Three And Out: An Excerpt

As far as I know, Bruce Madej was mostly helpful to Bacon in working on the book.  Not so sure about Ablauf.  I do think that Bacon goes out of his way to include Ablauf in his "Thanks" section of the book.

I'm not if I know of anybody who does not respect and admire Bruce Madej.  Now I don't have a direct answer to your question, apart from a complete reading of the book discloses ZERO wrongdoing on the part of Madej and much concern from Bruce about how Rodriguez was getting screwed. 

Remember, Bruce is a sports information guy, not a columnist.  Madej has been very honest about the Rosenberg story; about how Snyder and Rosenberg came to him on the Friday afternoon before they were going to press on a Saturday/Sunday and basically said, "This is our story; you got any comment?"  And you'll see in the book that Madej doesn't go all off flaming Rosneberg, with whom he has worked closely for years, the way that oh some guy on MGoBlog might.  But Madej was angered by the Freep reporting and he thought it was erroneous and that nobody could understand the basis and Madej says so in the book.

I suspect that just like Jon Falk had a book in him, and Lloyd Carr has a book in him, that Bruce Madej has a book in him too.

I have nothing but the highest regard for Bruce Madej.  I suspect that Madej's book, when and if he does one, won't be any more helpful to the legacy of Michael Rosenberg than the Bacon book.

AFAIK, Bakes bigger problem was with Gholstons neck twist. As it should be.



MSU did a masterful job of managing that story. Not even the B1Gs suspension or any story mentions anything but the punch. And IMO the punch isn't a big deal. The neck twist two seconds after the play?? Bigger deal.

Readers of the book don't "know" anything more than they did before.  Many of the errors posters have pointed out call into question even the most basic new information revealed.  It's a great and entertaining read, nothing more, nothing less.  And yes, I have a copy on my nightstand and bought one for a colleague who is a huge Michigan fan. 

"It is Reckman, not Reckam." I honestly have no idea what the kid's name is, so you have me there. I just pulled his name from somewhere else in this thread and even spelled it two different ways in my post.

"Reckman's punch was the week after Mouton." That's what I said, even if it wasn't clear. "The same weekend [Mouton] was suspended, Recham punched someone." Mouton's suspension came the week after he punched someone, so we are saying the same thing.

"I do not recall Rodriguez's quote as you cite it.  I think you are wrong; I am certain that you've taken it out of context." I don't know exactly what he said, but that was the general tone of it. Someone asked him about it and he just said "I don't really care, but I don't see the difference"

"When you say that "Reckam [sic] got suspended for another game..." that phrase is so badly written and/or so wrong, that it is impossible to excuse.  Zach Reckman was suspended for one game only.  There was never "another" game's suspension." Yes, you are right. This whole post was poorly phrased on my part because I was trying to get it out quickly. What I meant was that I had already brought up 3 games (mouton punch, mouton suspension, reckman punch) and the "another" was meant to allude to a different game than had already been discussed.

"Yes, people did accuse Rodriguez of sending in the Reckman tape.  Yes they did.  When you say the opposite, you are wrong.  People said so on this very Board.  They were wrong." I don't remember anyone accusing RR of sending in the tape. I remember them accusing him of tattling in the press conference, thinking that tipped the B1G off about the incident. As far as I knew at the time, no tape was even sent in; the B1G just reviewed it themselves after learning about it.

"When you say, "...who knows...?"  Well, readers of the book DO know.  Rodriguez didn't send in the tape.  (The game was on the BTN, if I recall correctly.)  Someone from Purdue DID send in the tape." I wasn't saying who knows if Purdue sent the tape. I was saying who knows if they sent it in before or after RR mentioned it in the press conference. They could have sent it in on Saturday after the game to get ahead of it, or they could have seen is press conference, said "Oh shit", and reacted to that. Again, I haven't read the book, but I doubt that Bacon has any first-hand knowledge of that.

Sorry for confusing you with the compact form of what should have been written, but I'm reasonably sure that most of your criticisms were just misunderstandings.

No, I have never been in a position where I am getting paide $2.5 million to COACH FOOTBALL AT THE GREATEST UNIVERSITY IN THE WORLD.  All the woe is me crap, all of the "he had it so hard" and all of the "he dealt with so much" nonsense doesn't change the fact that this guy - who was feeling sorry for himself - was getting paid a shit ton of money for a job that most would dream of.

And, as to RR venting privately at lunch, you are missing my bigger point that the private comment pretty much summed up his attitude, which, even if not spoken, was obvious to every single fan who watched a presser or his sideline demeanor, let alone to his players.

desire to retire and his heart not being as in it anymore for recruiting at the end, and the lack of preparedness at the start of the '07 season.  And it's probably fair. (Even though we won, look how our recruiting picked up after Bo retired and Mo took over...recruiting is a young man's game, and it's usually the thing that coaches hate first when they're getting close to hange it up.  A hungry up and comer recruits great....a 60 year old man who's accomplished a lot kissing the ass of 17 year olds is hard).

The difference is (and not really a knock on Rich) is what Lloyd may have been better at than anything is stopping snowballs from turning into scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  He manage to take bad, really down situations, and keep them from tanking seasons into losing efforts, where streaks are broken. It was just 2007, where we were at the lowest of lows, won 8 straight till we didn't have any more arms or legs to play, and pulled off a bowl victory, but many a season. 2003 is looked on as great, but before Minnesota (till the 4th quarter) the environment was HARSH. '98 didn't start off that great either.  He obviously did a lot of good things as a head coach, but the thing he probably did as well as anyone else was rally the troops when things were looking their bleakest, and stopping 4 loss seasons from becoming 7 loss seasons, and bowl streak/non-losing record breaking disasters, that have befallen just about every other program.  Us too, now, but that doesn't make Rich any different than guys who coached at a lot of other big time schools and had it befall them.

But there is something to being able to do it.  Maybe it would have taken a lot to rally things in '08.  But 1 more win in '09, or non-utter collapse in '10? With Bacon's "key games" I'm not sure even he thinks that it wasn't possible to flip one of those, and make all the difference. Illinois prior to the story in  this post is a great example. Losing to them with some bad breaks is one thing...to end up getting your ass kicked in a game you were in complete control of (to a not very good team) means the players thought they were done. Rally fail.

excerpts from the book, like the other comments from RR, come back to bite him when they're taken out of context. Perhaps this explains Carr's reticence; better to say the minimum and avoid having your words twisted.

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