26 Years Ago Today
''I don't want someone from Arizona State coaching the Michigan team,'' Schembechler said. ''A Michigan man is going to coach Michigan.''
On March 15, 1989, the long lived "Michigan Man" phrase became entrenched into Michigan folklore. 26 years later we sit on the NIT bubble.
The story was covered by The New York Times in an article available on-line. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/16/sports/frieder-is-dropped-for-taking-a-new-job.html. It's mostly Frieder's side to the story but that's pretty much what happened.
I think he meant this as a reminder as to why the phrase "Michigan Man" was coined. Also, who doesn't like a Bo Schembechler quote? It is the anniversary of the quote.
According to John Bacon, Fielding Yost used the term "Michigan man" in speachs. The term obvioiusly gained popularity when Bo used it in '89 and the basketball team went on to win the national championship.
What the hell does this Bacon know about Michigan sports?
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
That quote and Bo's speech led to them winning the national title. Our problems with the football team have nothing to do with that. Making bad coaching hires(RR instead of Les and Hoke instead of Harbaugh) is what has been haunting the football program.
RR was not a bad hire. Treating him like shit was the problem. David Brandon was a terrible hire, though.
He was a bad hire no matter how you try to spin it. If Martin had hired Les Miles, there's no way we go 6-18 in the Big Ten and our bowl streak would probably still be alive. There would have been no need for a complete system change, which has been haunting us ever since.
Don't even bother trying to convince Tater otherwise, he doesn't care.
This guy's got his tinfoil hat on so tight when it comes to RR and Dave Brandon. Every day it's a new "fact" about Dave Brandon ruining Rich Rod that he made up.
point what would have happened had M hired Les Miles instead of RR. IMO LM would have had better D but less productive offense. Miles might have recruited better particularly to the bgtn model and probably would have been more successful W/L than RR. The downside is Miles would have had a different support group but an equally opposing group that would have undermined his tenure. Also Miles might have run afoul in other ways. Interesting to ponder what might have been.
They've been in one SEC title game since Carr left. That's one more than us. And we'd be complaining just like LSU folks have been about his non-existent offense and poor QB play.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Clear, concise, and cogent.
March 15th, 2015 at 11:51 PM ^
60-26 at WV with 6 bowls (2 BCS) in 7 years. The RR hate likely won't change regardless of how he pans out at AZ. Bama wanted him in '06 which means they must have been delusional b/c he's a "terrible" coach.
/s
I also got engaged that night so I have a personal connection with it. When I went to tell my friends they all thought I was calling about Frieder.
i guess he loved the $ a little bit more. even bo was tempted, but he actually proved he loved michigan more than the $.
oops thought you said Fisher at first.
Still, if Frieder really loved Michigan I don't think the whole "Michigan man at Michigan" thing would have been an issue.
I don't. He made his choice. He can still love Michigan all he wants, and I don't necessarily think of him as a villain. I don't think it was anything more than him making a badly-timed decision. But he made that choice, and Bo (who never liked Frieder as it was) called him on it.
And never forget, Frider learned from the best--Iowa State wanted to hire him, and Johnny Orr cut them off and took the job for himself. Purely for the money.
At the end of the day, Frieder was (and is) a pretty zany and extreme guy. Strange, frenetic, pick your favorite adjective.
At the time, Michigan didn't pay the basketball coaches very well so I'm sure the money had something to do with it. It is also true that Bo and Frieder didn't get along very well (they just had different ways of dealing with things such as recruiting and discipline) so I'm sure it was attractive to Frieder to leave Bo's shadow and venture to the more attractive West Coast destinations of the Pac-10 Conference. He once made a comment about how going to LA and San Francisco was better than West Lafayette and Champaign (I am paraphrasing this is not an exact quote).
Frieder definitely loved MIchigan and still does but he got caught between a rock and a hard place.
To take a job on the eve of the NCAA tournament is a dick move. Not just to the school, but to the players and incoming recruits.
March 15th, 2015 at 11:56 PM ^
That's what I was thinking.
March 16th, 2015 at 12:45 AM ^
Et tu, Brute?
Neither of these things were ever uttered during that time. You can thank Plutarch and Shakespeare for the garnishment of the event.
And we can thank Mr. Lemon for this garnishment of Caesar (salad):
ar
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?
Would you trade that galvanizing period of time and trade it, take down the Championship banner? What happened in 1989 does not translate unto what happened in 2008. We cherish "Those who stay' and want to hand off the "Michigan Man" statement, they were spoken by the same man who is the embodiment of our Athletics from 1969 into eternity. Picking and choosing what is to be said and what not is to be said is the reflection of our administrative leadership for the past 8 (plus) years.
ASU paid a bunch more. Michigan did not pay its coaches well back then. Especially Basketball. It was supposed to be enough just for the glory of coaching Michigan. Something like that. Orr left too in his career prime.
When you look at what Frieder was making at the time he was freed of his obligations to Michigan basketball, you get an idea of how far coaches' pay - but more importantly Big Ten coaches' pay- has come. At the time, I think Frieder made just north of $90,000 and he left for nearly double that as I recall. By the time he left the position at ASU, I think he was making nearly $1 million per year.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Bo was also quoted as saying he did not like all the guys hanging around the program that he thought were shady. The Ed Martin types, I suppose. He thought Frieder played a little too fast and loose for his taste.
Had Bo stayed on as AD we may never had had the scandal.
The shady stuff probably didn't start when Steve Fisher became coach. Nothing was proven, but as a student at the time, I heard quite a few people talking about possible improper benefits for players. This was before the Fab Five came to campus.
To contrast, I never heard anything like that about the football program or any other athletic program at Michigan (aside from the baseball program selling scandal).
A combination of things. ASU had already tried to hire him before, it was more money, and also the fact that Bo had just become AD. Frieder and Bo didn't get along, to say the least, and there was some thought that Bo knew what was going on behind the scenes and didn't much like it. Frieder's teams weren't necessarily known for being squeaky clean--the common storyline being guys with expensive jackets and clothes and cars that were way too nice for a college kid. Frieder wasn't going to be around forever.
Basically, Frieder saw the writing on the wall, and more importantly, the zeroes on the check, and decided it was time to run for the desert.
And, really, if you saw the look on Bo's face after the championship when Musburger fished for him to name Fisher the head coach then and there, you'd know that Bo didn't much want to hire Steve Fisher, either. His hand was forced.
Interesting counterfactual history question: What happens if Rumeal misses the free throws, Bo doesn't have to hire Fisher, and he brings someone else to build on the stacked program Michigan already had? No Fab Five, no Ed Martin scandal, but that's not to say Michigan couldn't have continued on a winning trajectory with much better stability and eventually won a championship.
No Fab Five = Far fewer rappers wearing Michigan basketball jerseys in 90's music videos...and that's just something that I'm not okay with.
Like they say....cocaine's a hellofa drug.
Bando's absolutely correct. While a student in 1990 and later, several people told me the basketball players on Frieder's teams were "hooked up" with cars. It wasn't much of a secret on campus.