Three and Out (67 page)

After Brandon left, Rodriguez entered the room for the last time.

“I appreciate you guys hanging around. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to stay here, and they feel the same way,” he said, gesturing to Rita and Rhett standing near the door.

“It's not an easy time for anyone,” he said, and paused. “The last couple years I sat in your homes and said I'm going to be your coach. That was the plan. But even though we didn't win every game, I believe the foundation of greatness has been set in this program. What you did in the weight room, the classroom—I've seen your grades from fall semester, you've done well—well, the attitude and work ethic is better than it's ever been. Brighter days are ahead. And I'll be your biggest fan.

“When I start a job, I like to finish it. That's not going to happen. But I'd like to see you all do it.

“Make sure you have my new cell number and my home number, wherever I go. You're going to have to find me to get some of Miss Rita's nacho dip. I'm not gonna mail that shit!

“Some of your families have already called. Tell them I appreciate it and it will take me a couple days to get back to them.”

Rita said a few words—“You have been such great role models for my kids. We will miss you tremendously”—before Rich finished the meeting.

“Everyone wants to judge you on wins and losses, and that's the business we're in,” he said. “But it's a business for us coaches. It's a game for you all.

“I want to tell you how well you represented your university—always with class. I can't tell you how many times the bowl reps said we've been doing this for years, and they never saw a group like you.

“Remember, life's a lot easier if you're a good guy. Doesn't mean it's always fair, doesn't mean things always go the way you want. But being a good guy still matters.

“I'll be around for a little bit. If you ever need anything, holler.”

When he finished, they clapped strongly. Not an ovation, but a sincere thank-you.

*   *   *

After the Rodriguezes left, the juniors went to the front.

“All right, we've been through this before,” David Molk said. “A lot of things had to happen to go 3–9—not because of the coach, but because of the transition. Every guy who had a chance to leave, left. That tore our team apart. We lost starters, backups, you name it. There were only half of us left.

“We're a family. I love all you guys. No matter how much shit I give you—I love you. If we don't stay together, we'll never make it. This program stays together. I don't want to see anyone leaving. If you do, we'll be crappy for three more years.

“I love Coach Rod. He did everything he could. But now it rests on us.”

Van Bergen followed. “Everyone in this room knows we're pretty close to becoming what we want to be.”

“We've got nineteen starters coming back,” J. B. Fitzgerald chimed in.

“This could be special for us,” Van Bergen said. “But only if we all pull in the same direction.”

Like Brandon, the players had also learned a few lessons from 2007.

*   *   *

Outside Rodriguez's office, a thick line of players stretched down the hallway, waiting to say good-bye—plus Brock Mealer, who walked in with the help of two canes.

Rodriguez and his assistants started cleaning out their offices. He discovered how many things you can collect in just three years: souvenir helmets, footballs, framed photos.

Rodriguez and his family came back the next day to finish the job. They began packing a few large boxes, filling them with books of Michigan lore, the painted game ball from his first victory, over Miami of Ohio on September 6, 2008, and the photos of his family. He paused to look at the picture of Rhett running under the banner for the first time, straining to touch it with all his might.

It gave him a wistful smile and made him laugh the smallest of laughs. Then he placed it carefully inside the box, with both hands.

“Rhett, what's our philosophy?”

“What you just told me?”

“Yep.”

“When it's too hard for everyone else, it's just right for us.”

“That's right.”

*   *   *

A week later, with Rodriguez gone, even his supporters didn't have to restrain themselves from speculating about his successor, and the rumor mill went into overdrive.

The most popular candidates, of course, were Jim Harbaugh and Les Miles. According to a well-placed source, becoming Michigan's head coach “was all Jim talked about for the last two years.” But Brandon was late to get to him, so even his offer of $5 million a year—double Rodriguez's salary—was not enough to keep him from taking over the San Francisco 49ers, which didn't even require Harbaugh to move his family. Harbaugh wasn't coming to Ann Arbor.

Brandon then approached Jim's older brother John Harbaugh, head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, about the position. Although John was then making less than Rodriguez, he declined, then signed a three-year contract with Baltimore for $12 million. Brandon went down his list, and offered the job to Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald, who ultimately decided to stay in Evanston after a wealthy NU alum promised to improve Northwestern's outdated facilities.

The one coach who did not receive an offer from Michigan, again, was Les Miles. He had been handled shabbily during the 2007 search, and it appears he wasn't treated much better in 2010, either. All overtures to him were strictly a show designed to appease his supporters. When Rodriguez asked Brandon in December if he already had someone lined up, Brandon denied it but said he would hire Les Miles “over my dead body.” The rest was theater.

If Brady Hoke was a dark horse candidate to most Michigan fans and followers, he wasn't to his former players at the Griese/Hutchinson/Woodson golf outing the previous May. They were unified in supporting him as their favorite. When Dave Brandon took to the podium at the Junge Champions Center on Wednesday, January 12, to present Brady Hoke as Michigan's nineteenth head football coach, they got their wish.

In a crucial introduction, the largely unknown Hoke, clearly well versed in Michigan lore and well coached by the PR-savvy Brandon, hit all the right notes to win over just about everyone. He came across, in the phrase of the day, as the consummate Michigan Man.

“Hoke will be successful,” Bill Dufek said, “because we're not going to do to him what some of those guys did to Rich.”

Brandon, who had learned a few lessons watching the calamitous 2007 transition unfold, would also help his new coach by not releasing Rodriguez until January. Whether it was a factor or not, the late firing had the effect of knocking Rodriguez out of the running for open positions elsewhere, all of which were filled by the Gator Bowl. If Rodriguez had gone to Maryland in December, for example, he would likely have hired some of his assistants, and in turn, players like Denard Robinson would have had an appealing option if they weren't excited about the new coach and his systems—à la Ryan Mallett in 2008.

Brandon made sure Hoke got everyone whom he wanted on his staff. Michigan lured defensive coordinator Greg Mattison from John Harbaugh's Ravens staff with a contract worth $750,000 a year, and incentives that could push it to $900,000—more than three times what Michigan paid Scott Shafer and Greg Robinson.

If Hoke was surprisingly impressive in his introductory press conference, the normally silver-tongued Brandon fell short. He did not name names, but he clearly felt the need to explain why he had not hired the higher-profile coaches who had played under Schembechler: Harbaugh and Miles. He said, “All that glitters is not gold when it comes to some coaches … Sometimes the hype or PR does not match the real person.”

Even in praising Hoke, Brandon could not resist saying, “Unlike some other coaches, it's not about him, it's about his players and his team.

“He doesn't have to learn the words to ‘The Victors.'”

After reaching beyond its famed family for only the fourth time in more than a century, Michigan had officially declared itself: Only a Michigan Man would coach Michigan.

*   *   *

At the spring game in April, Michigan put on its third alumni game. The day attracted record numbers of former players returning to meet the new coach or reunite with an old friend, depending on when they played.

When Angelique Chengalis of the
Detroit News
asked Ryan Van Bergen how it felt to see hundreds of alums returning to support the new coach, he said, “You know, it's just kind of unsettling … It's great that they're back, but it's kind of, where have they been the last two or three years? We've still been wearing the same helmets since they were here.”

Van Bergen would be reprimanded for his comment.

*   *   *

When a team goes to a bowl game, each school is allowed to spend $500 on various gifts for their participants, including rings. In May of 2011, Michigan started sending out the 2011 Gator Bowl rings it had ordered for the players, the coaches, and the staffers who made the trip, even those who had since left, like Scott Draper. It was a custom most schools followed, including West Virginia, which sent the 2008 Fiesta Bowl rings to the coaches and staffers who won the game but had already left for Michigan.

But not all schools. Michigan, for one, decided not to order rings for Rodriguez and the coaches and staffers he had hired, all of whom Michigan had since fired. Only those they considered Michigan Men received rings.

*   *   *

A few months after Rodriguez had been released, I joined Rich and Rita to watch one of Rhett's sixth-grade basketball games at Saline High School, where Raquel was a freshman. They sat in the shallow bleachers, watching Rhett's game, when a parent came up to Rich and said, “I just want to thank you for everything you did for Michigan.”

“Thank
you
!” Rodriguez said, shaking the man's hand.

After the game, they approached the gym doors, when a slightly chubby African-American kid saw Rodriguez, stared at him for a second, and blurted out, “Didn't you used to coach Michigan?”

Rodriguez looked down, patted the kid on the shoulder, smiled a small smile, and said, “Yes, sir.”

Then he opened the door and walked outside. After months of cold, gray days, the sun had finally come out. He was free.

 

EPILOGUE

Tate Forcier traveled with the team to Jacksonville to prepare for the Gator Bowl. One day he was telling
The Detroit News
that if you just go to class, it's almost impossible to flunk out of Michigan. But the next day, he learned that he had flunked out. Rich and Rita Rodriguez met him in the hotel lobby and walked him to the curb to pick up a taxi to the airport. Forcier, in tears, gave them both a hug, and then he got in the cab. He took the next semester off, and by the summer of 2011, he was contemplating where he might transfer.

J. T. Turner, of “Breakfast Club” fame, transferred to West Virginia, of all places, but at the end of his first semester he transferred again, this time to Notre Dame. No, not the “Win one for the Gipper” Notre Dame, but Notre Dame College in Cleveland, Ohio, a Division II school.

While Boubacar Cissoko was waiting for his sentence in the Washtenaw County Jail for three counts of larceny and assault with intent to rob—for which he would receive nineteen months to fifteen years—he pled guilty to assaulting a guard, and received an additional twenty-two to thirty-eight months.

After Michigan hired Brady Hoke, Denard Robinson considered transferring, but quickly realized there was no obvious place to go. With his parents advising him to stay at Michigan to complete his degree and his teammates urging him to stay to lead the team, he decided to remain in Ann Arbor. The new coaches told him he would take most of his snaps under center, but said they still believed he would be the starter in 2011.

Both Brandon Graham and Zoltan Mesko played well during their rookie seasons in the NFL, and appeared to be heading to very solid—and lucrative—NFL careers.

Donovan Warren entered the 2010 NFL draft but injured his ankle before the NFL combine, performed poorly, and was not selected. He eventually signed as a free agent with the New York Jets, where his godfather, Mark Carrier, is an assistant coach. After the Jets waived him in September 2010, the Pittsburgh Steelers picked him up in 2011.

Justin Boren became a two-time All–Big Ten lineman at Ohio State, but was not picked in the 2011 NFL draft. The San Diego Chargers selected Jonas Mouton late in the second round—higher than many expected—and Steve Schilling, Boren's former offensive line mate, in the sixth round.

Calvin Magee, Tony Gibson, and Tony Dews were all hired by the University of Pittsburgh, while Rod Smith and Greg Frey now coach at Indiana University. They got their jobs within weeks, and had to move their families almost immediately. Rod Smith—wisely, it turned out—had not bought his house in Michigan.

Many of the remaining coaches and staffers are still out of work, including Greg Robinson, Dusty Rutledge, and Mike Parrish. In early 2010, the Florida State Seminoles called Mike Barwis with an offer they thought he could not refuse: a multiyear contract to become the highest paid at his position, plus raises for his entire staff. But he turned it down to stay at Michigan. Shortly after the university hired Hoke, who brought in his own strength staff, Barwis was fired. He now consults for the New York Mets, and started his own fitness center with many of his former staffers in nearby Plymouth, Michigan, called BarwisMethods. There he trains a couple of dozen former Michigan athletes who now play in the NFL and NHL, plus Brock Mealer, who has since been joined by several others overcoming serious injuries.

Of the seven Michigan employees who received reprimands in the wake of the NCAA investigation, only one—Ann Vollano—still works for the university.