Today obviously the head coach of Michigan football team doesn’t have to look beyond campus to hit it big. This hasn’t always the case of course, especially in the early days of the program. While Fielding Yost’s contracts compensated him very competitively for the day, it definitely didn’t make him a wealthy man. Yost spent a good part of the year pursuing his private business interests out of town. Do you know the story of Gustave “Dutch” Ferbert? He suited up for the Wolverines in the mid-1890s but most notably he was head coach of the famous 1898 squad that delivered Michigan its first conference title. The championship-sealing victory over Chicago that year inspired Louis Elbel to compose ‘The Victors’. Ferbert coached one more season but then packed his bags and headed north, hoping to strike it rich in the Klondike. In 1900 he traveled up to Nome and allegedly told folks he would “return rich or not all all.” Well, there was some question whether he would make it, especially early on. Thanks to Brian at the Bentley for forwarding this over, apparently from 1902: Here’s the opening paragraph: The many friends of “Dutch”” Ferbert, Michigan’s football coach in 1898, and one of the greatest halfbacks who ever carried the ball, have been fearful for some time that something…