“Jesus Hates Michigan” shirts hang in the window of Clothing Underground Monday. Credit: Liv Rinaldi | Sports Editor
The shirt stops passersby in their tracks.
It hangs in the window at Mid High Market at North High Street and 14th Avenue, white with black, bold, curly letters that proclaim, “Make Michigan Our Bitch Again.”
Some point.
Some laugh.
Some pull out their cellphones to snap a picture to send to family and friends.
“If I had $1 for every time somebody took a picture of it as they walked by,” owner of Mid High Market Austin Pence said. “I wouldn’t have to actually sell the T-shirt.”
The shirt has become one of the most recognizable—and photographed—pieces of unofficial rivalry merchandise on campus, alongside other iconic designs like Clothing Underground’s “Jesus Hates Michigan” T-shirt. Students sport their Michigan hate gear as a way to feel connected to tradition and for anyone who needs proof that rivalry week has arrived in Columbus.
“I definitely don’t wear hate merch to actually hate anyone,” said third-year Grace Hein, who owns both the “Jesus Hates Michigan” shirt and a “Muck Fichigan” tee she got as a high-school graduation gift. “It’s more about showing my loyalty and representing my side—Ohio State.”
Pence’s idea for the “Make Michigan Our Bitch Again” design emerged around 2022, drawing on the rhythm of the President Trump-era slogan it riffs on. Pence winced slightly as he admitted it.
“As gross as it is to say, I think that was in the lexicon,” he said, laughing. “And so we’re just trying to find a way to tie it into our feeling of hatred for the team up North.”
People kept buying it. So Pence kept printing it.
Hein bought the shirt even without having grown up in Ohio or knowing what the rivalry was until stepping onto campus for the first time.
Being on campus inducted them into the rivalry.
“All the M’s were marked out on campus,” Hein said. “And no one would wear blue. All my friends did not say Michigan. We said ‘Bitchigan.’”
At Clothing Underground, of North High Street and Chittenden Avenue, owner Josh Hardin said their “Jesus Hates Michigan” design, created nearly a decade ago, still ranks among their most popular pieces.
“It’s definitely more acceptable to wear it year-round, especially on campus,” Hardin said. “A lot of people joke that they’re going to wear it to church.”
At Mid High Market, the apparel extends from tame designs like a “Beat Michigan” tube top , to more explicit items like a shirt with “Ann Arbor’s Big House of Whores” decaled on the front in bold, red letter and a line underneath that states “Those Who Stay, Cheat!”
“Stuff that my grandma would blush if she saw, but college students seem to love,” Pence said.
It stops people. It makes them laugh. It brings them inside.
And on High Street during rivalry week, that’s more than enough.
“It’s about the humor and identity with the tradition,” Hein said.”I think that any and all Buckeyes will forever say ‘Muck Fichigan.’”
