November
17, 2011
Dear Bo,
You
have no idea who I am and you probably wouldn't care much beyond the fact that
I am a Michigan alum and football fan.
You'd probably throw me a cocked eyebrow and a headshake when you heard
that I am a blogger, because I'm one of those damn media types, and what's
worse, I'm pretending to be a media type.
But then you'd probably laugh and move on to whatever it was you were
planning to do next. This is my best
guess based on what I have been told about you and from what I have read. But I hope you understand that in writing
this letter to you, or perhaps moreover, to your spirit, I'm trying to make
sense of a world that's changed so much in the five years since you left.
There
are those who claimed that your passing was a curse, that your death the day
before the #1 Ohio State/#2 Michigan "Game of the Century" was
operatic in nature, but ultimately a harbinger.
That your passing took the last bit out of Lloyd's will to give it his
all, that it cost us a win in the Rose Bowl, and then that led to the
Appalachian State disaster and the Oregon nightmare. But that's too simple, too easy. Curses are the name we give to a series of
unfortunate events that can easily be better explained by logic and
investigation and ultimately faulting ourselves. Since we do not want to do that, we're
cursed. It absolves us of any
guilt. And yet, I cannot help to believe
that maybe there is something here. Not
the curse, but the loss of the anchor.
It is said when Pericles died during the Peloponnesian War, a certain
way of thinking died and it ultimately cost the Athenians their golden
age. While you had been retired for more
than a quarter century before your passing, you were still the pater familias because you had never really
gone away. You'd left the family
business in the capable hands of the second son, not the one you envisioned,
but one who was working hard to uphold the good name of the business. And then all hell broke loose.
I'm not
going to rehash the last five years for you, because they're a mess and because
Bacon did a great job covering it, as I am sure you would have suspected. (He keeps doing an impression of you around
these parts, and it's pretty spot on. I'm
assuming you haven't seen it because you don't get Big Ten Network where you
are. I presume this is because Mark
Silverman is only so good.) But the
reality is, we're in a new place now, kind of like where you were when you got
here in 1968, except the landscape is even more high pressure, even more
potentially toxic, even more self-immalatory.
In the past year alone, two "successful" Big Ten coaches saw
their tenures end, both because they essentially didn't tell someone something
they were bound, either by rules or by law, to tell. It's a different world than the one you left
Bo, Twitter alone would make you throw a headset. This weekend, instead of playing Ohio State
the weekend before Thanksgiving, Michigan now plays Nebraska in a Big Ten Legends
Division game trying to keep pace with Michigan State, because the season now
stretches to Thanksgiving weekend, Nebraska's now in the Big Ten, there are two
insanely named divisions, and there's going to be a Big Ten championship game,
and the Spartans may be playing in it. I'm comfortable in saying I'm pretty sure you would not approve of any of those things.
All of
that said, the world, both inside college football and beyond, still has a lot
of you in it. Start in Baton Rouge,
where one of your former players is running the #1 team in the country and
doing it pretty much as a slightly crazier version of you. Or look at the work that Dr. Billy
Taylor is still doing with his expanded Get Back Up Foundation, helping to
treat addicts and put them on the road to recovery. Look in the locker room, where Jon Falk's
still there, still doing his thing better than anyone (and telling us some great stories about you.) Or look up at U of M
Hospital, where your Heart of a Champion Resarch Fund is rolling along.
Or simply upon State Street, whereanother of your former players is running the Michigan Athletic Department,
following in the grand tradition on Canham's marketing prowess with a low-key
but ever present ferocity and a number of 21st century twists. These are just a few of the most prominent
examples of your former players doing great things, but that wouldn't surprise
you. It's what Michigan men do.
There's
not a statue of you at Michigan Stadium Bo, but you know that's not how
Michigan does things. But in borrowing
the words which inspired Michigan's state motto, "If you seek his
monument, look around," you don't need a statue. Your monument is in the phrases "Those
Who Stay Will Be Champions." and "The Team. The Team. The Team."
and, unfortunate as it might be, "A Michigan man will coach Michigan." Your monument is the fact that the Big Ten
Coach of the Year trophy is named for both Woody and yourself. Your monument is our program, as you would
remind us, a link in the chain from Yost to Kipke to Crisler to Oosterbaan to
Bump to you down to Mo and Lloyd and yes, even RichRod, and now Brady. Your monument is in our memories of you, five
years gone, but not forgotten.
We've
been warned in the past week about the dangers of any one coach having too much
power; we can see the stark reminders of investing too much in a football coach
as anything more than a football coach. So maybe you left at the right moment,
maybe the plan is not ours to question, because maybe you just weren't made for
these times. But that doesn't mean we
can't miss you.
My
thanks to you,
1 comment:
Lovely, Craig.
Bo: You're been and are sorely missed. When you left, Michigan lost its way and got off track. I'm confident that with two of your disciples firmly in charge, things are back to where they ought to be and they have you as their guidestar to thank for that.
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