The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 9A THE COACH'S COACH 'M' hockey coach Berenson has taken hoops coach Beilein under his wing By IAN ROBINSON Daily Sports Writer Since first-year men's basket- ball head coach John Beilein came to Ann Arbor last year, Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson has offered him his keys - to his house and to victory. Beilein was hired in mid-April, just before Berenson left Ann Arbor onvacation. Knowing Beilein would otherwise need to rent a hotel room, Berenson offered Beilein the use of his home. "I did not take him up on it," Beilein said. "I didn't want to move again out of the hotel, but he was just all of a sudden very helpful." And Berenson hasn't stopped trying to help Beilein find success at Michigan. When Beilein took over as Mich- igan's men's basketball coach last spring, he knew restoring Michigan basketball to glory would be a mon- umental task. And Berenson knows all about returning a once-great program to prominence. In 1984, he took over a program that hadn't been to the NCAA Tournament in eight years or won a conference championship in twenty. Berenson realized the program didn't just need a coaching change. It required a complete change of culture - different players, more support and better commitment. It took three years for Berenson's teams to get above .500 and six for the Wolverines to reach the NCAA Tournament. He hasn't missed those standards since. "There's a lot of things that go into winning," Berenson said. "But it starts with the coach and his vision." Berenson has given the same advice to Beilein. After a 5-15 start, few would question Beilein if he altered his coaching philosophy - many have even suggested it. Few except Berenson, that is. Blue looks to improve faceoff performance By NATE SANDALS Daily Sports Editor Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson has said all season that his team has a "laundry list" of areas where it needs to improve. But one facet of the game has given the Wolverines fits all sea- son: faceoffs. Winning just 48 percent of its draws, No. 2 Michigan is the only team in the USCHO.com poll's top five with a faceoff winning percentage below .500. While draws weren't the pri- mary reason the Wolverines just wentthroughtheirworstseries of the season last weekend against Michigan State, the coaching staff is making improvement in the circle a priority. "It's not something you can just say, 'OK, we have to be bet- ter on faceoffs,' " Berenson said. "You work on it, try to get better and hopefully we will." The players do a lot of one- on-one work with each other after practice, but it's difficult to simulate game situation faceoffs without a full five-on-five. While there's just one person taking each faceoff, it's often one of the other four players on the ice who ends up securing the puck to gain possession. Since each game features so many faceoffs -- usually at least 60 - it's easy to write each one off. But faceoffs and puck posses- sion are critical on special teams - an area where Michigan strug- gled mightily against Michigan State last weekend. "On the power play, when we needed a goal in the Michigan State game (Friday), we couldn't win a draw in their zone and they gotit outright away," senior Chad Kolarik said. "On the penalty kill, if we can win it in our zone, we might have won that game Satur- day night with those two power- play goals they had." Inexperience is one of the rea- sons Michigan is struggling in the circle. Senior captain Kevin Porter had never played center before this season, and taking faceoffs is a skill he's had to learn along the way. Freshmen Matt Rust and Louie Caporusso are centering Mich- igan's second and third lines. Both are still adjusting to the strength, quickness and instinct needed to consistently win draws at the college level. "You come into college and you're taking faceoffs against guys that have been doing it for a while at this level," associate head coach Mel Pearson said. In response to its faceoff short- comings, the coaching staff has started to look beyond the regu- lar centermen to find success. Kolarik recently started tak- ing more draws in the offensive zone when the top line is on the ice. Freshman Carl Hagelin, who played center while Caporusso was injured in November and December, has also been taking faceoffs. "We're-just trying anybody we can that we think can do a good job and get that puck possession," Pearson said. With Michigan's biggest games of the regular season ahead, against Miami (Ohio) and Michigan State, faceoffs will become even more important. In one-goal games, the kind that are all too common come playoff time, the ability to control the puck off faceoffs in all zones will be critical. So when the regular season ends on March 1, 48 percent won't be good enough. Michigan basketball coach John Beilein has received valuable support and advice from hockey coach Red Berenson. In conversations with Beilein, Berenson has stressed the impor- tance of sticking with what has worked. "'You do the things that got you here," Berenson said. "You've been successful somewhere else by coaching basketball the way you coach it. Then do it here. That's why we brought you here." A few weeks ago, Berenson watched a Beilein-led practice at Crisler Arena. Even though the native of Regina, Saskatchewan grew up on the ponds and not the parquet, lessons of effort and team- work translate between sports. He left Crisler Arena impressed with Beilein's intensity. Berenson called Beilein the next day and offered thoughts on how the coach could harness that energy for an entire game. "Just take minutes in the game and say, 'OK, this is what we're going to do,"'Berenson said. "'We're going to win this minute or five minutes or whatever it is. And let's build on that.' Because they can do it." Beilein has already passed the message on to his team. The hockey coach isn't the only Michigan head coach who has opened up to Beilein. After almost every other game, retired foot- ball coach Lloyd Carr calls Beilein with encouragement. And during Beilein's track workouts in the fall, track coach Ron Warhurst estab- lished a bond with the new coach. The three coaches combined have 71 years of combined head-coaching experience at Michigan. All of them have told Beilein the same thing: do it your way. "Don't lose sight of how you think it should be when you get it going because there is going to be a lot of turmoil in between," Berenson said. "It's not going to be a perfect sea- son." Gym parents make sacrifices to watch sons compete Sophomore Andre Schultz took first place in two events in the Jan.18 meet against Michigan State. Schultz excels in both class and pool * Brazilian swimmer sets sights on 2008 Olympics By JILLIAN ROTHMAN For the Daily For sophomore Andr6 Schultz, collegiate swimming is a family tra- dition. His mother swam in college in Sao Paolo, Brazil because she con- sidered it healthy exer- cise with little SCHULTZ threat of inju- ry. Schultz and his three older siblings followed suit, but none of them expect- ed to be so YEAR: talented. Sophomore "My sis- HOMETOWN: ter was the Sao Paolo, Brazil National Champion EVENTS: back in Bra- IM/Free zil." Schultz said. "So growing up (she was) someone I wanted to be like. But it turns out. I got to be bet- ter than her." While he can kid around about his bigsister, his impressive resume is no joke. Schultz was an NCAA All-Ameri- can honorable mention for both the 200-yard backstroke and 400-yard individual medley last season. On Jan. 18th, the Sao Paolo native won two events against Michigan State, taking first place in the 200-yard backstroke with an NCAA consider- ation time (1:45). Swimming may be their most noteworthy accomplishment, but Schultz and his family have never allowed it to define them. His mother is a doctor, his father an engineer, and his brother is fol- lowing his two uncles into genetic research. "My family has always been about academics," Schultz said. Even his champion sister was pushed by her parents to focus more on her studies. She is now a medical student in Brazil, and Schultz said he thinks it was the right decision for her. Somehow, Schultz needed to find a balance between continuing his family's tradition of academic excel- lence and following his own passion in the pool. That's where being a student at Michigan helps. Schultz said he has no regrets about leaving the busy streets of Sao Paolo. He likes it more in AnnArbor, where he has thrived. "He is the quintessential student- athlete," Michigan coach Bob Bow- man said. Though only one of his broth- ers has been able to visit or attend a meet, Schultz's family is surely proud of how he has continued the family's tradition of scholarly suc- cess. An NCAA Academic All-Ameri- can, the mathematics major also received the 2007 Michigan Ath- letic Academic Achievement Award and has a 3.6 grade point average. Bowman believes Schultz has a clear picture of where he wants to go in life, but Schultz isn't sosure. "I don't know exactly where I'm going or where I will be in five or 10 years," Schultz said. "But I think I'm covering all the angles. I plan on swimming as long as I can, and after that, I plan on following a col- lege career, maybe research like my uncles and my brother or even be a professor. I think I'd enjoy that." As far as his goals for the swim- ming season, Schultz is more specif- ic. He wants to swim an automatic qualifying time in each of his three events for the Big Ten and NCAA Championships. And after Michigan wraps up its season in March, Schultz has his sights set on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He tried to posta qualifying time a year and a half ago and was just .93 seconds too slow in the 200- yard individual medley. "After I moved to Michigan, it took some adaptation and I haven't been able to drop this time, but I am training better than ever," Schultz said. "I am really confident." There are two more chances for himtoqualifyforthe Brazilianteam - one inApril, the other in May. But Schultzthinkshe'llgetjustonemore shot at attaining Olympic glory. He won't attend the April competition if it interferes with finals. By car or by plane, parents travel from around U.S. to attend meets By COLT ROSENSWEIG Daily Sports Writer Vince Catrambone used to get a just few hours of sleep per night. He woke up at 3 a.m. to deliver newspapers, then moved on to his job at DHL, driving a package- delivery truck until the evening. Then there was more driving to do - a 70-mile round-trip trek from his family home in Deptford, N. J., to Feasterville, Pa., where he would pick up his son, Joe, from gymnastics practice. Around 10:00 p.m., the two would arrive home - where dinner, and Joe's homework, awaited. In the gym parking lot, while he waited for practice to finish, Vince caught the few hours of sleep that would get him through the next day. "All in all, it turned out to be good because of what Joe's accom- plished as a gymnast," Vince said. "We got to bea part of all of it, over the years. It was all well worth it." Vince belongs to a small, tight- ly knit group: Gymnastics par- ents. You can find them at every Michigan men's gymnastics meet, enthusiastically supporting their sons. They come thousands of miles to watch the team compete, some traveling as many as 10,000 miles a season. They live and die with each routine. They know the ins and outs of the sport better than anyone outside the team. And through their unique jour- neys, the parents have built strong bonds. "Every gymnastics parent has sacrificed a fair amounttto get their kids where they are," said Con- nie Thompson, mother of junior Jamie Thompson. "It's a small community. It's not an inexpen- sive sport. It's a sport that requires a tremendous amount of commit- Parents Shawn Caldwell and Connie Thompson travel thousands of miles each season to cheer on their sons, Kent Caldwell and Jamie Thompson, who compete for the Michigan men's gymnastics team. ment, from the gymnasts and the parents." Behind most successful gym- nasts are supportive, hard-work- ing parents who often surrender as much time, or more, than their sons. Before college, good gyms are often far from home, requiring long drives to practice and meets. And gymnastics often super- sedes normal childhood events, forcing young gymnasts to miss birthday parties or cut their holi- days short. With their sons part of a large team, the parents have now formed a "team" of their own - making little vacations of road trips, staying in the same hotels, forming Michigan cheering sec- tions at away meets and gathering for post-meet dinners. And the closeness extends beyond just the Michigan parents. Most ofthemhave been involved in the gymnastics community for nearly 20 years. "We are a close-knit family," said Linda Rosso, junior Ralph Rosso's mother. "I wasn't able to go to the Windy City meet, and I had three phone calls to let me know how Ralph did - one from an Illinois team mom, one from a Minnesota team mom and one from Michigan." Shawn Caldwell worried she wouldn't see her son, Kent, when he left Charlotte, N.C., to go to school. Now, she's in her third season of traveling to most of his meets, home and away, sometimes joined by her husband and young- er sons. "I look forward to going to wherever he is, and actually look forward to winter because I get to see him more often then," Shawn said. Parents are privileged insid- ers of the distinctive gymnastics world where, thanks to its small size, fierce competitors often morph into best friends once the meet ends. Present from the very begin- ning, parents see a side to the sport casual fans might miss. "Over the 15, 20 years that Joe's been competing, we've watched a lot of these kids grow up from the age of four years old," Vince said. "You look at the progress that they've made from such a young age up to the college years now, and it's remarkable how they've all stuck together and remained friends."