42 | NOVEMBER 30 • 2023
J
N
M
ark Snyder left the
sports writing pro-
fession in 2017 after
nearly five years at the Oakland
Press and 14 years at the Detroit
Free Press.
He’s spent the last six years
as director of communications
and marketing for Lake Orion
Community Schools.
But sports writing is still in
his blood. So much so that the
Bloomfield Hills resident devoted
two years to a project that resulted
in a book on the 1997 national
champion University of Michigan
football team.
Titled Mountaintop: The Inside
Story of Michigan’s 1997 National
Title Climb, the book is a collab-
orative effort with sports writer
Nick Baumgartner, who replaced
Snyder on the U-M football beat
at the Free Press.
Lloyd Carr, the 1997 team’s
coach, approached Snyder in the
summer of 2021 with the idea for
the book.
“I couldn’t believe there hadn’t
been a book written on this team,
”
Snyder said.
“It’s still the only national cham-
pion football team in 75 years of
Michigan football. And it was a
team that wasn’t expected to con-
tend for the national champion-
ship. It was ranked No. 14 before
the season. That was U-M’s worst
preseason ranking since 1985.
”
To make matters worse, the
Wolverines were coming off four
straight seasons, two with Carr as
coach, with four losses. They had
earned the label of chronic under-
achievers and were facing the
toughest schedule in the country.
Snyder said the research for
the book began with a six-month
period of “mining memories”
from Carr.
From there, more than 100
interviews were conducted with
coaches, players, staff members
and others.
Stories, especially about inci-
dents that nearly derailed the
Wolverines, were sourced several
times to ensure accuracy.
“Our goal was to tell readers
things they did not know about
that team and that season,
” Snyder
said. “People may have watched
the games, but things took place
on and off the field and on the
sidelines that they never knew
about.
”
Snyder, 46, said it helped that
he had working relationships with
several of the people who were
interviewed.
“But I will say that some of the
people we interviewed took us to
places we didn’t expect,
” he said.
The key to the cooperation
and transparency, Snyder said,
was Carr, a former U-M assistant
coach who became the coach
“following a drunken tirade in a
(Southfield) restaurant by his boss
and close friend, Gary Moeller, in
April 1995,
” the book reads.
“Lloyd is selfless,
” Snyder said.
“He wanted a book written for the
guys on the team so what hap-
pened that season wouldn’t be for-
gotten. The players loved him. He
was the synergy for the book.
”
The idea for the book’s title
came from a survivor of a Mount
Everest tragedy who spoke to the
team before the season. The sur-
vivor described what it took to do
the impossible when everything
was falling apart.
From that day on, “climb the
mountain” became the team’s
mantra.
An excerpt from the book’s
introduction describes the
long-lasting impact the team has
had on the U-M football program:
“[The team] reconstruct-
ed, redesigned and repaired a
once-dominant football program
that had lost its way,
” the excerpt
reads.
And the team changed college
football itself.
The 1997 season was the last
before the Bowl Championship
Series and later the College
Football Playoff determined the
national champion.
The cast of characters on the
team included the first defensive
player to win the Heisman Trophy
(Charles Woodson), the great-
est quarterback in NFL history
(Tom Brady) and the last QB to
beat him for an open job (Brian
Griese).
Snyder, who is Jewish, said his
time in the B’nai B’rith Youth
Organization — and Kishon AZA
— when he was younger created
a building block for when he
became an adult.
“I learned so many leadership
and other skills when I was in
BBYO,
” he said.
To purchase a copy of the book
($30), which Snyder will sign if
requested, and see a listing of
upcoming promotional events, go
to Michigan1997Book.com.
Send sports news to
stevestein502004@yahoo.com.
SPORTS
Former sports writer Mark Snyder is
a co-author of a book on the 1997
national champion U-M football team.
Go Inside
the Huddle
STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Mark Snyder was a student at
the University of Michigan and a
sportswriter for the Michigan Daily
student newspaper during the
1997 U-M football season.