I was born on a cold desolate day right near the end of 1980. While my mother was in active labor, the doctor and my father bustled between the delivery room and finding out the score of the Fiesta Bowl game. My father’s team, the Ohio State Buckeyes, were losing to the Penn State Nittany Lions, after a 9-3 season. Penn State would go on to beat Ohio 31 to 19.

Meanwhile, a few days later, the Michigan Wolverines would have a 10-2 year, head to the Rose Bowl, and beat the Washington Huskies in the 1981 Rose Bowl, the first bowl victory for the coach and now legend, Bo Schembechler. These are the circumstances under which I, Dom Evans, came into this world. I had no idea of the impact either of these teams would have in my life in the coming years.

Growing up in a Buckeye house, I was expected to not only root for the scarlet and gray, but also rep them. You can see by these photos that I didn’t have any clue what I was doing, what I was supporting, and my parents obviously assumed incorrectly that I, like them, would follow some kind of family legacy and support the Buckeyes.

My dad was such a Buckeye that he would proudly tell me stories (my dad did not tell stories, by the way) of living down the street from the stadium and going to games all the time. The name Bo Schembechler was a curse word in my house, and the reverence for Woody was second only to the reverence for Jesus.

ID: A Polaroid photo of a family. There are two adult men and one adult woman standing in the back. In front of them there is a young boy and a younger female-presenting child. They are wearing a Buckeyes cheerleading outfit. Text reads, “The only Buckeyes I like, are candy!”

For the first decade of my life, I went along with it. After all, my grandfather, who was literally my favorite person in the world growing up, was also an OSU fan. He was quieter. He loved the sport of it. He didn’t like any nastiness, and he also married a girl from Michigan, so he wasn’t too vocal about his Michigan dislike. I can’t even call it hatred, which was clearly what my father felt for Michigan. In a complete rivalry, sports kind of way, but that extended to also complaining about Michigan drivers, Michigan workers, Michigan streets, and ire for the state in general.

Meanwhile, there was a quieter faction in my life. My grandmother, who we affectionately called Noonie. She was born in Blissfield, Michigan, not too far from the Ohio/Michigan border to a mom from Ohio Appalachia (Gallipolis) and a father from Columbiana County, Ohio. Despite only living in Michigan for a short time, and not really following or liking sports in general, my grandmother was a quiet Michigan supporter. After all, that’s where she had been born. She was a Michigan girl through and through.

I found this curious, but didn’t really understand football myself. My younger years were spent pursuing music, art, reading, and other things. While I had a deep-seated love for baseball, I didn’t understand football and none of the men in my life would explain it to me, so I just didn’t know what I was watching, and therefore didn’t want to watch it. It wasn’t until I became a preteen that I really started getting interested in what was going on in the games, and little did I know my life would change forever.

It started with Ronnie DeFalco. Ron was one of my best friends growing up. Like me he had a neuromuscular disability (he had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and I have Spinal Muscular Atrophy) and got around by power wheelchair. He passed away in 2006 at 24. Ron was all about sports. Everything I know about sports is because of this boy. Finding out about my love of baseball got him getting me hardcore into the Toronto Blue Jays one year. He predicted they would go all the way, and they did.

The next year, he was onto the next team he predicted would win. He never was wrong. I, meanwhile, developed a love of the Cleveland team, a team I will not name due to their horrible representation which is now changed. His love of baseball fed my love, and I even got my dad to take me to more than one game in Cleveland. Around the same time, Ron started really aggressively teaching me about college football. His team was the Michigan Wolverines, my family’s biggest rival!

I’m sure that if you’ve read my work you know that I’ve always had an antagonistic relationship with my parents – both of them. It would bounce between who I liked or got along with, although neither of them had my best interest at heart, most of the time. It seemed like a no-brainer, as I was entering puberty, to want to step away from my family and this seemed like a no risk perfect way to do so.

It was not too hard to come out as a Michigan fan in my house, but at first nobody believed me.

Thinking I was just doing it to be a brat, my family laughed and dismissed me watching Michigan. The thing is though, the more they didn’t take me seriously as a football fan the more invested I became in Michigan. I started saving up what little money I had to buy T-shirts, jerseys, hats, anything I could to show my love for Michigan. That’s when the real trouble started happening.

The first time I brought a Michigan hat into my house my dad told me it needed to burn. I think it was the first time he recognized that I actually really liked Michigan. I don’t know if he thought that I liked the team because I was actually becoming invested in the sport, but he reminded me of all the ways Michigan wasn’t a good team. They played dirty. They cheat. They are not good people. You should not root for them.

It was all ridiculous, and the more he was against me liking Michigan, the more I wanted to. I would tune him out and watch my game. When I was 13, I was given my own cheap television for my bedroom. That meant I could watch football in my own space. I wasn’t always allowed to turn on the game in the public family living room, especially since Michigan almost always won back in those days.

Once my father realized I wasn’t going to give up my love of Michigan, within a year or two of me starting to root for the team, he demanded that my mother get me to stop liking Michigan. Don’t let me have the gear. Don’t let me have it in the house. This is ridiculous. I’m being a bratty selfish child. The more he put his foot down the more I wanted to be a bratty selfish child, because that was not what this was. For once in my life I had something that was mine. I had something that I could cheer for, and be a part of. I was a part of a group and it helped me better believe in myself.

ID: A Polaroid photo of a lawn with a huge white tree in the center. There is a young child in a Buckeye cheerleading uniform. They have a pom-pom held up to their chest. The text reads, “Let’s go Buckeyes? No Way!”

Eventually, my mother gave up and every once in a while I would be given a Michigan sweatshirt. They were never the cutest. It was always like an afterthought, but it was better than getting nothing, and I was grateful for the small gestures. A few years after I started rooting for Michigan I had a very interesting encounter with my grandmother. One that I will never forget.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and my grandparents came over to our house almost every weekend, or we went theirs in West Toledo. That was pretty much my childhood growing up. It was the OSU/Michigan game and my grandfather, mother, and brother were on the couch. My dad might’ve been in his chair but I don’t know where he was.

I was sitting alone in a different chair when my grandmother came up to me and leaned against the edge. She took my small hand in hers and laced her fingers through mine as she smiled at me. Slightly perplexed, I looked at Noonie, turning my eyes from the game, which Michigan was clearly winning.

“Is everything okay, Noonie?” I asked. There was a look of concern on my face because my grandmother didn’t always come up to me and affectionately take my hand.

My grandmother smiled and tucked one of my dark strands of hair behind my ear before touching my face with her other hand and saying, “I just love that you love my team. I’m a Michigan girl, you know. I was born in Blissfield, Michigan.”

I smiled back and squeezed her hand. “I’m a Michigan girl too, Noonie,” I said with smiling eyes, “I’m a Michigan girl, too.”

That was of course some years before I understood I was actually a Michigan boy, but that’s beside the point and I still find that memory lovely and nostalgic. Knowing that my grandmother felt like she was no longer alone because I liked Michigan made me root for my Wolverines even more.

As I became a teenager and I came out as queer when I was 16, rooting for Michigan always helped me stay grounded in my fight against my parents who were against pretty much everything I did in my life. It was just another thing that strengthened me as a person. And as I became older, my love for the sport was cemented to where it became the most important sport in my life. For me, football is an entire season I actively engage in, and it’s been that way for many many years.

Ron and I continued to hang out. We continued to celebrate victory after victory as the years of Michigan dominance and greatness continued. I was not often a winner of things so having a sports team that won was like a thing of magic. It was a feeling I wanted to hold onto as much, as often, and as long as I could. Then… I went to college.

Going to college the first time meant I went to BGSU for my first year where I actually got to go to my first in person football game! Seeing BGSU take on their rival Toledo live was invigorating and gave me an idea of joy I might possibly experience if I ever make it to a Michigan/OSU game. A friend from high school who was attending Toledo came to my dorm to spend the night, and we went to the game together.

Transferring to Wright State due to lack of accessibility at Bowling Green meant I was heading deeper into what I thought was OSU territory. Dayton is in southern Ohio, and if you are from Ohio you probably root for the Buckeyes if anyone at all (the exception is Toledo which is pretty much split down the middle between Michigan and Ohio). I was surprised to find that living in Dayton meant that there were some people from Michigan, so occasionally I would find my people and we would celebrate with dancing, high-fives, and shit talking about OSU!

One of my very best friends at WSU, Germaine, also happened to be a huge OSU fan. She’s an OSU legacy. Her mom got her degree there. Her dream was to attend OSU, but WSU was more accessible for her wheelchair. Of course, I would end up with the OSU best friend! This meant that we had epic game parties with our friends. All of our friends were Buckeyes, so for my first years there I was the only Michigan fan at our party, but by the end of our parties, Ashtyn, who was born in Michigan, had joined us.

One of the attendees was my friend, Adam. Like Ron, Adam had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He was an OSU fan who was nerdy, and we bonded over playing games, DDR, and other nerdy stuff. After I left WSU, I learned that Adam had passed away a few days before graduation. I was heartbroken to hear this, but I always have my memories of him, Germaine, and Rob harassing me as OSU got their booty whupped by Michigan!

ID: Dom, age 16, sits in their wheelchair. It is black with a black headrest that is flat to the back of his head. He has a dark ponytail that is hard to see and is wearing a dark blue and maize T-shirt that says U of M. At the time Dom was female presenting and is wearing wire-rimmed glasses.

Finally, there is Ashtyn. As I left WSU, we moved to Michigan. I moved to live with her family outside Flint, and for the first time I was surrounded by Michigan fans! I had made it to the land of the Wolverines and I never wanted to leave! I did go back to Ohio again for film school but that’s for another story. I now live back in Michigan, closer to Detroit now, and I own a home here, so I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.

Ashtyn liked Michigan, but she wasn’t as big a football fan as I was until we started watching together. Now it’s a family legacy. All of us in our house are Michigan fans and it’s amazing to bond over our love of Michigan and football together.

When I was in Flint, I even had the opportunity to become a Wolverine for a year. Although I ultimately went back to Ohio to finish my degree, I had the joy of attending University of Michigan’s satellite school in Flint studying theatre. It was an interesting and amazing year and I will always get to be a Wolverine because of this. I’ve even been approached by alumni lists to include me.

I was born in the border town – on the cusp of Michigan and Ohio. I am a border baby who truly understands the greatest rivalry in college history in a way that most people couldn’t comprehend. Michigan is in my blood. Michigan is in my soul. I can’t watch a game without bringing with me all of the people that made me the Michigan lover I am today

When I watch a Michigan game, I’m not just watching American football. I’m engaging in a legacy that my father, my dziadek, my grandfather, my grandmother, and countless members of my family have been engaged in for at least a century. I’m thinking of Ron, Adam, my dad, my grandmother, my grandfather, and the history of our family watching and engaging in sports.

This doesn’t even explore the long legacy of cities like Toledo and Flint and Dayton and Cleveland and Columbus and so on in relation to sports rivalries. In the Midwest there’s just something about college football that is in our DNA and I have that twofold.

This year the Michigan Wolverines are playing wonderfully and it has been such a highlight to watch young JJ McCarthy work to make those of us rooting for him so happy with the way he’s playing. Win or lose though I will ALWAYS be a Michigan Wolverine.

I started out watching Michigan football possibly as a way to slightly rebel against my Buckeye household. I kept watching Michigan as I fell in love with the sport, the team, and the connections it has given me.

Hail to the Victors, baby. I’m a Wolverine for life.

This was written in 2023 and posted on Patreon originally.

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