Thanks to this weekend’s overtime win, Coach Steve Burns and his Wolverines are headed to the final four. Did you know that the Michigan men’s soccer offices are upstairs at Yost along with Red and the hockey program?
I asked him today if he had any advice for Burns and crew as they prepared for the trip to Santa Barbara:
“No, not really. I like the way his team has done it. When you’re a coach sometimes you have to lead your team when things aren’t going well, and you have to get out of the way and the players take over and lead when they are going well. It’s a question I asked him last week, ‘Who’s leading the team, the coaches or the players?’. He said the players. I said, ‘Good,’ because that’s the way it should be this time of year.”
“The advice is keep doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t get any tougher, it just gets better. It sounds like they are in every game and they know how to win on the road. This will be great for them.”
“You know what? Those guys have worked so hard in that soccer office over the years and it’s nice to see them finally get rewarded on the field and in the NCAA tournament.”
On his vicinity to the coaches upstairs at Yost:
“I see them every day. We share the coffee room and this and that. Whenever I get something that I think it really stimulating for a coach I’ll show it to coach Burns and he’ll do the same. If he has a question about something he’ll come in and say, ‘What do you think about?’…we have a dialogue. But I don’t pretend to know anything about soccer and vice versa. Steve knows what he doing—we talk about people, and leadership and motivation and on and on.”
More?
Want more on Burns and the influence of Red and the hockey program? Check out my interview from this summer with coach Burns.
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One Comment
barnesaintnoble
Great post!
All this talk of Rich Rodriguez not being a Michigan Man, not understanding our tradition and what the Michigan head coach is supposed to be and how Jim Harbaugh will (he will) overshadows the fact that there is a legendary Michigan Man upstairs at Yost. Red Berenson has an aura about him, you can't explain him. Watching him skate on the ice at the Big House rink, made me think of one thing, to edit a quote of the great Bob Ufer, "The hole that Yost dug, Crisler paid for, Canham carpeted, Schembechler fills every cotton-pickin' Saturday afternoon, and that Berenson ICED" They should just let RR go now and let Berenson coach the football team in the bowl game. I can tell you this, they won't miss tackles or fumble the ball anymore and will play fundamentally sound football. Might get a few unnecessary roughness and personal foul penalties, though. I'm okay with that. =)