BLUE
...the joy and despair of being a Wolverines fan.
December 3, 2007
FLY ON THE WALL
Bill Martin gently closed the heavy wooden door to the office of Mary Sue Coleman and slipped into one of the three exquisite leather chairs facing her desk. He nodded to Lloyd Carr, already seated and looking weary after his loss to Wisconsin the day before. Carr smiled wanly, his potently expressive face communicating years of frustration, pride and exhaustion all at the same time.
The president of the University of Michigan was concluding a phone call with precise instructions to one of her deans. "Tenure does not come into play here. Please deal with this aggressively; I will not have this university associated with that kind of behavior." She acknowledged Martin's arrival with nod. "I agree. Thank you, Gerard."
She placed the phone in the cradle. "Hello, Bill. Thank you for coming in. Lloyd felt it was important we meet today." She turned to Michigan’s head football coach. "Sorry about the game, Lloyd. We almost had them!"
Carr offered up the same smile again along with a slight shrug. "Too many players out, yesterday," he said. "This coming weekend is the important game. I had to save--"
Mary Sue Coleman fluttered her hands at him. "I will not have you explain anything! Your record at this University is impeccable. Beyond reproach. You will give Ohio State a great game next weekend." She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she said Ohio State.
"We will. After that, though, I am ready to retire."
Neither Coleman or Martin looked surprised. A year ago at a similar meeting they had talked Carr out of retirement, but that would not happen a second time.
"I want to announce the Monday after the Ohio State game," Carr continued, watching them carefully.
At this, Martin did look surprised. "Monday? That’s too early," he said quickly.
"I disagree."
Coleman also looked confused. "I don't understand." Carr was watching Martin and said nothing.
"At a big-time university," the A.D. started after a moment, "you don’t want to tip your hand. You announce when you are ready to move, when you already have a pretty good idea of whom you want. We can’t do anything now; games are still being played. Announcing now gives nervous athletic directors a chance to lock down the best candidates with sweet deals." Coleman still looked puzzled. Martin continued: “When Lloyd announces his retirement, there will be an explosion of speculation about who will be the next coach at Michigan. At the winningest college football program in history. Lists of candidates will be made up at ESPN and the Free Press and on the Internet and discussed at the water cooler. Any A.D. with a popular candidate will try to lock up their guy.”
“But Iowa’s season will be done,” said Coleman.
“I didn’t know that we had settled on Coach Ferentz,” said Martin. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought that was the three of us just tossing around names for when the time came.”
Coleman stared at Martin for a moment as if he were being intentionally daft. “Kirk would be excellent. He is a worthy successor to Lloyd. I know him very well. We discussed this, and you agreed.”
“Yes, I did. But I think an immediate hire of Ferentz will look bad. It will look like…like…your handpicked man. When we hire Kirk, it needs to be after a proper search, or he won’t be well accepted.” If at all, thought Martin.
Carr came to Martin’s rescue. “And there are other candidates. Serious ones.”
“Who?”
“Les Miles,” said Carr with a sour look.
“Absolutely not!” Michigan’s president brought down her hand with a crisp thump. “We discussed this! The University of Michigan football Wolverines are to be led by unique men of character,” she inclined her head seriously at Carr. “We will not have another Gary Moeller here. Les Miles is not acceptable to me.”
“Or to me,” said Carr leaning forward. “But that’s not good enough.”
“What do you mean?”
Carr pointed over to the far side of the office at the artist’s rendition of a renovated Michigan Stadium on an easel. “There are a whole lot of big money alumni who have grown tired of Lloyd Carr.” He raised a hand to cut off her protest. “I don’t blame them. Lloyd Carr has grown tired. They want Miles. Miles is hot. Number one in the country. Miles has done everything but move into my office in his push for this job. We can’t simply hire Ferentz and ignore Miles.”
Martin was nodding. “There would be serious repercussions. Our base is not ready yet for Kirk Ferentz.”
Mary Sue Coleman looked offended. “There are few better coaches – better men – than Kirk Ferentz,” she said sharply.
“I agree, Mary,” said Carr. “But we would be foolish to ignore this. That is why I want to announce my retirement a week from tomorrow.”
Coleman looked irritated that Martin was nodding slowly in understanding. “This is annoying,” she said. “How does that help?”
Martin leaned forward. “The first name out of the mouths of everyone once Lloyd announces will be Les Miles. Miles will do his usual, ‘I love Michigan but I am the coach of LSU and we have a job ahead of us,’ crap, which is tantamount to saying, ‘Please hire me!’ The A.D. down there will go nuts. They’ll throw money at him.”
“And that makes our alumni happy?” Coleman was not dumb.
“No,” said Martin, picking up on the idea, “but Bill asking their A.D. for permission to talk to Les about the coaching vacancy will.”
“But we don’t want to talk to him.”
“And we won’t,” said Lloyd.
“They won’t let us actually start talking to him until after the SEC Championship game,” said Martin. “That’s two weeks after the end of our season.”
“Bill, I am not that naïve. You can talk to his agent…buuuut, you won’t,” she said with sudden understanding. “Our generous donors will be under the impression that we are making a serious attempt for Mr. Miles. I see. Are we sure the A.D. will secure him before their big game?”
“No,” said Martin. “Bertman has always known that Miles wants to come here. He may think it is inevitable. Miles’s agent will be all over us for our intentions, especially after we ask permission.”
“You will have to be unavailable,” said Carr.
“Huh?”
“This all seems pretty dangerous, Lloyd,” said Coleman.
Carr’s tired face grew hard. “I’ve given 27 years to this university. To this football team. I am not going to sit idly by and see Les Miles take over as head coach of this team!
“I agree. But let’s say we get to the point when we can talk to him and he is not ‘locked up.’ What then?”
“Bill has to tell Les that he is one of several candidates that we will be interviewing. We are Michigan. We are methodical. We suggest the process will take a couple weeks. That won’t work for Les or LSU, who will probably headed to New Orleans.”
“New Orleans?”
“The National Championship game.”
“Oh.” There was silence in the room. “Bill, do you understand Lloyd’s plan?”
Bill nodded. “I think so.”
“Please summarize it for me so I am clear.”
“Lloyd announces his retirement early. The football world goes crazy with speculation and Miles will be at the top of the list. We start a ‘search committee’ and talk about a process, and then I formally ask LSU for permission to speak with Miles. They will ask me to wait until after the SEC Championship game. Everyone will assume we are coming after Miles. We hope LSU tries to lock him up. I think Les will jump at the right price.”
“No, he won’t,” said Lloyd. “But the pressure will be intense.”
“So LSU is all over him. We ignore any back channel communications. If Les signs up with LSU, we’re off the hook. If he doesn’t, I string him out, suggest that our budget is limited.”
Coleman nodded. “We get credit for going after Miles and look clean for honoring LSU’s request to not speak with him until after their championship game. I like it. Then we hire Kirk?”
“We certainly can make a proposal. Are you sure he would come?”
“Yes, I am. He understands that this is a different football tradition than Iowa. He is ready.”
“For less money?”
“Well,” said Mary Sue Coleman. “We will have to see on that. Very well. We’ll review this after we beat Ohio State.” She smiled at Lloyd.
The men rose and turned to leave.
“One more thing, Bill.”
“Yes.”
“If you wanted Les Miles, what would you do?”
“Contact his agent. Hammer out the outlines of a deal over the next couple weeks. Have Lloyd wait until after their bowl game to announce and then follow that up with a press conference shortly thereafter with Les in tow. With his interest, it would be a chip shot. Money wouldn’t be an issue, LSU wouldn’t be an issue.”
“Hmmmm. Thank you. Good day, gentlemen.”
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