Former University of Michigan >Bo Schembechler — one of the true characters in the storied history of Big Ten football — died yesterday, adding another emotional element to today’s big game between No. 2 Michigan and No. 1 Ohio State. Here is the Detroit Free Press coverage on Schembechler’s life and death, including Schembechler biographer Mitch Albom’s heartfelt tribute.
I never had the opportunity to meet Coach Schembechler, but I have long felt connected to him. Many of my friends in the coaching profession knew and enjoyed him, particularly how he loved to compete. Even though my family was from Iowa, we always suffered with Schembechler during Michigan’s long drought in the Rose Bowl when it seemed as if the Pac-10 teams were always flying by Bo’s Michigan teams. Although Schembechler was 12 years younger than my father, the two of them were both active and highly-motivated men who had heart attacks and by-pass surgery at a time when that surgery was still a somewhat iffy proposition. They both then returned to their respective professions and worked productively for many years, representing two good examples of the value of that surgical procedure. Schembechler even died in the same manner as my father, suddenly of a heart attack while enjoying what he loved to do. These were two men who were not about to let a little health problem interfere with enjoying the fullness of life.

Schembechler was also indirectly responsible for a funny story from my modest athletic career. Soon-to-be former Iowa State coach Dan McCarney and I were two of the better players on a championship high school football team in Iowa City in 1970, which was during a long drought in University of Iowa football fortunes that lasted from the early 1960’s until Hayden Fry resurrected the Iowa program in 1979. Frank Lauterbur, a mostly forgettable figure who had just been hired as the new Iowa coach at the time, was recruiting McCarney, who was a much better college football prospect than me. However, because Mac and I were buddies, Lauterbur allowed me to tag along during Mac’s recruitment, probably because he figured that Mac would be more likely to attend Iowa if I decided to walk-on as a non-scholarship player on the Hawkeye football team.
At any rate, one winter night at the home of Mac’s family in Iowa City during early 1971, Lauterbur and two of his assistant coaches were talking to Mac and me on how they planned to turn around the struggling Iowa program. Iowa had just finished the 1970 season 3-6-1, including a 55-0 pasting at the hands of Bo’s Michigan team in Ann Arbor. Lauterbur made clear to Mac and me that such disasters were no longer going to be allowed under his new regime:

“Sons,” Lauterbur declared confidently. “I can assure you of one thing if you come to Iowa. Michigan is not going to beat Iowa by 55 points any longer!”

Lauterbur was right, although not in the way he meant. The next season, Bo’s Michigan team beat Lauterbur’s first Iowa team by 56 points, 63-7.