The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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68 THE WOLVERINE DECEMBER 2020 WHERE ARE THEY NOW? the South Quad dormitory at U-M left Everitt potentially losing his grip on an expected starting spot. TheWolverine.com's resident com- mentator, Doug Skene, a linemate of Everitt, stood squirting a water bottle into a dorm room inhabited by women on a co-ed hallway. Everitt placed his hand on the door frame. "A girl slammed the door on my four fingers," Everitt recounted. "The doors in South Quad are medieval — they're like 1,000-pound doors. Two of my fingernails fell off onto the floor, immediately, and it shattered all of my fingertips. It was crazy. "It was my right hand, and I was just running up and down the hall- way, holding onto my wrist, yelling and cursing. An old football player, Russell Davis, was head of security at South Quad. They sent him up, and he comes up in the hallway, takes one look, and passes out in the hallway. "I'm squirting blood all over the hallway. It was gnarly. They had to make metal fingernails out of tinfoil to slide in where my fingernails were, so the skin wouldn't grow over." A doctor at the hospital asked if someone possessed the severed fin- gernails. Skene dutifully reported that yes, they were in his pocket. Former Florida All-American cen- ter Phil Bromley, who still heads Michigan's video staff, told Everitt he could still play in the spring game. Everitt recounted: "He's like, 'Dude, you can do this!' I'm like, 'There's no way!' And he says, 'Dude, you want to endear yourself to this coaching staff, then you play in this game. "Schmitty [trainer Paul Schmidt] put a thing that looked like a frickin' Dustbuster on my right arm, to cover my right hand," Everitt said. "I snapped lefty in the spring game." Years later, former assistant coach Tirrel Burton noted the effort left an indelible mark. "I played terrible," Everitt said. "But looking back on it, I think that endeared me to Bo and [offensive line coach Jerry] Hanlon right off the bat, wanting to play through pain. Coach Burton, before he died, told me, 'Bo said you were one of his fa- vorite linemen, because of that spring game. You played with a mangled hand. You played horrible, dammit, but you played.' "That brought a tear to my eye. Burton was like 90 when he told me that." The 263-pound offensive lineman desperately wanted to be listed at 280 in the team's press guide that year. He prepped accordingly, be- fore U-M's fall mile-and-a-half run, weigh-ins and media guide photos. "I drank 17 pounds of water and weighed in at 280," he said. "You look, I'm 280 in the press guide! I was not even close to 280. I played that first year at 265. "I had to go from there to run the mile and a half. I passed my mile and a half, but I threw up, just straight water, for the last two laps. I was just throwing up all over myself — pretty funny." He did start every game for the 10-2 Big Ten champions in 1989, on what he termed a "badass line" guided by the best in the business, according to Everitt. "I was lucky to have one of the best X's and O's guys that ever coached in Jerry Hanlon," he said. "Then, in- side, guards and tackles, we had Les Miles. I don't know if it gets better than that." It got worse in 1990. Everitt suf- fered a broken foot and missed five games. "On a frickin' extra point ver- sus Maryland," Everitt recalled. "I snapped the ball, and I don't even think I got hit. It was the last year of that turf field. They overloaded one side, so I had to go over. I leaned one way, got the foot caught in the turf, torqued it and snapped all four bones halfway up my foot. "That sucked. That was brutal." He could only long-snap against Ohio State that year, but it mattered. "I just remember them pulling me out and telling me I wasn't starting," Everitt said. "I was like suicidal on the sidelines. It was rough. But I was the snapper, so I snapped that last field goal, when we beat them, 16-13. I did play a part, but …" He recovered in the weeks that fol- lowed, returning to an offensive line named Gator Bowl MVP following Michigan's 35-3 romp past Ole Miss. "They were world beaters," Ever- itt recalled of the hype. "Everybody thought we were in trouble, and their defense were monsters … that was a fun game." Everyone remembers Desmond Howard's iconic diving catch in Michigan's 24-14 win over Notre Dame in 1991. Few recall Everitt cel- ebrating it with a shattered jaw at University of Michigan Hospital. Everitt had been dominating an All-American Irish lineman in the game, but took one on the chin from Notre Dame's undersized linebacker Pete Bercich. "It was great," Everitt said. "And then all of a sudden, it wasn't. He got under me one time, and just rattled my cage. My helmet went up, and Everitt was selected in the first round (14th overall) of the 1993 NFL Draft and went on to play eight seasons for four franchises, starting 98 times in 103 games played. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY