Episode 6
INT. SCHEMBECHLER HOME – ANN ARBOR – AFTERNOON
Tap, tap, tap.
Matt and Chip Schembechler hold up a framed portrait of the family while Millie, on a ladder, taps a nail in the wall.
“Okay, let it go, “ Millie says.
They do. Millie straightens it. Steps back. Not bad.
It was the fourth of April, 1969. Millie and the boys had arrived the day before, just before noon, to the moving truck backed up to a house they’d never seen and a good portion of their furniture on the front lawn.
“We wanted to get it off the truck, Mrs. Schembechler. That way it’s ready to go right inside and give you all a place to sit and eat and sleep tonight,” the young mover explained.
Early that morning, as he and his partners loaded up the truck in Oxford, Ohio, he’d very kindly told her that even though he was a lifelong Buckeye, he’d make sure he took good care of their belongings.
“Reader’s Digest listed moving as one of the most stressful things a person can do and, here you are, with three little fellas, going all the way up north there? I imagine you’re all knotted up. We’ll take great care of your home, I promise.”
“I appreciate your effort, gentlemen, thank you” Millie smiled.
“’Course, I can’t guarantee Woody and the boys will do the same come November,” he said with a grin. “They’ll be coming into your husband’s home over there, on the way out to the Rose Bowl, and I don’t expect they’ll slow down one bit, no ma’am!”
Millie’s smile turned to a chuckle. More from confusion than gamesmanship. She’d seen loyalty to one’s team that many fans took pride in at Miami, but this was a whole different level. Nevertheless, she tipped them well. They had worked fast, if for no reason other than they wanted to be back in Ohio before dark, and while now a die-hard Wolverine, Millie was first and foremost a die-hard human being. The idea of putting loyalty to one’s team above common decency and civility would never make sense to her.
The mover was right about one thing though. This move was tough. Tougher than when she and the boys moved from St. Louis to Oxford just nine months earlier. Of course, Millie was now four months pregnant and, at forty years old, that seemed to be sapping her energy more than the first three.
And then there was Bo. He’d come home last night at dinner time, bursting through the front door, excited to finally have his family in their new home. And twenty minutes later, he burst out the same door, back to the office. The first practice of Spring Ball was the next day, there was work to do.
If moving by herself was tough, Millie was tougher. They’d arrived twenty-four hours ago and she already had half the house unpacked and was going to make damn sure this family portrait went up level.
“Look good, boys?”
DING DONG. Doorbell.
Millie goes to the door and pulls it open. A petite woman with a big smile stands there, holding a casserole pan.
“Hello! You must be Millie.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Jane Pilcher. My husband, Jim, is a professor in the Business School. I was the official welcome wagon for Barbara Elliott – Bump’s wife – and she said, “Jane, you make sure you do the same for Millie. I hope your kids like chicken casserole?”
Millie, tired, nerves frayed, eyes filling at this act of kindness, simply smiles and opens the door wide so that this godsend that is Jane Pilcher can come into her new home.
INT. YOST FIELDHOUSE – PLAYERS LOCKER ROOM – DAY
A clean, Michigan blue #88 practice jersey is hung in Jim Mandich’s locker.
Bobby Kohn, Equipment Manager, hand hung practice gear in all the player’s lockers. “The Team, the team, the team!” Bo said it all the time. Every day. Many times a day. If everyone on the team did their jobs to the absolute best of their ability, if Kohn made sure he did everything he could to be the best equipment manager in the country, they’d have a shot at a championship. At a Rose Bowl. Kohn wanted to go to Pasadena badly and he’d do his part to make it happen.
So, jerseys on the left rear hook, pants on the right rear, jocks front left and socks folded neatly on each players wooden stool. Helmets conditioned and polished twice a week.
“How we lookin’, Bobby?!” Bo checked with Kohn before practice every day to see if any more players had quit. Not every young man found the nerve to tell Bo himself.
“Ninety-nine, Bo. Anderson and Sawchuck both quit this morning.”
Ninety-nine. Down from the nearly 150 that were at Bo’s first team meeting turned Winter Conditioning session.
“Good! Can’t handle the heat, get the hell outta the kitchen.”
“Yessir. ‘Cept that only leaves you with three guards.”
“We’ll see about that, Bobby boy, we’ll see about that!”
EXT. PRACTICE FIELD – DAY – PRACTICE #1 of 15
“RUN IT AGAIN!!”
Dan Dierdorf drags himself back to the offensive huddle. As does every other player. Sweat drips into rolling eyes as the guys try to stand tall and get as much oxygen as they can so they don’t pass out.
They’d been running the same play for almost half an hour. The exact same play. Halfback off-tackle. Over and over and over again. “Run it again!!” suddenly seemed to be the only three words that their new coach could say.
Bo hopped in the huddle next to QB, Don Moorhead. This was something else that was new. Bump and his coaches never got in the huddle. They sent in plays with substitutions or occasionally signaled something into the quarterback. Not Bo. Bo was in the damn huddle, barking directions and calling the play to Moorhead who would then call the play to the team and break the huddle. And it wasn’t over. As they lined up, Bo and Line Coach Jerry Hanlon would be right there with yard sticks, measuring the splits. If anyone – left tackle Dan Dierdorf, right tackle Jack Harpring, guards Dick Caldarazzo and Bobby Baumgartner, center Guy Murdoch, fullback Garvie Craw, or halfbacks Glenn Doughty or John Gabler or Billy Taylor from Barberton – were an inch off from where they were supposed to be —
“RUN IT AGAIN!!”
Back to the huddle and do it again. And again and again and again and again and again.
INT. FULL STAFF MEETING ROOM – DAY
Bo, cheeseburger in hand, watches film. Chuck Stobart, Running Backs coach and Offensive Coordinator, pokes his head in.
“Put the cheeseburger down and let’s go play some handball.”
Handball was one more thing that came from Woody. When Bo was a graduate assistant for him at Ohio State in the early 50’s, Woody would call Bo at 6am and tell him “to get (his) ass down to the handball court in fifteen minutes or forfeit the first game!”
Stobart and Bo played handball all the time at Miami of Ohio. Kept them fit and energized through the grueling days and weeks and months of a college football calendar. But Bo hadn’t played once since he got to Ann Arbor and Stobart was a bit concerned.
“Bo. Come on. We need the sweat. We’ll be back before 10am.”
“I’m watching Jack Tatum devour our tackles last year. Guarantee me right now that will not happen again on November 23rd and then you can go play handball.”
Stobart shakes his head and drops his gym bag.
EXT. PRACTICE FIELD – DAY – Practice #4 of 15
Coach Hanlon puts the fully-padded offensive lineman through the chutes when Bo appears.
“God — Caldarazzo, I was hoping that helmet would at least make you look taller.”
He calls over to the linebackers, “Titus! Get over here.”
Frank Titus jogs over.
“How tall are you Titus?”
“Six three.”
“Six three! Played offensive line before?”
“Yessir. In high school.”
“You’re a third string linebacker – how would you like to compete to be a first-string guard?”
Titus looks to Caldo, a senior. Tough spot.
“I’ll – I mean – I like linebacker.”
“I don’t blame you, Titus. You’re a good teammate. (then) Coach Hanlon! You have a new offensive guard!”
EXT. PRACTICE FIELD – DAY – Practice #9 of 15
Bo barks out the play to Moorhead, “I Right, Strong Right, 24 Power”
Moorhead stumbles over the words, “I Right…Strong Right…”
“Sonofabitch, Moorhead, you’ve got a mouth full of marbles!”
Dierdorf pipes up, “We call him The Warbler, sir.”
“The Warbler?!” Bo asks.
“Yessir, it’s a type of bird that makes a throaty kind of – “
“I know what a GD warbler is, Dierdorf!” Bo turns to Moorhead, “I don’t give a (expletive) what they call you – if you want to be called the starting quarterback for Michigan, you need to be able to call the GD play!”
Moorhead nods, kneels and calls the play again, slowly enunciating every syllable.
“Well hell, Moorhead, there’s a clock ticking, son – spit it out!!”
Moorhead finally does so, the offense lines up – HUT HUT! – ball is snapped, Moorhead play-actions the off-tackle play and hits Mandich over the middle when the linebackers suck up on the play-fake and – WHAM! – Mandich is slammed to the turf by senior safety Barry Pierson.
Mandich pops up, pushing Pierson off of him. Pierson pushes back. Mandich doesn’t like that one bit and before anyone can stop them, the two are in an all-out slugfest. Facemasks and jerseys grabbed and twisted – a fully padded version of the Stomp n’ Slap.
Bo jumps right in the middle, prying them apart, a hand on their respective facemasks.
“You wanna fight?! Do it between the whistles. Knock each other’s heads off between the lines and between the whistles! But we will not fight each other. It’s BS. You’re seniors and you’re teammates – act like it!!”
INT. YOST FIELDHOUSE – FULL STAFF MEETING ROOM – EVENING
Hanlon, Stobart, Young, Moeller, Hunter, Maloney, Mans – all the coaches – dump playbooks on the staff table.
“That all of ‘em?”
“That’s sixty-four total since we started winter conditioning. We’re down to eighty-seven guys.”
“That’s a little thin, Bo.”
“Eighty-seven guys who want to be here – I’ll take that over the pudding pop quitters.”
“We can’t afford to lose many more,” says the normally quiet Jim Young.
“Honest, Bo, if it weren’t for their scholarships, a lotta them woulda quit already,” Hanlon adds.
“They need something to believe in,” Moeller says.
“May help to remember that they feel like they were a pretty good team last year – and we were – and now here we are kicking their butts everyday like they weren’t.” That was George Mans, one of two coaches who were also on Bump’s staff.
“We need a slogan or something,” someone says.
Bo stares out the window, thinking…
INT. EQUIPMENT ROOM – NIGHT
Bo looks through a pile of broken wooden boards. He pulls out a piece of plywood, about three feet tall by four-foot-wide, and runs his hand over it. Not bad.
“This’ll do for now. I’ll talk to Canham about a permanent one tomorrow.”
“What’s it gonna say?” Hanlon asks.
“Where does Kohn keep the paint?”
INT. SCHEMBECHLER HOME – NIGHT
The kitchen clock reads 12:36AM when Bo finally gets home, opens the refrigerator and is delighted to find Millie left him a big bowl of chili. He leans against the counter and spoons it down cold.
Millie is dead asleep when he finally slides into bed. The house is silent.
It’s been weeks and months of late nights and early mornings, since he arrived on Christmas day. Bo drifts off quickly but gets little rest as the film plays in his head: Jack Tatum off the weak side, smashes into the Michigan tailback before he makes the line of scrimmage. Jim Otis fires out of his three-point stance and buckles a Michigan linebacker, clearing the way for Rex Kern to walk into the end zone.
And Woody. His coach and mentor. The man who taught him everything he knew. There he is…standing on the opposite sideline. Arms folded across his chest, those horn-rimmed glasses, his square teeth peek out from behind a satisfied smile.
Bo quietly peels the comforter back, slides out of bed and heads back to the office.
INT. YOST FIELDHOUSE – PLAYERS LOCKER ROOM – DAY
A half-dozen players stand and stare above the door.
A piece of plywood, painted blue with maize lettering, reads:
“Those Who Stay Will Be Champions”
“Sounds good to me, man,” says fullback Garvie Craw as he dons his shoulder pads for the last practice of Spring Ball. And that was Craw. He’d been throwing himself into blocks all Spring, never letting up for a single play. He was made of iron and had a will to match.
But he was also, by far, the exception.
“Yeah, if you’re not dead by then,” mutters someone else.
“Can’t win a championship when we barely have enough guys to field a team,” says another.
EXT. PRACTICE FIELD – DAY – Practice #15 of 15
“Run it AGAIN!!” Bo bellows.
The guys were already huddled, waiting for Moorhead to call it. They knew they’d run it again. They didn’t care at this point. They just wanted to survive this last practice and get the hell out of here. Finals were in two weeks and then that beautiful oasis that was summer break. They could see it. Taste it. Freedom. Two months away from “Run it again!!”
Caldo winced as he got down into his stance. By this point, just extending his arm in a 3-pt. shot pain down through his neck, shoulder and arm. He was still running with the first team – most of the time. But Titus and a couple other guys Bo had moved to guard were picking things up fast. They were definitely bigger and, more important, Bo seemed to want them to play. As if he couldn’t accept the picture that Michigan Football would field a 5’10” right guard.
They lined up and the yard sticks came out but, by now, their splits were near perfect. Moorhead barked out the signals, the ball was snapped, Moorhead hands to Billy Taylor. Taylor presses the hole but it closes. He bounces outside. He’s fast and gets the edge, legs churning, he turns the corner and head upfield, turning nothing into something when – WHAM! – senior safety Tom Curtis slams into him from the side.
And then Billy Taylor commits the ultimate sin in the Church of Bo. He fumbles the football. Linebacker Marty Huff recovers.
And before Billy can get off the ground, Bo is over top of him.
“Sonofabitch Taylor! We do not fumble the football!! If you want to play another GD down for Michigan you will hold onto the GD football like your life depends on it – do you hear me?!? Doughty!! Get in at halfback! SONOFABITCH!!”
EXT. PRACTICE FIELD – DAY – TWO HOURS LATER
The team – now just seventy-nine guys after John Prusiecki walked out an hour ago – were on a knee as Bo talked.
“…visit with your families, work a job and make some pocket money. And if any of you would like to stay in town, we will help you find a job. Not a bullshit job but a real job. You’ll have to work like anyone else but you’ll get paid. Feels good to get paid for a job well done, doesn’t it? That’s what’s gonna happen here, with this team. We’re putting in the work – hard work! – and we’re going to get paid! And I’m not talking about money. You are going to get paid by coming to understand and know what it’s like to be a part of something bigger than yourself. There is no greater lesson in life than that, men. The team, the team, the team! You all should be proud of yourselves. You’ve stayed. Those who stay will be champions, men. I promise you that, men. Those who stay will be champions.
(then)
“Now. Stay in shape this summer. Don’t go home and dissipate your body and destroy all the hard work you’ve put in! You will all receive a letter from me with instructions on what each of you needs to work on in Fall Camp in order to get better. Take that to heart. And, again, stay in shape. The first thing you will do when you report to camp is run the mile test. Each and every one of you must run a mile in under six minutes! You must pass the mile test in order to have a chance to play in a game!”
Bo could’ve told them they had to pick up Angell Hall and move it to North Campus for all they cared. They’d worry about running a mile in six minutes when August rolled around. Right now, it was May. It was summer. The Summer of ’69.
INT. YOST FIELDHOUSE – PLAYERS LOCKERROOM – ONE HOUR LATER
Bo and Bobby Kohn stood in the middle of the empty locker room, looking up at the new sign. As soon as he’d seen it, he’d gone to get Bo.
“It wasn’t like that when practice started. I always come in here to see if anyone needs anything or quit and no one was in here and the sign was fine,” Kohn said.
Bo nodded, his face calm, lips flat, “I’ll talk to Canham, see if I can’t pry some money from him to get it done again, by a professional.”
Bo takes one, long last look and then marches out, Kohn behind him.
The sign had been edited: It still read “Those Who Stay Will Be Champions.”
But, underneath, in black marker, someone had scrawled…”and those who leave will be doctors, lawyers, bishops, generals, captains of industry and heads of state.”