ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The assignment was simple: Find the person who got the best tattoo celebrating Michigan’s 2023 national championship.
It will come as no surprise that there were many candidates. Michigan fans are a passionate bunch, and quite a few of them wanted to tattoo an indelible memory of the Wolverines’ perfect season on their skin. One tattoo, discovered in an Instagram post tagged Ann Arbor’s Lucky Monkey Tattoo Parlor, stood out above the rest. Obviously this story wouldn’t be complete without talking to the guy with the cartoon drawing on his calf of Jim Harbaugh holding a chicken and drinking a glass of milk.
That would be Jimmy McLaughlin, a 36-year-old nurse from Toledo, Ohio. While reporting this story, it came to light that the Harbaugh tattoo was not the most scandalous body art McLaughlin acquired in the aftermath of Michigan’s national championship.
“Also lets a glutton go to the bathroom on a horseshoe shaped toilet lol,” McLaughlin wrote in a text message.
Excuse me?
“I always thought the Horseshoe looked like a toilet,” McLaughlin explained over the phone. “I had this idea for ten years, but I had to wait to implement it. You can’t get a tattoo like that after a ten-year losing streak.”
The tattoo is pretty much exactly as McLaughlin described it: colorful, campy, and extremely fitting for one of the craziest rivalries in college football. McLaughlin lives in Toledo, a few miles south of the Michigan state line, and is surrounded by fans of both teams. Encouraged by Michigan’s three-year winning streak against the Buckeyes, he went ahead with his plan to have Ohio Stadium tattooed on his thigh in the shape of a porcelain dresser.
This is something that seems like a great idea when your team is 15-0 and basking in the waning days of a national championship. But what about when your team is 6-5 and a 21-point underdog in the stadium you were sitting in? That’s a slightly different story.
After speaking with proud tattoo owners before the season, The Athletics reached out to them again this week to see how they were holding up during Michigan’s tough season. A tattoo is a lifelong commitment, something that is there through thick and thin, just like the fans who display them. Although McLaughlin has had some grief from Ohio State fans in his life, he is not discouraged. His total for the year includes one natty, two new tattoos and zero regrets.
“We’re still national champions until we’re not,” he said. “Until the clock strikes zero, you better believe every Ohio State fan in the area will know about this.”
Another person who probably doesn’t regret his national championship tattoo is Harbaugh, whose Los Angeles Chargers played John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens on Monday night. Under Harbaugh’s Chargers hoodie, he sported a Skinny M tattoo on his shoulder with Michigan’s 15-0 record the result of a promise he made to his players.
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Stephen Bateman, the Grand Rapids-based artist who did Harbaugh’s tattoo, has tattooed NFL cornerback Jalen Ramsey, NBA player Andre Drummond and several former Michigan players. One of his returning clients is former Michigan defensive end and current New York Jet Braiden McGregor, who has tattoos covering much of his body.
After the season, McGregor visited Bateman to receive a rose and a College Football Playoff trophy at the Block M on his shoulder. The topic of Harbaugh’s tattoo promise came up and McGregor arranged for Bateman to do the honors when members of the championship team reunited in Ann Arbor for Michigan’s spring game. The design wasn’t technically challenging, but tattooing a famous football coach while the team watched was a bit stressful.
“They all had their phones out, probably about 20 of them,” Bateman said. “He bent a little and said he was insensitive to pain.”
Bateman did several other championship tattoos, including one for Dillon Gates, a 32-year-old Michigan fan from Grand Rapids. Gates’ arm is covered from elbow to shoulder in a scene of Tom Brady, JJ McCarthy, Blake Corum and other Michigan greats walking through the stadium tunnel. The tattoo took 30 hours to complete, Gates said, spread over three sessions.
Gates has cousins in Columbus who are Ohio State fans, but even they had to admit the tattoo was an impressive work of art. Gates received similar reactions when he traveled across Big Ten country for his job buying used musical instruments.
“I was actually in Pennsylvania, and a guy at the hotel desk asked me to raise my arm,” Gates said. “He said, ‘Dude, I don’t even like Michigan, but that’s a great tattoo.’ For me it is above all a badge of honor.”
Gates got the tattoo as part of a pact with a friend, Michigan fan Patrick Coleman. Coleman has a scene under his belt in which McCarthy, Corum, Will Johnson and Donovan Edwards celebrate in front of the CFP trophy. When thinking about ways to commemorate the national championship, Coleman decided a tattoo was the most lasting symbol.
“I have all the memorabilia,” Coleman said. “I have posters and flags. I have the T-shirts. Considering all the hard times we had to go through to finally reach the top, you should write it on your skin so you can always remember it.
(Courtesy of Stephen Bateman)
In terms of creativity, it’s hard to top McLaughlin’s tattoos. He wanted something that no one else would have, something that captured a unique aspect of Michigan’s season. Harbaugh often spoke about the chickens he raised in his backyard, and the idea of him holding a bird under his arm seemed a fitting tribute.
That tattoo gets a lot of comments when McLaughlin encounters other Michigan fans. Someone saw the tattoo a few weeks ago as McLaughlin was walking through the parking lot before the Michigan-Oregon game, and before he knew it, he was getting free food and beer at a tailgate.
“Pretty much everyone’s reaction is the same,” McLaughlin said. “Everyone starts bursting out laughing. A lot of people say, “What’s with the chicken?” I have to explain it, and they’re like, ‘Okay, that’s kind of funny.’
Life after the national championship was not all roses and moonshine for Michigan. The Wolverines are coming off five regular-season losses for the first time since 2014 and are three-touchdown underdogs in Saturday’s game against the Buckeyes. For fans like McLaughlin, that meant hearing more trash talk from rival fans who couldn’t say much as Michigan dominated the Big Ten.
McLaughlin said he has had a good run through the season. His group chats took off last week when Michigan signed five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood, and excitement for the future is already building. As for Saturday, McLaughlin plans to watch the game in his garage instead of showing off the toilet bowl tattoo in Columbus. The season didn’t go as planned, but if he could go back in time, McLaughlin wouldn’t change a thing.
“To me, it’s not a regret at all,” McLaughlin said. “I was at the Rose Bowl. I celebrated after the natty. Nothing will ever take that feeling away from me.”
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(Top photos courtesy of Jimmy McLaughlin)