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| MARK FRIEDMAN/Daily Center Robert Traylor moves to the basket in a December game against Duke. Traylor, the NIT's most valuable player, will return this year for a third season at Michigan. |
Multi-sport success is a unique distinction not held by many other schools -- even fewer can claim such high levels of achievement.
Accompanying Michigan's history of success is one of the strongest fan bases in the nation. Top Michigan teams perform in packed stadiums and before national television audiences. The combination of athletic excellence and strong fan support make for a powerful sports program that rivals any in the nation.
Bo Schembechler, who coached the Michigan football team from 1969-89 and is the winningest football coach in Michigan history, said the relationship between teams and fans at the University is strong.
"Here at Michigan they've had a lot of success in most sports, therefore there's a lot of following for the teams," said Schembechler, who also served as athletic director from 1988-90. "There is something special about college sports that people can associate with, more so than they do in the pros."
Schembechler said college sports fans differ from fans of professional sports.
"There's a little more class to it," Schembechler said of college sports fans.
Bill Freehan, who coached the Michigan baseball team from 1990-1995 after spending 15 years as a Detroit Tiger, said the University's athletic tradition complements its high academic standards.
"I think it stands for what a lot of people want to achieve in life, and that's excellence," Freehan said. "I think the athletic programs mirror what the whole University is about. You want to compete against the best academically, and you want to compete against the best athletically. I think that makes it a special place."
Last year, Michigan did not win a national championship in any sport. While at another school that may not be significant, at Michigan this shortfall was notable. The aberration is hardly cause for concern among maize-and-blue faithful, however, because success was abundant.
Year after year, Michigan fields the top teams in the nation in multiple sports, and is among the most successful whenever championship playoffs roll around. And last season was no exception.
Michigan won six Big Ten championships over the past year, one post-season tournament title and were in the championship rounds of three others.
No other school fields teams as successful in the three revenue-producing sports (football, basketball and hockey) as Michigan, and that, no doubt, is a barometer of success.
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| FILE PHOTO Tailback Clarence Williams dodges past an Illinois player in a game during August, 1996. More than 100,000 fans pack Michigan Stadium on any given football Saturday -- emblematic of Michigan's football tradition. |
The season also saw the emergence of a possible Heisman Trophy candidate in cornerback Charles Woodson, who moonlighted as a flanker on offense. The development of young talent like Woodson and sophomore linebacker David Bowens set the stage for a Michigan trip to California for New Year's Day this season.
The Michigan basketball and hockey teams enjoyed even greater success.
After narrowly missing a bid to the post-season NCAA basketball tournament, Steve Fisher's basketball team did not roll over.
Instead, the Wolverines made the most of the invitation they did have, to the NIT tournament, and ran with it -- literally -- winning the tournament championship by defeating Florida State, 82-73, in New York City.
In the five tournament games, Michigan played up to the high expectations established before the season began.
Sophomore center Robert Traylor and junior forward Maurice Taylor increased their intensity in the post season. Traylor was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player.
The season, despite the absence of a Big Ten championship, elusive for the eleventh consecutive season, had many additional high points for Fisher's squad. Michigan defeated both ACC-power Duke and eventual national champion Arizona in a December run.
On the ice, the Michigan hockey team was unstoppable all season long -- the regular season, that is. Michigan faltered when when it faced Boston University in the national semifinals.
BU hit the Wolverines with punishing checks and stringent defense for a 3-2 victory, ending Michigan's season.
The game was a role reversal from the previous season, when BU was the favored team in the national semifinals and Michigan was the underdog. This season, Michigan was the defending national champion that was shocked short of the title game.
But success can be determined by other factors, primary among them the culmination of Michigan's senior class. The nine seniors won more games in their four-year tenure than any class before them.
They were the first to claim four CCHA championships and went to three national semifinals, claiming one national championship.
At the head of this class was Brendan Morrison, the nation's leading scorer. After three years of nominations, Morrison finally won the Hobey Baker Award as the nation's best college hockey player. Morrison's achievement was unparalleled in Michigan hockey history. He joined Desmond Howard and Tom Harmon in football, and Cazzie Russell in basketball as the winners of national player of the year honors in their respective sports.
Few schools, if any, can claim such high achievement in the three major sports -- an unqualified success.
In recent years, Michigan has also struggled to achieve success of another sort -- in the burgeoning fields of women's sports. Twenty years ago, Title IX established women's sports programs on campuses nationwide.
At the time, Michigan's program was extremely underdeveloped.
(The women's program) "was below average," former football coach and athletic director Bo Schembechler said. "We'll call it successful when we have our first (women's) basketball (conference) championship."
This season was the first step toward that goal.
After last summer's resignation of women's basketball coach Trish Roberts, Michigan emerged from the cloud hanging over the program to improve its record dramatically.
Guard Stacey Thomas was named Big Ten freshman of the year and junior forward Pollyanna Johns led the conference in rebounding.
Michigan improved over last season's dismal 7-20 finish to this year's 15-11 record. This successful step forward moves the women's basketball team closer to Schembechler's ideal.
The most unexpected success of this season also came from inside Crisler Arena, but in a sport with far less exposure.
Bev Plocki's women gymnasts received the biggest boost the program has seen since Beth Wymer was an All-American at Michigan from 1992-95.
Freshman Sarah Cain took the Big Ten by storm, recording a number of perfect scores while catapulting her team to its first-ever NCAA regional championship.
Michigan entered the national championship round as the top seed, after receiving the highest overall score at the regionals. While the Wolverines faltered slightly at the national championships, finishing fourth, it was a marked progression from past seasons.
"Women's programs have really come a long way in the last 10 or 15 years," Schembechler said.
Another indicator of the success of the department can be seen in the hordes of fans who attend Michigan events on campus.
For the 22nd consecutive season, Michigan Stadium led the nation in attendance, despite having the second-largest facility in the country. (Tennessee's Neyland Stadium has a seating capacity of102,544, while Michigan Stadium can hold 102,501 fans.)
Football Saturdays in Ann Arbor continued to draw national attention to the program, with multiple games televised nationally on ABC and ESPN.
Since 1991, Yost Ice Arena also has packed in fans to witness great sports moments. With the $5.5 million in renovations the arena underwent before the 1996-97 season, it stands now as one of the premier college hockey facilities in the country.
Fans continued to flock to Yost, enthusiastically reaching the point where season ticket applications had to be denied for the first time.
When looking at the Michigan athletic program as a whole, Michigan's top two-sport athlete, Matt Herr, said that judging the success should go beyond the results on the field/ice of battle.
"Coming here is something special," Herr said. "The camaraderie between players and teams and alumni, just the whole Michigan atmosphere. There's nothing like it."
Herr should know.
After three seasons of double duty as a forward on the hockey team and a relief pitcher for the baseball team, he epitomizes the success of the Michigan program.
While he won a national championship with his hockey teammates last year, this year, he felt similar pride with his other comrades this season when the baseball team won the Big Ten championship.
"When you join hockey, they've always set the standard," he said. "Now I've been a part of a team like baseball who has accelerated their standard. We weren't even .500 my freshman year and it's nice to be a part of a team that's stepped it up."
09-03-97
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