[Click here for audio version: Bacon_final_Beilein_for_web_with_open_4-12-2013]
It wasn’t that long ago that Michigan’s basketball program was not merely unsuccessful, but the shame of the athletic department, if not the university.
Bo Schembechler, then Michigan’s athletic director, fired basketball coach Bill Frieder after he found out Frieder had flown out to accept the coaching job at Arizona State just a few days before the NCAA tournament was to begin. Schembechler famously barked, “A Michigan Man will coach Michigan!” Assistant Coach Steve Fisher filled in, and the team “shocked the world” by winning Michigan’s first-ever national title in basketball.
But, on the eve of Fisher’s ninth season, he, too, was fired, because some of his players had been paid by a booster. Another assistant coach, Brian Ellerbe, was named the interim coach, which usually is a mistake — and this proved no exception. At Ellerbe’s first Big Ten tournament, in 1998, the Wolverines pulled a rabbit out of a hat to win it, and Ellerbe was named the permanent head coach. But three years later he was also fired, partly because of a bad record, but mainly because some of his players had been paid by the same booster.
The NCAA launched an investigation that lasted years. Tommy Amaker, the next coach, had to deal the investigation, the probation that followed, and subpar facilities. He never made the tournament, but he left Michigan’s program much better than he found it.
Former athletic director Bill Martin started raising the money and making the plans for a new practice facility and a complete renovation of Crisler Arena – which ultimate cost about $100 million when it was finished in 2012() — and hired Michigan’s current coach, John Beilein, to take advantage of it. Beilein came to Michigan with a strong resume, having taken three different schools to the big dance, but not a high profile.
Beilein is the eighth of nine children, all of whom had to find their own way to college. For Beilein, basketball was the ticket. After he graduated from Wheeling College – now Wheeling Jesuit University — he took a job back home… in sanitation. One day, he was working in a sewer, knee deep in you-know-what, when his father’s face appeared in the light of the manhole above. He asked John if he wanted a job at the local high school, which was looking for a social studies teacher who could coach three sports. Beilein gazed about his surroundings, then looked up at his father, and said, “Yes. Yes, I believe I would be interested.”
When Beilein told this story to my class a few years ago, they laughed. But a moment later, with the image of his father still in his mind, the coach briefly choked up, and had to take a moment before moving on. That this memory could make a millionaire basketball coach pause, almost four decades later, tells you something about Beilein’s family.
Basketball announcers love to mention that Beilein has never been an assistant coach – which sounds cool, because they don’t tell you where he was a head coach. How about Newfane Central High School in upstate New York, Erie Community College, Nazareth College, Le Moyne College, then finally Division I: Canisius, Richmond, West Virginia, and Michigan.
Along the way, Beilein developed his unconventional offense, which starts with four players on the outside, and one big guy near the basket. From there, they move and pass constantly, trying to get an easy basket inside, or more likely, a shooter open for a three-point shot. When I asked him how he came up with that, he said, “Easy. I was desperate!”
When your team is filled with short guys, as his usually were, how do you beat the big boys? You outwork them, you out-think them, you out-pass them, and you hope you outshoot them. That’s Beilein’s offense.
I’ve been even more impressed by Beilein off the court. In his second season in Ann Arbor, with his team on the verge of Michigan’s first NCAA tournament in eleven years, they traveled to Iowa for a crucial game. Going into overtime, his star, Manny Harris, started sulking – so Beilein benched him, risking everything they had worked for. The Wolverines lost, which meant they had to beat 16th-ranked Purdue – and they did.
That same year, the men’s basketball team achieved the most improved grade-point-average of Michigan’s 25 varsity squads.
Nonetheless, when Michigan failed to make the tournament the next year, some fickle fans were calling for his head. Good thing they didn’t get it. Beilein’s teams have made the tournament three straight years. They won Michigan’s first Big Ten title since 1986 last year, and got to the championship game on Monday, for the first time in two decades.
They came up a little short, but the vast majority of Michigan fans seem less upset than proud – not just of what they did, but how they did it. The Michigan basketball program has not been this healthy since — well, ever.
After firing the last four coaches, three in the wake of scandals, Michigan just might have finally gotten the right guy. He just took a little while to get there.
* * * * *
Sorry about missing four of the past six weeks. Yes, there was a fund drive on Michigan Radio, but the main obstacle has been finishing this book. If I was smarter, I’d send this out every week regardless, to let you know I haven’t quit or died. (Both, to me, would be unfortunate.) But the book is almost done, so you’ll be getting more of these in the weeks ahead.
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Radio stuff: On Friday mornings, these commentaries run at 8:50 on Michigan Radio (91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit, Flint, 104.1 Grand Rapids), and a few minutes later, I join Sam Webb and Ira Weintraub LIVE from 9:05 to 9:25 on WTKA.com, 1050 AM. On Sunday mornings, from the start of football season to the end of March Madness, I co-host “Off the Field” with the legendary Jamie Morris on WTKA from 10-11 a.m. And yes, there will be a quiz, so “stop what you’re doing, and listen!”
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Coach Beilein’s is classic decision making matrix. In the Navy & Marine Corps we call it the OODA Loop. Just as coach says “You outwork them, you out-think them, you out-pass them, and you hope you outshoot them.” Brilliant!
John, you are correct that John Beilein is an outstanding person and a very good coach. When his team didn’t even make the NIT in year three, then was 1-6 in the Big ten in year four, I was one of very few still in his corner. Since then he has been to three straight NCAA tourneys, won a Big Ten title, and made it to the NCAA title game.
I take issue with your statement that the last four coaches were fired, three in the wake of scandals. Bill Frieder taking a job elsewhere is not a scandal. Dean Smith, a man of unquestioned integrity, pointed out that if a UM professor announced he or she was moving to a different school they would be allowed to finish the year at UM. Nobody that I know of thought Brian Ellerbe knew that Louis Bullock continued to accept money from Ed Martin. Ellerbe was fired purely because he didn’t win enough games his last three years. The one coach who was fired due to scandal was Steve Fisher, and he was later exonerated by the NCAA. He has done a fantastic job at San Diego State, without any whiff of scandal.
John,
Thanks for writing about character. So little of it exists
in sports at any level.
George Staten, Director of ticket sales at Ohio State, resigned when ticket policy changed after 1968 season, because loyal, long term season ticket holders were being squeezed out by folks with money.
When institutions of learning became farm teams for professional sports and administrations sold out to TV
and other money interests, I decided to watch golf.
bomberjohn5
bomberjohn5
Right on Mr. Bacon! John Beilein is an outstanding coach and leader of the Michigan men’s basketball program! M is indeed fortunate to have him. Credit Bill Martin for making a great hire……
One of the buildings I manage here at the U. is a classroom building that has many freshman & sophomore athletes taking classes. The thing that impresses me, as opposed to 10-20 years ago, is how nice and well, polite, the basketball players are. No sulking in their headphones or angry glares at an old guy…smiles and how are ya abound. Credit John Beilein for this too.
My granddaughter works at Pizza House where Beilein does his radio show. She says he is the nicest of all the coaches, goes out of his way to talk with the staff, and tips well. Nice guys don’t always finish last.
When I saw him handing out donuts and cocoa to the students that showed up for the OSU game last season, I knew that he was a class act.
My only regret is that last summer, I was in a silent auction that had a signed picture of Beilein, that I let go because the other guy said: “don’t try to outbid a grandfather trying to get something for his grandson”; I could have financially outbid him but I let it go for the grandkid, my mistake.
When he was hired I thought John Beilein was the wrong choice because he wouldn’t recruit the kind of players necessary to compete in the Big Ten. A couple of years ago I changed my opinion because it was apparent he was a GREAT representative for the U and thruly cares about the kids he recruits. As the father of a fourth generation graduate, your second to last paragraph expresses my feelings exactly. Go Blue.