From: saunders@luther.che.wisc.edu (Brian E. Saunders)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
Subject: The Wonderful Bo Schembechler
Keywords: rose, heart, michigan, woody
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:51:52 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Madison


          "Bo Schembechler:  The Gentleman's Gentleman,
           and a hell of a bowl coach, to boot!"

Well, there hasn't been a lot of Bo Schembechler talk on the net lately,
and I though it was high time that somebody talk about this great pillar of
a man, a man without whom college football would not be what it is today.

To see why Bo is such a great man, we need only to look back at his
beginning days in coaching, where he was an assistant under the great Woody
Hayes at Miami of Ohio.  Woody Hayes (who is also an inspiration to
Indiana's basketball coach, Bobby Knight) was the epitome of
competitiveness and sportsmanship in college athletics.  Sure, many people
point to the Clemson incident (where he decked a taunting Clemson Tiger
player) as an example of Woody's typical behavior, but what they don't
realize is that Woody was simply trying to teach the kid an important
lesson about being considerate of other's feelings.  As usual, he was
thinking about the player's welfare.  Anyway, this approach to coaching
translated directly down to Bo.

Let's look at Bo's record as a coach.  In his 21 seasons at Michigan, he
went to the Rose Bowl a remarkable 9 times, and also went to 7 other bowl
games.  In the years he didn't go to bowl games, his record was a combined
49-5-1.  The problem was that before 1975, the Big 10 did not let its teams
go to any bowl game but the Rose, and they used to vote for the Rose Bowl
representative, which they didn't like to be a "repeat".  In all likelihood,
Bo would have gone to bowl games in each of his 21 years as a coach if
things were the way they are today.  That is a record which is unparalleled
in the history of college football, even by Bear Bryant.

Just as amazing are all the times that Bo's Michigan teams won the Big 10,
possibly the premier football conference in the country.  This is quite
incredible when you consider all the talent Bo had to play week in and week
out.  Imagine having to play against your former mentor at Ohio State one
week (Woody Hayes) and then go to West Lafayette to face Mark Herrmann. 
This, however, is just the type of thing Bo did every year, and he still
managed the success he did.  His legacy still lives on in the Michigan
program, as his former assistant Gary Moeller has one the Big 10 once
outright and once in tie.  Certainly these feats are in part due to the
residual spirit of Bo, as well as his recruiting.

And speaking of recruiting, we have to honor Bo for developing one of the
most powerful recruiting machines that college football has ever seen.
Look at all the Cleveland area players who ended up going to Michigan,
despite being from the state of Ohio.  In fact, Bo was able to snatch many
talented players in the midwest away from their home school, and also
attracted some of the best talent from outside the midwest.  Many people
accuse Bo of encourage his assistant coaches to use a technique known as
"negative recruiting", where the coaches would find out what other schools
their prospect was interested in, and then criticize their football
programs to the point that the prospect would see that Michigan was his
only option.  That was not true.  Bo was simply telling it like it was,
which is a trait he used throughout his coaching career and has beyond.

I would be remiss if I did not talk about all the hurdles Bo had to leap
with respect to his health.  In his first season, Bo had a heart attack
right before his first Rose Bowl, which he barely lost.  Before the Hall of
Fame Bowl in 1988, Bo had to have a triple-bypass operation.  Only a man of
Bo's character would come back after those problems and continue to be the
great coach that he was.  His heart physically may have been weak, but let
me tell you, his heart was bigger than anybody's when it came to the love
of college football.

Many people will laugh at this and point to Bo's shoddy 5-11 bowl game
record, including a 2-7 in the Rose Bowl.  Well, Bo didn't do well in these
games, but it just went to show that he believed there was more to football
than winning.  Those losses taught his players a valuable lesson in life -
that you can't always win.  One wonders if he lost some of those games on
purpose.  It should also be noted that all of those bowl losses were close
games, and that in many cases they were losses to the effective "home"
teams, e.g. USC and UCLA at the Rose Bowl.  Bo never did win the national
championship (a mythical title, whereas a playoff system may have lead to a
few Michigan titles), but he will easily be remembered as the best coach
who didn't.  Bo could have darted for the professional ranks, to make the
quick money and fame.  But, he didn't, for reasons which I will mention
very soon.

I've yet to mention possibly the best asset Bo had - developing 18-year old
kids into fine young men.  Probably the best example of that is the
excellent Monday Night Football color commentator for ABC, Dan Deirdorf.
Dan had a highly successful career in the NFL as an all-pro lineman, but as
most lineman do, he got too injured to play after a while.  He could have
folded his tent, gone back to his home town, and pumped gas, but Dan worked
hard in the trenches as an announcer for radio and television.  Now he's
possibly the best announcer on TV, with a penchant for telling the story
like it is.  There's also many examples of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and
even football coaches who all benefited from their time at Michigan under
Bo.

Finally, I should comment on Bo's current job as a color commentator.  He's
a lot like Deirdorf for telling the story straight, which is a trait that
Dan positively picked up from Coach Schembechler.  Who else would valiantly
stand up for their former program like Bo did, uttering many times during
conversations about who would win the national championship, "You have to
watch for Michigan."  When Michigan was getting throttled by Florida State,
Bo could have whined about the academic credentials of the Seminole
players, but he bit his tongue.  A gentleman's gentleman.
-- 

Brian E. Saunders			saunders@luther.che.wisc.edu