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Bo Schembechler, super-coach, dies
The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry goes back decades, but became super intense when the teams were coached by Schembechler and his mentor Woody Hayes.
These games were as intense as sports can get, and every year they get better.
Schembechler, 77, collapses while taping TV show
Fred Girard / The Detroit News
One of the greatest hearts in the history of collegiate football ceased beating Friday.
Legendary University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler is dead at the age of 77.
Schembechler fell ill while preparing for the taping of a television show at Channel 7. Station officials said police and fire officials responded immediately, and escorted Schembechler’s ambulance to Providence Hospital at 9:25 a.m.
Doctors said Schembechler never regained consciousness after his collapse. His personal physcian, Dr. Kim Eagle, said Schembechler had defied the odds for years of very serious heart disease. "He was the most courageous patient I ever met," he said during a press conference at the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:42 a.m.
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Schembechler had his first heart attack in 1970, on the eve of his first Rose Bowl appearance with the Wolverines; and a second one in 1987. He twice has undergone quadruple heart bypass operations.
Schembechler, named Big Ten Coach of the Year seven times, built a 194-48-5 record at Michigan in his two decades there, from 1969 to 1989.
In recent years he has maintained an office at U-M; and spent a good part of his time helping the charity named for his wife, Millie, who died of adrenal cancer.
Glenn E. Schembechler received his bachelor’s degree from Miami (Ohio) University in 1951, and his Master’s from Ohio State in 1952, while he was serving as a graduate assistant coach for the football team.
He began his coaching career as an assistant at Presbyterian College in 1954, then at Bowling Green in 1955, and Northwestern in 1958 before spending five seasons as an assistant at Ohio State, working for a fiery, mercurial head coach named Wayne Woodrow "Woody" Hayes.
As recently as Monday, when he sat down with reporters to discuss Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game, with a national championship and two undefeated seasons on the line, Schembechler recalled his days with Hayes with gratitude and respect.
"I had a wonderful experience there because I coached for Woody when Woody was really Woody," Schembechler said. "He was the most irascible guy that ever lived, and the worst guy in the world to work for. But I wouldn’t change that experience for anything in the world because I learned a lot. And we won a few games here and there."
In 1963 Schembechler took over as head coach of his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, where he labored quietly, but always effectively (in his 27 years of coaching, no Schembechler team ever had a losing season).
He made the big time thanks to the wisdom and foresight of the man known as the father of modern-day athletic directors, the marketing wizard Don Canham.
When Canham took over as Michigan’s athletics boss in 1968, his first major decision was a stunner: He ordered the institutional gray Big House — Michigan Stadium — repainted in the school colors of Maize and Blue.
A year later he made that decision look picayune, when he decided to turn over one of the nation’s plum coaching jobs to an unknown from a Mid-American Conference school, one Bo Schembechler.
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Fred Girard / The Detroit News
One of the greatest hearts in the history of collegiate football ceased beating Friday.
Legendary University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler is dead at the age of 77.
Schembechler fell ill while preparing for the taping of a television show at Channel 7. Station officials said police and fire officials responded immediately, and escorted Schembechler’s ambulance to Providence Hospital at 9:25 a.m.
Doctors said Schembechler never regained consciousness after his collapse. His personal physcian, Dr. Kim Eagle, said Schembechler had defied the odds for years of very serious heart disease. "He was the most courageous patient I ever met," he said during a press conference at the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:42 a.m.
>
Schembechler had his first heart attack in 1970, on the eve of his first Rose Bowl appearance with the Wolverines; and a second one in 1987. He twice has undergone quadruple heart bypass operations.
Schembechler, named Big Ten Coach of the Year seven times, built a 194-48-5 record at Michigan in his two decades there, from 1969 to 1989.
In recent years he has maintained an office at U-M; and spent a good part of his time helping the charity named for his wife, Millie, who died of adrenal cancer.
Glenn E. Schembechler received his bachelor’s degree from Miami (Ohio) University in 1951, and his Master’s from Ohio State in 1952, while he was serving as a graduate assistant coach for the football team.
He began his coaching career as an assistant at Presbyterian College in 1954, then at Bowling Green in 1955, and Northwestern in 1958 before spending five seasons as an assistant at Ohio State, working for a fiery, mercurial head coach named Wayne Woodrow "Woody" Hayes.
As recently as Monday, when he sat down with reporters to discuss Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game, with a national championship and two undefeated seasons on the line, Schembechler recalled his days with Hayes with gratitude and respect.
"I had a wonderful experience there because I coached for Woody when Woody was really Woody," Schembechler said. "He was the most irascible guy that ever lived, and the worst guy in the world to work for. But I wouldn’t change that experience for anything in the world because I learned a lot. And we won a few games here and there."
In 1963 Schembechler took over as head coach of his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, where he labored quietly, but always effectively (in his 27 years of coaching, no Schembechler team ever had a losing season).
He made the big time thanks to the wisdom and foresight of the man known as the father of modern-day athletic directors, the marketing wizard Don Canham.
When Canham took over as Michigan’s athletics boss in 1968, his first major decision was a stunner: He ordered the institutional gray Big House — Michigan Stadium — repainted in the school colors of Maize and Blue.
A year later he made that decision look picayune, when he decided to turn over one of the nation’s plum coaching jobs to an unknown from a Mid-American Conference school, one Bo Schembechler.
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