Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our readers who follow this site.

Posted at 8:00am -- 12/24/2009

We at GBMW wish a Merry Christmas to all of our readers who follow this site. No site appreciates your viewing and participation more than GBMW. You, the viewers, share with us, the contributors, a passion and keen interest in Michigan athletics, especially the football program. The viewer questions that recently (the last year) have been submitted greatly contributed to the dialogue and information this site produced. Without the e-mails, GBMW would be a couple of articles a week type of blog, instead of multiple articles a day. So please keep sending in those e-mails. The number of resourceful, polite, appreciative, and intelligent/perceptive responses has increased, lending to a better reading experience to all.

The viewing numbers were up over the last year, perhaps significantly, and we hope all of you continue to view the blog. Perhaps your holiday present to us would be to inform others of the site and invite them to be regular readers. We now have readers from rival teams that stop by now and then. If you view enough blogs, readers will see that many of the “headline” GBMW articles are spread across other sites as well.
And so, GBMW gives the first Merry Christmas and happy holiday salute to you, the readers, and hopefully Santa brings you everything you are asking for this year. One of your wishes may be for Santa to spend a little extra time at the coach’s houses.
Please join me in thanking everyone who has served as a contributor to GBMW this past year
First off, a monster thank you to CoachBt and MaizeMan, who have been with me from the very start. CoachBt is an accomplished coach and he specializes in the technical X’s and O’s of football. Few sites have such a valuable resource. Coach can slice and dice the mechanics and techniques as good as any site analysis out there. MaizeMan is a great source of knowledge and possesses great perception about the players and the inner workings of the program. When MaizeMan talks, people listen, to coin a phrase from a prior advertising campaign. And people should listen if accuracy is the goal of the reader.
Doc4blu has been a huge asset to GMBW behind the scenes and has written scholarly article series such as “The Other Ninety Percent” that are very unique. Doc has also provided scouting articles this past year on important 2010 Michigan recruits, along with picking up some basketball coverage. Having as a contributor a former professor with a college coaching background, whose area of research is learning and psychology, is kind of neat.

A huge thank you to SKWDCOP, who helped do the links for GBMW and put much time and effort into researching these links and getting the material out to a wider base. SKWDCOP (or the squid) is the type of guy everyone knows who daily provides time and effort for the benefit of others to make the readers’ experience better. His work equals the readership being better informed, not to mention the valuable time he saves us all.
JamesS has been a recent contributor to GBMW and has served as a valuable resource by answering some of our recruiting questions. We all thank you James and hope you can find the time to be more of a regular contributor next year. We value your insights and knowledge.

Yostmeister has brought Michigan hockey to GBMW. I tried covering it the last couple of years, but I was not giving this assignment everything it deserves. "Yost" has been a huge benefit for GBMW and his coverage of Michigan hockey for us should rightly be termed expert, detailed, and complete. Just reading Yost’s posts makes you smarter about hockey. If you know any die-hard Michigan hockey fans, or even those of the moderate characterization, please put them on to Yostmeister’s coverage. They will thank you.
We wish to thank Coach Webb (twebber55), who has helped us out with the football previews, along with the predictions, as well as giving his two cents worth once in a while on mailbag questions. As with CoachBt, Coach Webb knows his football and is a successful current coach.

Thanks to all those not mentioned, who have provided us with support this year and helped GBMW grow. I have met a lot of very nice people from message boards, or the blog this past year, either at football clinics, high school football games, Michigan football games, e-mails, phone calls, etc.

Take some time and enjoy your friends and family during this wonderful couple of days and get away from the Michigan message boards, the Michigan blogs, and the Michigan web sites and enjoy the little (but most important) things associated with spending time with your loved ones this year. The GBMW blogs will return quickly enough.
Have a safe and happy couple of days and enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas this year.
Yes, we know, the bowl games await your viewing, sans Michigan, but enjoy them all, because soon there will be a void of 8 months without college football. To some of us this is like being locked up.

We will be back on Monday.

Written by GBMW Staff

Go Blue -- Wear Maize!