The Wolverine

August 2012

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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RIGHT-HAND MAN A Perfect Match With Longtime Friend John Beilein Veteran Basketball Assistant Jeff Meyer Is J in Lynchburg, Va., for 14 years and was still only 40 years old, one of the better respected young coaches in the country when he and Michigan's future head coach first crossed paths in October 1994 during a coaches' summit in Charlotte, N.C. Life at the time was great for eff Meyer was a young head coach the first time he met John Beilein. He had already been on the job at Liberty University BY CHRIS BALAS both. Meyer's team was coming off its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, a No. 16 seed that led No. 1 seed North Carolina with 10 minutes to go before falling. Beilein's Canisius team had just captured its first of what would be two MAAC Tournament titles under the coach's watch. Those who knew them both would have said the two were destined to be friends. They shared the same principles, were men of high integ- rity with great basketball minds and had too much in common not to be — with only one exception, Beilein was quick to note recently. "Jeff 's more of an American League fan," he quipped. "I'm more a National League guy." It was pure happenstance, though, that led to their first meeting. "As fate would have it, in between sessions at the summit I went down to work out, and Coach Beilein went down to work out," Meyer recalled. "We were riding bikes next to each other. Both of us had had relative success … so we met, spent time talking about some things they were doing with offense, more about some things I was doing with our defense." Meyer wouldn't have foreseen During his 35-year tenure in college basketball, Meyer has registered a 611-398 overall record (.605 winning percentage) and been to 11 NCAA Tournaments (including one Final Four and one Sweet 16). PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS working side by side with Beilein at the time. It would be 14 years, in fact, before he'd become part of his friend's staff at Michigan, but a ca- reer that started on a whim and a short résumé, and built on hard work and developed relationships, was AUGUST 2012 THE WOLVERINE 49

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