TheMichigan Daily - SPORTSMonday -Monday, March 21, 1994 - 3 Grbac The former Michigan quarterback talks about life in the pros Elvis Grbac was one of the fin- est quarterbacks to don the Maize and Blue (1989-92). Named to the All-Big Ten first team in 1991 and 1992, Grbac is in the career top five in 12 Michigan offensive categories, including records for passing yard- age (6,460) and throwing more touch- down passes (71) than any Michigan player in history. He was a member of four conference champion squads, and captured a Rose Bowl victory in his last game in a Wolverine uniform. Grbac was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the eighth round of the 1993 NFL draft last April. Re- cently, Daily Sports WriterRavi Gopal spoke with Grbac about football ex- periences. Daily: You were drafted by the 49ers. What were your initial feel- ings, knowing that the 49ers already had two NFL-calibre quarterbacks in Steve Young and Steve Bono? Grbac: Well, the first thing that popped into my mind was Super Bowl ring. That's the first thing that popped in my mind, because (the 49ers) were so close the year before (losing to Dallas in the playoffs). This year, it was real exciting to be a part of the experience of going through an entire season of record- breaking TDs and Jerry Rice and Steve Young. There's a lot of similarities between the University of Michigan and the 49ers. Both teams have a lot of tradition, and a lot of players here take a lot of pride in what they want to accomplish. It was a good situation for me to come here and learn from a veteran quarterback, and it's going to be in- teresting to see what happens now with the salary cap, but I'm looking forward to another season with the 49ers and hopefully many more. ,D: In 1990, you were the No. 1 quarterback at Michigan. Were you nervous heading into the year, being only a sophomore at the controls of the reigning Big Ten champions? G: Not really. The good thing was that there were a lot of new guys that were going to be in key positions for us. It was good to know that every- body was going through the same struggle that I was going through. We just had some growing pains to go through and we tried to get out there and do the best we could. We had a great new type of of- fense that went in, the no-huddle, and that really helped a lot. We knew that we had to stick with it for a while, and things would turn our way, and even- tually they did at the end of the sea- son. It was almost like this past season. They started off a little rough in the beginning, and the younger guys got more game experience, and they started rolling at the end. D: Did the triumph in the Gator Bowl at the end of the year help to- wards the great year you and the Wolverines had in 1991? G: Yeah, I think that was really the stepping stone for the next season, because we had a lot of guys who were going to be coming back, and we went out there to prove to everybody that we can be a better team. I think it was more that everybody had that game experience when we went out there. Games came and went, and teams didn't even seem to be there. We were just blowing everybody out. D: Was the victory over Notre Dame redemption for you personally, since you threw an interception which led to an Irish comeback victory in '90? G: It was kind of more, it was not that, it was just such a long streak of them beating us. There were a lot of games where we could have won. You know, it was just a good feeling to beat them on a great play that Desmond (Howard) and I hooked up on. It was a good experience. D: When you lofted the game- winning pass to Howard, what was going through you mind? Did you think he was going to catch it? G: Oh yeah, I had total confi- dence. Coming out of the huddle, I told Desmond that if I give him a certain signal, that he should run a certain pattern, and I saw the cover- age and all, and gave him that signal and threw the touchdown. I just put it up and I knew Desmond was going to get to it. He just made it a little too dramatic for me. It was a great play. D: What was it like playing with Desmond that year? G: It was great at the beginning. Things were going really good for us, and as the year went on, the Heisman, I think, really ate away at him. Every- body was scampering for his auto- graph, and there was just so much media hype on Desmond that I think it took away from his personal life and what he enjoyed. D: You led the team to the Rose Bowl against Washington. Were you nervous going in, as a first-time starter, and also with the media circus sur- rounding Howard? G: Yeah, I think it was a combina- tion. We were expecting a lot of good things the way the season was going and I think if you asked every player, we didn't prepare well for that game. We really didn't have a good game plan, and as players, we didn't pre- pare well for that either. It was one of those games that you look back on and say, "Thank God it's over." D: You had a spectacular year individually in 1991. Mel Kiper, ESPN draft analyst, projected you as one of the top-three quarterbacks taken in the draft. What made you stay in school for you senior year? G: Well, I knew sports wasn't going to be the way; it wasn't going to be with me my entire life. I wanted to stay in college and get the degree and know that you could fall back on it after the athletics are done. D: You then led the team to a Rose Bowl rematch against the Huskies. How did you, as a player and as a team, prepare any differently? G: Well, I think if you look back, there was a lot of senior leadership that year. We kind of prepared differ- ently during the week prior to the game. The previous year, we were out there in L.A., and a lot of guys wanted to go out and enjoy being out in L.A. and having fun, but we changed the program around a little bit. We had a team meeting before we went out to L.A., and got the team together and said we want to impose a curfew for everybody, and every- body really abided by that rule It was great, because everybody was ready for practice, had a lot of energy and everybody was concen- trating on what they were doing. And we went out in the game and showed Washington. There was a lot of lead- ership in that senior class. D: You had the unique distinction of playing under both Bo Schembechler (in 1989) and Gary Moeller (1990-1992). Contrast their coaching styles. G: Well,I like both of them, there's no doubt about it. You know, Bo is more of a disciplinarian kind of a coach, and he had his old values, since he's been coaching for 20 years, and he goes by what he knows to be the right type of values. I think that instilled a lot of hard work and disci- pline. What we did as young men just kind of carried over when Gary Moeller took over, and that's why I think the program did so well when Bo left, because some of the assistant coaches who had been with Bo for a long time just took over and never missed a beat. It was a good situation, and I think times have changed and Gary Moeller and his coaches have realized that, and the players have changed. Football's a lot different than it was when Bo took over in the '60s and '70s. It'll be interesting where they lead to now. D: What do you think was your greatest achievement in your colle- giate career at Michigan? G: Graduating. With all the time put into athletics and academics, I'm really glad I had the opportunity to educate myself at the University of Michigan. It's just a good situation to go to Michigan and meet people from all over the world. It was just a great educational experience for me and I'm very glad that I graduated. Football was an incentive, kind of. It was one of those deals where I got a great education and football was another part that made life a lot more exciting for me being at college. It's one of those opportunities that I'm glad that I had. KEN SUGIURA Close But No Sugiura 'M' relay team makes most of opportunity M olly McClimon wants 10 years. McClimon would like a decade to consider the magnitude of what she and three of her Michigan trackteammates accomplished last Saturday. She says she is fully aware of how she and the three other members of Michigan's distance medley relay fared at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Indianapolis, but she still wants time to think it over. "In 10 years, it's probably going to mean 10 times as much to me as it does right now," McClimon says. "Each year, the fact of being a national champion is going to grow on me and everyone else on the team, as well." Already, though, it means plenty to McClimon, as it does to senior Kristin Westerby, who ran the opening 800-meter leg of the relay, as it does to senior Richelle Webb, who took the baton from Westerby for a steady 400 leg, and as it does to junior Courtney Babcock, who ran the anchor 1,600 chasing Georgetown, Alabama and destiny. They are beginning to understand that last Saturday was their one shot together at the summit. It was their one shot to help out a hurting friend, their one shot to repair a tarnished reputation, their one shot at glory before the end of the line started coming into view for three of them. Those were the conditions when the four of them went out together to meet fate. Fists clenched tightly, they slugged fate square in the nose, earning the school's first NCAA women's track title ever, "It was the best feeling ever," Webb says simply. In order to even begin to understand the depth of Webb's elation, it is necessary to go back to the previous night, Friday. That was when McClimon and Babcock both ran in the 5,000-meter final. "The 5,000 didn't come out the way we would have charted it out for a number of reasons," Michigan assistant Mike McGuire says. Babcock stumbled from the course mid-race, impeding MClimon in the process. She finished, but the fall took her out of contention. A counting error felled McClimon. With two laps remaining in the 25-lap race, the official lap counter indicated three laps instead of two. The competitors, including McClimon, realized the error, and it threw them off. Babcock and McClimon finished fourth and fifth, respectively. "A lot of the coaches were saying, 'Oh, those two are overrated being ranked second and third in every event,"' McClimon recalls. Later that night, though, those problems dimmed. McGuire learned that his ailing father had passed away. The coach assembled his athletes in his hotel room the following morning. He informed them of the death and gave them some final encouragement before leaving for New York to be with his family. "The work's been done and it was up to us whether he was there or not," McClimon recalls. "And I think that's what he just wanted to let us know, that his presence there wasn't going to win it for us, and we just needed to go do what we had been doing all year." In a way, the tragedy only increased their resolve. Team members canvassed the area, looking for some black tape they could wear on their jerseys to honor McGuire's father. A soft-spoken man who refers to team members as "my kids," McGuire is a lot more than the guy who reads off splits and puts together workouts. "He's a great coach and he's a friend to all of us, too," McClimon says. Their friend was in pain, and now, they wanted to do what they could to help. Among them was Webb, the quarter-miler, on her first trip to the NCAAs. She had run the sprints her three previous years, and was brought up to the 400 expressly to run that leg of the relay. She had trained all winter for this, and now the meet's magnitude, the banked turns and the jostling from runners battling for position were making her jittery. See SUGIURA, Page 8 Wolverines run all over Western Michigan, 18-3 By WILL MCCAHILL Wolverines with five goals and an Henke fed a cutting Simich from be- cos 8-2 in the second half. DAILY SPORTS WRITER assist, with attackman Steve Simich hind the goal, who bounced in a shot DiGiovanni, who collected his Enough with the overused wild recording four goals and two assists. from the right side with 12 seconds 150th victory Saturday, blamed the horse clich6s. The game started out poorly for left in the quarter excessive penalty minutes and some The Michigan men's lacrosse club the Wolverines as the Broncos won Michigan increased its lead to 10- sloppy stickwork and passing on the didn't corral the Western Michigan the first face-off and roared down the 1 at the half on the strength of excel- 10-day layoff between games for Broncos. It didn't herd them, nor did field, scoring less than a minute into lent penalty-killing by the man-down Michigan. it brand them. the game. unit, led by defensemen Gannon "We came out pretty slow after The Wolverines just flat-out killed Michigan coach Robert Dudlar and Ben Hohmuth. the layoff, but I think by the fourth them. No two ways about it. DiGiovanni immediately called a Michigan racked up more than quarter we were warmed up," Saturday night at Oosterbaan timeout in an effort to get the team five minutes in penalties in the sec- DiGiovanni said. Fieldhouse was business as usual for fired up to play. ond half, but Western was unable to "We were able to play everybody," the Wolverines as they won their sixth The strategy paid off, as the Wol- take advantage of the power- play he added, "and everybody played game in seven tries this season by verines came back to score two quick situation. The field seemingly re- fairly well." savaging Western, 18-3. goals. With time running down in the mained tilted in Michigan's favor as Reichel said that, while it may Midfielder Dave Reichel led the first quarter, graduate attackman Doug the Wolverines outscored the Bron- See LACROSSE, Page 7 If you are interested in trying out for the Michigan Dance Team please come to a mass meeting on: 1 Tes, Mar.22 - 6:30pm. 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