The 2010 Football Preview issue of The Wolverine arrived on my doorstep yesterday morning. I intently spent the day reading the issue from cover to cover, hungry for the latest Michigan Wolverines football news. While reading I came across an article written by Michael Spath on projected starting DE Greg Banks. I read and I read, and the more I read the more my jaw dropped. A brief excerpt from the article:

Bank's story took it's most precipitous turn in middle school. With his parents out of work and unable to pay the rent, the family, which included a younger brother, constantly hopped around looking for boarding. Banks slept in cars, in abandoned homes and buildings, in seedy motels where the prostitution in adjacent rooms made for sleepless nights, and in homeless shelters where there was no guarantee the entire family could stay together. Even for a single night.

Holy shit, imagine how my jaw dropped, reading about a projected starter who, through no fault of his own, had overcome a mountain of bullshit to be a POSSIBLE major contributor to the Revamped Wolverines 2010 Defense.

Banks holds no ill will against his parents

They did everything, and anything, they could to make sure we at least had shoes and pants and a shirt so we could go to school. They did their very best to give their children a chance

Here is a guy who fits perfectly with what Corch Rodriguez is trying to accomplish here in the MICHiverse. The road has been a long and hard one, for both Rodriguez and Banks. Just imagine the joy that these two men will feel when Michigan comes out of the tunnel each week and proceeds to slaughter their opponents (not to say that the other 100+ people associated with the team wouldn’t feel joy). This is a scene I’m rooting for with my poor diseased little black heart.

Jordan Kovacs has been my favorite Wolverine since about the end of the Notre Dame game. I still love Kovacs with the same intensity that a Wolverine eating Buckeyes feels. However Greg Banks has made me realize that not all of these kids come from picture perfect backgrounds. And maybe we should on occasion cut them some slack, not everyone has traveled down a road this tough.

Also I’m dedicating this song as the 2010 theme for Michigan football.