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.

