When President Gerald Ford, a University alum, arrived in Peking, China to attend an important meeting with the Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, he was greeted with a band playing the Michigan State University fight song instead of Hail to the Victors.
Michigan State Band Director Ken Bloomquist said he thought the mistake did not matter. “Michigan’s fight song is one of the greatest fight songs in the country,” Bloomquist said. “Our fight song is certainly well known, but probably not quite as well as the U-of-M fight song,”
Source : “This week in Daily history“, Michigan Daily, December 3, 2003.