Nobody Commanded The Room Or The Ship Like Bo

He was as crusty as a 77-year-old battleship, as outspoken as a drill sergeant, and as blunt as a two-by-four to the chin. And those listening hung on every word.

When Bo Schembechler strode into a room, nobody needed to hold up the "Quiet" sign. A hush fell, and the audience began to lean in, so as not to miss a single word.

That's the way it was days before the Michigan-Ohio State collision, when Schembechler entered the Junge Family Champions Center, facing a phalanx of reporters and cameras. He hadn't coached in a Michigan-Ohio State game in 17 years, yet he commanded the room like a general on the eve on an invasion.

He looked a little more vulnerable this time around, and moved to the podium a tad slower. He acknowledged he wasn't heading for Columbus, since he couldn't walk well enough to take the steps in the press box.

He later assured, in a hushed, I'll-let-you-in-on-something tone, that his absence had nothing to do with the increasingly infamous inhospitable nature of OSU fans.

"I'll go right up to those people…" he challenged, summoning a growl that became legend.

Now, while his presence will linger over Michigan football as long as it exists, the growl has finally been stilled. On Nov. 17, 2006, Michigan's family lost its patriarch.

The Wolverine nation reacted in shock and sorrow for the man who engineered Michigan's modern football dynasty. For 21 seasons, Schembechler prowled the Michigan sidelines, building the Wolverines into tough, determined, championship-caliber teams.

The traits he instilled the Michigan football remain to this day, with a Schembechler disciple at the helm and a team on the field playing a hard-nosed brand of defense.

Schembechler liked the 2006 Wolverines long before a lot of others did. While fans were still smarting and grumbling over a 7-5 season, Schembechler – while sharing much of that discontent himself – was getting a glimpse at a practice he found heartening, with players displaying an attitude he appreciated.

In granting an interview for the 2006 Football Preview Issue of The Wolverine magazine, he delivered a preview of coming attractions.

"I may be wrong, and I could be wrong," he began. "I only saw one practice this spring, but I sensed a little more intensity in the practices – more intensity than I saw a year ago. If that carries over and they practice that way, it stands to reason that we will be a tougher running and blocking and tackling team.

"Let's hope that's true, because that's what we've got to do. We've got to be a tougher ballclub."

All season long, the 2006 Wolverines showed themselves to be precisely that – tougher, hungrier and more grounded in Michigan football staples – defense and rushing the football.

Reminded of his early assessment days before his passing, Schembechler repeated the message about this team.

"First of all, I'd always felt some of those players were good players," he said. "And I noticed in the early practices, there was a lot more hustle, a lot more hitting, a lot more physical stuff. That turned out to be the way it was on defense.

"The difference is, first, the defense. You start with that. Second of all, [Mike] Hart's playing. I'll tell you what, he's the most unspectacular runner you ever saw who gets more out of a play.

"We didn't have him, remember that. We had a lot of injuries a year ago. I'll tell you, they played this year like they had to prove something, and look where they are."

Schembechler loved it when someone had to prove something and then proved it. He learned that attribute at the feet of Woody Hayes, with whom he coached for several years at Ohio State.

Schembechler recalled Hayes' first season at the helm in Columbus, when the Buckeyes went 4-3-2, a pedestrian 2-2-2 in the Big Ten, good for fifth place. That miserable campaign ended with a 7-0 OSU loss in Ann Arbor, making Hayes livid and Schembechler – then an Ohio State graduate assistant – wary of sitting too close.

"I'll never forget how tough that guy was," Schembechler said of Hayes. "After the Michigan game … we went back home, and Woody called a meeting at his house.

"We're all sitting there in his house, and he's got the projector. You understand, back in those days, we're talking 16-millimeter film. He has this projector on there, and he's running it back and forth.

"I'm sitting in the back of the room, staying out of the way, and he's getting madder and madder. Suddenly, he picked up that projector and threw it.

"And he said, 'I won't subject the people of Columbus to football like that.' I'll never forget him saying that."

Days later Ernie Godfrey, a long-time OSU assistant coach, came to him to deliver the bad news. Program supporters were giving Hayes the one-and-done treatment.

Schembechler recalled: "Ernie Godfrey came in and said, 'Woody, the people downtown who have the jobs are pulling the jobs out. We're going to lose most of our jobs downtown.' Back then, you didn't have a grant-in-aid. You worked for your room and board.

"I'll never forget, Woody said, 'Well, now, they wouldn't take those jobs away if I resigned, would they?' He says, 'No, they wouldn't.' And [Woody] says, 'You tell them, $%*&$%&$, I'll pay the players myself! I'll mortgage the damned house. I'll borrow the money. I'll pay them myself. But I'm not resigning.

"That was in 1951, and in 1954 he won the national championship. He was a tough son of a gun. You don't run him out of town that easily."

Hayes never beat Michigan easily after 1968, when the Buckeyes rolled, 50-14. The following season, Hayes' protégé took over the football team for "That School Up North," infusing a toughness and aggression into the U-M program that would carry throughout the decades to come.

It didn't take much to get Schembechler to throw off any slight waver in his voice and work up a little thunder. Just mention the year 1973, and the fire burned a little hotter in his eyes. He gripped the podium just a bit tighter, and he looked like he could be roaming the sidelines all over again.

Michigan 10, Ohio State 10, and the vote that left the Wolverines home for the holidays remained the miserable lump of coal in the Christmas stocking of his memory.

"It was the greatest disappointment of my career," Schembechler acknowledged. "We both came in undefeated, and we were playing here. We missed a field goal at the end and we ended up tied, 10-10.

"Everybody – including Woody Hayes, who congratulated me after the game and said, 'Well, you'll do a great job in the Rose Bowl…' – expected Michigan to go to the Rose Bowl. Why? Because if you look at the game, we out-played them.

"If you look at tradition, Ohio State had played in the Rose Bowl the year before. We used to have a no-repeat rule, where you couldn't repeat. Everything indicated that we were going to go to the Rose Bowl.

"It was strictly a political thing. I assume that the fact that our great quarterback, Dennis Franklin, broke his collarbone in the fourth quarter of that game, on a blitz … they might have used that as an excuse. Although, we had Larry Cipa in the wings, who played several years in the National Football League, so he was good enough to play against the weakest Southern Cal team that I've ever seen go into the Rose Bowl. That whole thing upset me to no end.

"That team, that 1973 team, is the reason we're playing in other bowls today."

Schembechler was the reason the Wolverines have played in as many good ones as they have. His fire still runs through the building that bears his name.

The stories have been told, but they never grow old. And when it's Michigan-Ohio State week, there was nobody that could command a room like one of the now-reunited generals from The 10-Year-War.