1981 Sports Illustrated Feature on Bo: Pure Gold
In September of 1981, Sports Illustrated did a big feature on Bo. If you've never read it, you need to do it. Even if you've read it before, you need to read it again.
(Sorry if you have to cut-and-paste this link. I suck at this stuff.)
http://www.si.com/vault/1981/09/14/264298/m-bo-schembechlers-the-name-f…
As a snapshot in time, there is so much gold in here. (This was written right before Gerry Faust's first game at Notre Dame, and you'll see how excited and optimistic the author was for how that was going to turn out!) This article includes some of the best Bo quotes ever.
What's best about this article, though, are some of the Bo stories. Reading them now, you see that Harbaugh is indeed his son. Any of these Bo stories from 1981 could be Harbaugh stories from 2015.
August 14th, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
I love Bo and the article was from my senior year but I couldn't help but be drawn to the cover story too. Thomas "Hitman" Hearns baby - motowns finest fighter since the great Joe Louis and a part of the GREATEST fight I've ever seen (Hagler-Hearns).
August 14th, 2015 at 11:50 AM ^
With the Bo story and the Hitman story, that was one of the best issues of SI ever.
I remember when the day SI came was the highlight of my week.
August 14th, 2015 at 11:57 AM ^
Are you sure it was even better than the SI Swisuit Issue that followed shortly thereafter???
August 14th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
Beating MeanJoe to the punch
August 15th, 2015 at 4:06 AM ^
Bo and Bo met later that year!
August 14th, 2015 at 11:58 AM ^
Yeah, Hagler/Hearns was a war. Amazing fight. Plus, thanks for making me feel young, since I was a high school sophomore when this issue can out.
August 14th, 2015 at 11:39 PM ^
And was headed out of Ann Arbor. I hated watching Hearns lose to Leonard.
August 15th, 2015 at 8:36 AM ^
YES!!!!
August 14th, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
Thanks for the reminder.
August 14th, 2015 at 12:01 PM ^
read that story 20 times. And I'm about to read it again.
August 14th, 2015 at 12:06 PM ^
Bo and I are more alike than I thought
"The chicken is done, goddam it," Bo bellows.
"Hurry up. I'll be bitterly disappointed if I overcook this chicken
just because you can't get organized in there. Damn, the chicken is
just right now, Mil, hurry up."
August 14th, 2015 at 12:08 PM ^
thanks for posting it. I am sure I read it in 1981, but great to read it again. You forget the details of what made Bo so special; this reminds you of them.
August 14th, 2015 at 12:11 PM ^
Just before his quadruple bypass surgery in 1976, Bo called Hayden
from the hospital.
Bo: "Joe, is everything O.K. for Millie and the kids
[there are four sons, ranging in age from 11 to 26] in case of, uh,
stark disaster?"
Hayden: "What do you mean, stark disaster?"
Bo: "You dumb son of a bitch! If something in there stops going ticky
tick, it's stark disaster for Glenn Schembechler."
Hayden: "It's all O.K."
Bo: "Good. Goodby."
August 14th, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^
August 14th, 2015 at 12:14 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 14th, 2015 at 12:16 PM ^
Got it.
August 14th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
Bo was an assistant under Hayes at Ohio State in 1951 and then
again from 1958 to 1962. They were, although both vigorously deny it, two damn peas in a damn pod. In football meeting rooms, they even threw chairs at each other.
"No, no," says Hayes when asked about the flying furniture. "We
just argued to beat hell."
But you didn't throw chairs at each other?
"No. no. We just got damn mad."
But you didn't throw chairs at each other?
"Oh, well, sometimes we threw chairs... but not at each other."
Just sort of a case in which the two of you were in the same room when chairs were thrown?
"Yeah, that's right."
So what's the big deal? Of course they threw chairs at each other. Why wouldn't they?
That's some primo writing right there.
August 14th, 2015 at 12:48 PM ^
Today: "A lesser athlete would've gone down!"
August 14th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^
thanks!
Woody Hayes professes great admiration, although he does add softly, "Bo is the second best in the country. I have to say the first is that old man down at Alabama."
August 14th, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^
I'm not sure what exactly is says about my sense of this site, but when I saw the title for this post I just assumed it was about Bo Derek.
August 14th, 2015 at 1:45 PM ^
"O.K., from a distance, Bo comes on like a yahoo."
Interesting 1981 use of a word that has a completely different meaning post internet. I always thought of Bo as being more like a google.
August 14th, 2015 at 1:59 PM ^
I remember that when this article first came out, Bo wasn't happy with it because it quoted him cussing too much.
August 14th, 2015 at 2:05 PM ^
Too bad Mike Boren was in the piece. In retrospect, one can see that he didn't have much discipline or much of a moral compass without Bo...
August 14th, 2015 at 2:41 PM ^
A really great read! You're right about the similarities to Harbaugh: "...'Every day Bo is fired up. every day. He's feisty and he goes after it.' "
That sounds like attacking with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind to me.
August 14th, 2015 at 2:49 PM ^
Thanks for the post. My favorite part was the section on A.C.
"Carter generally escapes Bo's acerbic tongue--and even Millie finds
that remarkable. "He gets on me sometimes," says Carter, "but the
other players say he gets on them more." That's probably true
because when you meet Bo's standard of perfection, you have just
exceeded the world standard, and therefore it's time for the
screaming to stop. "It has been a great pleasure to play for Bo,"
says Carter.
Schembechler sees the qualities he admires most surfacing every day
in Carter. His attitude is superior, he's single-minded, he's great
in practice, he's interested in team rather than personal goals,
he's fast, he's tough, his hands are terrific, he keeps his mouth
shut and, most of all, he's Bo's. "Nobody can allow Carter to have
single coverage," says Schembechler. He smiles when he says that,
because teams must sometimes allow Anthony single coverage, or some
other Wolverine, left unattended, will do them in.
Thus both coach and player know better than anyone that Carter is
the heart and, more important, the soul of this football team".
August 14th, 2015 at 4:27 PM ^
August 14th, 2015 at 6:16 PM ^
I laughed, I cried, I smiled. I looked back on glory days, & good ol' times and good friends gone & time flown by.
I must have somehow missed this issue because I don't think I'd ever forget that cover if I had seen it and because I don't even have an inkling of remembering anything in that Bo story.
God, did I love The Hitman! When you love a fighter like I did Ali and then Hearns there's a personal investment/involvement involved in following them, and especially in a loss, that's much different and deeper, more permanent & devastating than a football game no matter how much you love your team. I couldn't get a ticket to that Hagler fight mentioned above, but the sat truck was right in front of the Michigan Theater and you could peek in through a window in the back of the truck and see the fight on a monitor. There was a big crowd of us on the street straining to peek into the truck and living and dying and yelling and screaming at every wild blow in that ridiculous slugfest and painful loss, ugh, but what electricity!
Love Tommy Hearns, love Bo, love AC all for a million reasons and because they're mine, got it?
August 15th, 2015 at 4:14 AM ^
All the preseason polls had Michigan number 1 and we lost the opener on the road at WI. Overall not one of Bo's best season. We got upset by IA at home and an unranked OSU upset us at home. At least we blew out UCLA in the Bluebonnet bowl!