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LLOYD remembers the day he truly
CARR became part of the club.
It was 1995, and after .15:
years of working as an assistant coach under Bo
Schembechler and Gary Moeller, it was Carr's
turn to be on top. The Wolverines started the
season with four straight wins before losing
quarterback Scott Dreisbach for the season. In
their next seven games, they limped to a 4-3
record.
Ohio State was coming to town. No. 2 in the
country. 11-0. Led by that year's Heisman Tro-
phy winner Eddie George and Biletnikoff Award
winner Terry Glenn.
ThoseWolverines had no chance.
And that's exactly what Michigan equipment
manager Jon Falk read in the Ann Arbor News,
three days before that game.
"Jon Falk came out toward the end of prac-
tice, and he's just walking as only Jon can walk,
and his head was down and he was walking
extremely fast across the practice field, and he
had a newspaper in his hand," Carr reminisces
now, 14 years later. "And Terry Glenn, at a press
conference, had made the statement that Michi-
gan was nothing."
Carr pauses, lets that sink in.
"And so I remember at the end of practice, I
took that paper out,*and I read it to our team."
But Glenn hadn't bargained on Charles Wood-
son, who covered him like a glove, stealing two
interceptions. Or Tshimanga Biakabutuka, who
rushed for an astonishing 313 yards on 37 car-
ries. Or a 31-23 Michigan upset.
After the postgame celebrations with the
team, and after the media frenzy, Carr walked
back into the locker room.
"I'll never forget," he laughs, shaking his head.
"Everybody had cleared out. I was in there, I
had come back from the press conference - and
there was Bo Schembechler.
"And he gave me a big hug and he said - he
said, 'I'm gonna tell you the same thing that
Fritz Crisler told me after my first Ohio State
game.' And I said, 'What's that?'
"He says, 'Lloyd, you'll never win a bigger
game than this one."'
AN OLD-SCHOOL MENTALITY"
Twenty years ago, then-Athletic Director Bo
Schembechler fired men's basketball coach Bill
Frieder after learning he was planning to leave
for Arizona State following the 1989 NCAA
Tournament. Schembechler didn't bother giv-
ing Frieder a chance to finish the season.
"A Michigan Man will coach Michigan,"
Schembechler famously proclaimed, right
before interim coach Steve Fisher led the team
to its only NCAA Championship in program his-
tory.
Even the most decorated Wolverines see
Schembechler's decision as the quintessential
example of the Michigan Man ideal, a story
that barely needs explanation. But the real-
ity of today's sports world is that that probably
wouldn't happen now - even in Ann Arbor.
"I think back then, you had more old-school
coaches who lived by a different creed, and I
think those coaches are almost extinct," says
1991 Heisman Trophy winner Desmond How-
ard, who calls Schembechler, his former coach,
both the "godfather" and the "architect" of the
tradition. "A guylike that, they're notrreally con-
cerned about any sort of negative backlash that
they may receive from their decision.
"I think these days now, some of the inmates
- some of the inmates run the asylum. I think
that'd be a rare occasion in today's sports world
or athletic arena."
Softball coach Carol Hutchins, the all-time
winningest coach in Michigan history, points to
the same basketball story to illustrate the tra-
dition. And at the end, unprompted, she offers
similar skepticism.
"I don't know if Bo would work in today's
world, but I think he had it right," she says. "He
taught kids the right values."
Deathless loyalty. Enthusiasm. Conviction.
Fielding Yost's definition of those "right values"
date back to the early 1900s. The idea of a Michi-
gan Man is ingrained in the school's culture, but
even those considered personifications of the
term struggle to explain exactly what it means.
"There's a lot of different strings attached,"
hockey coach Red Berenson says, shifting in
his seat and looking a little frustrated. "I don't
know if it will come out as clean cut and clear as
you want. It's a moving target.'
THROUGH RANOR SHINE
Ron Kramer sits in the back row of the second
floor of the Michigan Stadium press box, talk-
ing and joking with other Wolverine legends.
He doesn't often stay past halftime anymore, he
says. But it's been 50 years, and he still can't stop
coming back.'
After hearing his story, it's clear that runs in
his family.
His tale seems to begin and end with athletic
excellence. At Michigan from 1954 to 1956, he
won nine varsity letters in football, basketball
and track and field. He was a rusher, receiver,
punter and kicker for the football team in the
fall, the captain of the basketball team in the
winter and a high jumper in the spring.
With talent came accolades - his football
number, 87, is one of juSt five officially retired
by the program. He was a two-time football All-
American, helped the Green Bay Packers win
back-to-back championships during a 10-year
NFL career and is considered to be one of the
best athletes in Michigan history.
But that isn't what he talks about today.
If you want-to look at a real Michigan Man, he
says, look at his mother.
Kramer's parents devoted their lives to col-
lege football, traveling to all of Kramer's games
during his collegiate playing days. When his
father passed away, his mother learned to drive
a car so she could keep coming to Michigan Sta-
dium. Each week, she brought an apple to give
to the policeman who directed traffic at the cor-
ner of Stadium and Main. Just so he could have
a little bite to eat, Kramer says now.
For 241 consecutive games, Adeline Kramer
sat in section 2, row 83.
Her last year at a Michigan football game was
1987, the year before she died. But Kramer vis-
ited that seat a few weeks ago, and the fans in
section 2, row 83 still remember his mother.
In the 1960s, Kramer and a few of his Detroit
Lions teammates went to a game against Wis-
consin at the Big House. It started raining mid-
way through the contest, so they walked back
to the motor home they had taken to the game.
Michigan booster Hoot McInerney told the
group he was ready to leave.
"I said,'Sorry, Hoot.' " Kramer says."He said,
'What do you mean?' I said, 'Mother stays 'til the
end of the game.'
"So here's all these big, tough football players,
and we had to wait 'til the end of the ballgame.
Because my mother always stood out there after
the game was over and she said, 'Good game,
boys,' and she always greeted them."
MAKING THE
TRADITION YOUR OWN
Carol Hutchins used to be a Spartan. And
every year, someone makes sure she doesn't for-
get that.
"To this day, the week of the Michigan State
game, people ask me who I'm rooting for. And
I'm just appalled," she says, sitting in an office
with a giant, stuffed wolverine on top of the
bookshelf. "I always tell them, I always root for
Michigan State tocome in second.
"But I'm just appalled people ask that ques-
tion. To me, it's a stupid question."
She gestures to her navy blue warm-ups.
"Clearly. I'm blue. What part of me looks
green?"
It's a dumb question because it would be like
asking if Bo Schembechler had still cheered
for Miami (Ohio) over Michigan. Hutchins, a
two-sport Michigan State student-athlete, has
invested 26 years building a program from the
ground up in Ann Arbor. It doesn't matter if you
come here from the outside, she says. The real
issue is whether you take ownership of the tra-
dition.
And she uses a example from East Lansing to
prove that point.
"Years ago, Nick Saban was the football coach
up there," she says, referring to the nomadic
coach who, in the past 10 years, has coached
at Michigan State, Louisiana State, the NFL's
Miami Dolphins and Alabama. "And I used to
say to my former colleagues and friends, that's
See MICHIGAN MAN, Page 7B