As years passed and his attendance streak grew longer, John Levinson used to joke with friends about his commitment to watching Michigan footballin person.
“The only reason I am not at the game,” he’d say, “is because I am 6 feet under somewhere.”
But Levinson is very much alive, ruing the sad reality wrought by a global pandemic and how life as we now know it is preventing him from occupying his reserved spot in Section 22, Row 76, just below the press box on the west side of Michigan Stadium.
On Saturday, against rival Michigan State of all teams, Levinson claims that for the first time since 1964, he will not walk through the Big House’s gates to take the seat that has been in his family’s name dating to the Eisenhower administration.