The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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JUNE/JULY 2023 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 15 ❱ INSIDE MICHIGAN ATHLETICS FIVE YEARS AGO, 2018: Taylor McLaughlin became a first-team All-American in leading Michigan to a No. 20 fin- ish at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, at Eugene, Ore., on June 8, 2018. McLaughlin posted his best-ever time (49.59) in NCAA competition to take fifth place in the 400-meter hurdles. Making his way through cold and drizzle, McLaughlin joined 10,000-meter winner Ben Flanagan from two days earlier to put 14 points on the board for the Wolverines. That allowed the Wolverines to post a second top-20 finish over the most recent three seasons. McLaughlin also became just the third Wolverine in U-M history to place No. 8 or better in multiple championships. Flanagan said of his national championship-winning effort: "I told Sully [Michigan coach Kevin Sullivan], if everything goes according to plan, I want to be the last guy to make a move. It was so fun out there!" Flanagan posted a career-best 28:34.53, missing Michigan's school record by roughly nine seconds. 10 YEARS AGO, 2013: Fifth-year senior Amanda Ec- cleston nailed down fifth place in the 1,500-meter run to earn first-team All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Cham- pionships in Eugene, Ore., on June 8, 2013. Eccleston lingered toward the back of the pack for much of the race, and she remained between eighth and ninth with less than one-fifth of the race to go. A fierce kick delivered a career-best time of 4:14.56, allowing her to become an All- American at multiple NCAA levels. She earned the NCAA Division II national title only a year earlier, running for Hillsdale College. Eccleston took it up a notch in competition at Michigan, winding up only 1:31 behind national title winner Natalja Piliusina of Oklahoma. Eccleston noted: "I never dreamed that I would be in a Divi- sion I national final. It's been exciting working toward this all year. I knew it was at Hayward Field, so that was a goal of mine to get here. This year has definitely been a learning curve. It's a lot more competitive and a lot more intense in the actual races. Even though I've gotten a lot faster, everyone else has, too. It's made me step up my game and has made me a better runner." 25 YEARS AGO, 1998: Michigan football players worked out as always in June of 1998, just months after fashioning a national championship season. They didn't have Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson and a host of other stalwarts from the run to the title. Still, it wasn't a lack of talent that haunted then-defensive line coach Brady Hoke when he looked back on the 1998 season years later. The Wolverines started 0-2, with lopsided losses to Notre Dame and Syracuse, and Hoke put the blame partly on himself in comments to ESPN. "I didn't coach them hard enough," he said. "Didn't coach them. They assumed they knew how to play the game of football. "I think you make a real mistake, and I did it here in 1998, hav- ing three returning starters back from a national championship team. I didn't do a good job as a coach of sticking with the basics and the progression that you want and an expectation that you need to have. "I promised myself since then I wouldn't do it again." — John Borton THIS MONTH IN MICHIGAN ATHLETICS HISTORY Ben Flanagan captured the 2018 NCAA championship in the 10,000 meters with a career-best time of 28.34.53 at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY