Slippery Rock slips up in 'surreal' trip to Big House
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Tina Brest was among the first in line waiting to get into Michigan Stadium when the buses carrying the Slippery Rock football team passed by on Saturday, a police escort leading the way.
She couldn't help but get misty-eyed, knowing her son was on one of those buses.
Nate Brest is a redshirt freshman lineman for a Slippery Rock team that has been part of a lot of games over the years, but Saturday was different. The game wasn't played at a PSAC stadium in a pocket of rural Pennsylvania that seats a few thousand spectators. The game against Mercyhurst was in Ann Arbor at the Big House. And in Ann Arbor, if you're from Slippery Rock, you're part of a legend.
Tina Brest, decked out in her Slippery Rock apparel, learned that during a stop at Cabela's outside of Ann Arbor on Friday. One of the employees wanted to know where she got the sweatshirt and how she knew the team.
“I said, ‘My son plays for them' and he said, ‘No (kidding),' ” said Brest, who drove from Mercer with nine other friends and family members in a mobile home. “But there must have been 15 people walking around in Slippery Rock gear. It was cool.”
There's a long, unusual history between Michigan and Slippery Rock that started when an announcer saw a funny name on a list of out-of-town scores and decided to read it to the Michigan Stadium crowd one day in 1959. In 1979, after reading the scores of The Rock's games had grown from quirky distraction to beloved tradition, Slippery Rock made its Big House debut in a game against Shippensburg and drew a crowd of 61,143, to this day the largest ever to watch a Division II football game.
Slippery Rock returned two years later to play Wayne State and had more than 35,000 in attendance.
On Saturday, Slippery Rock returned for the first time since 1981 to play Mercyhurst.
The Rock were hoping for another big crowd and their first-ever win at the massive, historical venue, but got neither. Leading 10-0 in the first quarter and 23-17 at halftime, Slippery Rock was shut out in the second half. Mercyhurst drove the field relentlessly and won, 45-23, in front of 15,121.
“The most people we play in front of during the season is 10,000, so showing up here and seeing the stadium, it's definitely a surreal feeling,” Slippery Rock quarterback Jared Buck said. “I just wish we could have come out and played better football.”
Some four hours and 263 miles southeast of Ann Arbor and 50 miles north of Pittsburgh, Mihalik-Thompson Stadium looks out over the Slippery Rock campus. Football shares the facility with the field hockey and lacrosse teams, and their nets collect in the unused space at the back of one end zone. On a breezy Tuesday afternoon, a group of students took advantage of their fall break free time to play soccer at the other end of the field.
The school draws a good crowd for Rock football, averaging 7,500 for home games this season. That's highest in the PSAC and ninth-highest in Division II, but it isn't Michigan.
Before the game Saturday, the biggest stadium many of Slippery Rock's players had been in, let alone played in, was Heinz Field. You could take a sold-out crowd from Heinz Field, plus a sold-out crowd from PNC Park, put them in Michigan Stadium, and there still would be room for more people.
Each team had a walk-through Friday at the Big House to get the jitters — not to mention the photos — out of the way.
“We spent the first half hour taking pictures, doing cartwheels, whatever the guys wanted to do,” Mercyhurst coach Marty Schaetzle said. “The coaches were taking selfies. I don't even know how to do a selfie, but the coaches were taking selfies and pictures of the stadium.”
That Slippery Rock and Mercyhurst ended up in the Big House at all was thanks in large part to Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon, who took over in 2010 and was determined to bring the Rock back after a 33-year absence.
“We've been looking forward to this for decades,” Brandon told the crowd of several hundred Slippery Rock fans plus members of the marching band, cheerleading and color guard squads who gathered in a Holiday Inn parking lot in Ann Arbor for a pep rally on Friday night. “You're our school, too.”
On Saturday morning, alumni of both Mercyhurst and Slippery Rock enjoyed official tailgate parties in the warmth of clubhouses at the golf course across the street, and small contingents braved the biting wind in the parking lots.
Bobby Frye, 42, of Fremont, Ohio, and his dad, Bob Frye, a Michigan season ticket holder until this year, tailgated with family. They've always appreciated the tradition and tie between the two schools and wanted to see Slippery Rock in action.
“The crowd goes nuts (when they show the Slippery Rock score), it's great,” Bobby Frye said. “I remember coming here in the early 1980s, and they always announced it. You wait for it.”
As kickoff drew near, fans wearing green and white — colors that ordinarily are not welcome at the Big House — and sporting Steelers hats mingled with those wearing blue Michigan jackets as they shuffled through the gates. Temperatures were in the low 40s with overcast skies and the threat of rain leading up to kickoff, and it felt much colder with the wind.
With Michigan on a bye week, Slippery Rock officials hoped that with good weather, they could draw a crowd of around 30,000. Tickets were free for student season-ticket holders and $20 for the public. If the attendance was lower than expected however, it wasn't nearly as disappointing as the result.
“It was a great atmostphere, exciting atmosphere,” Slippery Rock coach George Mihalik said. “I just wish we could have given Michigan fans who became Rock fans for the day a better showing.”
Karen Price is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach her at kprice@tribweb.com or via Twitter @KarenPrice_Trib.
