Introduction

This blog is your typical debate focused blog, with a minor twist.  The three panelists each represent one of three rival schools: Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State.  To say were passionate about the issues we discuss is certainly true, but to say we are passionate about our schools is an understatement.  You'll see that while we do try to debate each other on the facts, we view the best argument is made while making fun of our rivals, whether the argument is true or not.  In fact, in a totally fictitious scoring system (think Who's line is it Anyway) made up by our moderator, the winner will typically be the one who best insults their rivals, not necessarily the best argument related to the topic at hand.

Now, more about us and why were are doing this.  This blog is written by four members of the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan for those not in the business world) class of 2006.  During our two years of school together we found out two things: (1) We all love debating each other (particularly with sports) and (2) with three of us representing three rival institutions with our undergraduate degrees, the debates can become quite entertaining (at least to ourselves).

Since graduation, we've lost that routine contact with each other to continue these important discussions.  Sure, we have the occasional e-mail discussion on related topics, but we lack the one common place for our viewpoints to clash in a public forum.  So, why not create a blog?  We'll at least amuse ourselves with it, but we do hope others enjoy the banter as well.

Onto the introductions (from the prospective of "The Weasel," so outside of each person's title, undergraduate school and the fact that all of these guys are as good as people as you will find, little is probably true):

The Greek: Matt McRitchie came to the University of Michigan in a program designed to give our little brothers of MSU a chance for a real education.  Matt was the best of the best coming out of East Lansing, which put him comfortably in the pass / low pass grade level at Michigan.  Although Matt is the only non-engineer of the group, he does have three redeeming qualities (all true): (1) He truly is one of the nicest people you will ever meet, (2) Matt is a great Tiger's fan even while living in Twin country and (3) despite his arrival in Ann Arbor, Matt always remained truly loyal to the Spartans no matter what was happening around him.

The Nut: Ben Obrock was a child prodigy.  Remember Doogie Howser?  Ben was smarter.  And then tragedy struck.  Ben went to Ohio State.  Sure he got an engineering degree, but he earned that on his first day in Columbus (to get an engineering degree from OSU, you just need to spell "engineer."  Needless to say, Ben was the first and only engineer graduate from THE ohio state university).  After four years in Columbus, Ben's IQ dropped several hundred points (when Ben first arrived in Ann Arbor, he was not able to tie his own shoe laces....little did we know that would have made him the big ten offensive player of the year if he played football).  Ben was given admission as part of an experimental program.  The experiment? Is it possible to rehabilitate an OSU graduate and make them a contributing member of society?  Due to the superior intellect in Ann Arbor and the fact that Ben is an incredible person (despite his mistake of going to OSU), Ben has been completely rehabilitated.  If only his loyalty to OSU would disappear as well...

The Weasel: My name is Mark Ascione.  I had the privilege of growing up in Ann Arbor and continuing on for my undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Michigan (where I eventually learned that there was in fact a world outside of Ann Arbor).  I've always been a passionate fan of the Wolverines and I always will be, no matter how sarcastic I have to be in order to watch Michigan football games these days.  I had the privilege spending two years with Matt, Ben and Rob (introduced below) who all are some of the best people to get in a debate with, or have a drunken heart to heart at Jimmy John's after a long day of tailgating. I'll leave the rest of my bashing to my esteemed colleagues with their comments to this post.

Finally, The Moderator: Robert Jericho came to Michigan from some school.  Being that it wasn't even in the Big Ten, the rest of us stopped listening to his past.  Frankly, we think he made it all up.  I'm pretty sure I saw him serving fries to me at McDonald's when I was in undergrad.  But, we needed a neutral voice and Rob was willing to do the work for free.  So, we figured, we couldn't get rid of him in business school, why try now?  In all seriousness though, Rob does add a more moderated voice to the discussion (though he is loyal to Michigan) and an excellent ability to bash all of us at one time.  In addition to being one of those amazingly great guys as I described everyone else as, Rob has an excellent debate ability that provide great insights while being incredibly insulting at the same time.

And that's the crew.  We will have guest voices from time to time both representing our schools in others, but we plan on being the main...er...victims...with this experiment.  We hope you all enjoy!