7 years ago today

Great guy.  I met him once and he was extremely cordial.  It was at an alumni event, and I remember that he arrived precisely at the time he was supposed to - not one minute early or late.  He signed a book for me, and his signature was perfectly readable, every letter - no small feat for a guy whose last name is 12 letters long.

 

 

I never met Bo or even saw him. Pre 2006 I didnt follow anything Michigan - I grew up in Louisiana and ended up going north because it was the best school for me.

I learned about Bo mostly posthumously, from how people reacted to his passing, to stories told, and of course his amazing book Bo's lasting lessons.

 

RIP

i never met him, but a good friend of mine played pool with bo while they were waiting for a boat to take them back from drummond island, he said he and Bo drank bourbon on the rocks. Even got a christmas card from him for a couple years after that.

Right? Against a interim coach.

I was in a bit of a rough patch when I was playing. Injury. Bo, who had an office in the building, saw me in the training room every day for a while, moping. Walking down from the training room to the locker room, I run into Bo. He asks how it's going. I reply, "Not great, Coach." He stood dead in his tracks, looked me in the eye, and said, "Young man, you play for Michigan. Isn't that great?" I feel like a fool, chuckle, and say, "Of course. I'm just struggling with this damn shoulder." Bo says, "Son, remember I didn't bring you here to sit. Get that shoulder ready, we'll need you." Bo hadn't brought me in. He had long since retired. I was a nobody, a freshman lineman third on the depth chart. I'd been injured about as much as I'd been healthy. The team was doing quite fine without me. But I'll be damned if that didn't motivate me and get me out of the funk I was in. Second story, and one that my dad counts as one of his finest moments. At an All-State banquet after I'd committed to Michigan, Bo came up behind my dad, grabbed him by the elbow, and told him he had, "a good looking boy." I've never seen my dad beam so much. Third story. I cried like a baby when he died. And I cried two years ago on the eve of the Ohio game when watching the HBO documentary. He talked to HBO about the rivalry and Woody, and went home and died. So poetic.

R.I.P.

Story: once he came into a high school gym where I was playing basketball - his son was playing there too. The whole place went quiet trying to see the famous ball coach over in the corner.

Thought: he died at the best possible time. OSU vs Michigan was at the top of the sport. His last days were in anticipation of something he helped put in place over many many years.

RIP Bo. A Michigan Legend.

I was a junior in undergrad. The thing I remember most is they had a memorial/pep rally on the diag on Friday night. I don't remember who spoke, but after they were done, everyone signed a banner that they were giving to Bo's family. While people we're filing through to sign it, we we're chanting "Let's go blue" and the Victors. It echoed throughout the Diag. It was an absolutely surreal experience with the magnitude of that game looming the next day. On the way back to our house, I had chills and thought there was no way we would lose the Game. 

Right before kickoff at the Big House the PA announcer mentioned something about Bo, I could quite hear, the whole morning that day had been very cloudy, after the announcement, the clouds parted a little and the sun came out...it was as if Bo just needed a more look that day...it was very odd, am I the only one who remembers this?

I was only in 6th grade to be completely honest but I was already deeply entrenched in Michigan Football, and I came home from school all giddy about The Game when I turned on the TV and saw that Bo had died that morning. I never saw Bo coach a single game in my life but I knew what he meant to the program, and I loved reading his book that was co-authored with John U. Bacon.

One thing that I always think about is if Bo would have a serious problem with calling OSU "Ohio". I feel like although he despised them, he wouldn't like it one bit because he respected the hell out of them.

6 hour drive to Columbus, spent the whole time talking with my mom about our dad who had passed away a few months before.  You see it was our family thing to go to the Michigan/Ohio State game every year since I was 14.  This would be our first without him and of course it was the biggest.

 

After that long at times emotional drive we checked into our hotel in Columbus and I turned the TV on only to see the announcements on ESPN.  I was simply crushed.  Right or wrong my dad idolized that man for what he done for Michigan football and even to a point looked like him.  None of it has ever been the same.

simply the best leader there ever was.

just don't seem to appreciate what Bo meant for this program. Michigan football was nothing before Bo got here. It wasn't uncommon for the Big House to be barely half full. Hard to believe one man could have such a huge impact, but he did.

I'm not sure the exact year or exact bowl game, I know I could look it up but that takes time. It was a bowl game in Tampa against Florida when Rex Grossman was there qb. Blue won so we celebrated. We all stayed in the same hotel as the team because the girl who got us the tickets worked for the team and she let us sleep in her room. She was single so the team gave her her own room. Well, I celebrated harder than most so I went to bed early. When my hotel roommates came home, they heard me snoring right away and decided to put me in the bathroom. Well, not liking that I said I'll go sleep in the car. After not sleeping in the car at all, I wound up in the hotel lobby around 9ish, alone and sitting on this big couch by a table and some chairs. Well, I decided to stretch out and take advantage. After a couple hours, I woke up with drool on my face. And sitting across the table on one of those chairs is a guy reading a newspaper. After I sit up and start to wipe my face, the guy lowers his paper, looks at me and says "You young people sure know to have fun." I smile and nod, but before I can respond someone comes over and directs him to wherever he's supposed to go at that time. Bo was cool!! And then there are a handful of times I saw him on the UMs golf course, I worked there for three years. He always said hi as well as some other pleasantry and he never had too. Something along the lines of "too nice of a day" or "it's so hot it'll keep you skinny" or "where is your sun screen?" Bo was cool!!!

I remember MSC was in a Regent's meeting and they sent a note in to her during the session.  That doesn't happen often; she had to know it was big news before she even read it. :(