You can never go back: the myth of the MIchigan Man

Bo wasn't a Michigan man ... until, well, he was. Why is this any different?

The rose colored glasses suggest that Bo, Carr, et al were about more than FB. RR seems to be all about FB, but only about FB. The analogy is Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. Hoffman played an idiot savant . . . extremely good at one thing, but only one thing. The fear with RR is that he is extremely good at one thing, being a FB coach, but only one thing. The myth of the Michigan Man is someone who while being a good FB coach, is also very good in many things. I don't know whether this myth ever had any basis in reality, but to some, it is a wonderful myth. The acceptance and resignation in ref to RR is that he will be a superb, winning, FB coach, but little else. Is this acceptable? Yes. Is it preferable to Carr in the latter years? Yes. Is it ideal? No. Is the analysis of RR & Carr correct? As a fan, I don't have a real clue.

It's one of the great things I have learned from watching a movie.
Billy Crystal's angst-ridden character is wondering about life and shit, and (Jack Palance) says something like, "You know what the secret of life is?" "No. What?"

Palance holds up one finger and says, "One." Then he says (paraphrase) "You learn ONE thing and get really good at it"

Well, that's Our Man Rich. Football Coach. But even if Rodriguez is "all about football"--in today's world of Big Time Athletics, it's still a job that is extremely detail-ridden. And there is a myriad of duties (alumni tours, anone?), the hours and pressure are extreme (You have NO idea), and you sacrifice a lot of time with family and friends You do it under a microscope, and you are always simultaneously beloved and hated, a genius and a retard, funny and insensitive, and they want to build a shrine to you yet run you out of town.

I'll tell you what: If Rodriguez is "just" a football coach, and no one really knows anything about what he reads or talks about at dinner parties, the "just" part is a complete insult.

All in All, that was a lovely way to say "Change Happens."

IMO, this echos the national perception of the Michigan program...fallacious as it is in many respects.

The term "Michigan Man", coined by Bo in 1989, is RARELY used by anyone connected to the program these days, or the alums or fans, students...

but the clueless media have adopted that term and attached unattainable meanings and definitions to it that do not play in reality.

Rich Rodriguez is NOT perfect....he is far from it... but at the same time, he is not a crook and is not trying to screw people

Les Miles is not perfect either... neither is Harbaugh, etc
(insert name of coach here)

No one is perfect...no one can live up to the media's perception of Michigan Man.

So we should just blow that fucking term up...along with "Little Brother"... neither are relevant any longer.

I like RR because he is about winning football games, and IMO has a program in place that will not cheat and the investigation will show this. He is hard nosed on the field and that is all that fking matters to me. He has a loyal team and a program in place that WILL win big time here at Michigan, if just given the chance.

There is no Michigan Man. Its not possible.

Bo was not a Renaissance Man. Bo changed the culture. Bo didn't inherit the job because he was the next assistant in line... Lloyd is gone and its the best thing that has happened to the program since 1997. Those who stop whining, will enjoy watching RR build champions.

is ridiculous. To imply that Lloyd was some sort of intellectual because he quoted Kipling a few times, read Newsweek and tried to expand his players vocabulary through a word-of-the-day, is a stretch and quite frankly it gives way too much credit to his intellectual achievements. Lloyd was a coach first and foremost, it is not like he went Ivy League, or even U of M (Michigan, not Missouri, mind you), and his players were GS majors (or similar) in the majority as well.

I will take results over some illusory vision of intellectualism and present to you a fact- highest GPA in the history of Michigan football. More discipline. Higher expectations.

Rich Rod, at the age of 24, was the youngest college Head coach in the country at Age 24 at Salem College.

The man gets results and to somehow imply with Rich Rod at the helm you CANNOT HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO....makes you sound like a crab-ass A2 elitist (albeit a self described one), without a clue.

Let's not forget that Michigan Man Lloyd Carr was all set to go work for George Perles at MSU.

Look at the ongoing Diary series...McBean Ratings...and you will understand how much talent was squandered during the waning years of the Carr regime...just because our kids were not pushed to the maximum...

Coach Rodriguez will become a "Michigan Man" as soon as he does two things...

Post back to back nine win or better seasons.
Beat Ohio State back to back.

and/or

Contend for the National Championship.

fully disagree with this diary

Hey, where is John Cooper? He was a Michigan man, right? I am on the Lloyd Carr hater list. Overrated.

History lesson. Actually more of a reminder.

The idea of a Michigan Man stems from Bo's press conference in which he explained why he would not allow Bill Frieder to coach the basketball team in the NCAA tournament after agreeing to take the job at Arizona State.

"A Michigan man will coach Michigan, not an Arizona State man."

It's a fine tradition. But it's become overblown. A Michigan man is not some kind of Renaissance man, chiseled in granite and marble and standing above humanity itself. The got-damn NCAA rulebook does not define a Michigan man, nor do the majors of the players he coaches. You don't have to read fine literature and pal around with the stars. You don't have to be well-versed in etiquette. You don't have to be the very model of a modern major-general. Bo said it himself just before he died:

That night, Bo delivered his traditional Thursday night pep talk before the Ohio State game. According to the Detroit News: "Bo's speech was not about Ohio State, the Big Ten title or a national championship. The whole speech was about Tom Slade and how, if the players worked hard, listened to their coaches and stuck together as teammates, one day they might be as good a Michigan man as Slade. That was the goal at Michigan, not national championships."

It doesn't take a Renaissance man. It takes hard work, dedication, and loyalty to Michigan. If Rodriguez coaches here for as long as Lloyd did, nobody will be able to doubt these qualities in him.

Are you implying that Kipling didn't write The Lion King?

Bo was a Renaissance Man? Bo was a great coach, a great representative of The University, and had integrity and class, but I don't know if he was some professor in a coach's cap a la Lloyd. I don't remember ever hearing Bo quote Shakespeare or talk about his other interests....he didn't seem to have any outside of football and his family. Sound familiar?

Think about this... Many people are saying that if RR leaves this year or next it will set the program back for YEARS due to the fact that we will then be set up for a spread offense. Would it be inconceivable that we would look for another spread coach to help keep the program viable??? Brian Kelly?!? Would we turn to another pro style coach? Les Miles, another "Michigan Man" (I hate that term)?!? These are the things that keep me awake at night... I'm obsessed with Michigan Football!!! Go Blue!

understand. A michigan Man is not someone tied to Bo's legacy or coaching tree. It's not someone who, in addition to coaching/playing football, is a worldy person. It means nothing more than a man of integrity who gives everything he has to be the best he can be for himself, his team, and Michigan. I think RR's show of emotion at the podium earlier this week reconfirmed to me that he is a Michigan Man.

tato salad.

caw caw!

Our coach should come from the English Dept., not West Virginia! We need a literary man at the helm, and so I would like to propose a new head coach, someone we can all be proud of, Mr. John Updike

Mr. Kass, I've no doubt you're a fervent Michigan fan, but I have to say that your image of Bo Schembechler as a man who had a life beyond football while he was coach is pure, ridiculous fantasy. Don't take my word for it, read this article:

From Sports Illustrated, September 14, 1981

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1152110/index...

O.K., from a distance Bo comes on like a yahoo. And that's Bo's public image. He has had horrible problems with the press, which has this nasty habit of wanting to talk to him when he loses, his mother's advice notwithstanding. But even if the media's timing were better, it probably wouldn't make much difference, because Bo hates the press. Not just a little. A lot. The Voice of Michigan Football, Bob Ufer, says he has tried to get Schembechler to be nicer to the media. "But he told me," says Ufer, " 'Bob, if I win, I don't need the press, and if I lose, they can't help me.' " Ufer defends Schembechler, whose record at Michigan over 12 years is 114-21-3; Bo's teams have won the Big Ten title twice and tied for it seven times.

Says Ufer, "Bo has two categories of things in his life: what matters and what doesn't matter. What matters is football. What doesn't matter is everything else. Bo is the kind of guy who is so dedicated that he doesn't realize how he's coming off." So while some coaches like to go out and drink with sportswriters, Bo would prefer to break out in warts.

Until a couple of years ago, he would routinely storm out of press conferences, kick reporters out of the sessions ("Don't be offended," says one of Bo's friends. "He'd kick Millie out, too"), make himself unavailable and order his players not to talk. Talking very softly once at a press conference, he was asked to speak up. "I'm speaking as loudly as I can," said Bo softly—and arrogantly. And in a memorable set-to on Oct. 1, 1979, Schembechler gave an absolutely unnecessary push to a publicity-seeking college newspaper reporter.

Yet too much is read into all this. As Don Canham, athletic director at Michigan, says, "Bo is oblivious to life."

........

Furthermore, Mr. Kass, you seem to be one of those people who, against all evidence, believe that Rich Rodriguez somehow embodies football values that are completely alien to your gauzy memories of what's transpired here in Ann Arbor over the last 40 years. I suggest you read the following and tell all of us how Rich Rodriguez is somehow so very different from the reality of Bo Schembechler, not your fantasy.

From Sports Illustrated November 16, 1970

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1084291/3/ind...

Meet Michigan's Meanest Man

....""As Bo says, he runs a tough football program," Dierdorf explains. "Run and run and run. The track team doesn't run as much as we do. And their coach isn't as mean, either."..."When something goes wrong during a practice a whistle blows and Schembechler roars in, wielding words like whips. Betts waits until the point is well made and the rage has ebbed."....

"This is a rough tough hard-nosed football program," says last year's Coach of the Year. "We run their tails off. Maybe three miles of sprints on Mondays. Then Tuesday and Wednesday we really hit. We bring the freshmen in and we go after them for a full two hours. But this is an easy team to coach. They are bright kids and we have some fun. If they don't like something, they know they can say it. That doesn't mean I'll change. But if I don't, I'll be sure they know the reason why."

Except for his open-door policy, Schembechler might have lost it all last year when he arrived from Miami of Ohio to replace Bump Elliott, who became assistant athletic director. He called in the team and said there was nothing ahead but hard work, a lot of hard work.

"And he changed everything," said Newell. "I remember I didn't like that and I didn't like him. I thought it was cool the way Bump ran things."

The Monday before 1969's opening game with Vanderbilt, Schembechler called in his defense. He wanted to know what was wrong. There was a lot of talk but nobody really said anything. Players began to leave. Finally the only player left was Newell.

"Pete," said Schembechler, "for 15 minutes you've been standing there telling me everything would be all right. But you're lying to me. What is the trouble?"

Newell looked at him. As he remembered later, he was sweating like a soaked sponge. "O.K.," he said, "I'll tell you. I think you are an s.o.b."

"Fine," said Schembechler. "Now tell me why."

.......

I was a freshman in 1971, which means I was here for all but two years of Schembechler's career. From what I've gathered in listening to the radio and spending way too much time here on MGoBlog, I think it's pretty clear that the most vocal demographic group hostile to Rodriguez are those of my generation and older. All that means is that it's a sad commentary on the aging process and what it does to cognitive abilities and memories, because anybody who actually pulls his head out of his aging butt and looks at historical reality will dispense with the mythology that's been built up about Bo Schembechler. Whether Rich Rodriguez will be able to replicate Bo's record on the field is obviously an open question; he hasn't proven anything in Ann Arbor yet. But a look at reality should tell everyone that RR is closer in football personality to Bo Schembechler than either Gary Moeller or Lloyd Carr.