blake corum

Blake Corum: How a 5’8″ Kid from Marshall Became a Geopolitical Talking Point

In the grand scheme of things—and trust me, the scheme is grander than any of us signed up for—Blake Corum is a college running back. That’s the headline. The sub-headline, visible only to those who read the fine print of modern civilization, is that he’s also a walking Rorschach test for everything from American exceptionalism to the global arms trade in highlight reels.

Corum, for the uninitiated, is the Michigan Wolverines’ resident ankle-breaker, a human joystick who turns linebackers into unpaid extras in his personal action film. At 5’8″, he’s shorter than the average doorframe yet somehow taller than most national GDPs—at least in terms of cultural capital. His 2023 season (1,245 rushing yards, 27 touchdowns, zero regard for defenders’ life choices) was so statistically vulgar that it triggered a new wave of NFL scouts to book urgent flights to Detroit, a city previously thought to be under some form of international quarantine.

But let’s zoom out, because that’s what we do here at Dave’s Locker—where the coffee is bitter and the geopolitics are worse.

Corum’s rise coincides with a moment when American football, long dismissed abroad as “rugby for people who need helmets and commercial breaks,” is quietly colonizing global attention spans. The NFL now plays regular-season games in London, Frankfurt, and soon, presumably, a floating aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, college football—once as exportable as deep-fried butter—has become a streaming juggernaut. In Seoul sports bars, insomniac fans watch Michigan games at 4 a.m., cheering Corum’s cuts like they’re K-drama plot twists. In Lagos, bootleg highlight packages circulate on WhatsApp groups named “AMERICAN VIOLENCE VOL. 3.” The world, it seems, is ready to embrace a sport where concussions are a feature, not a bug.

And Corum? He’s the perfect ambassador: polite in interviews, lethal between the hash marks, and blessed with a name that sounds like a luxury cologne marketed to arms dealers. His backstory—raised in Marshall, Virginia, population so small it could fit in a Beijing subway car—adds a layer of Norman Rockwell kitsch that foreigners find both baffling and irresistible. To a European viewer raised on soccer’s theatrical dives, Corum’s refusal to go down on first contact looks like a metaphor for American stubbornness. To a Japanese fan, his one-cut explosiveness evokes the precision of a katana strike. To a Russian oligarch, he’s simply another high-value asset to acquire before sanctions hit.

Of course, the cynic’s view—welcome, you’re among friends—is that Corum’s global stardom is less about talent and more about timing. We live in an era where sports are the last universally agreed-upon narrative, the one remaining bedtime story adults tell themselves while the planet overheats and democracy negotiates its own buyout terms. Corum’s highlights aren’t just highlights; they’re two-minute vacations from reality, complete with slow-motion replays and sponsored by a cryptocurrency exchange that definitely isn’t laundering money.

Still, there’s something almost touching—almost—in how a kid who once sold candy bars to fund his pee-wee team now sells hope to a world that’s running low on inventory. When Corum scores, the broadcast cuts to shots of Michigan fans weeping joyfully, their tears indistinguishable from the rain currently flooding their tailgates. Somewhere in Nairobi, a viewer texts his friend: “This is why America wins at everything.” The friend, between power outages, responds with a GIF of Corum hurdling a safety. No context needed. Pure global id.

In the end, Blake Corum is just a 22-year-old who runs really fast while carrying an oblong ball. But in a world where nations weaponize memes and elections are decided by TikTok dances, that might be the most honest diplomacy we have left. He won’t solve climate change or broker Middle East peace, but for 12 Saturdays a year, he makes the absurdity feel choreographed. And really, what more can you ask from a guy whose job is literally to run away from problems until someone blows a whistle?

The planet keeps spinning, unevenly and on fire. But somewhere in the fourth quarter, Corum breaks another tackle—and for a moment, the world forgets whose side it’s on.