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