Ann Arbor, Michigan: Back for the 75th

I did four years of men's gymnastics at the University of Michigan, and in March 2023 the program turned 75, so a few hundred of us came back to Ann Arbor for the weekend. My Spirit flight got cancelled the morning of. I ate the loss, booked a last-minute United, and made it. Then seven of us folded into one car, which is the correct ratio for a gymnastics reunion.

The foam pit remembers you

First stop was the gym — the same foam pit, the same rock-hard landing mats, the 1999 national-champions banner still on the wall. I got a few skills in before my body filed a formal complaint.

A meet, and a trophy

We watched the current team compete at Cliff Keen Arena, and they won — champions shirts, a trophy on the floor, photographers everywhere. I sat in the stands doing the exact thing alumni do, narrating routines to strangers who didn't ask.

The banquet, and the poem

The reunion banquet was that night. Someone read the Risk poem — "care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe" — the one that's been on a gym wall my entire life. Old teammates, older coaches, a lot of "you were a freshman when I was a senior."

St. Patrick's Day happened to us

The reunion landed on March 17. Nobody planned around that, so the whole weekend picked up a green tint — beads, a slow crawl between the campus bars, an hour lost inside Pinball Pete's.

One last stop

Before the airport I stopped by the Trotter Multicultural Center on State Street — a building a lot of my time as a student ran through. Then Spirit's replacement flight, and home. Forever go blue.

If you're coming to Ann Arbor as a visitor — a football Saturday, the art fair, a campus tour — the practical stuff is in the Ann Arbor travel guide. The full weekend is in the vlog below, edited by @topaz_ziii. Questions about visiting a college town for a reunion or a game? The community's here.