A: My senior year was the first time we beat them. In that rivalry, it maybe had been eight years. I was a center and linebacker, and Jeff Long (current Arkansas athletic director) was the quarterback. At the end of the game ... he was kind of young, and the clock's winding down, and he's trying to hurry us to the line of scrimmage. West is out of timeouts, and I remember grabbing him and going, "Jeff, Jeff, settle down. Just look. We don't have to run a play. Just look at the scoreboard." In fact, him and I talk about that to this day.
Q: Have you had any pinch-yourself moments since getting the Michigan job?
A: Not really. There's really not (time). When we won that Rose Bowl game and a share of the (1997) national championship, Lloyd (Carr) and I the next morning were making home visits in California. That's where my main area was, the West Coast. We saw Justin Fargas and his family, and we drove down to San Diego and saw Hayden Epstein and his family. It's work.
Q: How did you get into coaching?
A: I was working as an intern with the Federal Probation Parole Office with the Southern district of Indiana (after being an All-Mid-American Conference player at Ball State). I wanted to be a Secret Service agent. My goal was to protect the president of the United States, and I felt that as a duty. This was a foot in the door at the federal level. But I started helping a guy named Dave Tanner coach high school football at Yorktown, a tiny high school in Indiana. (It was) just being with those kids and making a difference in their lives.
Then I went to Grand Valley (State) with Bob Giesey. It was great of Bob to hire me. I wasn’t very experienced. I think we were making $2,000 a year with no insurance, but I got to coach a position and got to recruit an area.
Q: If your players ever complain about an early-morning workout, you can tell them you delivered the Dayton Journal-Herald.
A: (Laughs) It was fun. It was a way to make money. You got done in the mornings, and I always liked the mornings. That was never an issue for me. The worst part was always collecting. You had to do that in the middle of the afternoons, and you'd like to be throwing a baseball or doing something, but you had to get those collections or you wouldn't get paid.
Q: Do you think the Dayton area has been a good region for high school football?
A: No question. The coaches that are in that area and the commitment to it, I've always thought, have been outstanding. The Bob Greggs and the Jim Places and Lance Schneider have done a great job. (Ron) Ullery out in Centerville. (Rick) Robertson (at Oakwood). He's had some really good stays at a couple different places. The high school football and the (coaching) association is a very powerful association.
Q: What do you think about what's happening at Ohio State?
A: We really have kept our blinders on because we need to. We've got to worry about our team and developing the team. We are team 132 at Michigan, and it speaks volumes because the 131 teams that have come before, we need to honor and be accountable to. Our heart, focus and mind-set have truly been on us as a team. That's what we can control.
Q: Anything else you want to say to the folks back home?
A: Just that I wouldn't want to grow up anywhere else.
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