Write On Sports LLC - "There Will Never Be a Bigger Coach" by Mathew S. Weiler

There Will Never Be a Bigger Coach

2006-11-18 00:11:21 | By: Mathew S. Weiler

How sad it is that Bo Schembechler will have November 17, 2006, etched forever on his tombstone. One day before the Michigan-Ohio State game that would see the programs meet as the top two teams in the national polls for the first time ever.

One day before Michigan had an opportunity to take a huge step towards an accomplishment that eluded Bo's greatest teams: an undisputed National Championship. One day before the game that Bo himself had deemed the true National Championship. One day before the game that was to Bo always the biggest game--regardless of the relative strength of the teams or the national implications--because the program he built was to play the program where he learned the game. Bo died one day before the game that he made the greatest rivalry in sports.

It would have been more fitting had Bo died on Sunday. Of a broken heart, had Michigan lost. And had Michigan won, because he had seen a team built largely in his likeness win the second biggest game in program history. Second biggest because Bo's seminal upset of Woody Hayes' 1969 team made the Michigan-Ohio State game "the Game," and brought Michigan football back from its moribund, twenty-year hiatus from the elite of college football.

Bo Schembechler won 194 games at Michigan. More wins than any other coach at the winningest program in college football. Yet what Bo Schembechler meant to the University of Michigan football program cannot be measured solely by his record. He brought the program out of a slump. But his tenure brought more than a resurrection.

Michigan Stadium was built in 1927, but it was not until Bo's teams of the 1970s that the team would fill the seats every game, with average attendance topping 100,000 and beyond. Bob Ufer called Michigan Stadium the house that Yost built, Canham carpeted, and Schembechler filled. But it was Schembechler alone who fulfilled Yost's dream. An Ohio man himself, Schembechler made Michigan a program that emphasized discipline and physical football. Quite simply, Bo Schembechler built Michigan football as we know it.

After Bo beat Woody's 1969 team, Woody told Bo that he'd never win a bigger game. Woody being Woody, he probably meant it as a curse as much as a compliment. But it is more fitting that Woody would give Bo his epitaph. So let it be said, at the winningest program in college football, there will never be a bigger coach.