Cord Guy Tribute

...The student managers, at least when I was there, had inside information on many internal areas of the program: injuries, discipline, depth charts, coach-player relationships, etc.. They were at every practice and at many meetings, before and after, in the trainng room, at training table, etc. There is litte doubt in my mind that when I hear "sources close to the program" in media reports it could very well be student managers.

I and my fellow managers could certainly have written a book full of funny, touching, and scary antecdotes of the program. I would never have done it, and neither would most of the guys I worked with. There was a code of ethics that said that what happened inside the program stayed there.

yep

Two things about Mo:

1) He cared about his players. He was hard on them, but he cared about them. Absolutely like a father figure to a lot of guys who were without fathers. Lloyd and Mo were incredibly similar in that regard. There were several assistant coaches during that timeframe who were climbers (some of whom are nationally prominant today); less concerned about the players than about the wins and their careers. Mo was the opposite, possibly to a fault.

2) The drinking at the Excalibur club and the end of his time at UM was incredibly out of character in two ways. First, he never drank. While on the road, coaches would gather for dinner in the hotel restaurant or in a suite. Many of them would have a drink or two - businesslike (nobody having more than a couple) but the drinks were there. Mo would NEVER have one. In fact I always kind of figured he just didn't drink. Second, one of the first things he said to every group of incoming freshmen (and repeated it often during their careers) was "You have to be BETTER than other students. Nobody thinks your special here" The message was that media, other students, fans, etc. will try to get you in compromising situations because you are a football player. You need to be cleaner than other students, because if you get caught in a compromising position, the results are way worse than for any other student. I can specifically remember him saying at a meeting with new freshman "If I ever hear of one of you getting in trouble with the police and expecting special treatment because you're a football player here, you'll have to answer to me"

I will always remember the day I knew he was done. For those who don't remember, there were media reports that he was drunk at a restaurant and had to be taken in by police. This was out of character enough, but I think he would have survived.  A couple days later a WJR reporter got his hands on the audio tape of Mo in the police car, slurred speech, saying "you can't do this to me, don't you realize who I am?"  It was looped on local media.  A couple days later he resigned.