Three and Out (14 page)

Rodriguez came off well. “I'm tickled to death to be standing here,” he said. “It was the most difficult decision I've made in my professional career.”

When asked about the decision to leave West Virginia, he was politic: “It was just the opportunity. It was time.”

When asked how he felt about being Michigan's third choice—reflecting the common perception that Schiano
and
Les Miles had been offered the job—Rodriguez joked, “I was probably Rita's third choice, too!”

A smart reporter asked him how his spread offense would work at Michigan. Rodriguez replied, “If you want to know our system or philosophy, if you've watched us over the years, that's what you'll see. We're going to do what we've done. That's the only thing we know.” But he added, “I know we have the ability to adapt our schemes to our personnel,” which just about every coach who brings a different system to a program feels compelled to say, and which invariably sets up a false expectation, because you can adapt any system only so much.

When someone asked him about the anger brewing behind him in Morgantown, Rodriguez referred to a scene in
The Lion King
, which he had watched with his kids, in which a monkey hits a lion over the head and the surprised lion says, “‘What'd you do that for?' and the monkey says, ‘It's in the past!'”

Rodriguez—who naturally had very strong feelings about the damaging statements being made about him back in West Virginia—felt he was taking the high road and being gracious. The line got a laugh, but if you followed the metaphor, he had just portrayed himself as the guilty party. The actual Rodriguez, in contrast, firmly believed his actions had been completely justified. Rodriguez, the media was learning, was more open, direct, and entertaining than his famously button-downed predecessor, but he lacked Carr's discipline and precision, too.

He'd never before needed to learn that lesson, and no one in Ann Arbor was prepared to teach him.

That became more obvious when he was tossed the most important question of his first day on the job: Do you have to be a Michigan Man to be the Michigan football coach? Rodriguez repeated the question—clearly one he had not considered before—then said, “Gosh, I hope not. They hired me!”

He navigated the issue of Michigan's weighty heritage like a man teetering on a high wire. “I think you have to have great respect for the tradition. I know a little bit about the tradition. I'm studying it.” He gave a courteous nod to Lloyd Carr—“I'm excited about following a legend”—then offered three predictions: “I think [the] transition will be relatively smooth because of all the things you already have in place”; “I'm just going to be the way I am”; and “I will plan to retire here.” Only one of those would come true.

The takeaway for most fans was this: After a train wreck of a coaching search, in which they were disappointed that Michigan hadn't hired Les Miles, the Wolverines were lucky to land one of the best young coaches out there, who seemed to be a sincere and genuinely likable guy.

But if you watched and listened carefully, you could detect trouble ahead. Coleman had not attended the conference. Martin had, and mentioned the Yost connection, but with little sense for public relations had not staged the event with former coaches and players to show support and continuity, nor had he prepared Rodriguez for the predictable questions.

In short, Martin and Rodriguez missed their lines.

To appeal to the Michigan blue bloods, Rodriguez could have started his answer by noting that Michigan's three greatest coaches—Fielding Yost, Fritz Crisler, and Bo Schembechler—had been outsiders, too, and the first of those had grown up just ten minutes from Rodriguez's hometown.

He could have mentioned that he had learned about “The Victors,” the Big House, the winged helmet, and the banner at the knee of his coach and mentor, Don Nehlen, who had learned the value of Michigan tradition from Schembechler himself. In fact, that's what inspired Rodriguez to put up Bo's famous
THOSE WHO STAY WILL BE CHAMPIONS
sign at Glenville State. True, he could have concluded, he wasn't a Michigan Man, but he knew how special that was and sincerely hoped to become one.

And a “Go Blue!” at the end would have been a nice touch.

Rodriguez could have said all those things because they were all true, and he knew most of them off the top of his head. He didn't need a script. But he didn't say any of those things, leaving doubts about his knowledge of Michigan traditions and his dedication to protecting them. That vital vacuum of information—
who is this new guy?
—would be filled by the people in Morgantown and the media, who did not necessarily have the new coach's best interests in mind.

As the saying goes, you have only one chance to make a first impression. Studies have repeatedly shown that, after we form our initial opinions of someone, we are surprisingly reluctant to change them. Rodriguez hadn't blown the press conference. Far from it. But he hadn't blown it out of the water, either, as he readily could have, while Michigan missed a perfect chance to pass the torch with a choreographed bit of pageantry.

This day marked the first of many that would shrink Rodriguez's safety net until it would be reduced solely to the number of wins he could produce.

*   *   *

In 2011, I asked
Detroit Free Press
columnist Michael Rosenberg if he felt he had any bias against Rich Rodriguez. “I never had personal feelings for Rodriguez one way or the other,” he said. The column he wrote about Rodriguez's hiring supports his claim.

“Michigan hired a great football coach Sunday. Not a good one, like Greg Schiano. Not a very good one, like Les Miles. A great one … For the Michigan football fan who has complained incessantly for the last ten years, Rodriguez might as well show up at this morning's news conference dressed in wrapping paper and a bow.”

The column laid out the pros and the potential cons of the hire in an evenhanded manner—very presciently, in many ways—but his private comments that day suggest a different mind-set.

After Rodriguez's first press conference, Jim Brandstatter, a former lineman turned Michigan color man and one of Schembechler's closest friends, walked out to the parking lot with Rosenberg, when the columnist declared, “I don't like that guy. I don't think he belongs here.”

Brandstatter wasn't sure why Rosenberg was so convinced and told him he should at least give the guy a chance. But he went away certain that Rosenberg's mind, at least, was already made up.

Before Martin had hired Rodriguez, just about everyone who followed Michigan football was already apoplectic. They care deeply about the program, after all. It's not a stretch to say many fans feel it represents the very best of their cherished midwestern values, and those who have worn the winged helmet know it will be one of the first things mentioned in their obituaries, no matter what else they do before they die.

All the members of the Michigan family had trusted Bo Schembechler and his heirs to protect it. One fan, whose dad had died young, went so far as to write the AD that “Michigan football is my father.” To see the succession handled so carelessly created anxiety and even animosity among the fans, the alums, and especially the former players, who'd done the work to make the program what it was.

Just about every faction was upset, including those devoted to Lloyd Carr, Ron English, and Les Miles. Mary Sue Coleman, the regents, and the athletic department staffers weren't happy, either. People were angry that their favorite candidate didn't get the consideration they felt he was due, and they were angry with each other, too. They all had one thing in common, however: Fairly or not, they were all mad at Bill Martin, who would never again have the full support of any of those constituencies. Whatever ill will Martin had already generated among the Michigan Men and the media was sure to affect the head coach he had just hired.

In fact, a few months later, Rosenberg confessed to several U-M employers his feelings about the athletic director. His comment to one was typical when he said, “word for word, that he hated Bill Martin because he'd lied to him, and he was going to get him run out of his job.”

The faster Rodriguez failed, many reasoned, the sooner Martin would have to leave, too. To this faction, Rodriguez was just collateral damage—and so were the players.

*   *   *

Some started leaving immediately. But it turns out the departures might not have been as spontaneous as they first appeared.

After Rodriguez's press conference accepting the Michigan job on Monday, December 17, he flew back to Morgantown to close out his business there. Before he returned a few days later, Lloyd Carr suddenly called a team meeting for his players in the team room on either Tuesday or Wednesday morning. According to five players there, Carr told them he knew some had come to Ann Arbor to play for him, and some to play for Michigan. “But,” he said, “you're here to play for Michigan.”

“Of course,” one player said, “every coach has to say that.”

But not every departing coach has to say what Carr said next. He told them he wanted them all to be happy, and he recognized not everyone would want to go through the coaching change to come. So, he said, if any of them wanted to transfer, he would sign the form, since it requires a player's current coach's signature.

On its face, it seems like a simple, generous offer to look out for people he cared about—and, in fairness, that was probably part of his motive. (Carr did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.) But it was also interpreted by many of the players as a vote of no confidence in his successor before Rodriguez had conducted a single team meeting, a single workout, a single practice, yelled or sworn at a single player, or coached a single game. It was an invitation from Carr, someone they knew, admired, and looked to for direction—the man who had recruited them and promised their parents he would look out for them like a father—to execute a preemptive bailout, to transfer, to jump to the NFL, or simply to not come back for a fifth year.

Certainly that's how Michigan's former director of compliance, Judy Van Horn, read the gesture. When former director of operations Scott Draper called over to Compliance as soon as the players left the meeting—to give them a heads-up that a line of players might be asking for their transfer papers in a few minutes, and that Carr was prepared to sign all of them—the compliance officer alerted Van Horn. She told Martin of Carr's offer and said, “Bill, we just can't let this happen. It could be a mass exodus.”

Van Horn then called Rodriguez. As Van Horn recalled, “Rich said, ‘If a player wants to go, I don't want to make him stay. But I don't want Michigan to give any player a release until I've had a chance to talk with him.'”

That seemed fair, even generous, but Van Horn called the Big Ten office to make sure it would not be a violation of league rules. The Big Ten assured her Rodriguez's request was allowable, because he was not keeping anyone from transferring who wanted to. Satisfied, Van Horn passed on Rodriguez's response to Scott Draper, who replied, “But Lloyd won't like that.” The day raised more questions than answers, but no one questioned Draper's devotion to Carr. (Draper declined to be interviewed.)

Carr's feelings aside, that was the policy created that day: Any player who wanted to transfer could do so, provided they talked with the new coach first. But even that low bar was too high for some players, including Ryan Mallett, who only spoke with Rodriguez on the phone before leaving Ann Arbor.

*   *   *

There are about three dozen people who worked directly for both Carr and Rodriguez and know them well. Almost every single one of them told me, at one point, “Lloyd never liked Rich.”

In many ways, their styles could not be more different. Carr came across as professorial, while Rodriguez was more comfortable as a good ol' boy. Carr was very private, even closed off. Rodriguez was open and outgoing. As early as the Capital One Bowl, one athletic department staffer observed, “If those two were driving across the country together and couldn't talk about family or football, they wouldn't have anything to say to each other for three thousand miles.”

Carr was also no fan of the spread offense, which had tormented his team many times. In the last few years of Carr's tenure, he and his staff sponsored a fantasy camp to benefit the children's hospital. In 2007, a camper asked one of Carr's assistants if they would learn about the spread offense. “The spread offense?” the assistant spat. “That's Communist football!”

Whatever friction might have existed between the two, it is simply impossible to square Carr's making an unsolicited call to Rich Rodriguez to sell him on Michigan, and telling Bill Martin that Rodriguez might be a good candidate, followed almost immediately by his offer to help any of his players transfer. It's even harder to square those actions with his new role as Michigan's associate athletic director, whose job it is to protect and promote the Michigan athletic department, football above all.

*   *   *

When Rodriguez returned to West Virginia to pack up his office and persuade his assistant coaches to join him, all of them seemed ready to go, but they were still curious to see who would succeed Rodriguez as the Mountaineers' next head coach. Rodriguez had recommended offensive coordinator Calvin Magee for the post, even though he wanted Magee to lead his offense in Ann Arbor.

“He was ready,” Rodriguez said, “and you can't deny him his chance.” But when an administrator told Magee the West Virginia fans might not accept an African-American head coach, Magee decided not to press the issue.

“If that was the case,” Magee told me, “I figure it's better to know it and move on than wait around for something that's never going to happen.”