The Cry of the Prophet, 2002
   by Father John - Tuesday Aug 06, 2002

The words of Father John, one of the BELIEVERS who was in Ann Arbor in the land of Meeechigan, to whom the word of the SEASON came in the days of Coach Carr, the Creator of Lloydball, in the eighth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Tressel of Columbus, King of the Nuts, and in the reign of Bobby Williams, King of Green Cows, until the rescue of the C from the BcS in the first month of the third year of the Millennium.

Now the words of the Weaufing Gods came to me saying, "Before Victors Valiant and before the original Wolverine Den, I appointed you a prophet to the TEAM and to the FANS."

Then I said, "Oh man, not again! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I have been wrong and ridiculed as a Pollyanna for four years, since the coming of the Championship in the year of Greise!"

But the Weaufing Gods said to me, "Do not say, `I do not know how to speak'; for to all to whom we send you, you shall go, and whatever we command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of them, for we are with you to deliver the WORD, say the Weaufing Gods." Then the Weaufing Gods put forth their hands and touched my mouth; and they said to me, "Behold, we have put our words in your mouth. See, we have set you this day over teams and over conferences and yea, even over fans, to motivate and to frighten, to inspire and to kick ass, to bring forth points and to prevent points from occurring, and, most importantly, to rally Denizens and the TEAM that the WORD may become VICTORY because of BELIEF."

Again, I wailed, "O Weaufing Gods, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed! How you have hidden the Maize and Blue under a cloud! The Weaufing Gods destroyed without mercy a season of victory, delivering us into the hands of Buckeyes and Vols without mercy! You have become like an enemy; taking our quarterback and delivering him to the evil pinstripes, bringing confusion and dismay to our offense, and raising our hopes only to dash them against the trees of nuts and fruit."

"The Weaufing Gods have scorned the altar of the block M, disowned the sanctuary of the Big House, and delivered into the hand of the enemy the revered traditions of her people."

"Some inhabitants of the Wolverine Den sit in silence or bow their heads to the ground. Others cry to the Prophet, "Where is bread of victory and the wine of champions?" They mock me and my words; they disavow you, oh Weaufing Gods, and blame you for false and deceptive visions."

"All those who heard me prophesy clap their hands; they hiss and wag their heads at the Big Blue of Michigan; "Is this the TEAM that was called the perfection of football, the Champions of the West?"

"All our enemies rail against us; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: "We have destroyed you! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!"

"What then can I say to them, oh Weaufing Gods? How can I move the enemies from our gates? With what words can I approach them?"

And the Weaufing Gods answered me; "Behold, we will gather the team from all the places to which we drove them in our anger and our wrath and in great indignation; we will bring them back to the Big House, and we will make them strong. And they shall be our TEAM, and we will be their Hope. We will give them one heart and one motivation, that they may BELIEVE forever, for their own good and the good of the teams after them."

"We will make with the kits of the Wolverines a covenant, that we will not turn away from them; and we will put the fear of Bo in their hearts, that they may not turn from us.

"For thus says the Weaufing Gods: Just as we have brought all this great evil upon this TEAM and her Denizens, so we will bring upon them all the good that we promise them."

"Thus say the Weaufing Gods: Of this team of which some of you say, `It is a group without an offense,' we say, "on the field of the stadium and in the streets of Ann Arbor that are desolate, without voice or song, there shall be heard again the songs of The Victors and the cheers of gladness. The voice of the coach and the voice of the assistant coaches, the voices of those who sing, as they bring offerings to the Big House: `Hail! To the Victors, Valiant! Hail! To the Conquering Heroes!' For we will restore the fortunes of the TEAM as in 1997," say the Weaufing Gods.

"Behold, the days are here again," say the Weaufing Gods, "when we will fulfill the promise and the hope for which you cry."

Behold, the storm of the Weaufing Gods! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of all who oppose BELIEVERS. The anger of the Maize and Blue will not turn back until Michigan has executed and accomplished the intents of the Weaufing Gods. In the latter days of the Season, you will understand it clearly.

And the Weaufing Gods came to me, saying, "Now, tell us, FJ, what do you see?" And I said, "My eyes are weak and my vision must be incomplete, for all I see is a bushel of green apples."

Then the Weaufing Gods said to me, "You have seen well, for lo, a team will come to you from the apple state, but they will be green. Their fruit has been delivered too early to be ripened and mature. They will shine as if desirable, but do not be deceived! They are but little green apples, and we don't make little green apples (and it don't rain in Minneapolis...) You will devour them and not be upset in the stomach or on the field. Do you BELIEVE all that I feed you?"

And I replied, "I BELIEVE!"

The word of the Weaufing Gods came to me a second time, saying, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a wild horse resting in a small City, and it has flies and excrement about it as if it is dying."

Then the Weaufing Gods said to me, "Out of the west of your Kingdom shall break forth an upstart, but he will ride to war on a Horse with No Legs. For, lo, I am feeding their army from the stores of a lesser conference," says the Weaufing Gods; "and tho they shall come with dreams of grandeur, yet they will play crappy. And their own crap will surround them and they will collapse in it and your points will number greater than the flies that surround them. Do you BELIEVE?"
And I replied, "Yes, I BELIEVE!"

And again, the Weaufing Gods came to me, yet a third time, saying "What do you see, old man?" And I replied to them, "I see small green men jumping off a Golden Dome and their heads shine golden in the sun, even as they are falling."

Then the Weaufing Gods said to me, "The aerial assault of the West Coast is an abomination to us, for we were raised on smash-mouth. Therefore, we will utter our judgments against the army of the Golden Dome, for all their wickedness in forsaking us; they have turned to foreign gods, and worshiped the works of a defenseless PAC. And we will allow your men to enter South Bend and break it. You shall tarnish their Dome. And you shall not look back. The air will not support the enemy in our sight; we will remove their golden parachutes and they will be dashed upon the ground like so many Worldcom Stocks. Do you BELIEVE this?"

And I replied, "Yes, my faith and my inspiration, I BELIEVE!"

A fourth time, the Weaufing Gods called upon me, asking, "Father John, chosen one, pray tell us what you see now." And I answered, "I see a savage drinking from a white lake, but there is no water, only salt and his tongue hangs out in the hot sun."

Then the Weaufing Gods said to me, "You have indeed heard the WORD and seen the visions we have prepared for you. For from the wastelands of the Great Salt Lake will come a band of wild men, bent on your destruction. But fear them not, for they have not encountered the likes of BELIEVERS before."

"They are like shrubs in the desert, and shall not see any success. They dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Their warriors are like scarecrows on an unlined field, they cannot move and they cannot hit; they will have to be carried away, for they cannot abide the destruction you will bring to them. Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to bring any loss to you. Do you BELIEVE?"

"Yes, lords" I said softly, but with growing confidence, "I BELIEVE!"

Once again came the Weaufing Gods, asking for the vision of this prophet.

"I see," said I, "a potter at his wheel and the clay pot he is making is imperfect for the bottom has fallen out and it is spoiled; yet the potter keeps spinning the wheel and working the clay."

Then the word of the Weaufing Gods came to me: "O Den of Wolverines, can we not do with you as this potter has done? Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in our hands, O Michigan!"

"For your vision is the clay pot of last year and because you failed to BELIEVE, the collapse came and your defeat was inevitable. But the TEAM is malleable in our hands. We can spin and shape and create anew, even from the same clay that remains from the spoiled pot. Now arise, and go down to the house of Ilini and there I will let you see the results of my words; see the new pot which I shall create. It will be fired in the kiln of battle, but it will emerge strong and beautiful. You must BELIEVE!"

And I could only reply in fear and trembling, "I BELIEVE, great Gods of Victory!"

And the voice of the Weaufing Gods echoed in my head, "Now behold! A lion is coming up from the jungles of Pennsyltucky against you. Do not be afraid! We will suddenly make the lion run away from you; and we will appoint over him whomever we choose, for this lion is old and although his roar is still loud and his teeth are long, he is unable to run with even the kits of the mighty gulo gulos. Therefore hear the plan that the Weaufing Gods have made against Penn State: Surely the young of their pride shall be dragged away; surely the people of their fold shall be appalled at their fate. Do you BELIEVE that even your kits can conquer lions?"

And I stood upon my feet, and my heart filled with joy and strength, and I sang out, "I BELIEVE, O Weaufing Gods, for your have restored my faith!"

Thus says the Weaufing Gods: "Go down to the house of the King of Boilermakers, and speak there this word, and say, `Hear the word of the Weaufing Gods, O King of Boilermakers, who covets the crown of the Big Ten, you, and your team, and your fans who enter your gates.

'Thus say the Weaufing Gods: This is not your year, O King; admit into your gates the Conquering Heroes. Submit to them and you will be spared injury. But if you will not heed these words, we swear by ourselves, say the Weaufing Gods, that your house shall become a desolation. We will prepare destroyers against you, each with his weapons of foot and arm and hand; and they shall cut down your choicest warriors, and cast them to the ground in great pain. And many teams will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, "Why have the Weaufing Gods dealt thus with this great city?"

And they will answer, "Because they did not BELIEVE the Weaufing Gods and worshiped other gods and served them."'
"We will make this army of Purdue a fortified wall of bronze and black; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you," says the Weaufing Gods.

"Heed my words, O Maize and Blue, for as you BELIEVE, so shall you ACHEIVE. And the victory in the land of the Boilermakers is assured. Do you BELIEVE?"

And I, the old padre, answered for the multitude, saying, "We BELIEVE!"

The Weaufing Gods then showed me this vision: Behold, two baskets of corn placed upon the line marking the midst of the Field. One basket had very good corn, like sugar and gold, but the other basket had very bad corn, black amidst the gold, so that it could not be eaten. And the Weaufing Gods said to me, "What do you see, FJ?"

I said, "Corn, the good corn very good, and the bad corn very bad, so bad that it cannot be devoured."

Then the word of the Weaufing Gods came to me: "Thus say the Weaufing Gods, the Voices of Truth: Like the good corn, so we will regard as good the Maize from Michigan, whom we have rebuked in the prior years for not BELIEVING. We will set our eyes upon them for good, and we will bring them back to greatness. We will build them up, and not tear them down; we will drive them across the field, and not withhold them from the end zone.

But thus say the Weaufing Gods: "Like the bad corn which is so bad it cannot be consumed, so will we treat the Hawkeyes of Iowa, their team and their coaches and their cheerleaders. We will make them weak, until they shall be utterly destroyed on the fields from which they come and the fields to which they travel."

"Do you BELIEVE this, old sage?"

And I replied, "I can only BELIEVE, O deliverers of Championships!"

Thus say the Weaufing Gods concerning the men of East Lansing, who seek your trophy, and say, "Do not prophesy in the name of the Weaufing Gods, or you will lose by our hand."

Thus say the Weaufing Gods to such arrogance, "If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with Wolverines? And if in your own land you fall down, how will you do in the Big House of your rival? For the college of bovines shall become a horror; every one who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters and their King shall be dethroned and exiled when the season has passed. As when Domers and Boilers and their neighbors were overthrown," say the Weaufing Gods, "no green team shall survive there, no victory shall remain with them, for their time has run out and even the timekeepers cannot save them. Do you BELIEVE what is written, oh voice of our reason?"

And I exclaimed aloud, "I BELIEVE, my lords, I BELIEVE!"

Again spoke the Weaufing Gods: "In the latter days of the season, you will invade the land of the wild rodents. Fear not, for they are small and cannot abide the wrath and power of Blue Believers."

"Their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness, into which they shall be driven and fall; for we will bring evil upon them in the dome of their despair," say the Weaufing Gods.

"They shall stagger and fall and be crazed because of the Wolverines who I am sending among them, to devour them."
"For the rodents are non-believers, and do not inquire of the Weaufing Gods; therefore they have not prospered, and all their people are scattered and run like lemmings for a cliff."

O men of Michigan! Thus say the Weaufing Gods: "Execute offense in the afternoon, and deliver from the hands of the gophers the pigskin, let your wrath go forth like an explosion, and knock to the ground the rodents with none able to rise, because of your BELIEF."

"You will roar from on high, and from your offense and from your defense, you will roar mightily against them, and shout, and they will tremble and fall before you without a fight. Do you BELIEVE?"

And we arose and the people joined with the padre and we declared, "YES! We BELIEVE! Make it so!"

This is the word which came to Father John from the Weaufing Gods, when the Denizens queried him, "Inquire of the Weaufing Gods for us, for Alvarez, King of the Badgers, is making war against us; perhaps the Weaufing Gods will make him withdraw from us."

Then I, Father John, said to the Denizens: "Thus you shall say to Alvarez, `Thus say the Weaufing Gods: Behold, we will open the gates of the Big House and we will bring together in the midst of our Temple your army and that of my Wolverines. And we will fight with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. But we will smite the invaders of this Temple, both offense and defense; they shall collapse as if of a great pestilence."

"And the words of the Weaufing Gods will strike fear into the heart of Alvarez, King of the Badgers and into the heart of his army, into the hearts of those who seek our trophy. We shall smite them with their own weapons; we shall not pity them, or spare them, or have compassion even as the toll rises higher."

"And the army of the Badgers will withdraw to their own place, to the place from which they came, bloodied and defeated. But the Wolverines will emerge into the Fall sun victorious, bathed in the triumphant calls of the trumpet and the trombone. And the seniors will have their last home victory. Do you BELIEVE?"

"I BELIEVE," I cried! "May the Weaufing Gods preserve me, I BELIEVE!"

Thus say the Weaufing Gods to the Nuts of Columbus: "Hark, a rumor! Behold, it comes! -- a great commotion out of the north country to make the cities of Ohio a desolation, a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth; a place of sadness greater than the O-Zone after a bowl game with South Carolina.

"Behold, a people is coming from the north country, a great TEAM is stirring from the place of the name you fear to speak. They attack on the ground and through the air, they are cruel and have no mercy, the sound of them is like the roaring of a crowd of 112,000; they are carried on the arm of a giant warrior named Navarre, set in a pocket, surveying the battle. They are coming against you, O Hioans!"

"O desperate ones, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, that you deck yourself with ornaments of grey, that you enlarge your eyes with black paint? In vain you try to beautify yourself. But your fans will despise you; they seek your demise and that of your leaders."

Then I said, "These are only the poor buckeyes, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the Weaufing Gods, the laws of BELIEVING."

Therefore, thus says the Weaufing Gods: "Behold, I will lay before this people stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble; fathers and sons together, neighbor and friend, and their team shall perish on their own field and in front of their own families. And the army of the Big Blue shall escape unscathed and unharmed and return to its own country to await The Invitation. Do You BELIEVE this, Padre?"

With a shout of acclamation, I cried out, joined by thousands who had seen us along the way, "I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE!"

"Therefore, behold, the days are coming," say the Weaufing Gods, "when it shall no longer be said, `As the Weaufing Gods delivered us a National Championship in '97' but rather, `As the Weaufing Gods raised up Navarre to lead us to another Championship.' For as Navarre was reviled and discarded like weak wine, yet we will show you he is now as aged wine, sweet and mature, bringing gladness to the heart. And through him, we will bring you back to the greatness that we gave unto you in the last century."

So I took the Victory Cup from the Weaufing Gods' hands, and made all the Big Ten and all the nation gaze upon it and drink from it: Washington, its baby-faced king and its players, to make them a desolation and a waste, a hissing and a curse; Western Michigan, their players, coaches, all the fans, and all the MAC fans among them; all the Irish of the land of Notre Dame and all the pretenders of the land of Utah; Illinois, Penn State, and the Boilermakers of Purdue; all the children of the corn from Iowa, all the wannabes of East Lansing, and the despairing legions of Minnesota; the cousin Badgers of Wisconsin and, most especially, all the hopeless hopers of the land that is round on the ends and high in the middle, the weak Kingdom of tOSU.

"Then we shall say to them, `Thus say the Weaufing Gods of Football, the purveyors of BELIEF: Drink, be drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more, because you shall not prevail against the TEAM which I am sending against you, even the Wolverines of the University of Michigan.'

"Therefore, behold, we will make all the Big Ten know, we will again make them and all the nation know the power and the might of Michigan, and they shall know that the Weaufing Gods have again Blessed Big Blue."

These are the words of Father John, One among the BELIEVERS, to whom the word of the SEASON came in the days of Coach Carr, the Creator of Lloydball, in the eighth year of his reign. I ask you now,

DO YOU BELIEVE??

Let the season begin...
Amen and Amen.