The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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the stage perfectly. "It helps you be on top of your game," Golder said of the venue. "I've been watching the Big Ten and NCAA championships. I've con- cluded the best formula for having a great championship meet is to host it. It always seems to bring out the best out of whoever is hosting. It's very rare that somebody hosts and they don't do a good job." Golder was all too aware, though, that repeats don't come easily. He brought back a loaded roster after his first national championship and felt like the Wolverines could do it again in 2000. He wound up waiting 11 years be- fore feeling that magic again. This season, Golder admitted, he began getting a sense of his team's destiny at the time of the Big Ten championships. The Wolverines faced some adversity there, with ju- nior Stacey Ervin injuring himself on the very first event. That obviously wasn't a good sign, but the Wolverines' response turned heads, including Golder's. "I was subbing on a couple of events," he recalled. "As a coach, you're so focused on what the guys within your team are doing, you're not looking up at the scoreboard very much. "I didn't know how much we were winning by. I had a feeling we were winning, but when we had Stacey go down, and then we ended up beating the second-place team, which was Ohio State, by seven points. That's when it really sunk in to me. This is a