Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, November 17, 2006

By the way, I am in Florida until Sunday, visiting my very old, very lovely, extremely dingy mother.

BO KNOWS

It has been a while since I have written two days in a row, but I could not let today's 'passing' of football coaching legend Bo Schembechler, well, pass without comment.  I heard about his dying of a heart attack while he was doing a TV show in Michigan today, presumably talking about his religion, which was Michigan and specifically University of Michigan football.  I learned about his death on the phone, and I have not yet seen ESPN today or whatever. I want to write this unimpeded by what ESPN tells me to think later on when I watch in bed.  I'm sure this event has sped things up over at Bristol today by the way.  Big news, Bo dying, and besides how many free agent signings and NFL injury updates with John Clayton can you do?  Bo's epitaphs and the notation of and sound bytes about his accomplishments will fill the sports air for days to come, and deservedly so.

I am sorry to hear this news, but I also say what an effective and dramatic way to go Bo.  You-the-man.  I can't help writing about what I remember and or choose to remember about a very likeable legend.  It is with a smile on my face and the tongue is in cheek for Bo.

IT WASN'T ALL JUST KEITH JACKSON GOING, "WOE, NELLIE" YOU KNOW

Well, so Bo sort of defines a great big era of my life that is for sure.  I admired the things he was clearly capable of doing as the coach.  He might be the last of his ilk, too.

I would never be confused with any kind of Michigan fan.  First of all I have no choice genetically.  My father went to and graduated from the archrival, Ohio State, class of '42, that is 1942.  I have always, and will again tomorrow root for the Buckeyes to beat the Michigan Wolverines in Columbus at the "shoe".  I must.  I respectfully apologize in advance.  It is a football game that looms even larger tomorrow than even any of its predecessors in light of Bo dying today.   That is really saying something.  The magnitude that the game already had taken on was amazing.  That is true even for the modern day era, when every game is the game of the century (NOT).  The BUZZ was already in place, but now that buzz will elevate to a very real roar, more like a jet engine. 

BO KNOWS THAT #1 VS. # 2 IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

All I can say is that some of these Ohio State Michigan deals were pretty much bigger than life back in the day, too, maybe some kind of religious thing even. This one is off the charts, though, well beyond previously imagined possibility.

The thing that makes me remark about all this and then Michigan in general is not that I have ever been a fan per say, but I know great when I see it, and when I look at that school I think of excellence on many levels, including in a very big way athletics and the real meaning of student athlete as a college mission.  Bo was the not so handsome but very effective poster boy for well over 40 years of this.  That is quite an accomplishment.

BO KNOWS WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE

The greatness of the Wolverine athletic programs maybe didn't start with him or the football team that Bo coached, and maybe in some ways they did.  I don't actually know, but Tom Harmon came way earlier and I do know that, but in my mind and for pretty much the entire duration of my sports fan lifetime, those same fifty years almost, Bo Schembechler was the larger than life figure that always knew how to put his finger on that which made greatness.  He also was Michigan.  I didn't need to be older or a coach or anything but just a sports fan kid in order to see that.  Since then I have been there to the school a few times, and it is impressive to see the university arm snugly around Ann Arbor and how it geographically defines the great connectedness of the university to the town itself.

WHO'S HOUSE?

I will say, and again I mean no disrespect, that the "Big House" at Michigan (football stadium) wasn't quite as impressive as I thought it would be, while I must admit that the Big "Horseshoe" at Ohio State is pretty damn amazing in that 'hear the echoes of history' kind of way.

BO KNOWS WOODY BETTER THAN WOODY KNOWS WOODY

I remember the little Bo and Woody Hayes (Ohio State football coach) wars of the late 60's and through the 70's over pretty much everything. They competed in recruiting, word jousts, and you name it.  They played to one another on a grand mid-twentieth century stage, one that only had three channels of TV possibility instead of the 400 we now have.  Woody always had 'the team', but Bo invariably won that late season struggle, the annual one showcasing perhaps the greatest rivalry in all of sports in America.  By the way, I personally have barely ever been to either Ohio or Michigan.  I was born in Pennsylvania, but always hated their helmets (Penn State) anyway.  This rambling has nothing to do with allegiances.

FLIP KNOWS COOL

We had a television by the time I was 10 or whatever, and I could already see what big time was.  If it weren't for USC games out on the coast with the O.J. Simpsons and the golden haired, bomb throwing quarterbacks they had, not to mention the big-breasted cheerleaders in white sweaters bouncing around the sidelines that the cameras found with relentless but never monotonous regularity, I might only remember the Ohio State and Michigan games of my youth because they were so intensely fought and unforgettable.  When these two football giants played one another it defined all that was great about sport and sports to me.

BO KNOWS FOOTBALL

So, Bo, I'm sorry if I chuckled when I just wrote the phrase 'Bo Schembechler passes' because in fact it was something (pass the football) that he rarely did. Call it 'grid-irony' I guess.  No, those were the days of 'three yards and a cloud of dust'.  There is no more dust on football fields in November, and three yards will no longer do on any down.  The West Coast offense runs rampantly around the new football millennium.  Corn fed as we know has been replaced by steroid fed, etc.  Yes, many things have changed.

BO KNOWS PEOPLE

I once read a quote about Bo that I will never forget.  It was an admiring comment made about him by one of his former players.  It might have been Anthony Carter, but I am not positive.  He probably said it when Bo retired from coaching quite some years ago.  Bo never really retired from Michigan until today and at 77 years old, that is also for sure.  Anyway, what the guy said was perhaps the greatest compliment I have ever heard a player pay to his coach.  I think I remember it more or less perfectly, and it was that "If he (Bo) didn't have an All American player at a position, then he got someone else to play like one".  It is simple, but I will never forget it.

BO EVEN KNOWS MARKETING

The amazing part to me about all of this is that I look at his dying today as the most incredible and blatant pre-game ploy in the history of mankind.  People close to him probably think he planned it this way. You could not write a script where the old coach dies on TV (which is apparently what happened) while talking about the big game the next day.  They would laugh you out of the office.  I've heard of going to great lengths to motivate a football team, but this is ridiculous.  The advertisers must be secretly thrilled.  BRILLIANT!

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