“I know you all have a great love and pride about what the school’s about, what the team’s about, and what the attitude is about. It’s still there. I’d even say, more than ever. If you saw my seniors, before and after the Ohio State game, you’d understand how they feel, how deep their passion is.
“I’m not used to this, either, folks! I’ve been to BCS bowls, been ranked in the Top Ten. I didn’t win a lottery ticket to work here!
“I can tell you this: There’s not been a day we ever cheated the University of Michigan out of an hour of work. You’ll get our very best. We have as much pride, intensity, and passion as any staff in America. Because it’s Michigan!”
The attendees jumped to their feet and gave Rodriguez a rousing ovation. The emcee returned to the podium and told the club secretaries: “If you write something [for the newsletter], make it nice, because we just love him!”
You had to wonder why Rodriguez didn’t run down to Weber’s Inn every Monday just for a shot in the arm. No one could say the fans were not supportive. They were, as a group, the first to jump on his bandwagon and the last to leave.
If you could break down his backers and detractors into voting blocs—a popular exercise at the time—you’d probably find his biggest critics among the local media and Carr’s former players and assistants, and his greatest support among the average fans and the current players, who had bought in and defended him often. There were plenty of exceptions and shades of gray, naturally, but those were the basic building blocks of both sides.
The problem for Rodriguez was simple: Even if those in favor of keeping him outnumbered the naysayers, as polls typically showed, those against him had more power.
Ultimately, however, only one vote mattered: Dave Brandon’s. And where that vote was leaning would be the source of much speculation in the days and weeks ahead.
* * *
When the Monday myopia wore off—the same phenomenon that had fans thinking Michigan was going undefeated after beating Notre Dame and never winning another game after losing to Penn State—perspective returned, and by Thursday, the arguments for retaining Rodriguez were resurfacing. The arguments for firing him, of course, weren’t going away, either, and that set up an even more popular parlor game: What was the tipping point?
The range of opinions about the final straw spanned virtually from the day Rodriguez was hired to the day he was fired. But the candidates most commonly cited include: his initial PR problems with the buyout, West Virginia, the wave of departed players, and the bad press that followed before he had even coached his first game; his streak-breaking 3–9 debut; the Free Press feature and subsequent NCAA investigation; the string of four losses in the middle of the 2009 season when they needed just one more win to secure a bowl bid; the transition from Bill Martin to Dave Brandon; the rash of defensive backs lost in the 2010 off-season to the NFL, other schools, and injuries; and the losses in 2010 to Michigan State, Iowa, and Penn State. Take your pick.
Every one of the moments above added to the avalanche that ultimately caused the roof to cave in, but even after seeing all of these events at close range, I’m still not sure it’s possible to determine exactly which pile of snow broke the beam. To me, Rodriguez’s reign was fatally damaged by two main causes: the harm done by detractors inside and outside the football family, and his own missed opportunities—from PR problems to those four match points in 2009 and the three in 2010, any one of which would probably have been enough to overcome those seeking to sabotage his efforts and deliver him to a new era when he could focus on coaching football.
For Brandon’s part, he has been utterly inscrutable in revealing when, exactly, he had made up his mind. He claimed at the press conference announcing Rodriguez’s departure that he was still tossing the question over that very morning. For someone who appears to be such a calculating man, that seems very unlikely. I suspect he had made his decision long before that day, but wanted to maintain the appearance of open-mindedness while gaining the opinion-bending benefits of three straight blowouts. But I’m merely guessing. Only he and his closest confidants know for sure.
But if I had to give an answer, and pick one moment as the last straw, I would say this: The moment I thought Rodriguez’s tenure was finally coming to an end, fairly or not, occurred on Thursday, December 2, 2010—not on the field of battle, but at a banquet to honor his team. That’s when he faced a critical mass of powerful fans, followers, and alums who would judge him primarily on his ability to transform himself from outsider to Michigan Man—and he lost them for good.
* * *
After Harbaugh decided not to attend the ninetieth annual Michigan Football Bust, the national media backed out of the event, but most of those fans who had bought tickets to see Harbaugh decided to come honor the seniors and the 1985 Wolverines anyway. The thousand-plus people who packed Laurel Manor in Livonia, about thirty minutes from Ann Arbor, were hoping to see something memorable.
After receiving a generous introduction from longtime play-by-play man and emcee Frank Beckmann, Rodriguez went to the podium. The crowd gave him a standing ovation.
“Thank you!” he said. “I had to stretch my legs, too, so I appreciate that!” The crowd seemed almost as receptive as the M-Club had been just three days earlier.
The senior speeches are usually the highlight of the evening, and the 2010 class didn’t disappoint—perhaps the best I’d heard in the half dozen or so Busts I’d attended.
On the lighter side, at least four gave a shout-out to Twin City socks, the “best socks in the world.”
All seniors made it a point to thank Coach Carr, who did not attend, even though most had played for him only one or two years. But most of the seniors also seemed to go out of their way to praise their current coach.
Four of them were graduating from the engineering school, and Zac Ciullo, Rodriguez announced, had just been admitted to Michigan’s law school.
“I told him, ‘You’re too late! I already used all the attorneys I need. I hope I never need ya!’” The line got a good laugh and seemed to show that Rodriguez could comfortably joke about the off-field troubles he’d just been through, and that the problems were “in the past.”
“Coach Carr,” Ciullo said, “you were a hero to me growing up. I’m proud to say I played for you. Coach Rod, thanks for being an unbelievable coach for the last three years. You made me a better man and inspired me to do more than I thought I could.”
He turned his attention to the audience, which included a few tables of reporters, and made a strong and stirring case that the defendant, his coach, was, in fact, a Michigan Man.
Ciullo closed by saying, “We received the harshest criticism of any Michigan team. All the fire and turmoil has only made us stronger. My friends say, ‘One day, Michigan will be great again.’ But in my opinion, Michigan never stopped being great. Michigan was, is, and always will be great!”
The crowd cheered.
“He’s good!” Rodriguez said. “Wish I could’ve used you. Where have you been?”
Many of the remaining seniors sounded like character witnesses following up on Ciullo’s testimony. Doug Rogan said, “Coach Rod treated us like his own as soon as he got here,” and later added, “I finished one run facedown. But, as a disclaimer, it was all done voluntarily.”
“We didn’t give up,” Renaldo Sagasse said. “The class before, a lot gave up, but we didn’t. Thank you, Coach Rod. Thank you for helping us become better men.
“And thank you for making our summers … terrible! We couldn’t sleep Sunday nights because we knew we were running the next day.”
Jon Bills, whose doctors said he would have likely been paralyzed in a car accident that spring if not for his unusually strong neck, also thanked Rodriguez. “When the head coach of the winningest program in college history visits you nearly every day, that speaks volumes.” He also thanked Barwis. “Without you and your staff, I would not be standing here.”
Fifth-year senior Adam P
atterson thanked “Rich Rodriguez and his staff for showing me what it means to be a Michigan Man.”
The most passionate speech, not surprisingly, came from cocaptain Mark Moundros. “Thanks, Coach Rich Rodriguez,” he said. “Your energy, passion, and enthusiasm never wavered no matter what came out. I want to thank the coaching staff. You are uncommon men—who take the criticism from less-than-average men who could not handle the pressure.”
Rodriguez, clearly moved by his captain’s speech, said, “Sometimes I get a bit defensive about this class. But it will go down as one of our most important. They hung in there, and they are Michigan Men.”
When Denard Robinson received the team MVP Award, he said, “If it wasn’t for Coach Rod, I wouldn’t be playing quarterback at the best university in the world.”
It was an almost perfect evening, more than Rodriguez could have hoped for—one that could go a long way toward quieting his critics on several fronts.
Then Rodriguez got up to give his speech.
He started by saluting the 1985 team sitting in the back. “You’re all my age,” he said. “So I don’t know why you look so much younger than I do!”
He gave a very open and direct account of where he and the program stood, what it had taken out of him, and what they would need to finish the job. “This ‘hot seat’ stuff is not any fun,” he said with some humor. He spoke of the program’s work ethic and embraced both the foundation he was given and what he and his players, led by his seniors, had accomplished in building on top of it. “The seniors went through a lot of discomfort and turmoil outside the program. And they stayed.”
He noted the more than six thousand yards they gained in 2010, a record, and how almost all of those yards would return in 2011. “The worst,” he predicted, “is behind us.” And the future was bright. They were on the cusp of winning big. “We never quit believing in what we were doing,” he assured the crowd, “or who we were doing it with, or where we were doing it, and to this day I am as sure as the day I got hired three years ago that it’s going to happen, and happen in a big way.”
He turned to Michigan tradition, its decades of extraordinary success, laying out the request that eras not be compared. That no matter how hallowed an era, it should not be used to tear down another, which by clear inference meant his own. Surely, he suggested, if being a Michigan Man meant anything, it meant being all in for Michigan, and supporting the coaches and the players picked to build and maintain that tradition.
“We all need to be ONE Michigan. One Michigan. Proud of every era. Proud of every young man, every student athlete who went through this program …
“What truly makes a champion?” he asked. “What truly makes a Michigan Man? The first thing you got to do is build a man and a mindset, and then the next thing that comes is winning a championship.”
After giving a nod to Michigan tradition, he was now speaking of what his coaches were doing to turn their players into a team of Michigan Men. Now that he understood Michigan traditions, Michigan needed to extend him the respect he needed to lead the program.
At this point, his speech became increasingly halting. “Seeing these guys grow from high school kids to Michigan Men—that’s what I’m most proud of.” And while it is common for coaches to say their greatest reward is making a difference in young men’s lives, watching them rise up to become more than they thought they could be, he added that they had done just as much for him. “Thanks,” he said, “for helping raise me up.”
The raw emotion of the speech went up a notch.
“Is this worth it?” Behind that question stood all the personal and professional costs of the past three years. “Is this worth it for your family?” he asked, getting choked up.
The answer wasn’t clear-cut. It wasn’t a matter of feeling sorry for yourself, he said, though the temptation was always there. It was instead seeing “the pain in the coaches’ faces and the worry and anxiety in your kids’ faces.” He wasn’t speaking just of the losses but also of the personal attacks and the seemingly endless public trial he and his staff and players had been put through.
But, unequivocally, Rodriguez said, the answer was yes. Yes, it was worth it. It was worth it because of the differences made in the lives of everyone attached to the program, he said, and because of his unquestioning faith in the future greatness of his players and team.
The speech had some slightly uncomfortable moments—perhaps unavoidable, if he was going to be honest—but it rang true, and it felt like the crowd was with him. If he had stopped right there, it could have gone down as one of the greats. In fact, it seemed that the entire night was building to this moment, and he was on the verge of pulling off a coach’s version of Richard Nixon’s “Checkers” speech, which could help save his job. Most people appeared to be leaning forward, apparently poised to give him another standing ovation. Whether Brandon retained him or not, it would be a night to remember.
But then he read lyrics from a song with the same theme, “You Raise Me Up,” popularized by Josh Groban: “I am strong, when I am on your shoulders; You raise me up … To more than I can be.” Many present exchanged uneasy glances—Please don’t do this!—but he continued. Still, it probably would have been forgotten had he not pointed to the soundman in the back of the room and asked, “Do we have that?”
It looked to some as if he had planned to play the song at the end of the night but got carried away and wanted to play it sooner; either way, the song came over the loudspeakers. Rodriguez grabbed Rita’s hand, and before long, everyone at the podium was holding hands, then raising them up—with the notable exception of Dave Brandon, who held hands but kept them conspicuously down, along with his gaze.
The crowd felt compelled to follow—some enthusiastically, some reluctantly. This is Michigan, after all—God’s Frozen People—where folks don’t normally end banquets this way. It might have been the longest four minutes in the ninety-year history of the Bust.
When the song finished, he gave a great closing line: “My name’s Rich Rodriguez. I’m proud to be the head coach of the University of Michigan. And I hope you realize I truly want to be a Michigan Man.”
The Victors came crashing through, the lights went up, and the night was over—as was, in all likelihood, Rodriguez’s tenure in Ann Arbor.
Brandon’s secretary told Rodriguez, just minutes later, that she cried during the song and admired his honesty. But the men were less impressed. One of his staunchest supporters, walking out, said with a pained grin, “It’s over.”
The Internet ignited within minutes, the papers buried him, and even the national sports shows took their shots. Perhaps most embarrassing of all, Josh Groban himself—who makes a towel boy look tough—tweeted the next day, “Coach Rodriguez, I’m very flattered but crying to You Raise Me Up is SO five years ago.”
The day after the Bust, at the normally scheduled press conference in the Commons, instead of discussing the team awards from the night before and the bowl game ahead, the players had to defend their coach. Again.
“I get upset when people poke fun at Coach Rod, because I know him on a personal level,” Mike Martin said. “I’ve been at his house with his family, and that man should never be made fun of, because he’s nothing but a good person.
“Why would you want to poke fun at a good person? He deserves nothing but the best.”
The players had come to Michigan expecting to work harder in the classroom and the weight room than they would at any other major colleges. They had come expecting to play against big opponents in big games with big stakes. They had come not to be second-rate, but the “Leaders and Best.”
But they had not come to defend their coach every week—to the media, to their classmates, even to some of the alumni players and their former teammates. Even if a lot of it wasn’t Rodriguez’s doing, the effect was the same. Instead of talking about their team, they were talking about their coach.
As Forcier told me earlier in the season, “Rich Rod ne
ver talks about this story or that problem, just about the cockroaches and all that. But when a bad story comes out, you can feel the difference in practice. How can all that shit not get to you?”
After a while, their coach’s burden became their burden. His pressure became their pressure.
And as any general can tell you, if you keep your troops on red alert too long, they get tired and start making mistakes.
The rumor mill had Fox Sports offering $50,000 for the film and another outlet $100,000. Dave Brandon—a world-class whiz at damage control, who had handled the NCAA investigation so masterfully—quickly quashed that problem by telling the film crew that if they did so, they’d never work for Michigan again, though he surely didn’t savor having to spend his day fielding calls from the media, alums, and former players. Brandon—a self-conscious man who cares deeply about appearances—did not like seeing his office the subject of public amusement and hated having to answer for it.
The contrast with the stoic, tight-lipped Carr could not have been more stark—and benefited Rodriguez not in the least.
It is, of course, absurd to say Rodriguez lost his job to the strains of a Josh Groban cover. It is less absurd to say that, for those select and influential few who would judge his transformation into what they deemed to be a Michigan Man, he lost more of them that night, at a time when he desperately needed to add powerful supporters.
When the dust settled, though, a few things stood out. First, Rodriguez had evolved from an outsider who, when asked at his first Ann Arbor press conference in late 2007 if you had to be a Michigan Man to coach the football team, joked, “I hope not!” Of course, he was criticized for that. At the Victors’ Rally, held in February 2010, he closed his speech by saying, “I’m Rich Rodriguez, and I am a Michigan Man.” He’d been criticized for that, too, for being presumptuous.
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