Brock Mealer/Mike Barwis/Rich Rodriguez Posbang

Submitted by LB on

Single leg squats

No RR, no Barwis. No Barwis, and the tweet below might not have happened. Some things transcend football.

@HayONU is Brock's wife, for those of you who don't follow him on twitter.

Today @brockmealer and I held hands while walking together for the first time ever ♡

— Haley Mealer (@HayONU) May 19, 2014

 

TheTeam16

May 19th, 2014 at 12:49 AM ^

This may be the most inspiring story to ever take place in the UM athletic department.

Rich Rodriguez and Mike Barwis are and forever will be GREAT Michigan men, for the simple fact this miracle trancends anything they did/or could have done on the football field. 

Awesome

Mr. Yost

May 19th, 2014 at 7:29 AM ^

BROCK On!

*ba-dum CHHHH*

This is so awesome, not just for Brock, but for the thousands of people he's inspired. Thanks to all of the people who've helped motivate him so that he can motivate the rest of us.

Congrats to both Brock and his wife, I'm happy that neither let one awful night ruin these special "little" moments in life that turn out to be so big.

Michael From TC

May 19th, 2014 at 4:11 AM ^

I wear my 1% shirt regularly and get questioned about it. There is no place I would rather call my alma mater.

 

This truly is "The Michigan Difference" that is always talked about.

 

The one thing that always got me was how people would try to tear apart Rich Rod on his character. If anything that Michigan did right by hiring him it was getting a quirky stand-up GREAT character guy that poured everything he had into the program, for whatever reasons there was didn't pan out on the football field, but he has left his mark on the univeristy, the football team, and the community. For that, I applaued him and wish him the best in Arizona.

 

It is great to see Brock sill pushing through and it gave me butterfiled to read that him and his wife were able to walk and hold hands.

 

Wherever You Go, Go Blue!

 

Mr. Yost

May 19th, 2014 at 7:33 AM ^

...PLEASE don't make it about Rich Rod.

Being an ass and doing something extremely nice are not mutally exclusive.

Let's just focus on the fact that he played a big part in getting Brock to Ann Arbor, recovering, and inspiring so many of us. Let's not use this one act to prove his overall character. Especially not in this thread.

saveferris

May 19th, 2014 at 8:07 AM ^

Let's not use this one act to prove his overall character.

Just like we shouldn't let his lack of success on the football field impugn his overall character. Rich Rodriguez is a villain to a lot in the Michigan fanbase, for reasons that have been debated endlessly, but at the end of the day, I don't think you can say he wasn't a good person. The most obvious proof being the role he played in helping Brock Mealer.

Congratulations to Brock and his wife on another small step forward and may there be many more to come.

ak47

May 19th, 2014 at 10:32 AM ^

Listen I don't know rich rod personally just like everyone else on this board but his reputation coming out of west virginia was of a pretty slimy character.  I don't know if it is true or not and neither do you but these issues didn't spring up just because of wins and losses, they just only got talked about here after he started losing.

saveferris

May 19th, 2014 at 11:23 AM ^

but his reputation coming out of west virginia was of a pretty slimy character.

Really, that was his reputation? Because aside from the criticism coming out of West Virginia about Rodriguez bailing out for the Michigan job after getting a fat raise to pass on the Alabama job the year before, I can't think of a single article that painted him as a "slimy character".

Mr. Yost

May 19th, 2014 at 7:20 PM ^

I can't believe so many people completely misunderstood what I said...

I literally said, this one act doesn't make him a saint.

Where did I say he was a bad person, an ass, or anything?

No where.

I said you can be an ass and do a nice thing. You can be a racist and have a black friend. You can be a homophobe and like your gay cousin.

My point is, people want to use Brock as the reason Rich Rod was a saint...they don't know that any more than we don't know he was a dick.

We don't know.

Just let it be about Brock and don't try to justify Rich Rod's character off of it.

These are the same people, when someone murders someone else, say "OMG, I would've never expected it, he was so nice and kind-hearted." Well, that's cause you really didn't know the crazy son of a bitch.

Rich Rod could be the nicest guy in the world, or he could be a meanspirited person who got what he deserved, or he could likely be something in the middle. In the end...NO ONE KNOWS.

THAT, my friends, was my point.

Mr. Yost

May 21st, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^

Speak up guys.

Fact of the matter is, you can't judge Rich Rod's character for better or worse from this. I don't know the man, so I don't have a reason to judge him. But you all acting like he's a saint because he did this are full of shit...and that's not a judgement. It's fact.

He could be, I'd like to believe he is. He could've wanted the PR from it. He could've had pressure from another person. He could've flipped a coin. NONE of us know.

I'm thankful he did and I think it's an AMAZING gesture. One that makes me teary eyed like everyone else. But I'm not going to act like this now makes it impossible for him to be anything other than an angel.

Mr. Yost

May 21st, 2014 at 7:58 PM ^

I'll dig away...especially knowing not one single person can deny what I said.

Downvotes mean nothing to me...OMG Shirtless taught me that. They're literally meaningless.

OMG Shirtless

May 21st, 2014 at 9:46 PM ^

I knew what you meant.  Most people probably tuned out when you said something along the lines of:

 - Don't make this about RichRod

 - You can be an ass....(people probably just ignored everything after this...)

I'm guessing people just assumed you were calling RichRod an ass.  Like I said, I knew what you meant.

Eskimoan

May 19th, 2014 at 7:58 AM ^

Great for him and for his family! It's unreal what that man and his family has went through. Love hearing positive news from them !

Wolfman

May 19th, 2014 at 8:35 AM ^

I agree with what Mr. Yost wrote about not making it about RR, but do find a contradiction in the next breath when he calls him an ass.  This is about Brock  and it's a wonderful story.                                                RR inherited a Michigan team so bereft of talent and experience not seen since Benny handed over the reigns to Elliot, who both surprisingly, despite their lack of success, especially by today's standards, collectively steered the ship for roughly two decades.  No he did not have the success we expected him to have here, but he was afterall, tasked with the job of putting the best product on the field he could.  We could have hired a Beilema type to carry on the same system that had provided success since '69. However, RR believes in a different style of football, one that placed him among the top three successful coaches in the three years prior to his move to AA.  He was, despite not being allowed the chance to, in his opinion, finish the job, very gracious when asked about his firing, citing nothing except the above. In his first nationally aired interview discussing this, he asked Brady on national t.v. how the young qbs were coming along, indicating to me he definitely cared about his players.  I never read an article after his departure about his players disliking him or calling him an "Ass" as Yost described him, more than likely never having spoken with th man.  It's also quite ironic the only measureable success his replacement, definitely not an ass has enjoyed was running the same damn offense RR ran, coupled with a defense that for the first time in three years had a full allotment of players and some games under their belts.                                                         So yes, Mr. Yost, stay on topic and be happy for Brock and family and leave it at that. I believe the majority of fans realize what Bacon wrote is closer to the truth than those espousing their theories based purely on the Ws and Ls while at the same time knowing but refusing to acknowledge the hurdles placed in his way needlessly were done so in an attempt to ensure he would not enjoy success in AA. If they want to call themselves Michigan Men, they have a whole different take on the meaning. 

saveferris

May 19th, 2014 at 12:47 PM ^

It never really occurred to me that the ability for me to walk and hold my wife's hand at the same time is something that shouldn't be taken for granted.  What a great moment for the Mealers.