I 9 9 V ~V -. a' v w ormer Michigan linebacker Jarret Irons said it best: "When great players play with certain numbers they want to give it to someone who has that type ofpotential." No one scoffs at Vincent Smith for wearing Charles Woodson's sacred No. 2. Desmond Howard's No. 21 is worn by another receiver, Junior Hemingway, but hell isn't raised over it. And Desmond was kind enough to share his number with Tim Biakabutuka. History will stumble over itself like that at a place like Michigan. Jon Falk, the Michigan equipment manager, has been around long enough to see his share of that history. He's just the man I'm looking for this morning. I step into his office, which is cluttered with memories. You'd figure that'd happen if you've been around the Michigan football team since Bo Schembechler coached. My eyes wander, I'm looking for clues, trying to dig deeper into the mystery of one of the loneliest traditions at a school that prides itself on its past. Why is this jersey so special? How could a singular maize digit ruin a life and complete it at the same time? Rich Rodri- guez had been nearly tarred and feathered over it. Earlier this spring, Braylon Edwards, the last receiver to wear the No. 1, met with the new Michigan coach Brady Hoke and gave his blessing to the coach, saying it was up to Hoke to choose who was worthy of the jersey. After he was hired, the No. 1jersey was the first thing Hoke and Falk spoke about. It meant too much to not take precautions. A jersey doesn't make the player, but where would some players be without it? Anthony Carter, Derrick Alexander, Tyrone Butterfield, David Terrell and Braylon Edwards may have built the legend, but it wasn't without sacrifice. A little piece of each lives on with it. A price each one paid to wear it. Anthony Carter was the origin. Without him, there's no story to tell. Nearly a decade later, Derrick Alexander res- urrected the jersey, just like he did his own career. Tyrone Butterfield realized how heavythe weightof the jersey could be. Nearly everyone thought he had disgraced it. Dave Ter- rell was handed the jersey, but Michigan wasn't about to hand him the throne. And then there's Braylon Edwards - the boy who needed time to understand what it truly meant to earn his dream. Falklooks down at a white sheet of paper he had prepared. It lists every player who's ever worn the jersey at Michigan. "Well, as you know, the No. 1 jersey has a little bit of his- torical value here at Michigan," Falks begins. "You can go through some of the names." Falk rattled off a few of them - a left tackle, a defensive back, a kicker, and a few others. None of whom I was looking for. And I knew Greg McMurtry had also worn the number, but he isn't a main character. "Now, and those were all great people," Falk says, "but the No. 1 gotto be a great deal when Anthony Carter got the No. 1..." IHow five BY: TIM R a jersey it I I1 ANTHONY CARTER CLASS OF 1982 Every day ofhis life, JohnWangler wakes up with a sore knee. He can't run on it any- more or play basketball. It's bone on bone now, and he knows eventually it'll need to be replaced. He's lucky to have gotten as much out of it as he did. During his last year at Michigan, more than 30 years ago, his knee was in no shape to run Bo's option offense, but his arm was fine. He had history to make, stories to tell his kids how hethrewthe ballcto Anthony Cart- er, the painfully shy, 170-pound, chicken- legged, magical wide receiver that changed the way Bo Schembechler played football. Bo always had a soft spot for Anthony. Maybe it was because the coach knew Anthony needed a special touch, so far away from hishometown in Florida. Maybe Bo was protective. Anthony left the team for three days, homesick, before his fresh- man year even started. His mother prompt- ly made him go back. So Bo took care of him on the field, made him comfortable, eyen called him "Little Schemmy." Like a father would. The guys saw how Bo smiled when he yelled at Anthony. How he teased him. How he gave the No. 1jersey to Anthony because he said he wanted the little guy to look big- ger. And yet, deep down he knew Anthony was special. In his first week of practice, Anthony ran a post route over the middle, and the pass was thrown well behind him and high in the air. Mid-stride, he jumped and spun his body back towards the ball, timing it all perfectly. It looked like he was flying. After a split second he came down, still in stride, and kept running. Everybody else on the field just stopped. It was easy for Wangler to trust Anthony. "He really did some stuff that not a lot of people walkingthis earth could have done," Wangler says. But Anthony wouldn't open up to just anyone. He had a few buddies he'd talk to, and that was it. Luckily, Wangler worked his way into his circle early on. Anthony trusted him because the receiver knew deep down his quarterback cared about him. "On the field we just had a connection," Wangler says now. "He knew where I wanted to throw the ball. He'd make the reception and it'd just work. He was just one of those guys in your life that you really sync with him from day one." If they were really going to change the way Michigan played football, it'd take the two of them - Bo's favorite player and one gutsy quarterback. The year was 1979. Anthony was a fresh- man and Wangler was the pocket-passing veteran locked in a quarterback battle with the option-quarterback wizard B.J. Dickey. It was a battle of styles - passing the ball and the power running game versus the option offense sweeping the college foot- ball landscape- and Anthony clearly stood on one side. Through the first eight games of the season, if Wangler was in the game, most of the passing plays were designed for Anthony, who was the team's No. 3 receiver as a freshman. And at first, Bo just rotated quarterbacks, going with the hot hand. Anthony would go only as far as Wangler did. But Anthony was too talented for that to last - talent took matters into its own hands on acold and rainy afternoon against Indianaon Oct. 27,1979. Michigan was sup- posed to dominate the Hoosiers and Dickey had started the game, but he was injured in the second quarter. So Wangler had his shot. Unexpectedly, the score was tied, 21-21, with 1:31 left. The stage was set - Wangler had the ball at the 45-yard line, with Michi- gan's 7-1 record on the line. Anthony brought the play into the hud- dle. It had him running his favorite route, a post, right over the middle. For some rea- son linebackers and safeties could never get a good angle on him - Wangler always thought it was because Anthony ran just as fast sideways as he did forward. Now he would have to score or the game would end in a tie. "Throw me the ball," Anthony said confi- dently as they broke the huddle. "You better get open," Wangler snapped back. Bo took off his blue cap and ran his fin- gers through his hair before the snap. Wangler dropped back, faked the hand- off, stepped up and threw a spiral to Antho- ny, who caught the ball at the 20-yard line. Two Hoosiers collided behind him as he kept his balance like he always did, and he scooted up field. His chicken legs - the ones everyone said were too skinny for the Big Ten - carried him past a diving defend- er and into the endzone.- 27-21. Anthony was mobbed by his team- mates. The crowd was delirious. On the sidelines, Bo jumped up and down, pumping his fists like a little kid. The score read: Michigan 7, Washington, 6, but Bo was furious at halftime of the 1981 Rose Bowl. This was Bo's fourth Rose Bowl in five years, but he had never won the big game. That monkey on his back was getting bigger. This was his chance to beat a West Coast team, win the damn thing. And Wan- gler wasn't gettingAnthony the ball. "You've got to get the ball in the air to Anthony," Bo pleaded with his quarterback. "He's been covered, you don't want me to another option quarterback, Rich Hewlett, ran the offense just the way Bo liked. Bo thought Wangler's career was fin- ished anyway. He offered Wangler a spot as a graduate assistant and the quarterback shrugged him off. That type of knee injury like that usually took a year-and-a-half to recover from in those days, but Wangler was going to play. Then that summer, Wangler and Little Schemmy worked for Jon Falk. In their free time, they'd play catch. Bo ultimately gave Wangler a chance in the second game that season against Notre Dame, and he made a game of it before Michigan lost. The next week Wangler quarterbacked another close loss against "IF THERE WAS A PASS THROWN IN (ANTHONY'S) DIRECTION, EVERYONE IN THE STANDS STOOD UP BECAUSE THEY KNEW THERE WAS A GOOD CHANCE SOMETHING EXCITING WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN." South Carolina loss. Wangler sensed it: "We haveAnthony. We have receivers. We're com- mitted to going this direction." And Wangler was the key to unleashing Anthony - with him in the game, the coach grew comfortable with the veteran check- ing the defense at the line of scrimmage and airing it out when opponents stacked the box. Heck, Bo was still coaching the team, so they'd still pound the ball with Butch Woolfolk and Stan Edwards. But, this, this was just a smart move. "If you've got eight men defending the run and three defending the pass, that's not very good odds against Anthony," Carr says. Bo stuck with Wangler the rest of the sea- son and Michigan won out, riding the Wan- gler-to-Anthony connection all the way to the Rose Bowl. Now, Bo was in Wangler's face, with the Rose Bowl on the line. How dare he not get the ball to Anthony. For the first time all sea- son he had to make a point of it. Wangler obliged. "Look at the legs," a TV announcer mar- veled. "His thighs are about as big as his calves. What a move!" The guy whose jersey draped off his frame like a curtain was torturing the sec- ondary. Then, with the ball placed on the seven-yard line, it appeared there was some confusion on Michigan's sidelines as to what play to run. Anthony stood next to Bo until Bo finally uttered a few words to him, grabbed his pads and pushed him onto the field as if to say, Justgo take care of this for me, okay? The No. 1 jersey streaked across the end- zone, through Washington's zoneunguard- ed, running that post route it loved so much. Wangler hit Anthony for an easy score. Butch Woolfolk ran for 182 yards that day, but it was Little Schemmy that opened the game for everyone. His stats read: five catches, 68 yards, one touchdown and four rushes for another 33 yards, and one defense scared silly. He proved the perfect weapon, capping his first of an unimaginable three- straight All-America seasons. As the sun set on the picturesque scene at the Rose Bowl, sitting on the sidelines with his team ahead 23-6, Wangler finally allowed himself to reminisce. Wangler-to- Carter accounted for 12 touchdowns that season and half of all of Wangler's 1,500- plus passing yards. Wangler's last shot, Bo's Rose Bowl ring, it all wouldn't have been possible without Anthony, Wangler thought. "I'm really glad you came back when you were a freshman," Wangler saidto Anthony, "because I don't know if anyone would've known my name if you didn't." TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com 7 force it in?" Wangler argued. He had a point - Anthony had been double teamed for the majority of the first half. But Bo wasn't hav- ing any of it. No excuse was good enough for why Anthony had zero catches at halftime. "Force the ball to Anthony, will you please?" Bo said. "He'll do the rest." Had Bo really just begged Wangler to air it out? - So much had changed that season. But how did he end up here, at the Rose Bowl? At first it looked like anotherquarterback was destined to share the spotlight with Anthony. After the miracle against Indiana, Wangler was in and out of Bo's good graces due to the quarterback's inconsistent play. Then Lawrence Taylor tore nearly every ligament in Wangler's knee in the Gator Bowl, right at the end of Anthony's fresh- man season. Wangler knew that Bo, in his heart of hearts, still wanted to run the option. With Wangler out of the picture that spring, South Carolina, 17-14. That was a new low - Michigan had lost five of its last six games. "Everybody thought Rome was crum- bling, the dynasty, the whole deal," Wangler says. "Everyone was questioning Michigan football, Bo, everybody. It was a mess." What Bo did next fixed everything: he rested his offense squarely on the shoulders of a young, spry Anthony Carter. One up-and-coming defensive backs' coach saw the transition unfold from his seat high above the action in the press box. "If there was a pass thrown in (Antho- ny's) direction, everyone in the stands stood up," says Lloyd Carr, "because they knew there was a good chance something excit- ing was really about to happen." Before Anthony, when a quarterback would enter the huddle Bo would essential- ly have him call two plays: a run to the left and an audible to run to the right, if the QB didn't like what he saw at the line. Something shifted inside Bo after that Anthony Carter celebrates after he catches the game-winning touchdown against Indiana in 1979. 6 1 FootballSaturday - September 3, 2011