly all of his lines had me laughing. Sidenote — there are bloopers at the end of the movie, most of which feature Key’s natural hilarity and unfortunate (but priceless) tendency for slapstick humor.

There were low points in the film, too. Jake and Amy’s (Judy Greer, “13 Going on 30”) relationship is unnecessary and forced. The three kids do a mostly great job of balancing being funny and being slightly annoying (like all kids), but Brynn

Playing with Fire Paramount Pictures Ann Arbor 20+ IMAX

(Brianna Hildebrand, “Deadpool”), left something to be desired. Her character got on my nerves more often than not, and her warming up to Jake was not as gradual as it should have been to make it believable. The first two days she did everything she could to get on his nerves, and then the next two she made a complete 180. It didn’t feel realistic.

Despite those flaws, though, the movie is worth seeing. However, I’m not sure if the movie theater is a necessary component of its viewing experience.

Frankly, this is the kind of movie that you want to watch with your wife and kids. There’s something about the overused, cheesy moral of the story that makes you want to see it in your pajamas on your sofa and with your family, even though you may want to roll your eyes at it and claim that you’re too old for a movie like this. You can say whatever you want to preserve your reputation, but chances are, “Playing with Fire” will make you laugh a lot and will have you turning the television off with a genuine, satisfied smile.

Upon graduating from high school I attended a Big 10 university in the midwest to study theatre and was hit with a massive realization: The theatre kids aren’t losers.

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Release Date: Friday, November 15, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

FOR RENT

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 River past the Museo Galileo 5 Wipe out 10 “Antiques Roadshow” airer 13 Half of rock’s ’60s “it” couple, per Time 14 “I’ve got this” 15 Chipotle serving, casually 16 Clothes line?

18 Approximately 19 County bordering London 20 Ingredient in arròs negre, a squid-and-rice dish 21 Pursuit 22 Solidified 24 Tag line?

26 Able-bodied 28 Green of “Casino Royale” 30 Iraq War danger: Abbr.

31 “The Wire” antihero __ Little 32 Think back to 34 Gym surface 37 Border line?

40 Vague ending 41 Bilingual Muppet 42 MD’s diagnostic tools 43 Big bird 44 Relative of Da and De 45 Leaning 46 Pick-up line?

50 Rte. with a Lake Michigan ferry crossing 52 Times New __ 53 Health care provider: Abbr.

55 “Set Fire to the Rain” singer 58 Beyond regulation play, briefly 59 Defensive line?

61 WWII Axis general 62 Kansas Army fort 63 Slaughter on the diamond 64 Asian honorific 65 Neglected 66 Grant’s opposite

DOWN 1 Overexertion symptom 2 Frat letters 3 Ironic “This should come as no surprise ... ” 4 Ones stocking up 5 Lilly of drugs 6 Bullpen staff 7 Loads 8 Like the air around a campfire 9 “What’s THAT?” 10 Applesauce, e.g.

11 Low singers 12 “Waverley” novelist 15 Squash, for one 17 Big name in spatulas 21 Put down 23 Reset 25 Crankcase reservoirs 26 Kachina carver 27 Reddit Q&A sessions 29 When Prospero says, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on”

33 Blew away 34 Ford carrier in the mid-’70s 35 Tibet’s place 36 Julia’s “Ocean’s Twelve” role 38 Guys who spin 39 Like some war correspondents 43 Poetry Muse 46 Court directives 47 Esteem

48 Heart Eyes or OK Hand 49 “Yesterday,” today 51 Bit of body art 54 Stack 56 Safari sight 57 Online marketplace 59 Returns home?

60 Big Apple team, on crawl lines

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11/15/19

FOOTBALL SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2019

2019 Schedule

A reeling Michigan State team comes in ready to play its ostensible Super Bowl against the No. 15 Michigan football team, with the trajectory of its program in peril. Still, the Spartans have won eight of the previous 12 matchups between the in-state rivals, and come into this one presumably eager to do anything to keep it competitive.

3 4 6 7

TABLE OF CONTENTS Our football beat writers offer their score predictions for the game.

Four years later, long snapper Scott Sypniewski wants to get past his moment.

What to watch for when Michigan takes the field on Saturday against MSU.

Taking to the film to examine what trick plays Dantonio might have up his sleeve.

Middle Tennessee State (Aug. 31): Look man, the middle of Tennessee is decidedly not a state.

Penn State (Oct. 19): Look, you don’t just go into the hallowed grounds of *checks notes* TCF Bank Stadium and emerge victorious.

Army (Sept. 7): Y’all remember when Army almost beat Michigan? Wild stuff.

Notre Dame (Oct. 26): Organized religion is a sham. Eat at Arby’s.

Wisconsin (Sept. 21): Sure, your town is sick and your beer is elite and Jump Around is cool and your campus is on multiple lakes and ...

Maryland (Nov. 2): Maybe Mike Locksley and Josh Gattis shouldn’t have been so quick to fight over credit for their offense after all.

Rutgers (Sept. 28): My grandma’s New Jersey retirement home mahjong group could beat Rutgers in football ... basketball would be close, too.

Michigan State (Nov. 16): The Michigan Daily has beaten The State News 14 years in a row.

Iowa (Oct. 5): The year is 2080. Aliens have taken over. Iowa capped off a 7-5 season with a five-year extension for Kirk Ferentz. All is well.

Indiana (Nov. 23): Let’s all take a moment to eulogize the Penix puns we could have made.

Gone but not forgotten.

Illinois (Oct. 12): It turns out Lovie Smith does still have a pulse!

Ohio State (Nov. 30): I’m sure Chase Young learned his lesson.

STAFF PICKS The Daily football writers pick against the spread for the weekend’s best games.

Ethan Sears

Max Marcovitch

Theo Mackie

Maya Goldman

Aria Gerson

Editor-in-chief

No. 1 LSU (-21) at Ole Miss

LSU

LSU

LSU

LSU

LSU

No. 2 Ohio State (-52) at Rutgers

Ohio State

Rutgers

Ohio State

Ohio State

Ohio State

Wake Forest at No. 3 Clemson (-34)

Wake Forest

Clemson

Wake Forest

Wake Forest

Clemson

No. 4 Georgia (-2.5) at No. 12 Auburn

Auburn

Georgia

Auburn

Georgia

Auburn

No. 5 Alabama (-18) at Mississippi State

Alabama

Alabama

Alabama

Alabama

Alabama

Arizona at No. 6 Oregon (-27.5)

Oregon

Arizona

Oregon

Arizona

Arizona

UCLA at No. 7 Utah (-21.5)

UCLA

UCLA

UCLA

Utah

Utah

No. 8 Minnesota at No. 20 Iowa (-3)

Iowa

Iowa

Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota

Indiana at No. 9 Penn State (-14.5)

Indiana

Indiana

Penn State

Indiana

Penn State

No. 10 Oklahoma (-11) at No. 13 Baylor

Baylor

Baylor

Baylor

Baylor

Oklahoma

No. 11 Florida (-6.5) at Missouri

Florida

Florida

Missouri

Florida

Florida

No. 14 Wisconsin (-14) at Nebraska

Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Michigan State at No. 15 Michigan (-13.5)

Michigan

Michigan

Michigan

Michigan

Michigan

No. 23 Navy at No. 16 Notre Dame (-7.5)

Navy

Notre Dame

Navy

Navy

Notre Dame

No. 17 Cincinnati (-14) at South Florida

South Florida

South Florida

South Florida

Cincinnati

Cincinnati

No. 18 Memphis (-10.5) at Houston

Houston

Houston

Houston

Memphis

Houston

No. 19 Texas at Iowa State (-7)

Texas

Iowa State

Texas

Texas

Texas

New Mexico at No. 21 Boise State (-28)

Boise

Boise State

Boise State

New Mexico

New Mexico

Kansas at No. 22 Oklahoma State (-17.5)

Kansas

Kansas

Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State

West Virginia at No. 24 Kansas State (-14.5)

Kansas State

West Virginia

West Virginia

Kansas State

West Virginia

No. 25 App State (-16.5) at Georgia State

App State

App State

App State

Georgia State

App State

UMass at Northwestern (-41)

UMass

Northwestern

UMass

UMass

UMass

TCU (-3) at Texas Tech

Texas Tech

Texas Tech

Texas Tech

TCU

TCU

Tulane (-5) at Temple

Tulane

Tulane

Tulane

Temple

Temple

Stanford at Washington State (-10.5)

Stanford

Stanford

Stanford

Washington State

Washington State

Overall

39-55-3

48-46-3

55-39-3

44-50-3

N/A

2B

FootballSaturday, November 15, 2019

MICHIGAN VS. MICHIGAN STATE

#15

PREDICTIONS FROM THE MICHIGAN DAILY FOOTBALL BEAT

Theo Mackie

Max Marcovitch

Ethan Sears

Aria Gerson

Maya Goldman

Michigan 27 MSU 7 MSU is in complete freefall, while Michigan is playing its best football of the season.

The Spartans’ defense has been vulnerable for weeks. Anything less than an easy win would be a disappointment.

Michigan 24 MSU 3 This is one of those games the Michigan defense just grabs hold of and suffocates.

Michigan State will top the 94 yards from last year. But not by much.

The Wolverines snag an early lead and hide.

Michigan 31 MSU 10 The talent gap is too much in this game. I can’t see Michigan State moving the ball much Michigan’s defense.

Even if it’s not a complete beatdown, Michigan should pull away late in the game.

Michigan 38 MSU 7 Michigan hasn’t lost at home in two years, and by “hasn’t lost at home,” I mean “has three blowout wins against better teams than the Spartans. I see no reason why this game will be different.

Michigan 28 MSU 7 Everyone knows a university’s football team is directly correlated to how good its student newspaper is.

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3B

FOUR YEARS LATER, SCOTT SYPNIEWSKI ETHAN SEARS / MANAGING SPORTS EDITOR

Scott Sypniewski cried. He sobbed, actually. He was in the visitor’s locker room at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, still in uniform.

His hand grasped John Baxter’s, his head resting on his coordinator’s shoulder.

It has been four years exactly from that day to the publication of this story. Sypniewski works now in Chicago as a recruiting coordinator for NCSA, a company that helps high school athletes boost their recruiting profiles. It has been two years since he graduate transferred from Michigan to Vanderbilt, over a year since his last NFL tryout with the Jacksonville Jaguars ended without a callback. He is living his life, normal and anonymous, as far removed from that snap — the snap — against Michigan State and the world encompassing it as could be.

And still, when Sypniewski tells the story of all that led to that moment at Indiana, when everything poured out of him, he gets choked up.

Minutes before going to the locker room, as Delano Hill broke up a fourth-down attempt in the end zone and the rest of Michigan’s football team converged around him, Sypniewski was celebrating, too. His hands flew in the air in elation. He lifted his head and turned to walk off the field. Then he saw his father. He’s always been good at finding his family in the crowd, he says now.

“I saw him shaking his head,” Sypniewski said. “And he was starting to cry.”

That was when Sypniewski ran up the tunnel, into the visitor’s locker room and started sobbing.

Sypniewski cried then because of the emotions of the four weeks preceding that moment, because everything that bubbles beneath the surface of any athlete finally burst, and because for him — in those four weeks — that load exceeded its capacity. He gets choked up now when he tells the story because even in relative anonymity, four years after the fact, those emotions never quite left. When one error defines you, it stays with you.

As for that error, the clip has been played thousands of times over. You’ve seen it. You’ll see it again this weekend.

There are 10 seconds left in the game, it’s fourth-and-two and Michigan leads, 23-21. Sypniewski is right there in the center, holding onto the ball, his head looking between his legs, readying for a motion he had done thousands of times before.

Instead of hitting the strike zone, the football wavers and dips. Blake O’Neill drops it, bends down, tries to pick it up.

Sean McDonough’s voice goes up an octave. Jalen WattsJackson, a Michigan State safety, runs the ball into the end zone as time expires. Michigan loses in impossible fashion to a hated rival.

Sypniewski, to be clear, was not universally blamed. Unlike O’Neill, who spent the following week as the face of the error, getting vitriol heaped on his social media, Sypniewski lived with the anonymity of a long snapper. In a way, that made all that happened over the next month that much harder. The blame he had to get past was not that of others, but his own.

Four years later, past a football career and well into living real life with a real job, he’s asked how long it took to move on.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t think I have an answer to that.

“Maybe I’ll let you know in like five years?” *** Sypniewski didn’t think his grandfather would be able to watch him play football at Michigan. And yet, after making it to every high school game, he was at nearly every college home game, too.

4B

FootballSaturday, November 15, 2019

“My grandpa basically lived to watch me play,” Sypniewski said.

Which meant that when Sypniewski exited the locker room the night of the 2015 Michigan State game and walked back to his family — at a tailgate put on by a group of parents — his grandpa was there.

All the faces at the tailgate were expressionless. It was less than an hour after the end of the game — nobody knew what to say or how to talk about what had happened. “It wasn’t … the best physical tailgate to be in,” said Andrew Robinson, Sypniewski’s friend and a backup long snapper on the 2015 team.

Sypniewski’s grandfather pulled him out of the tailgate and sat him down. Along with Sypniewski’s father, he stressed that Scott couldn’t dwell on this and had to move forward. The kinds of cliches that people always fall back on, in the kind of situation where it’s hard to apply them.

“He was definitely someone who was right there, putting his arm around my shoulder and telling me it’s gonna be OK, really,” Sypniewski said. “And then my dad. My dad’s been through a lot of crap, too. He kinda knows that you can’t dwell on it. Just gotta keep moving forward. You can’t even think about it. Even though it gets brought up every time someone recognizes me.”

Sypniewski’s path to that moment came with good luck at every turn.

His father played for Western Michigan in the 1980s, for a coaching staff that included Brady Hoke, Greg Mattison and Dan Ferrigno — all Michigan coaches when he was a recruit. When it became clear Sypniewski was good enough to be a long snapper in college, he could only get a preferred walk-on offer from the Broncos. He visited Hoke expecting the same and almost broke down crying when a full scholarship was offered. On the car ride home, Sypniewski made his dad pull over so he could call Hoke and commit.

When Jim Harbaugh took over the program in Sypniewski’s redshirt freshman year, he didn’t just keep the starting job he was in line for, but he retained his scholarship. Within a tight-knit group of specialists, Sypniewski was viewed as a leader.

“He’s a good guy, really likable guy,” said Kyle Seychel, a walk-on who played on special teams from 2014-17. “And I just looked up I guess. I guess that’s the impression. I still have that to this day.”

Those strokes of luck in his recruitment inform his career now.

NCSA, the company Sypniewski works for, is essentially a college counseling service for recruits. He used it himself in high school when trying to get noticed as a long snapper, a position where lack of recognition tends to be inherent. It’s a job that allows him to stay near sports while, generally, avoiding the spotlight that can come with being at the center of disaster.

Sypniewski, though, wants to clarify what happened and his role in all of it.

When Baxter, Sypniewski and O’Neill watched the tape of the botched snap after the season, having avoided it until then, they noticed O’Neill looked like he was lined up further back than normal.

They rewound and watched again, counting the yards. “Probably did it like 30 times,” Sypniewski said. O’Neill had been taught to line up 15 yards behind Sypniewski. When Michigan lined up to punt with 10 seconds left against Michigan State, O’Neill was 17 yards behind Sypniewski. The ball dipped because it was snapped to 15.

“That’s usually one of the things that I tell people when people ask me, is that, well first off, you can’t say — I don’t want to put anyone in the ground here,” Sypniewski said. “But that was one of the things why I wanted to kind of tell my story about it, from my perspective.”

O’Neill declined to talk for this story when contacted through Sypniewski and didn’t respond to a direct message. Baxter, through a USC spokesperson, declined to talk as well.

Seychel pulls up the video while on the phone to verify, having not seen it in a while. He, too, counts the yards. “Oh yeah. That’s right,” he says. “Right at his feet. I’m sorry, man. I haven’t seen this play in a while. … I try not to think about it. “... If he was standing at 14 yards, it might have been right at his

chest.”

Sypniewski, on top of the snap itself, broke his thumb against the Spartans. Because that game was followed by a bye week, he didn’t miss any time, playing the next game against Minnesota. The following week, against Rutgers, he was running downfield and got decleated. The hit ruptured the bursa sac in his right knee. It swelled, then got infected.

He spent the week leading up to the Indiana game with a 103-degree fever, not practicing. His roommates, Robinson and Kenny Allen, had to stay at the Campus Inn until the team left. Harbaugh didn’t let Sypniewski travel to Bloomington with the team, but he told him he could play if he could get to the game. So Sypniewski’s parents drove up to Ann Arbor from Chicago on Friday morning, then drove him to Bloomington. He stayed in his own hotel room.

The morning of the game, Sypniewski dressed, keeping Harbaugh to his word. When he went out for warmups, he had to run back to the bench on the first field goal snap, Robinson recalled, “because he thought he was gonna throw up on the ball.” Still, he played. And when Michigan won, he cried.

“I couldn’t control any emotions,” Sypniewski said, “and it was kind of like collective part of everything that happened from the Michigan State game to then. All of it was just coming out and the fact that we won, I was finally done, I could just go home. That season, that stretch of four games, it really tested who I was.” *** Twenty minutes after saying he doesn’t know how long it took to move on, Sypniewski claims he’s done so. Certainly, he seems to be over playing football.

He tried to catch on in the NFL after his year at Vanderbilt, but decided after a year he couldn’t keep sitting by his phone every Monday and Tuesday, waiting for a call. If something comes out of the sky, he’s game, but Sypniewksi wanted to start his next career.

He notices when the snap gets played on TV, but says he’s past it.

When people bring it up, he goes to the same joke — “How many times were you the number one play of the year on the ESPYs?” When SportsCenter played it every hour on the play’s four-year anniversary last month and people around his office joked with him, Sypniewski took it in stride.

“Obviously you think about it every time it gets played on TV, you kind of put yourself back in that place, cause you know exactly what was going through your head when you were doing it,” Sypniewski said. “To say that I still dwell on it, that’s not true at all.

“It’s over.”

Yet, he wants his perspective out there, wants people to understand the play was more than a 15-second video to be looped and a meme to be shared. On a given day, Robinson estimated, Michigan could have three practice periods devoted to special teams with about 30 minutes a week devoted to punts. About three times a week, Michigan would practice against punt block looks like the one Michigan State broke out on that fourth down.

None of that, of course, accounts for the work Sypniewski and others did on the sidelines as the offense and defense practiced. None of it accounts for the minutiae that goes into long snapping, the thousands of reps and the sheer bad luck it takes for a mistake to occur in that moment. None of it accounts for the next week, either, when Michigan installed an emergency punt for a similar situation, where the punter stood a yard up, caught the ball and one-step kicked it.

Amid a conversation touching on all the minutiae of everything that happened four years ago, Sypniewski finds a moment to talk about moving forward, keeping a short memory. He laughs.

Those 10 seconds led to tears in Bloomington and years of reminders.

They will stay in the memory of Sypniewski, and Michigan, for years to come.

“It’s crazy that something like that was only 10 seconds long,” he says, “but that’s what people remember.”

COVER/PAGE DESIGN BY ALEX STONE

WANTS TO GET PAST HIS MOMENT TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com

5B

What to watch for: Michigan State The Spartans, 4-5 on the season, come to Ann Arbor desperately seeking a win to turn things around MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor

There are, realistically, two ways in which Saturday’s rivalry showdown between Michigan (7-2 overall, 4-2 Big Ten) and Michigan State (4-5, 2-4) plays out.

The first, and the most likely, follows down the path of least resistance. The Spartans rank 61st in offensive efficiency, according to ESPN.com’s rankings. They haven’t won a game since Sept. 28 and come into this matchup with the Wolverines fresh off blowing a 25-point lead at home to Illinois.

In that respect, the 13.5-point spread seems low, a direct nod to the emphasis Michigan State and its coach, Mark Dantonio, place on this game.

But that emphasis — which, it should be noted, has guided the Spartans to victories in eight of the previous 12 matchups between the sides — cannot be ignored, even in the bleakest of times in East Lansing.

Asked Monday what the common thread has been in his team’s games against Michigan State, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh offered a cagey retort.

“Common thread would be very competitive and intense.”

It’s to be seen whether Saturday will be

competitive, but high intensity is a foregone conclusion. Here’s what to watch for in Saturday’s rivalry bout.

Any antics?

Indelible images of Devin Bush scraping his cleats across the logo at Spartan Stadium last year no doubt still linger in Michigan State’s mind.

The then-junior linebacker had no problem letting his feelings out before the game, hours before his defense held the Spartans to 94 total yards.

There are rivalries in which mutual respect breeds a kind of pageantry — take the Red River Rivalry, for example. This is nothing of the sort.

Michigan-Michigan State is a slap fight in which each side keeps its hands dutifully by its sides until they step on the field. Then it convulses left, right, up and down for three hours.

That kind of attitude often breeds altercation, sometimes premeditated, often not. Michigan players and coaches hardly indicated a desire for such events to transpire.

“You watch it, you kind of get the feel

of the rivalry,” said sophomore defensive lineman Aidan Hutchinson on Monday. “But when you’re actually in it — you’re hitting them, you’re talking a little bit — that’s when things kind of intensify.”

Trick plays By now, you, a dutiful observer of this game and these teams, probably understand the threat Dantonio’s trick plays pose. There’s plenty more about this in Aria’s film breakdown, but the threat behind those off-schedule, unusual looks is to derail and dethrone the superior team.

Last year, Michigan State’s lone touchdown came off a reverse that ended in a fouryard pass from receiver Darrell Stewart Jr. to quarterback Brian Lewerke. All of a sudden, an offense that had shown nothing but ineptitude was locked in a 7-7 game in the middle of the third quarter. Momentum swung. The crowd came to life.

It’s quite clear Dantonio’s tactics have kept Harbaugh up at night this week.

“You look at everything a team has done in terms of fakes or misdirection. Deceptive type of plays,” Harbaugh said. “And what they’ve done, and OK, we’ve prepared for that, but also what is a possible complement to something that they’ve already done that

When you’re actually in it ... that’s when things intensify.

they could be working on, they could be practicing? Alert for everything.”

It seems unlikely a couple successful trick plays will be enough to overcome everything else. But perhaps one early in the game to re-configure the expectations, or one late in a game that unfolds tighter than expected, could be the spark the underdog Spartans need.

Rushing game There’s not a ton to glean from Michigan State rushing for 275 yards last week against Illinois, as the Illini rank 101st in the nation in rushing defense. But the roadmap for a Spartans’ upset runs through its rushing attack.

Running back Elijah Collins offers a formidable threat against a Michigan defense that will be foaming at the mouth.

On the flip side, the Wolverines will undoubtedly look to establish their running game at the outset. In its last four games, Michigan has averaged 223.5 rushing yards per game. Meanwhile, the Spartans’ strength, no matter the skid, remains their rush defense, which ranks 16th in the nation.

The only way Michigan State comes out of this victorious — nabbing one of the bigger upsets in the recent history of this rivalry — is mucking up the game, making it ugly and then winning through smoke and mirrors.

Scoff, if you want. The Spartans have only built their entire program off their ability to do just that.

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The Michigan football team enters the game against Michigan State as a 13.5-point favorite.

6B

FootballSaturday, November 15, 2019

Breaking down Michigan State’s infamous array of trick plays ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Editor

with how a play like this could work.

“We’ve definitely gone back, I wanna be accurate here, Michigan-Michigan State 12 years ago, they ran a fake punt or something,” said Michigan special teams coach Chris Partridge. “We’ve seen it all.

We’ve seen every fake punt that they’ve run probably for 12 years. … The last three fake punts are exactly the same.”

The fake field goal The opponent: Indiana The down: 4th-and-3, Indiana 6 The situation: Third quarter, up 21-7 The fake punt was a fairly simple play.

This one has a lot more moving parts.

Let’s be honest here: Michigan State didn’t really need to run an elaborate fake field goal up by two scores in the third quarter, but this is just what the Spartans do. And again, they had the element of surprise working in their favor.

On most teams, the holder doubles as the punter or backup quarterback.

(Michigan’s holder, for example, is senior punter Will Hart.) But Michigan State’s holder is starting quarterback Brian Lewerke, allowing them to draw up a variety of fake field goal plays that have a higher percentage than what many others can do.

Instead of holding for a kick, Lewerke (No. 14) takes the snap himself and scrambles for a few yards before pitching

the ball to No. 4, the kicker, Matt Coghlin, who runs a route towards the sideline and got enough separation to get into the end zone.

Most Indiana players, sticking to their assignments, seemed to have no idea what was happening as the play developed, and the Spartans had plenty of blockers for those that came over. It didn’t help that one Hoosier, attempting to block a kick that never came, fell down and was out of commission for the rest of the play. Indiana’s No. 28 appears to have anticipated that Lewerke could keep the ball, but he wasn’t expecting the pitch and hesitated as Coghlin coasted into the end zone.

This play was very well executed, and clearly caught Indiana off guard. But it probably wouldn’t work as well with a longer distance to go, and even with no defenders in the area, Coghlin looked, well, like a kicker trying to handle the ball. It’s easy to see Lewerke mistiming his pitch or Coghlin bobbling the ball, and a fumble that close to the end zone could be disastrous.

Against a bad team like last year’s Hoosiers, why not throw this one out?

But Dantonio may want to try something lower risk against a better team like the Wolverines, where every scoring

During his Monday press conference, a day when all eyes were on the MichiganMichigan State rivalry, Jim Harbaugh mentioned trick plays four different times.

It’s for good reason — Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio is notorious for his trick plays. He’s run them for years, with well-known plays dating back to the beginning of his tenure in East Lansing.

The Wolverines are well aware how much hate goes into this rivalry, and they know that Dantonio’s trickery is another thing to look out for. “(We’re) on high alert for everything,” Harbaugh said Monday. “We understand, Mark Dantonio’s a master motivator and there could be trick plays, special teams, punt fakes, field goal fakes. Everything needs to be alerted and prepared and ready.”

But what are these trick plays, and what can Michigan do to prepare for them? The Daily dug into the film, breaking down several of the Spartans’ trick plays from the 2018 season.

The fake punt The opponent: Penn State The down: 4th-and-6, MSU 34 The situation: First quarter, down 7-0 It’s clear that this fake punt fooled the camera operator, too, so it’s a little tough to tell what’s going on at first.

Michigan State lined up in a normal punt formation, but the ball was instead snapped to No. 11, running back Connor Heyward. With the return team on the field, there’s no one there to stop Heyward, who gets outside for a 26-yard gain.

Later in the drive, the Spartans scored a touchdown.

The key to this play was the element of surprise. Nobody expects a fake punt in the first quarter in a team’s own territory.

The Nittany Lions understandably weren’t lined up properly to stop such a play, and that’s why it worked. No matter how alert you are, you can’t line up on every punt like it’s going to be a fake.

As far as the actual playcall, this is pretty low-risk for a fake punt, and the main requirement is faith in your blockers. But the game situation increases the risk — Heyward had to make it at least six yards starting from behind the line of scrimmage, and had he been stuffed, Penn State would have taken over with excellent field position.

Heyward, one of Michigan State’s go-to guys on trick plays, is now in the transfer portal. But presumably, the Spartans have practiced this with a variety of players who know how to execute it. No matter who’s running it, the Wolverines have dedicated preparation time for these sorts KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily of situations and they’re very familiar Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio was dubbed a “master motivator” by Jim Harbaugh this week.

opportunity counts.

“Opportunities presented themselves,” Partridge said of Michigan State’s fakes.

“They’re not going out there, and I know people are saying, ‘Hey, their trick plays,’ they’re not going out there doing crazy stuff for no reason. When you watch their fakes, they’re executing them because the opportunity presents itself for what the other team is doing.”

The doublereverse pass The opponent: Michigan The down: 2nd-and-goal, Michigan 4 The situation: Third quarter, down 7-0 You probably remember this play, and you probably remember that people called it the “Sparty Special” due to its resemblance to the famed “Philly Special.”

In reality, this isn’t quite the Philly Special. In that play, the ball was snapped directly to a running back.

Here, Lewerke lines up under center as if to run a normal play. He pitches it to running back LJ Scott (No. 3), who pitches it on a reverse to wide receiver Darrell Stewart (No. 25) running in the opposite direction.

If that wasn’t enough trickery for you, Stewart throws the ball back to Lewerke, who runs a corner route to the edge of the end zone after pitching the ball.

It’s clear here that Michigan has no idea what was going on. The Wolverines are in man coverage, and you can see most of the secondary move to the top of your screen when Lewerke pitches the ball, expecting a run play. Cornerback David Long (No. 22) sees Lewerke wide open and runs to cover him, but as Long originally lined up on the other side of the play, he doesn’t get there in time, and the rest of the defense is even more belated.

This was the Spartans’ only touchdown in a game Michigan won, 21-7. It’s quite possible, maybe even expected, that Michigan State will try a play like this again if it gets in the red zone. After all, the Spartans’ offense has struggled, and the Wolverines’ defense is one of the best in the country. Michigan State’s best chance will be to get weird.

Nevertheless, Michigan knows as much as anyone that against Dantonio and the Spartans, they should expect the unexpected.

“You look at everything that the team has done in terms of fakes or misdirection, deceptive types of plays, what they’ve done and then prepare for that,” Harbaugh said.

“But also, what is a possible complement to something they’ve already done we could be working on, we could be practicing?”

You look at everything that the team has done...

TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com

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M

y Uber driver last weekend didn’t care about Michigan or Michigan State.

His son goes to Indiana, he explained, so he’s a Hoosiers fan with no real connection to either in-state school.

Naturally, though, the conversation still drifted to this game, because that’s what happens in this state.

Instantly, his tone changed: Well, yeah, of course I care about the Michigan State THEO game. He’ll be rootMACKIE ing for Michigan, he explained, without providing a reason.

To me, the uninitiated out-of-state kid, that still seems weird. Because on paper, this game doesn’t really matter.

I know that’s not 100 percent accurate.

For the Wolverines, a loss would end any faint hopes at a New Years’ Six Bowl. For Michigan State, it could be the difference between the Quick Lane Bowl and the Pinstripe Bowl — both worthy successors to its prestigious 2018 RedBox Bowl appearance.

But around these parts, none of that is the talking point. Eight Michigan players and three coaches were made available to the media this week. The sole question about the Wolverines’ Big Ten title hopes was instantly struck down.

There’s seemingly universal agreement that Michigan is going to win, but that’s not the talking point either. The Wolverines are favored by 13.5, the type of line more befitting of a game against Purdue or Illinois than one against the Spartans — and more importantly, the type of game Jim Harbaugh has never lost at Michigan.

By pure loss probability, it ranks a distant fifth behind trips to Wisconsin and Penn State and visits from Notre Dame and Iowa. The lead-up to each of those Saturdays brought legitimate suspense, and subsequent dissection of the Wolverines’ strengths and weaknesses.

This week has provided none of that.

On paper, it isn’t as important as any of those top-25 bouts. And yet, this ostensibly meaningless game is Michigan’s most important since last November.

Just ask Harbaugh: “Most important game of the season — it’s our next game, and it’s huge, big game. I think everybody would share those feelings.”

Or Ambry Thomas: “You come to Michigan to play in this game right here and that team down there in Ohio. You come to Michigan to play in these two games.”

Or even Aidan Hutchinson: “Obviously, Michigan State (is) our biggest rival — or, maybe our biggest rival.”

You get the point.

8B

FootballSaturday, November 15, 2019

What makes a rivalry It’s a point that was instantly hammered home Monday afternoon, the second I walked into Schembechler Hall, even before Harbaugh took to the podium. Where there are usually six or seven cameras lined behind the media seats, this week required two rows. As players later spoke in scrums, reporters lined up three or four deep.

None of this, on the surface, should have come as a surprise. This isn’t my first rivalry week and I remember the similarly-sized swarms that preceded last year’s rivalry games.

It shouldn’t have caught me off guard when Thomas said, “It’s about who’s the big brother and who’s the little sister in this state” given the similar hysteria surrounding last year’s game.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I was sitting in the Starbucks on State Street and overheard a kid telling someone on the phone that he couldn’t come home this weekend “because it’s Michigan State.” After all, it was just two years ago that I was offered $200 for my ticket to see John O’Korn take on the Spartans in the driving rain.

But all of it still seems just a little bit strange.

Each of the past two matchups carried the tangible notion of championship hopes for Michigan, against a Spartans team with a pulse. For an out-of-stater like myself, I suppose there was some ingrained assumption that the hype was correlated with how much the actual game mattered.

But then again, I’m from the part of the country where the notion that this game matters as much as the Ohio State game would seem absurd. The part of the country known as, ‘Not Michigan.’

This week, that’s the lesson I’m learning.

All it took to cement it was a conversation with my girlfriend, who’s lived in Michigan her whole life. Every year during this game, she’ll get a text from her dad with a picture of him decked out in maize and blue. Her sister — a Michigan State grad — gets a picture from him, too, but hers is green and white.

So this week, I had her ask her family group chat who’s rooting for who. Her mom’s response was swift: Michigan. Her dad, as of this writing, is still evading the question. Inside, she knows it’s Michigan State. Just another person to trash talk if Michigan wins and hide from if they lose.

It’s a small snapshot of why this game matters so much, an explanation for the hysteria surrounding a matchup with a 4-5 opponent.

It’s also what makes this rivalry so great.

Mackie can be reached via email at thmackie@ umich.edu or on Twitter @TheoMackie.

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily

Michigan State has won eight of the last 12 matchups in the in-state rivalry, including two of the last four.

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