On Sunday night ESPN debuted the first two parts of The Last Dance, a ten-part documentary series on the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. It was a great two hours of television, with a ton of in-depth stories building the foundation of the story of what was the end of one of sports’ greatest dynasties.
That got me to thinking: What Michigan State sports documentaries would I want to see?
What may be the obvious answers for a MSU fan, aren’t the ones I thought of first. For example, I don’t particularly want to see a Flintstones documentary, or a documentary on the 2013 football team. There’s certainly interesting things there, but those stories have been pretty well documented. The best documentaries are revealing in nature and often have to do with some sort of scandal or trouble. Add in that conflict to something like a giant corporation or megs sports franchise and “viola” you’ve got a pretty interesting documentary. So the Flintstones are out. MSU football 2013-2015 is out. Magic Johnson’s career is mostly out, but there could be something interesting there digging into the status of college sports at the time and how the 1979 NCAA Tournament shifted basketball both on the court and off. But Magic vs. Bird is a pretty well-mined pit.
What follows is a list of MSU-related sports documentaries that I would absolutely love to see. They aren’t in any particular order, really, with the exception of the first one. You’ll see why.
The Max Bullough suspension
This one is first because it is only worth of a mini-documentary. A short, if you will. I’m thinking 36 minutes of run time. But what an interesting 36 minutes that would be. There have been so many rumors swirling around this particular episode, none of them even remotely confirmed.
All we know: Michigan State’s senior, All-Everything captain middle linebacker Max Bullough got suspended on Christmas for the 2013 Rose Bowl for a violation of team rules. That’s it. That’s all that we know *for sure*. There are rumors of a drunken fight. There are PED rumors. There are rumors of a much more sinister nature. But it’s still a mystery. Nobody on the team said anything publicly about it. Max never spoke about it. The coaches were tight-lipped. Somehow this story never got out and it seems like it’s one of those mysteries that will forever remain that way.
It’d be damn near impossible to stretch this into a feature-length documentary, but it’s absolutely worthy of a mini-doc.
The 1966 national championship football team
The blending of racial dynamics and athletics always makes for compelling content. The 1966 Michigan State football team was one of the greatest ever assembled. That team featured the top two picks in the 1967 NFL Draft and four of the top eight picks overall. In consecutive seasons they went a combined 19-1-1 and won back-to-back national titles. We know all of that, and it’s all very impressive.
What makes this group stand out in particular is what was going on off the field. The 1960’s were a turbulent decade for racial tensions in America. 1966 is halfway between the Civil Rights Act’s passage in 1964 and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The march on Selma and Bloody Sunday happened in 1965. The first black college football player to play in the SEC, Nate Northington, made his debut in 1967. Georgia and Texas wouldn’t have their first black players until 1970.
Meanwhile, up in East Lansing, MI, a man named Duffy Daugherty was going into the Deep South and offering young black men an opportunity they couldn’t find locally; a fair chance to play high-level college football. Lo and behold those teams thrived and helped–among many, many, many other things–pave the way for full integration of college football.
The 2010-2011 basketball team
What the hell happened? That’s what the aim of this documentary would be. Michigan State and legendary coach Tom Izzo started the season ranked No. 2 in the polls, coming off consecutive trips to the Final Four while returning a boat load of talent. What followed was stunning. Michigan State underperformed all season long en route to a 19-15 regular season and a first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament, a drudge of a game that was essentially a microcosm of the season.
What the hell happened?
Korie Lucious was dismissed from the team less than a year after his buzzer-beating three propelled MSU to the second week of the NCAA Tournament the previous season. Chris Allen got kicked out of the program in the summer for smoking weed. Durrell Summers was just off all year. Tom Izzo had a prolonged flirtation with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the summer that allegedly led to some distrust, frustrations and rebellions. There’s a lot to unpack in this story.
Bottom line, this was an incredibly talented and experienced team led by a legendary coach and they underachieved in a way never seen before at Michigan State.
The 2016 football team
Whoa, buddy this would be one hell of a story. A plummet from the College Football Playoff to a 3-9 season will probably never get repeated again in college football. It is about as bad as a fall can get in that sport.
How does that even begin to happen at a program that had double-digit wins in five of its last six years? Well, start with some questionable leadership and mix in heightened expectations. Then toss in loss of experience and talent, stir in some national and racial discord as it relates to the 2016 presidential election, which–rumor has it–leaked into the locker room. Combine that with some teammates fighting over girlfriends. Add in a dash of wild cards and multiple sexual assaults and you’ve got yourself a potent cocktail capable of exploding at any time. In 2016 it exploded and was the beginning of the end of the Mark Dantonio era save for the mirage of 2017.
