NATIONAL CHAMPS!! The No. 1-ranked University of Michigan softball team defeated two-time defending champion UCLA 4-1 in 10 innings to claim the team’s first-ever national championship.
The Wolverines are the first Big Ten Conference team to claim a national title in softball or baseball since Ohio State won the 1966 baseball crown, and the first-ever softball team east of the Mississippi to win a championship. Michigan’s baseball program owns two national championships (1953 and 1962).
Fresh off its championship series, the team was invited to the White House in July 2005. It was the first Michigan program to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since the football team’s visit in 1998.
Senior wide receiver Braylon Edwards (Detroit, Michigan/Bishop Gallagher High School) won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top wide receiver at the ESPN College Football Awards show held in December. Edwards is Michigan’s first Biletnikoff Award recipient. He edged out Purdue’s Taylor Stubblefield and Ball State’s Dante Ridgeway to win the prestigious award.
Led by softball’s national championship and wrestling’s NCAA runner-up finish, the U-M placed fourth in the 2004–05 United States Sports Academy Directors’ Cup Division 1 Final Standings, which is designed to measure a school’s overall athletics program.
Michigan logged top-10 finishes in 11 sports—softball, wrestling, women’s gymnastics, field hockey, ice hockey, women’s cross country, men’s gymnastics, men’s swimming and diving, women’s water polo, women’s rowing, and men’s indoor track and field.
U-M has finished in the top 11 of the Directors’ Cup standings in each of the Cup’s 12 seasons and has placed in the top six in each of the last eight seasons, a feat matched only by Stanford and UCLA.
Eight U-M programs claimed conference championships during the 2004–05 school year. They included: women’s cross country, field hockey (co-champion), football (co-champion), women’s gymnastics, softball, and women’s indoor track and field. In addition, ice hockey won the Central Collegiate Hockey Association title, and water polo claimed the CWPA Western Division crown.
The U-M men’s basketball program honored former U-M All-American Glen Rice and retired his jersey, No. 41, in a halftime ceremony during the Wolverines’ home game against Indiana in February.
Rice becomes the fourth player in Michigan history to have his jersey retired, joining Cazzie Russell, Rudy Tomjanovich, and Phil Hubbard. The most prolific scorer in Michigan history, Rice led the Wolverines to the 1989 NCAA championship, and set an NCAA Tournament record with 184 points in six games.
Michigan was well represented at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Swimmers Dan Ketchum and Peter Vanderkaay and former Wolverine Tom Malcow made the United States team, while senior-to-be Andrew Hurd qualified for the Canadian team at his country’s Olympic team trials in Toronto.
Incoming freshman phenom Michael Phelps challenged the record of seven gold medals that Mark Spitz set at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He came up just shy, winning six golds and two bronze. Ketchum and Vanderkaay also won gold medals in the 800-meter freestyle relay.
Incoming Wolverines head coach Bob Bowman, and legendary coach Jon Urbanchek—who is retiring after a 22-year U-M career—both served as assistant coaches for the U.S. men’s swimming team. Former U-M swimmer Andy Potts was a member of the U.S. triathlon team; 1995 grad Gustavo Borges qualified for his fourth Olympics, representing Brazil; and Courtney Babcock competed for Team Canada in the 5,000 meter race. In addition, alums Kate Johnson, Kate MacKenzie, and Steve Warner represented the U.S. in rowing.