The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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34 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW "From there on, as far as the team went, as hard as we all tried to keep our focus, it was damned near impossible," Carr explained. "It was a circus. We had helicopters … we weren't a focused team. "I knew, the minute I heard that he had died, that keeping the focus on that game was going to be really hard. Yet I also knew we were going to play a great football team … "I just told them that Coach Schembechler had passed away. I said, 'We all loved that man, but we have a job to do. We've got to keep our composure and our minds on this game. That isn't going to be easy.'" It's not easy to disguise a caravan of team buses heading south for Columbus. It crosses the border into Ohio and immediately at- tracts salutes of all sorts. That's typical. The respect shown for Michigan during the hours leading up to the contest is not. Falk strode toward an iron gate at Ohio Stadium, when a Detroit television reporter put a microphone in his face, asking him to comment about Schembechler's death. Up to that point, Ohio State fans and students were chanting and making a host of unsa- vory remarks. The equipment man, whom Schembechler brought to Ann Arbor in 1974, recounted for the cameras the story of how his mother assured him the coach would take care of him if he ventured north out of Ohio. Falk confirmed she was right. "Bo Schembechler took care of me for 34 years here," Falk recalled saying. "It's something I'll never forget, my whole life. "Then I started crying. As soon as I started crying, the people stopped talking. They stopped jabbing Michigan. Most every one of them came over and shook my hand and said, 'We're sorry for your loss.'" Spielman observed: "The series would do well if everybody treated it like Bo and Woody, where they desperately wanted to beat each other, but they had so much respect for each other. "That's the ultimate sign of competition, where you want to beat somebody so bad, but when a game was over, you could look that person in the eyes and genuinely feel respect and honor for that person." The Wolverines couldn't afford to feel numb or look at anything through tear-al- tered vision. But such a level of focus was, again, not easily attained. "When the team got there, it was a very somber locker room," Falk recalled. "Lloyd was very, very somber. He tried to not let the loss of Bo affect the game, but it's an awful tough thing to do. "Bo had been around the building all the time, and most of the players knew Bo. It was a hard time." The Pursuit Of Perfection Carr arrived at Michigan in 1980, taking over as defensive backs coach for Jack Har- baugh. In 1979, the Wolverines experienced a most painful slide at the end of the sea- son. They entered a game at Purdue 8-1 and ranked No. 10 in the nation. The Wolverines lost that game, 24-21, then dropped the following two in equally gut- wrenching fashion — 18-15 to Ohio State and 17-15 to North Carolina in the Gator Bowl. The downward spiral began with a costly blocked punt. Carr's first coaches meeting involving Schembechler carried a narrow, but intense, focus. "It's all about the punting game," Carr re- called. "He took damned near the whole day to talk about the punt, and that we were never again to have a punt blocked at Michigan." Schembechler assigned every assistant coach a position to instruct on the punt team. "I had the left end," Carr noted, with a smile. "It just spoke to his unconditional be- lief that it was the fundamentals that won the game. We were going to play great defense, run the ball and have a great kicking game." Sometimes, Morris noted, the lessons in- volved toughness and what it takes to over- come. Before passing away on Nov. 17, 2006, Schembechler gave one last impassioned speech to the Michigan football team in advance of their showdown with the top-ranked Buckeyes. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN