Jumbo Elliott Talks U-M, Bo, Hall of Fame
Former two-time All-American John “Jumbo” Elliott wasn’t sure he was good enough to play at Michigan during his prep days in Long Island. He wasn’t even certain when he got to Ann Arbor.
He did know, however, that he’d rather take his chance of getting on the field under Bo Schembechler than a near guarantee at any other school … and he had one man to thank, he told former All-American Jon Jansen on his In The Trenches podcast recently.
“The man who got me to take a chance on that … I was looking at Eastern schools,” he said. “I had attention from schools in the Midwest, but I really thought I would be a (North Carolina) Tar Heel, (Maryland) Terrapin or (Syracuse) Orangeman. I really liked North Carolina.
“But Gary Moeller, a great DC who became a head coach, came out to Long Island. I don’t know how he found me. I don’t think Michigan was too active out here back then. I was so impressed with Gary Moeller. Gary brought Bo out to meet my folks.”
That went a long way toward selling him on the Wolverines, Elliott acknowledged. It was the trip to Ann Arbor, though, that sealed the deal.
“I went to Michigan and it felt different,” he continued. “I’d taken my visits and been around different schools … it’s like the air was different, the presence was different. I could just kind of feel the tradition. I just said, ‘this is big time football right here.’ I just had it in my head that look, if I can even get on the field on special teams at some point, I’d consider that a success.
“It just oozed tradition and big-time football. I grew up as a kid, loved watching Ohio State and Michigan play even though I’m from Long Island. I was more of a college football fan than a pro fan in my younger years, and just a chance to be a part of that …”
He exceeded his own expectations, of course, and became a two-time All-American playing on Big Ten championship teams. He earned his nickname, meanwhile, on his first practice, compliments of the old coach himself.
"I remember one of my very first practices out there on the outdoor field … Bo used to gather everybody in the middle of the field, have a few words, blow his whistle with a point and we’d do initial warm-up laps,” he recalled. "I said I knew I was in trouble because there were 100 guys on the team, and all gazelles. Everyone was flying and I’m sucking wind trying to keep up on the warm-up lap.
“I remember Bo shouting, ‘come on, Jumbo, you pick it up!’ And it was he who started calling me that, then the older guys like Doug James, Mike Mallory, a lot of the juniors and seniors on team just took a liking to it. It just became a thing. Then Mike Gittleson told me coaches were playing around with it in the office, watching film for some reason banding about with nicknames and stuff. Finally, the old man made Jumbo stick.
“It all traces back to Bo.”
Just like most of the successes they had back then. Elliott recalls his Ohio State games with fondness, especially 1985 and ’86 games in which the Wolverines won fourth-quarter games. And when he got the call for the College Football Hall of Fame recently, he knew who to thank.
“I always considered myself lucky to stick it out at Michigan and be surrounded in the company of such talent, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I was actually talking to another old Wolverine great, Jamie Morris. We were talking on the phone and my girlfriend comes in with a box shipped to the door. She was opening it in front of me while talking to Jamie … gave me a letter that acme out of it, kind of reading it half out loud with Jamie on the phone … National Football Foundation.
“Jamie was like oh my God, you know what that is? I really just thought it was just some stuff that came in the mail that I was going to toss away. I thought, ‘this is kind of cool. I’d really been up for this for a while, was very honored just to be up for it for a number of years. So many great players in Michigan football history that I don’t really hold myself on some sort of pedestal at all, so I was just happy to be nominated. After how many years 5, 6, 7 or whatever it was, ‘ah, no big deal.’ So, I was shocked by it.”
He'd have been happy, he said, had running out of the tunnel for the first time been his career highlight.
"All the things that happened in five years after that were a bonus," he said. "I made it to Michigan, was on the team, didn’t get run over coming out of the tunnel. Mission accomplished."
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