Michigan to invite Oklahoma City T-shirt boy to home football game

Five-year-old Cooper Barton was punished for showing his Michigan football pride recently in Oklahoma City.

Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon has a problem with that.

Brandon said Wednesday he plans to get in touch with Barton's family this week and extend an invitation for him and his family to attend a future Wolverines home game.

"We're going to invite he and his parents to come for a game and we'd like to put him up on the big board," Brandon said Wednesday during a presentation to the Detroit Economic Club. "We'd like to thank him for being a big Michigan fan.

"And I'm going to send him a T-shirt."

Oklahoma City elementary school student Cooper Barton was punished for wearing a Michigan football T-shirt in school recently. In response, Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said the university will invite the boy and his family to a Wolverines home game this fall.

AP photo

Barton, who attends Wilson Elementary School in Oklahoma City, was forced to turn his Michigan shirt inside out at school by his principal.

The shirt violated legislation in Oklahoma City's Public School dress code, which currently prohibits students from wearing any college apparel of a school not located in Oklahoma.

Brandon called that legislation "a bunch of crap," and said he hopes Michigan's outreach to the young boy will bring about change.

"Maybe the recognition of this will get them to re-think their kind of crazy rule in Oklahoma," he said.

Brandon said he asked the "M Den," Michigan's official merchandising outlet, to create an inside-out T-shirt for Barton, so he can support the Wolverines no matter what.