by Fleck’s many handy philosophies.
“Row the Boat” is meant to remind
everyone to do their part and stay in
unison with the team. “Change your
best” is a reminder to constantly
improve, and “Elite” has turned into
a constant description of all things
relating to the team.
Fleck’s mantras are now part
of Hart’s routine vernacular. He
uses the word “elite” five times in
a 13-minute interview, the ideal
descriptor of Fleck’s system.
On one play during warmups,
freshman running back LeVante
Bellamy runs the wrong route. Hart,
walking over to him, rhetorically
shouts,
“What’s
the
play?”
As
Bellamy looks on at him, Hart does a
paddling motion, shorthand for “Row
the Boat.”
He does these things not because
“Bronconese” is the only language
he speaks anymore, but because in
order to add them to his coaching
repertoire, he has to master them
first.
These philosophies are what
Hart will eventually take from his
time in Kalamazoo, his foray into
unchartered coaching waters.
“He’s really an elite example of
what it means to be a Bronco,” Fleck
says after practice. “But it stems
from his time at Michigan as well.”
Fleck knows a lot about building
a program. Someday, Hart wants to
emulate his methods, if he ever gets
the chance to be a head coach. He’d
like that, but not anytime soon. He’s
still learning, after all, and the more
logical next step for him would be to
become an offensive coordinator.
“When he got here, my job is to
take him to the next step,” Fleck
said. “Develop him to (what) he
wants to become, and then wherever
he goes from here, or whatever he
does after me, he’s gonna take a
piece of me too and carry that on.
You’re just gaining experience. He
doesn’t know everything yet, but you
never will.”
That kind of experience is what
drew Hart to the Broncos in the
first place. Fleck has an infectious
personality, and learning how to
generate enthusiasm will be one of
the most important things Hart can
learn from Fleck.
In fact, many of the things he has
picked up aren’t so unlike what he’s
taken from his Michigan mentors.
The lesson he says he’ll take
from Fleck is to “change your best.”
He likes its simple meaning that
yesterday’s effort isn’t good enough
today. It shouldn’t be surprising, then,
that the phrase he most remembers
from Carr is similar: “You either get
better or worse every day.”
“I’ll make my own in 10 years,”
Hart said. “But there’s something
I’ve learned from every (coach),
something I’ve loved from every one
of them.”
In that way, Hart’s experience
isn’t entirely unique. On some level,
he’s still aspiring to be the same kind
of coach, with the same core values
he learned at Michigan. He’s just
learning to do it in different ways.
“I’m blessed to be here,” Hart
said. “I’m a 10-times better coach
than I was. I didn’t realize it at that
time — I knew this would be a great
place to come because I knew they
were going to have success, but I
didn’t know how much of a better
coach they were going to make me.”
But behind Hart as he says all
this is that countdown clock on the
scoreboard — a stark reminder that
Hart’s next step is not another job
switch, but another season.
***
Sept. 4 came and went, and the
Spartans showed up to play. Western
Michigan held things closer than
expected, but there was no upset in
store. Michigan State 37, Western
Michigan 24.
The Spartans held Franklin to
23 yards, and Georgia Southern
limited him to 58 in the next game.
Adjustments were in store for the
Broncos.
Fortunately for them, Hart is a
film rat. Always has been, probably
always will be.
When Hart made the varsity team
as a freshman at Onondaga Central
High School in Syracuse, New York,
coach Bill Spicer didn’t quite know
what he was getting. He knew Hart’s
talent, but he was still surprised at his
knowledge and at his work ethic.
“Every lunch period, he would
come down, and him and I would
watch film,” Spicer said. “That was
from freshman year on. … He would
be in my office during lunch period
every single day. During the season
and offseason, he would probably be
in there three or four times a week.
“There were times when I would
be breaking the film, like a Saturday
afternoon or something, and the guys
would come down to lift and then
they left. And he would stick around,
and we would break down film. And
there were times when I would go
onto another play and he would be
like, ‘Wait a minute coach, go back to
that one, I want to check something
out.’ ”
Hart has known he wanted to be
a coach since at least high school,
maybe even a little before it.
And as Spicer recalls, it was
unusual having a player who was that
plugged in at such a young age.
“As a coach, you’ve gotta let your
barriers down a little bit when you’ve
got a kid like that,” Spicer said. “He’d
come off on the sideline and say, ‘Hey
coach, if we run this play I think it’s
gonna be wide open.’ … You’ve gotta
swallow your pride a little bit. You
run the play and the kid’s running for
a touchdown because two reasons:
No. 1, he would see it. No. 2, because
he said it to me, he’s gonna make sure
it works.”
Those are habits Hart carries to
this day — habits he learned in high
school, then honed at Michigan.
More importantly, these are habits
that will make or break his ability to
continue to climb coaching ladders.
When Hart arrived at Michigan,
David Underwood — then a senior —
remembers being surprised at how
well Hart could understand what was
happening on film.
“A lot of freshmen come in, (and)
they’re watching film, but they
don’t know what they’re looking at,”
Underwood said. “It’s like glancing
at a TV. Yeah, you’re watching TV,
but are you actually soaking that
information up? Do you know what
you’re looking at? He was able to
understand and really watch.”
Now, he’s trying to transfer those
abilities to his own group of young
backs. Franklin said that when the
Bronco running backs go in for a film
session, they often find Hart already
in the room with film rolling.
“He teaches us a lot of life lessons,”
Franklin said. “There’s a quote he
always says: ‘To be forewarned is to
be forearmed.’ I’m always trying to
watch film and forewarn myself.”
Perhaps
that
helps
explain
why
after
two
below-average
performances, Franklin rebounded
for 161 yards against Murray State, in
the Broncos’ first win of the year last
Saturday.
It’s hard not to wonder what the
Broncos have in store for their next
matchup, another team with which
Hart has a past: Ohio State. He
doesn’t talk much about Michigan’s
rivalries now that he’s at Western
Michigan, but the fact remains that
he never beat the Buckeyes. He was
part of the first class to go four years
without beating Ohio State since
1960-1963.
The Buckeyes may not be a rivalry
game for Hart’s Broncos, but they do
present an opportunity to accomplish
one of the few things he never did at
Michigan.
***
Hart laughs when asked whether
going to Western Michigan was a
lateral move, giving a diplomatic
answer about how blessed he is to be
there, and how it was good to get out
of his comfort zone.
Hart made lateral moves as a
player all the time. Many of them
eventually turned into touchdowns.
His former coach, Spicer, knows
well that Hart didn’t make the move
without good reason.
“I think you have many, many
moves in coaching,” Spicer said. “You
make so many moves that it looks like
it might be lateral to the naked eye,
but it’s really not. There’s always a
rhyme or a reason.”
For Hart, some of those reasons
are clear now — learning from Fleck,
leaving the nest of the Michigan
network — but others may not show
up for years.
To understand Hart and where he
is on his path, all you have to do is go
back to that practice in August, when
the offense pulled off a final-round
victory over the defense in the box
drill.
As the players ran down the field
celebrating, Hart was among them,
toward the back, pumping his fist in
victory. Fleck stayed behind.
Hart is still somewhere between
his two careers — the star player and
the polished coach. He will learn a
little from every stop, and eventually,
he’ll have a unique coaching style all
his own. At that point, he’ll be the
one halting practice, offering all-
or-nothing deals to his offense and
defense.
But for now, just four years
removed from playing, he still has
a lot to learn about coaching, and
plenty still to accomplish.
This Saturday, he’ll travel to
Columbus, where he’ll be in a familiar
place in different colors. The odds
will be long, far longer than they ever
were when Hart was at Michigan.
It’s different at Western Michigan.
That’s why he went there.
5
TheMichiganDaily — www.michigandaily.com
FootballSaturday — September 26, 2015
4
Michigan’s all-time
leading rusher is
honing his coaching
skills in Kalamazoo
By MAX BULTMAN
Daily Sports Editor
KALAMAZOO,
Mich.
—
Michigan’s last great running back
wears a brown shirt now. It’s August,
and Mike Hart, now 29 years old, is
standing under a pocket in the clouds
wearing sunglasses and a visor,
waiting for Western Michigan’s
football practice to start.
The scoreboards in both end zones
are counting down the 17 days until
Michigan State comes to Kalamazoo.
The Broncos will need every minute
of preparation to have a chance.
When he was at Michigan, the
Spartans were a calendar opponent
for Hart because they meant rivalry.
But he’s a Bronco, for now, and
Michigan State is only meaningful
because his new team is looking for
the upset.
Practice starts, and after about 20
minutes, Broncos coach P.J. Fleck,
the youngest head coach in the nation
at 34 years old, blows his whistle.
“BOX!” he shouts, and the players
and coaches stop what they’re doing
and sprint to the center. The players
form a circle — maybe it’s supposed
to be a box — around two players.
One is in brown and one in gold, and
they lock up with pride on the line.
It’s offense versus defense. One-on-
one. First knee to touch the turf loses.
Sports Illustrated called Fleck’s
tenure at Western Michigan “college
football’s most fascinating sociology
experiment,” and it’s easy to see
why. The players in the middle of
the circle go through four rounds of
these battles, finally ending when
Fleck — the third-year coach known
for his enthusiasm and unorthodox
methods — challenges the defense to
defend its title in an all-or-nothing
final match. The defense loses,
and Hart and the offensive players
celebrate by running down the field,
jumping up and down.
This process takes about 15
minutes of the two-hour practice.
They’re taking a substantial amount
of time for an activity that, frankly,
seems kind of silly.
Two hours to the east, in Ann
Arbor, the Michigan football team is
in its figurative submarine, shielded
from all publicity. There, the outside
world is told, they run as a reward
after a four-hour practice. It’s hard
to say how similar it is because few
are allowed to see inside.
But in Kalamazoo, this part of
practice is open to the media. The
local CBS affiliate has a camera
rolling. Things seem different here.
For Hart, that’s not necessarily so
bad.
***
For much of his football career,
Hart has done things the Michigan
way. He played for Lloyd Carr at
Michigan from 2004 to 2008, and
after a three-year stint in the NFL,
he coached under former Wolverines
defensive coordinator Ron English at
Eastern Michigan.
He’s proud of that. He says he
loves Carr “to death” and speaks
fondly of English, who gave him his
first coaching job. But at a certain
point, he had to learn to do things
differently.
So after three years coaching
at Eastern Michigan — the first in
charge of offensive quality control,
the next two as running backs
coach — Hart accepted the same
job working for Fleck at Western
Michigan before the 2014 season.
At the time, some wondered
whether it was a lateral move. But
for Hart, who coached the Eagles’
Bronson Hill to a 1,100-yard season
in 2013, Western Michigan offered
something new.
“All
I
knew
was,
kind
of,
Michigan,” Hart said. “With Coach
English, Lloyd — that’s the only
way that we did things. And not
bad things. But I needed to open my
horizons.”
For Fleck, hiring Hart wasn’t a
tough choice. Being Michigan’s all-
time leading rusher bought him
instant credibility with recruits, and
Fleck had already been hearing rave
reviews about Hart from prospects.
“(They said), ‘Mike Hart, I love
Mike Hart.’ That’s what I continued
to hear on the recruiting trail,” Fleck
said.
Hart was also familiar with Fleck
and decided the fit was right. He
and his wife Monique packed up
their two children and moved to
Kalamazoo, where Hart inherited a
stable of mostly very young running
backs.
Among
them
was
Jarvion
Franklin, a gifted freshman from
Tinley Park, Ill. It became clear that
Franklin was going to carry the load,
which left Hart with the difficult
task of building an 18-year old into a
workhorse tailback.
“It’s a good and a bad thing,
because
whatever
they
learn,
you’re teaching them,” Fleck said of
coaching true freshmen. “But the bad
thing is, whatever you teach them,
they’re learning. So you’ve gotta
make sure it’s all the right things
you’re teaching them, ‘cause they’re
like a sponge year one. There’s
nothing like year one.”
Fortunately
for
Fleck
and
Franklin, Hart had some firsthand
knowledge.
When Hart was a freshman,
Michigan’s senior starter, David
Underwood, was injured in the
second game of the season, against
Notre Dame. After that game,
the Chicago Tribune published a
column titled “Michigan is out of the
running,” detailing the Wolverines’
ground-game woes. Hart wasn’t even
mentioned as a possible solution.
The next week, Hart burst onto
the scene with 121 yards and never
looked back. He and his quarterback,
fellow freshman Chad Henne, led
the team all the way back to the Rose
Bowl, where Michigan lost to Texas.
So naturally, when Hart was
tasked
with
preparing
another
running back to shock the country,
he had credibility.
“I was leaning on him a lot,”
Franklin said. “He was really our
rock.”
All Franklin did last year was rush
for 1,551 yards and 24 touchdowns,
fourth most in the nation.
***
On the practice field at Waldo
Stadium, Hart is now engrained in
the Broncos’ culture, which is defined
TONY DING/Daily
TONY DING/Daily