First-year head coach Chaka Daley — who guided his alma mater, Providence, to a 72-47-21 record and five NCAA Tournament appearances in
seven seasons — has worked at changing the culture of the U-M program in an effort to create a consistent national contender. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS
After A Tough Non-Conference Slate, The Wolverines Are Ready To Compete For A Big Ten Title
THE DALEY ERA BEGINS
ne of the greatest program builders in collegiate sports history, Howard Schnel- lenberger inherited football teams at Miami and Louisville that were on the brink of dissolution and built them into teams to be reckoned with.
O BY ANDY REID
He won a national championship in his last year with the Hurricanes in 1983, and he took over a program
78 THE WOLVERINE OCTOBER 2012
at Louisville that was considering a move to Division I-AA and built a team that crushed Alabama 34-7 in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl. He knows that in order to get to the top, you have to start at the base. "For every year of greatness, there is usually three years of preparation," he once said. "We have to go through the battlefields of Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Louisville to get to where we need to go. We'll take ca-
sualties and bloodlettings along the way, but we'll get there faster than if we take the high road."
The Michigan men's soccer pro- gram is nowhere near the level of disrepair as those program were when Schnellenberger first took over. The Wolverines already have a solid foundation, just two years removed from a College Cup (soccer's Final Four) appearance in the NCAA Tour- nament and with immaculate facili-
