Commentary by Art Vuolo, Jr.
“The Mystical Magic of the Number 10”
Commentary by Art Vuolo, Jr.
It’s widely known that I have been archiving Michigan Football games for over forty years now and I have noticed a number of interesting things about numbers and in particular the number ten as it pertains to U of M games. This was originally written back on October 10th, when the date was 10-10-10
The number ten has seemingly been most prevalent in the UM-Ohio State series. The year of the 10-10 tie was 1973. 1 and 9 = 10 and 7 and 3 = 10, so it was a 10-10 year between two Big Ten schools. The Woody Hayes TV show in Columbus was on WBNS-TV Channel 10, and the other two major network stations are WSYX-TV Channel 6 and WCMH-TV Channel 4, 6 and 4 = 10! Famous OSU quarterback Art Schleister wore number 10 and for many years the “0” on the Ohio State field has a #1 next to it to form the number 10. Tom Brady also wore #10. In 2020, Learfield/IMG picked 10-10-20 to feature a tribute to Bob Ufer while fans waited for a delayed football season to begin due to the well-remembered COVID-19 virus.
I vividly recall telling some of these stories to a Channel 10 cameraman up on the photo deck of the old press box about ten years ago during a UM-OSU game, to which he passed off as all just a coincidence. However, when the score was tied 10 to 10, with 10 minutes and 10 seconds left in the game and the ball was on the (yup, you guessed it) 10 yard line he reluctantly said “OK I’ll give it to you.” So, when I originally wrote this on the 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year of the 21st century, I felt it was time to share a few of these facts with Michigan Football fans like yourself…and now you know the rest of the story!
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