8B — Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

For Henry Poggi, switch to
offense was a family affair

By MAX COHEN

Managing Sports Editor

In the minutes before the

Michigan football team began
its rout of Brigham Young this
weekend, an unfamiliar face
flashed across the Michigan
Stadium video boards as an
offensive starter. He had been
a defensive lineman as recently
as last season, but now he would
be blocking on the other side of
the ball.

Henry Poggi never expected

to be running out of the tunnel
as an offensive starter for
the Wolverines. The redshirt
sophomore arrived on campus
before the 2013 season as a blue-
chip defensive line prospect,
a cornerstone of a Michigan
recruiting class that was ranked
sixth in the nation by ESPN.

The arc of his career did not

go as planned. The 6-foot-4,
273-pound
Poggi
redshirted

his freshman year and played
in just six games during his
second season. The arrival of
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh
this past offseason offered the
opportunity for a fresh start,
but that, too, threw a wrench in
Poggi’s career.

Soon after Harbaugh’s arrival,

the new coach told Poggi that
he wanted him to play on both
sides of the ball as a fullback/
tight end hybrid during spring
practice. Poggi was initially
disappointed. He had played a
similar position in high school,
but did not anticipate the same
task in college.

So Poggi did what he often

does in times of need: He called
his father, Biff.

Biff Poggi is different from

most
fathers
of
Michigan

football players — he is a coach
himself. The elder Poggi has
led the Gilman School football
team in Baltimore for more than
a decade.

The Greyhounds have been

a powerhouse throughout his
tenure, entering this season as
the No. 3 team in USA Today’s
Northeast regional preseason
football rankings. Poggi and his
two older brothers played for
their father.

The
coaching
philosophy

of Biff Poggi and his coaching
staff, as documented in the
book
“Season
of
Life,”
by

Jeffrey Marx, is one in which
nurture
takes
precedence

over screaming, and kindness
overrules it all. Those guidelines
were not always applicable to
the coach’s son.

“We’d
be
having
a
bad

practice, and instead of yelling
at our team, he’d just kind of yell
at me,” Henry Poggi said.

Despite the extra flak, Poggi

said that he would not trade
the experience of playing for
his father for the world. It was
natural, then, that he called Biff
Poggi to discuss his position
change.

Even
before
the
phone

call, both Poggis were aware
of Harbaugh’s past success
at
moving

players
around
the

field.
Seattle

Seahawks
cornerback
Richard
Sherman,
widely
considered
the
best

cornerback
in the NFL, had played wide
receiver
before
Harbaugh

switched
his
position
at

Stanford. And Harbaugh told
Poggi
about
San
Francisco

49ers fullback Bruce Miller —
a defensive lineman in college
who became a second-team All-
Pro fullback under Harbaugh in
San Francisco.

By the end of his conversation

with
his
father
about
the

possible position change, Poggi
was sold. He realized that he
trusted his new coach.

“Pretty much whatever he

says, I think he knows a little bit
more about football than me,”
Poggi said. “So if he thinks I’ll
do well there, I was all for it.”

Eventually, before the start of

fall camp, Harbaugh told Poggi
that he wanted him to play
offense full time. He felt it was
a disservice to Poggi to play him
both ways, because he wasn’t
progressing as well as he would
if he focused on only one spot.

So far, Harbaugh’s experiment

has been successful. Poggi has
played consistently enough to
see the field on a regular basis.

Describing his role is a

different matter. Even Poggi
himself doesn’t know exactly
what to call his position. There
are plays when he lines up in
the backfield as a fullback, and
other plays when he lines up as
a tight end.

“Kind of like an H-back …

fullback, tight end, I kind of
play all three,” Poggi said. “I

don’t
really

know what to
call it. H-back
is probably the
best thing.”

Whatever

position
he

was
playing,

Poggi
made

the
first

reception
of

his career on

the first play from scrimmage
in Saturday’s game. It was no
sight to behold — he fell to the
ground with the ball in his
clutches when there was open
field in front of him — but the
two-yard gain still represented
a milestone, one he never would
have been able to earn as a
defensive lineman.

There are times when Poggi

misses his defensive lineman
friends, with whom he spent
the first two years of his career.
Now, he seeks advice from fifth-
year senior Joe Kerridge — who,
Poggi jokes, is old enough to be a
coach (Kerridge is 23 years old).

There’s always his dad, too.

Poggi says they talk every
day, even when there aren’t
pressing position changes at
hand. Despite his high school
coaching schedule, Biff Poggi
has made it to two of Michigan’s
three home games this season.

Poggi will return to his

home state this weekend, when
the Wolverines travel to play
Maryland. He expects at least
18 of his family members and
friends to be in attendance,
and a few of his former high

school teammates play for the
Terrapins.

They will see the new version

of Poggi, the one who still gets to
“smash skulls,” but in a different
fashion. Poggi is under no
illusion that his transformation
is complete, and he said that he
needs to work on both catching
the ball and moving around it,
instead of toward it.

“My biggest thing coming

in here was I wanted to do
whatever
I
could
to
help

Michigan win, no matter what
my role was,” Poggi said.

His position change, however

little he expected it, provides
him that opportunity. Serving
as the latest example of a
successful Harbaugh position
change would be a nice bonus.

ALLISON FARRAND/Daily

Jim Harbaugh has a history of converting players from defense to offense.

The rise of ‘M’ women’s athletics

By JAKE LOURIM

Managing Sports Editor

In the October 16, 1973, edition

of The Michigan Daily, a box
no bigger than one square inch
represented the change of the
Michigan Athletic Department
forever.

“Oops!”
the
header
read.

“Michigan’s women’s field hockey
team bowed to Western Michigan
last night in Kalamazoo, 2-0.
Michigan’s coach was proud with
her team’s performance due to
the superlative competition.”

Eight days later, a Daily sports

writer wrote a seven-paragraph
story in the bottom-left corner
of page six. “Michigan coach
Phyllis Weikart said she though
(sic) her team might have been
a little overconfident, and when
they fell behind, just couldn’t get
it together.”

Throughout the past 125 years,

both Michigan sports and the
Daily have been overcome by
change. And while both Michigan
women’s sports and the Daily’s
coverage have come a long way
since then, those early days were
the beginning of the movement.

In 1972, the United States

passed Title IX of the Education
Amendment
Act,
comprised

of the 37 words that would
irreversibly change the nature
of college athletics: “No person
in the United States shall, on
the basis of sex, be excluded
from participation in, be denied
the benefits of, or be subjected
to
discrimination
under
any

education program or activity
receiving
Federal
financial

assistance.”

Though schools were slow

to enforce the law at first, those
words
laid
the
foundation.

The
next
year,
University

President
Robben
Fleming

created the Committee to Study
Intercollegiate
Athletics
for

Women. The committee wrote
a report on women’s athletics,
prompting Michigan to begin
competition
in
the
1973-74

season in six varsity women’s

sports:
basketball,
volleyball,

tennis, swimming and diving,
synchronized
swimming
and

field hockey.

That year was merely a starting

point: The field hockey team went
1-3-1, the volleyball team 7-9 and
the basketball team 3-8.

The off-field appearance were

even less promising. The women’s
teams enjoyed far fewer resources
than the men: no scholarships,
no practice uniforms, no top-
notch facilities. They paid their
way as walk-ons, wore their own
T-shirts and shorts and played
wherever they could find space.

With progress slow at first, one

might have wondered how long it
would take for Title IX to create
real change. That was until 1978,
when up the road in East Lansing,
a new figure in the women’s
sports movement began to make
headlines: Carol Hutchins.

* * *

Hutchins, who is still the head

coach of the Michigan softball
team, has been a pioneer in the
process of legitimizing women’s
sports from the outset. She is
now known as one of the leading
figures in a successful movement.
Back in 1978, she was just a player
on the Michigan State women’s
basketball and softball teams.

The previous season, Michigan

State’s
Athletic
Department

allocated
$776,000
to
men’s

sports but less than $85,000 to
women’s athletics.

So Hutchins did something

about it. She and her teammates
sued the university before the
federal Office of Civil Rights. The
court ordered universities to stop
discriminating against athletes
and teams on the basis of gender.

In the same season when

Hutchins’ team brought forth the
suit, Michigan started its softball
program, along with women’s
golf and women’s track and
field, bringing the total to nine
women’s sports, compared to the
12 it has today.

The softball team debuted on

April 8, 1978, with a 7-2 win over
Northwestern. Its home opener
was two days later against Grand
Valley State, another 1-0 win.

Support was slow at first — as

the Daily wrote, “There were
no stands and only a handful of
fans, but that didn’t bother the
woman’s (sic) softball team, the
newest addition to the Michigan
sports scene.”

But the Daily still covered it.

“Ferry Field came alive as the
Maize and Blue fast-pitch squad
pulled out an exciting 1-0 victory
over Grand Valley State College,”
sports writer Dan Perrin wrote.

Five years later, Hutchins

was an assistant coach for the
Michigan softball team, and two
years after that, she took the head
coaching job.

By that time, the team was on

its way to becoming one of the
Daily’s most prominent spring
sports storylines. After almost
two weeks on the road, the
Wolverines opened at home on
April 3, 1985, losing both games of
a doubleheader to Toledo.

“We
don’t
execute
with

runners on base,” Hutchins told
the Daily after the games. “We
just don’t bring them in … I just
don’t think our team came out
there to win today.”

Today, after 38 years, the

Michigan softball team has never
had a losing record, a model
of consistency not just for the
University’s women’s sports but
for all sports on a national level.
Hutchins has led the team for 31
of its 38 years of existence.

The days of only Daily coverage

didn’t
last.
The
Wolverines

eventually went national.

* * *

The early days of women’s

sports paved the way for a slew of
memorable moments in Michigan
women’s athletics. In 2001, the
Wolverines took home their first
women’s national championship
in field hockey. The next day,
Michigan made Page 1A of
the Daily. “Field hockey team

wins title,” the headline read,
above a big photo of the three
captains holding the national
championship trophy.

The Daily sent a sports writer

to Kent, Ohio, for the day’s top
story.

“Years
from
now,
people

won’t remember that yesterday
the Michigan field hockey team
played the consensus No. 1
team in the country,” Bob Hunt
wrote. “They won’t remember
that its opponent had six senior
starters. They won’t remember
that its opponent had beaten the
Wolverines just two years earlier
in the same game.

“But they will remember that

these women were the leaders
and best.”

Indeed, women’s sports had

come a long way.

“I’m happy to bring another

one home for the Wolverines,”
Michigan field hockey coach
Marcia Pankratz told the Daily.
“Men’s
programs,
women’s

programs, revenue, non-revenue,
it doesn’t matter. We’re just
really proud to be a part of the
University.”

Four years later, the softball

team
joined
the
club
by

becoming the first team east
of the Mississippi River to win
the national championship. The
Daily covered it with a special
section in the summer edition,
with sports writer Scott Bell and
photographer
Mike
Hulsebus

in Oklahoma City to cover the
historic moment.

“This is obviously a great

moment for Michigan and for
Michigan softball and all the
alums in the Big Ten Conference,”
Hutchins told the Daily. “I’m
mostly so proud of these kids
because they are incredible and
have been all week.”

Hutchins’ mantra of Michigan

softball
radiates
throughout

the program today, a sign of the
continuity she has been able to
establish over the years.

She has done it because she

had the chance, starting with her
courage in action 37 years ago.

125TH ANNIVERSARY

Barnes
Arico
earns

extension

By BRAD WHIPPLE

Daily Sports Writer

It wasn’t chance that led

last year’s Michigan women’s
basketball team to the WNIT
Semifinals for the second time
in program history. Rather, it
was the intense work ethic that
Michigan coach Kim Barnes
Arico
had
instilled
in
the

Wolverines.

And when the day comes for

Michigan to hang its first banner
in Crisler Center, there is now an
increased likelihood that it will
be Barnes Arico who leads the
Wolverines there.

Monday
morning,
Interim

Athletic Director Jim Hackett
announced that Barnes Arico
agreed to a three-year contract
extension, which will keep her
at Michigan through the 2020-21
season.

The contract sets Barnes

Arico’s base pay at $360,000
in addition to supplemental
monetary bonuses based on team
performance, such as winning
the Big Ten Tournament.

“When I came to Michigan

three
years
ago,
I
really

believed it was a place my
family and I would be at for a
long time,” Barnes Arico said
in a statement. “I left a top-20
program and the region I grew
up in because I believed in the
vision of Michigan, everything
it has to offer its student-
athletes and its commitment to
excellence.”

Added Hackett: “I know what

an outstanding coach we have
in Kim, and I’m thrilled to get
this extension in place. Kim has
done a fantastic job of developing
students both academically and
athletically.”

In 2012, Barnes Arico left the

Big East, ending her 10-year stint
at St. John’s.

“H-back ...

fullback, tight
end, I kind of
play all three.”

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL