Colosseum a hit with Michigan’s gladiators
Michigan defensive lineROME man Rashan Gary stood in the Roman Colosseum, looking around. Trying to imagine. Trying to picture everything. The gladiators. The animals. The screaming fans.
It was like an old dusty textbook had come to life.
“Ah, it’s crazy, thinking about how many people risked their lives, fighting a beast,” Gary said, as he stood in the Colosseum Monday afternoon.
The Wolverines are on a weeklong trip to Italy, a trip paid for by an undisclosed donor. But this was the big moment for many of the players.
This was the place they looked forward to seeing the most. Just being in the Colosseum.
Football players. It only make sense, right?
“I’m trying to think what it was like, back then, I know people were nervous, going against lions,” Gary said, “and having people watching it.”
The Wolverines split into several groups to tour the Colosseum on Monday. I slipped into a group with a bunch of defensive players because if there are gladiators on a football team, it’s the guys on defense.
Which brings us back to Gary. He is a fantastic football player. Tough. Fierce. Fearless. But as he looked around this place, as he stood in the same place where the Romans once walked, as he thought about the history, he started to question himself.
“Could I go out and fight a beast?” Gary asked, unsolicited. “Could I do that? I don’t know.”
The Wolverines were awestruck, looking around this massive stone amphitheater, built nearly 2,000 years ago.
“It is unbelievable to think of what happened here in history,” Michigan defensive line coach Greg Mattison said. “I’m speechless really. When I thought about the Colosseum, I thought of the Rose Bowl. You walk in and you go, ‘Oh boy, this is a lot bigger than the Rose Bowl.’ I told a couple of the defensive linemen, ‘Think about when we ask you to play a position perfectly and play technique perfectly, you could be down below and somebody is pulling the rope, coming up to go against a lion. Think about what that’s like.’
“You are competing. They were competing for their lives. But one thing that sticks out to me, the tour guide said, was only a few gladiators were killed. It cost them so much money for a gladiator to ever be killed that they didn’t allow it.”
A GLADIATOR LIFE Now, here comes the funny part.
It’s the part that sheds light onto how these defensive players think. You go to a place from the past, and it sheds light on the present.
Defensive end Carlo Kemp is convinced that he would have fared well in this place. He would have survived. They all would have.
All because of the faith he has in defensive coordinator Don Brown.
“I think we would have been a little more prepared than most of these guys, walking into a lion fight,” Kemp said. “What do you mean?” “Oh, we would have watched too much film on it,” he said, cracking a smile. Of course. “What would Don Brown have done to prepare you guys for this?” I asked.
“Don Brown would have made sure we knew every look, formation, personnel group before we went out there for a bear fight,” Kemp said. He burst out laughing. Gary agreed. “We woulda watched tape of whatever beast we were going against,” Gary said. “Coach Brown woulda broken it down, step by step. Seeing what’s going to happen.”
“How would it have ended for you?” I asked Gary.
“At the end of it, I woulda come out alive,” he said. “Easy. Easy.”
Which probably says all you need to know about Gary.
He expects to win every fight he enters.
Coach Brown pulled together a group of linebackers, and they posed for pictures.
“I’m just curious what went on,” said Khaleke Hudson, who plays the viper position vacated by Jabrill Peppers. “I know I’ve watched movies and stuff, but I’m in shock that humans had to fight animals and stuff like that. That people would cheer if the animal killed the human or if the human killed the animal.
“That’s just ridiculous. I can’t even imagine that being a thing today.”
AWE-INSPIRING EXPERIENCE Afterward, the groups of players came together, and several coaches bumped into each other.
“Unbelievable,” coach Jim Harbaugh said. “That it has lasted this long.”
“It kind of gives you goose bumps,” Brown said. They both smiled. “Just wild!” Brown said. The modern-day gladiators were blown away by the past. There really is no comparison. Just total awe.