THE "chUMp-of-the-Month" FOR JANUARY 2014 IS DAVID BRANDON

January started slowly but turned into another busy month for chUMp activity. After the exhaustive race to name the 2013 "chUMp-of-the-Year" (David Brandon), it looked like a slow month for the weasel-cousins.

• Then Brady Hoke stood mute at a press conference to introduce the man he supposedly had selected to replace the man he said would not be leaving. Not even a "no comment" from the purported leader-of-the-best.
• Then Nik Stauskas blew a kiss to the Breslin Center audience after the three-minute stretch-run that allowed Michigan to steal a win by five points. Without Payne and Dawson, of course.
• Then the Brendan Gibbons scandal blew up, as the Wolverine Rapist was finally identified (formally) after the cryptic articles about him in 2009 and 2010. Those were the articles that Hoke and Brandon didn't ever read, of course.

So we have some candidates to consider for the monthly award!

Hoke sure looked silly standing around in a background role at what seemed to be his press conference to announce his hire. That's dorky, and he's a doofus for playing puppet like that, but not necessarily a "chUMp" for it. Hoke finishes with another runner-up award, and with it, a dozen free donuts from Tim Horton's.

Stauskas showed his arrogant colors with the blown kiss, but it seemed a bit isolated and arguably out of character. He didn't mouth off before the game the way that Fitz Toussaint did last fall before the beat-down. He didn't carry on after the game the way that Taylor Lewan did after losing to MSU and Ohio STATE. So he was a dink, but not necessarily a chUMp.

Speaking of blown kisses, it seems like that's what Gibbons did all those years ago. He took a chance to be a man and turned himself into a rodent. His own university expelled him, but only after his coach "covered for him". He is certainly and definitely a chUMp. But his main transgressions took place more than four years earlier, and his identity was released last summer, so it's not timely to tag him in January with the dishonor.

That leaves just one final candidate to consider for "chUMp-of-the-Month". This is a man who has influence, if not direct control and/or authority, over ALL of these chUMpish things. You know who he is:

DAVID BRANDON

Brandon didn't have to play Hoke like a puppet at the Nussmeier press conference, but he did. Brandon sticks his nose so deeply into the UM team locker rooms that he could have talked to John Beilein about keeping it real at Breslin, and avoiding the creation of new material to fight over in the future. And he could have shown actual leadership when taking over the job by cleaning up the problems that he found when he got there. (Like the Gibbons/Lewan problems.) Wasn't that the reason he was hired?

Brandon has no rightful place in public employment. He is perpetuating the worst of the "Michigan Difference" on a daily basis, from sky-writing to lying to puppetry. He is an absolute disgrace to the entire State of Michigan.




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