BleedGopher
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Per Meek:
Jon Falk is the foremost protector of the Little Brown Jug and the rivalry it represents.
Falk spent 40 years as Michigan’s equipment manager before retiring in 2013. When Bo Schembechler hired him in 1974, he put Falk in charge of three sacred artifacts: the Paul Bunyan Trophy for the Michigan State rivalry, the Big Ten championship trophy and the Little Brown Jug.
Falk took that duty seriously. The jug has been associated with the Michigan-Minnesota rivalry since 1903, when it first appeared on the Michigan sideline. It has survived World Wars, pandemics, the Great Depression, a mysterious disappearance in the 1930s and many rounds of conference realignment. It even survived a brush with disaster in the late 1980s when Falk’s daughter was playing in the equipment room and nearly knocked it over.
“It’s a valuable piece of pottery,” Falk said.
Falk is an unabashed apologist for the Michigan–Minnesota rivalry, a series that was still being highlighted as one of college football’s greatest rivalries in the late 1960s by the likes of Sports Illustrated’s Dan Jenkins. In the decades since then, Michigan-Minnesota has become more of a niche rivalry than a national event, eclipsed by The Game between Michigan and Ohio State, the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama, the Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma and other high-stakes games.
That’s partly because Michigan rarely loses possession of the jug, which has been in Ann Arbor for all but four years since 1967. It’s also a result of scheduling changes that turned Michigan-Minnesota into an occasional rivalry instead of an annual one. Saturday’s meeting is only the fifth game in the series in the past 10 seasons.
The Gophers and Wolverines played every year from 1929 through 1998 before a pair of two-year breaks in 1999 and 2000 and 2009 and 2010. The meetings became even less frequent with the switch to the East-West divisional alignment in 2014. When the Big Ten added four teams from the Pac-12 and scrapped its divisions, the league announced 12 protected rivalries that would be played every year. Michigan-Minnesota didn’t make the list.
The rapid pace of change in college football has sparked fears that some of the sport’s quirks and historical oddities could lose their significance. Falk, 75, is part of a generation of oral historians who want to make sure relics like the Brown Jug aren’t forgotten.
“The Little Brown Jug has always been valued here,” Falk said. “There’s years that we don’t play them. Of course, we play Ohio State and Michigan State every year. (Those games) are no more important than the Little Brown Jug.”
Go Gophers!!
Jon Falk is the foremost protector of the Little Brown Jug and the rivalry it represents.
Falk spent 40 years as Michigan’s equipment manager before retiring in 2013. When Bo Schembechler hired him in 1974, he put Falk in charge of three sacred artifacts: the Paul Bunyan Trophy for the Michigan State rivalry, the Big Ten championship trophy and the Little Brown Jug.
Falk took that duty seriously. The jug has been associated with the Michigan-Minnesota rivalry since 1903, when it first appeared on the Michigan sideline. It has survived World Wars, pandemics, the Great Depression, a mysterious disappearance in the 1930s and many rounds of conference realignment. It even survived a brush with disaster in the late 1980s when Falk’s daughter was playing in the equipment room and nearly knocked it over.
“It’s a valuable piece of pottery,” Falk said.
Falk is an unabashed apologist for the Michigan–Minnesota rivalry, a series that was still being highlighted as one of college football’s greatest rivalries in the late 1960s by the likes of Sports Illustrated’s Dan Jenkins. In the decades since then, Michigan-Minnesota has become more of a niche rivalry than a national event, eclipsed by The Game between Michigan and Ohio State, the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama, the Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma and other high-stakes games.
That’s partly because Michigan rarely loses possession of the jug, which has been in Ann Arbor for all but four years since 1967. It’s also a result of scheduling changes that turned Michigan-Minnesota into an occasional rivalry instead of an annual one. Saturday’s meeting is only the fifth game in the series in the past 10 seasons.
The Gophers and Wolverines played every year from 1929 through 1998 before a pair of two-year breaks in 1999 and 2000 and 2009 and 2010. The meetings became even less frequent with the switch to the East-West divisional alignment in 2014. When the Big Ten added four teams from the Pac-12 and scrapped its divisions, the league announced 12 protected rivalries that would be played every year. Michigan-Minnesota didn’t make the list.
The rapid pace of change in college football has sparked fears that some of the sport’s quirks and historical oddities could lose their significance. Falk, 75, is part of a generation of oral historians who want to make sure relics like the Brown Jug aren’t forgotten.
“The Little Brown Jug has always been valued here,” Falk said. “There’s years that we don’t play them. Of course, we play Ohio State and Michigan State every year. (Those games) are no more important than the Little Brown Jug.”
Go Gophers!!
