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The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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CHAT ITS
WITH THE MICHIGAN BASKETBALL TEAM IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A DECADE,
THE BURIED, DRAMA-FILLED STORY OF THE '89 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM IS BOTH A LESSON TO
EMULATE AND A CAUTIONARY TALE. BY JASON KOHLER
FILE PHOTOS (LEFT TO RIGHT): The '89 basketball team celebrate after the win that got them into the cham-
pionship game; police watch unruly crowds on South University Avenue after the Michigan won the national
title; Steve Fisher leads the team to the Final Four; students swarm the streets after the championship.
NCAA Tournament.
"I think you get nervous every game, whether
it's your firstgame as interim head coach, or you're
in your 20th year as a head coach," Fisher said in
a phone interview in January. "I didn't weigh a lot
to begin with, but I lost 10 to 15 pounds in those
three weeks in doing the whole process of what
we had to do."
With Frieder out, Fisher wasn't sure of his role.
So he turned to the one man he knew every Michi-
gan athlete respected - Schembechler.
Schembechler sat the team down in the bleach-
ers on the south side of Crisler Arena and told him
his expectations. He went down the line compli-
menting every player. He paused when he got to
forward Sean Higgins, who the Ann Arbor News
had reported would transfer if he wasn't pleased
with whoever was selected as the new coach.
"If you want out, be my guest," Schembechler
recalled in the book "Bo's Lasting Lessons," co-
authored by University lecturer John U. Bacon.
"I have the transfer papers right upstairs on my
desk. We can go up there this minute, you can sign
those papers, and we'll have it done by lunch."
Higgins was caught off guard. But the Ann
Arbor native wasn't willing to say noto his child-
hood idol.
"We were like, 'Wow,' " Higgins said. "We had
never been talked to like that by anyone. Our
coaches were more laid-back, and Coach Schem-
bechler came down with his old football mystique
and gave it to us. It fired us up a bit because he had
that raspy voice and had the respect from us also.
It did something to us in that it ignited us."
Schembechler followed the team from stop to
stop as it made its way through the tournament.
He had no choice. He didn't want the athletes to
unfairly bear the brunt of the media hoopla sur-
rounding Frieder's departure.
"If he didn't come, all the pressure would be on
the players and he was the one that had to take
the questions," Madej said. "If Bo's there, they'd
ask him. If he wasn't, then they'd ask the players.
We had to fly Bo in. And he's a football coach at
the time."
The Wolverines narrowly defeated Xavier
92-87. But if the outcome had been flipped, the
future of Michigan basketball would have been
vastly different.
"At the time, Petey Gillen was the Xavier coach,
and he was the one that they thought would suc-
ceed Frieder," Bacon said. "If they had won, Petey
Gillen would've been the next coach at' Michi-
gan."
The more Fisher won, the more fans wanted
Schembechler to hire the former assistant coach.
But the Athletic Director had no such desire-he
didn't like some of the people associating with the
program under Frieder and wanted to go ina new
direction by hiring someone from the outside.
Indiana coach Bob Knight was rumored to have
counseled Schembechler to hire a big-name guy.
"I'm not sure if Bo would have hired Fisher if
we didn't win that last game and win the champi-
onship," Madej said.
The night before Michigan's opening game of
the tournament, Fisher skeptically asked Madej if
he even had a shot at getting the job.
"Just win six games and it's yours,"Madej replied
with a straight face.
Fisher did just that.
Back in Crisler during the post-championship
game rally, in front of a crowd holding signs that
read "Fisher: 6-0", Schembechler patiently wait-
ed for students to settle down as he finished his
speech.
But he kept being cut off. The crowd wouldn't
stop yelling, "Fisher, Fisher".
Bo had no choice.
"I told Schembechler, 'You're Athletic Director,
you make the decision,'" James Duderstadt said,
who was University President at the time. "'But if
you are not going to hire Fisher, give me 48 hours
to get out of town."'
THE INFAMOUS FAB FIVE
Schembechler hiredFisher a week later to usher
in a new era of Michigan athletics, the effects of
which still haunt the program to this day.
In the Athletic Department, there was no doubt
that Fisher was a good in-game coach, but there
were questions regarding his ability to recruit.
"Obviously, with the Fab Five, he was able to do
that," Duderstadt said.
In fall of 1991, Fisher put together possibly the
most heralded recruiting class in the history of
college basketball.
Michigan was the first team to ever start five
freshmen, and those five freshmen started in the
Final Four.
Duderstadt called the Fab Five a phenomenon.
The quintet captured the imaginations of sports
fans at a time when ESPN and television sports
journalism were blossoming.
The Fab Five were the first to wear baggy pants.
They bragged. They trash talked. They brought
streetball to the court.
But despite going to two straight championship
games, they never won it.
"They were something very unusual in college
basketball, and they affected all of college bas-
ketball, whereas the '89 team was a very talented
team that was very well-coached that happened to
win it all," Duderstadt said.
The players on the '89 team often get mistaken
for the Fab Five. When forward Terry Mills was
once asked if he was a part of the Fab Five, he
responded, "No, we were the team that won it."
Mills and his teammates often refer to them-
selves as the "forgotten team".
"We like to consider ourselves the team that got
the job done," Rice said. "We didn't get nearly the
hype that the Fab Five got or the notoriety. Our
legacy that we want people to remember is that we
set our minds to go out and accomplish winning
a National Championship. We put ourselves on a
mission and we went out and got it."
TAINTE LGAY
"I told the players to look at the spot for the 1989
championship banner because it was reserved for
Michigan," Fisher said, looking up into the rafters
as he addressed the crowd at the championship _
rally.
A banner was hung at midcourt, where the Big
Ten Championship banners currently hang, but it
wasn't visible to fans sitting inthe current student
section.
For many students, it was out of sight, out of
mind.
And the legacy of all Michigan basketball play-
ers was tarnished when the star of the Fab Five,
Chris Webber, was discovered to have allegedly
received $280,000 in cash and gifts from booster
Ed Martin while he was a student at Michigan.
Martin was one of the "shady characters"
hanging around the program that Schembechler
ON APRIL 4,1989, Michigan Athletic Director
Bo Schembechler stepped to a microphone inside
Crisler Arena to address 10,000 frenzied fans.
He could barely speak without being interrupt-
ed by impromptu cheers.
The night before, the Michigan men's basket-
ball team had knocked off Seton Hall 90-89 in
overtime to cap an incredible run and capture the
NCAA National Championship.
In his 20 years at Michigan, Schembechler had
never won a national title as the football coach. It
was the only championship he oversaw as Ath-
letic Director.
"I've been around here a long time, and this
championship by this basketball team will go
down as one of the great accomplishments in all
of Michigan athletics," Schembechler told the
crowd.
Two decades later, with the basketball team
in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in
11 years, few students are aware of the dramatic
events that unfolded on the way to the title.
Few remember forward Glen Rice scoring
184 points to set the record for most points in an
NCAA Tournament. Or forward Sean Higgins's
put-back against Illinois with just a few ticks left
in the semifinals. Or guard Rumeal Robinson hit-
ting both foul shots on a one-and-one with three
seconds left to win the national title.
Perhaps few would believe that before Michi-
gan State and Ohio State became known for
drunken riots, eight students were arrested as a
mob took over South University Avenue, flipping
over cars and swinging from live power lines in a
celebration after the championship game.,
Instead, students remember the Fab Five and
the ensuing scandal surrounding a booster's
monetary gifts to star players that crippled the
program for years. True Michigan basketball
fans can still hear the chants of "NIT, NIT" from
opposing fans.
But it all relates back to a group of underdogs
that banded together, led by an interim coach and
inspired by a football coach to "shock the world."
"No students remember," said Associate Ath-
letic Director Bruce Madej. "That was 20 years
ago. Anyone who was born and going to school
can't remember it anyways."
A FATEFUL HIRE
Three days before the Wolverines' NCAA Tour-
nament first-round matchup with Xavier, Detroit
Free Press columnist Mitch Albom saw Michigan
coach Bill Frieder board a red-eye flight to Arizona.
The journalist promptly called Schembechler
to inquire why his basketball coach was traveling
across the country on the brink of the team's big-
gest game of the season.
Schembechler didn't know.
A day later, Frieder announced he would be
leaving Ann Arbor to take the top job at Arizona
State. He planned on finishing out the tournament
with Michigan before packing up for the desert.
Schembechler had other plans - he fired Frie-
der before he could resign, famously saying, "A
Michigan man will coach a Michigan team."
Assistant coach Steve Fisher was hired as the
interim head coach. All of a sudden, Fisher was
the only person to ever coach his first game in the
was worried about when he hired Fisher.
A six-year investigation uncovered that three
other players received money from Martin.
Michigan went on probation for two seasons,
withdrew from postseason consideration in the
2002-03 season and was penalized one schol-
arship for four years. It also erased the team's
records for all or part of five seasons, including
the Fab Five years.
And it cost Fisher his job in 1997.
And the scandal all dates back to one shot in
1989 - the one that earned Michigan a national
title and Fisher his coaching position.
With three seconds left in the National Cham-
pionship game and down by one, Michigan guard
Robinson was fouled driving to the basket. If he
would have missed his first free throw, the game
probably would have been over.
Robinson had made just 67 percent of his free
throws in his career and had missed a free throw
earlier in the season against Wisconsin that lost
the Wolverines the game.
In the huddle during a timeout before the foul
shots, no one talked to Robinson. They left him
alone and gave him no encouragement - they just
knew he was going to make them.
Robinson coolly made both and Michigan
returned to celebrate in front of a packed house in
Crisler Arena.
"Because of that shot, Steve Fisher stays on and
Steve Fisher's a nice guy, but the Fab Five was the
best and worst thing that ever happened to them,"
Bacon said. "That's when coaches lost control, in
my opinion. It became so player-driven, so talent-
driven.... I hate to say it, but they have not won a
Big Ten title since I was a student, and I am not a
young man any more."
It's been over 23 years since the last conference
title.
And although the '89 team indirectly led to the
scandal, none of the players were ever found to
have taken money.
"It's unfortunate for one, what happened,"
Higgins said. "But adversity makes you stronger.
That's what it did for us. You have to come down
sometime. And everyone was hunting for us any-
way. I mean, the NCAA was trying to get us back
when we played. But we were squeaky clean."
Many fans have associated the scandal sur-
rounding Webber and the other players who
received money with the '89 players just because
Fisher coached both teams.
Many in the Athletic Department would dis-
agree.
"No relationship whatsoever between those
teams," Athletic Director Bill Martin said. "These
are the guys that won it. They did it. And that's the
pleasurable part about it for us. And that's why we
have a banner up there with a light on it."
But it wasn't until 2001 that the National Cham-
pionship banner was moved from the rafters in
midcourt to its current location in the south cor-
ner of Crisler, visible for every fan to see.
And Higgins, who returned to Crisler for the
first time in January since leaving for the pros,
couldn't help but marvel at it.
"That's the biggest one right there," he said.
"That's the one that decorates this place."
RETURNING TO GLORY
On Jan. 17, 2009, as Michigan hosted Ohio State,
the 1989 National Championship team was hon-
ored for the first time in Crisler Arena since their
post-championship game rally.
There were no speeches. No impromptu cheers.
And students who either weren't alive in 1989 or
were too young to remember it stood up and rec-
ognized a forgotten team.
It was a rich ovation from a student body that
hadn't experienced an NCAA Tournament game
in over 11 years.
And though Michigan lost by seven to the Buck-
eyes that day, the moment was still special for the
current batch of Wolverines.
"It's sort of like seeing your older brothers
come to the game for the first time, so you try to
give them something to be happy about," junior
forward DeShawn Sims said after the loss. "But
unfortunately, we couldn't."
See '89 CHAMPS, Page 8B