32 year old Zach Barlow named Michigan Men's Golf head coach
Warde's search for a new men's golf head coach was interrupted by an abrupt MBB coaching search. This is what he was in the process of doing before all of that happened.
The man chosen is Zach Barlow, the assistant coach at Illinois.
Illinois is the B1G bully. They've won the conference each of the last 5 years, or, every year that Coach Barlow was on their staff. They've won 10 of the last 11 B1G titles. This is the only sport that they're the class of the conference at.
Before getting into coaching, Barlow played for Illinois from 2005-06 - 2009-10 and had quite a nice career. He finished his career in the top-10 in stroke average and was All-B1G his senior season when Illinois began their run.
This is an interesting hire but one that has upside. Warde has been making some hires lately that follow a pattern. Younger assistants at extremely successful B1G programs. WLAX coach Hannah Nielsen (29) and MLAX coach Kevin Conry (37).
Coach Barlow has his work cut out for him.
He replaces Chris Whitten (514-543-30 in 7 seasons) who was promoted from assistant to head coach when Andrew Sapp was taken away by his alma mater UNC. Sapp revitalized this program and turned it around from being the B1G's doormat to a Final Four team in 2009 and an NCAA Regional Champion in 2011. Sapp had 8 team tournament titles in just 9 years. His predecessor Jim Carras had 8........in 20 years. Whitten did not continue where Sapp left off as Michigan spent most of his tenure in the bottom half of the conference and only made 3 NCAA appearances, never making it past Regionals.
This program was once one of the best in the nation many years ago. National Championships in 1934, 1935 and National Runner-Up in 1932, 1933, 1943, 1946 and 1952. Michigan was once the king of the conference in golf with 12 B1G Championships, the most in the league for a long time.
That 1952 B1G Championship was the last time this program has brought home the conference title. It's been a 67 year drought, unimaginable given the success of all of our other sports. We haven't even been CLOSE: the last runner-up finish at B1Gs was in 1980.
Before you bring up weather and the South as an excuse for the program's demise, consider this: Ohio State had unprecedented success for decades before Jim Brown retired, piling up B1G crowns and a national title in 1979. Minnesota won the national championship in 2002. Illinois finished National Runner-Up in 2013. Winning national championships CAN be done in the Midwest.
Neglect by AD Don Canham after Bert Katzenmeyer (the last coach to win the B1G here) retired from coaching in 1968 is why this program is in the state that it is.
Let's hope Coach Zach Barlow is the one to pull the sword out of the stone and finally end this drought within the next several years.
As someone who is older than him and has achieved less, thank you for making me feel incredibly unaccomplished at 5 pm on a Wednesday after a long day at work.
There's still hope though! Were you born after December 30, 1986? You might actually NOT be older than him!
Not to pick on the OP, but Barlow is actually 32 per the Bio on his Illinois web-site.
Great summary and analyses, WD. Thanks for all the hard work you do keeping us informed re the lesser publicized sports at UM.
Yeah... this is from a guy who created a thread about how Jay Harbaugh wasn't qualified to do his job...
One of the reasons?
Age.
But yet the holier than though WD is swinging from the jock of a 32 year old head coach.
Makes sense to me. /s
You must be related to Jay Harbaugh or something. This is the 5th time you've brought that thread up.
Not related.
Just pointing out your assholery.
FIRE BAKICH!!!
There’s no excuse for a school with Michigan’s sports culture and AD revenue to suck at any sport.
I hope this new coach gets Michigan to the top.
Given that Michigan is a school where the weather makes golfing nearly impossible for half the school year, I doubt our golf team will ever be a top team. Elite recruits are not going to want to go somewhere they have to hit off mats half the year.
Hutch would like to have a word with you.
If he is 29, how did begin playing at Illinois in 2005?
Hm, good catch. The site I got his birthday from is wrong because Illinois' site says 1986 so he's 32.
Wish I could edit the title *farts*
I only caught it because I’m also 29 and this article had me questioning my existence. I feel better that he is older.
I agree. If you add farts to the title it will be better.
Agree there is no factor outside of our administrations control that should prevent us from being great in the BIG 10. But to suggest weather is not a factor that makes it much, much harder to be successful on the national stage is silly. Can it be done? Sure. Should we expect it from our administrators/coaches/players on a consistent basis? I’m not. It would be ignoring the huge disadvantage.
merlin approves.
Ahhh +1! Your upvote bait gets me every time!
WHOS A GOOD BOY?!?!?!
and if you're a Bob and Tom fan, WHOS THE BIG SWEETIE?!
. . . yeah well I've accomplished a lot in life, too!
/weeps his 38yo eyes out
This reminds me of the approach with the tennis program when we brought in Bruce Berque, who i believe was also an assistant at Illinois, who at the time was the cream of the big 10 crop in tennis. I believe the tennis program had some success but ultimately fizzled out. Let's hope this works out!
Jim Carras was asked to coach the men’s golf team for free and had to be convinced to do it. He eventually was paid, but not until after several years. Don’t think he should get thrown under the bus once you know the context. Talk to almost any of his former players and they’ll attest to him being a truly great man and mentor. He just never came from any professional golf background and I’m not sure he was ever given close to the resources that the golf team has had in the last decade.
Where did I throw him under the bus? I’m just trying to paint the picture of the history of the program since the U-M record book is so sparse in its information.
I’ve been working on a new one since last summer. Went through the boxes at Bentley and went through the papers of Coach Carras.
As I said, Don Canham is the one to blame for the plight of the program. Not surprising to hear that about him being asked to coach for free. As great as Canham was for getting Bo here, he was not a very good AD overall if you look at the health of ALL of our varsity sports. Not to mention him being very unenthusiastic towards women’s varsity athletics to say the least.
Don Canham may not have been a fan of women's varsity sports, but at least he gave us female cheerleaders. Of course his decision may have been influenced by his daughter Clare, a freshman at Michigan who wanted to be a cheerleader. I think for the first few years they were known as "Pom-Pom Persons" so as not to imply they were part of the male cheerleaders, who were mostly varsity gymnasts or divers,
As an avid college golf fan, Barlow should be an upgrade. His recruiting chops are some of, if not the best, in the midwest (including his former HC Mike Small). I think he can definitely be an upgrade. That said, expecting Michigan to compete for National Championships is foolish. They don't sit in a good recruiting area. The weather is bad for golf. No way around that. They can attempt to pump as much money into it as they want, but schools in the south get 4-6 months more of outdoor practice per year. That's as much as 2 years once guys are seniors. I wouldn't expect another National Championship out of a northern school for quite some time.
I was on the Golf Team in 1973-4, and spent the winter practicing in the basement, hitting into nets. It was a pretty cheesey setup, and we were not a very good team.
There was an apartment in the golf course basement, and an assistant football coach and his family lived there. I remember feeling sorry for these nice kids who lived in a basement with their football gypsy family.
When he was hired to coach football at U-M, Jim Harbaugh talked about what a cool place his family had.....snack bar upstairs, golf course in back and football stadium across the street. He and his brother John were the family in the basement in 1973.
Now that actually is a cool story.
I was going to comment on your great choice in username until I read the story...but instead - wow, what an amazing story that is!
Blue Kool Aid is my second M Go Blog handle. I had to abandon the first when I was negbombed back to the Stone Age for suggesting that Brady Hoke needed to go away after the "Denard gets hurt and Devin is playing wide receiver, so we go with a Russel Bellomy and blow the Nebraska game" debacle. I have never been more retroactively proud of minus 10,000 points, but I could no longer post.
Ditto.
The MGoGroupThink is a powerful thing.
This is the first I realized Hannah Nielson was the WLAX coach. I don’t think ever knew her personally but NU was terrific when she played there and those ladies were/are high quality people. Coach Amonte-Hiller built a dynasty fast. Hopefully Hannah is doing that for M now.