Ron Bellamy's Decision To 'Come Home' To Michigan Was A 'No-Brainer'
Michigan Wolverines head football coach Jim Harbaugh tapped a familiar name and face to be his new wide receivers coach in Ron Bellamy, a former Wolverine wideout who was previously the head coach at West Bloomfield (Mich.) High for 11 seasons. Bellamy, coming off a Division 1 state title just last month, is elated to be back at his alma mater.
"I’m excited to get this thing rolling," Bellamy said on the 'In The Trenches' Podcast with Jon Jansen. "Where else would you rather be than Ann Arbor, Michigan?
"Every day you get to open that door to Schembechler Hall, and it’s just a magical place."
Bellamy is one of two former players to return to Ann Arbor as part of Harbaugh's staff shakeup that saw five coaches leave and five enter, with running backs coach Mike Hart being the other.
"I’ve known Mike since his playing days at Michigan, although we never played together," Bellamy said. "That Michigan brotherhood never goes away. I look at a guy like yourself [Jansen] — you and I never played together at Michigan, but we have stories and so many things we can share. The same is true with Mike.
"We looked at each other in one of our meetings, and the first thing we said was, ‘Wow, we’re coaches here at the University of Michigan.’ This is home for us. This is where we became men. [Former U-M head coach] Lloyd Carr helped build a foundation for us to be husbands and fathers and just great people.
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"Michigan’s a special place, and for Mike, he hadn’t been back in 10 years. With me being local, I’ve been back. But just to sit in the coaches’ office, to sit in the chair, to realize it came full circle. It came full circle."
While West Bloomfield was making its playoff run in January, Bellamy was weighing his options for the future. He had been approached by multiple college programs, he revealed, but U-M just made the most sense, after he and his wife made a 'pros and cons' list and spoke with some of his former teammates.
"I think, ultimately, what really was a game-changer for us is that it was an opportunity to come back home," Bellamy said. "It was easier for us to say ‘yes’ to Michigan, as opposed to other schools that had reached out.
"I think it was just the perfect timing, and it was a situation where it was just a perfect match for us. We live in Novi, we live 35 minutes from campus, my wife works for the university, my wife went to the university as well. We have a strong family lineage there. My sister in law ran track, my brother-in-law is [former U-M running back] Tim Biakabutuka.
"It was a no-brainer when Coach Harbaugh called and he said, ‘You ready?’ I said, ‘I’m ready to come home.’ The rest is kind of history."
Being a former in-state high school coach, Bellamy knows how important it is for the Wolverines to keep the state of Michigan's top prospects home, especially with his experience sending players to Ann Arbor (sophomore safety Makari Paige, sophomore linebacker Cornell Wheeler and freshman running back Donovan Edwards).
"This state is rich in football tradition, this state is rich in football history," Bellamy said. "You start looking at the next level, the NFL, and you start looking at how many guys are playing in the playoffs, the Super Bowl, how many guys are on active rosters, practice squad, that played high school football in the footprint of the state of Michigan, you’d be shocked to see that Michigan consistently ranks in the top 10, top 12 states across the country of producing NFL talent.
"For me, my goal is, whoever they ask me to go out and recruit, I’m going to put all my effort behind it. One of my strengths is I’m bringing energy every day. I have this energy inside of me; that’s my personality. I’m real, I’m genuine, I love building relationships — I think that’s a foundation for success in anything that you do — and what better place to do it than the state of Michigan?"
Bellamy said that soon after he was hired, he first called senior wide receiver Ronnie Bell before getting in touch with the rest of his position group.
"I said, ‘Ronnie, listen. You’re the alpha in this group. You’re the old guy, you’re the experienced guy, and you have that moxie,'" Bellamy recalled.
"When you turn on a Michigan football game, you see that he is that guy. And me sitting in that same room that these guys are sitting in and understanding what the expectations are for that position, I told him, ‘That torch is passed to you. This is part of the culture of Michigan football, about leadership, about dedication, about making sure that you don’t have to be that rah-rah guy, but you can lead by example, do things the right way, because those young guys are watching your every move.'
"That’s what sets success up — when the older guys are doing things the right way, that the younger guys can emulate so that when the older guys leave, the expectations don’t change in the room. And that’s something that I challenged him right away, and he accepted the challenge."
The Wolverines are tasked with turning around what was a tough 2-4 season in 2020, and Bellamy understands how difficult it will be. But with a new season and a new coach leading the wide receiver room, they're ready to move on and focus on what's ahead.
"I’m excited to get working with these guys, because they’re so ready," Bellamy said. "Last year was last year, and the guys understand that we underachieved. They are ready to erase what happened last year and play at a higher level this year.
"My job is to every day bring the energy, challenge them to raise their game up to another level, and the expectation is I do the same thing every day. I think it’s going to be a great partnership, a great relationship between myself and our receiver corps."
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