The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? governor from Arkansas.' "I remember, I took a commercial over to show the President, as a cour- tesy, to let him know what the cam- paign was running. It was 4:30 or 5 in the afternoon, and we went to the little room off the Oval Office." Even then, the President sensed a bit of a foreshadowing of what was to come. "He looked at the commercial and said, 'That's fine,'" Wilhite noted. "We got to talking, and he was ruminating. He basically said that all Presidents have a mixture of plusses and minuses, but he also believed the American peo- ple would, in the end, ask him back for another term. This wasn't over- confidence or braggadocio, he truly believed his 35 years of service to the country would win out in November." History turns as it will, but Wilhite will never forget those heady days deeply involved in political cam- paigns. He engages in a little rumina- tion himself, harkening back to losses that stung worse than coming out on the short side of a football game, but can't imagine not having done it, just the same. "The stakes were high, no doubt," he said. "The fact is, we didn't win, either time. Yet if there were ever a time when the journey was almost as worthwhile as the destination, it was 1976 and 1992. Almost. "You can see history in the mak- ing, and be a part of it, because you're lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. In my case, a lot of that luck was due to my time at the Univer- sity of Michigan." Wilhite has been many, many places. Sydney and Chicago, with Foote, Cone & Belding (1969-75); New York, with McCann-Erickson (1975-77) and Ammirati & Puris (1977-83), where he was executive vice president and chief operating officer; and St. Louis, as chairman and managing director of DMB&B (1985-88). He served as president and North American vice-chairman of D'Arcy, Masius Benton & Bowles, Inc., from 1988-96, and a managing partner and board director for CFI Group World- wide L.L.C., a consulting firm with headquarters in Ann Arbor. Today, he is chairman of the board of Carrols Corporation, Burger King's largest franchisee with 550 stores in the east- ern United States. Success in life obviously isn't de- pendent upon a college football ca- reer, Wilhite cautioned. At the same time, a certain something roiled through the ranks of the Wolverines from that era, and carried on into fu- ture efforts. "Each of the three years I played at Michigan, I saw frequent examples of student-athletes who matured beyond expectations both on the field and off," he said. "Others simply lived up to their promise. "While I've never done it, I suspect if you polled them, each would give significant credit to their years at U-M. Count me in that group. A Michigan degree accompanied by a personally satisfying career is a double-barreled life advantage which I hope accrues to all future generations of Michigan student-athletes." ❑