• The Life and Career of Fielding H. Yost

    A video of my complete guest lecture at U-M course EDUC 212: The History of Intercollegiate Athletics. The topic is the career of Fielding H. Yost. In Part I we cover his early life and coaching career before Michigan, and just into his first season in Ann Arbor. Part II gets into his coaching and AD career, and legacy.

  • Harbaugh: The Legacy Hired Gun

    Since the turn of the last century, as I see it the Michigan coaching hires have fallen into 2 buckets: Legacy Hires > under the Michigan Man umbrella, these are guys with playing and/or coaching experience in Ann Arbor before they took over.  (And FWIW a lack of outside heading coaching success). Hired Guns > gents with head coaching “success” (let’s call it .550 or better) at other college programs but no previous coaching or playing experience at U-M. Harbaugh is the first hire that really falls on both sides of this divide, having had both college (& NFL for that matter) head coaching success along with U-M ties as a player and alumnus.  A breakdown*: * I removed George Little who kinda/sorta coached U-M for one season in 1924 while Yost took a breather, and ok if I moved the Mendoza line for “success” down to .500 Hoke gets a check. A few thoughts: Of the 4 Hired Guns, I think Ivan Maisel of ESPN got it right, comparing this hire to that of Fritz Crisler who won two national titles at Princeton before taking over in Ann Arbor: For one thing, Harbaugh is the most successful head coach Michigan has hired since it swiped Fritz Crisler from Princeton in 1938. All Crisler did in 10 seasons in Ann…