Endzone Quotes

“Michigan wasn’t broken for over a century. But when it finally cracked, from the inside out, the people who knew its history rose to fix it, and restore the meaning of a simple, timeless saying: This is Michigan.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“When I teach at Michigan, on the first day I tell the students, “You will not miss class. You will not be late to class. You will not use a laptop, or a cell phone, or wear a hat. My late-paper policy is simple: There will be no late papers, ever. That is my ‘late-paper policy.’ Why? This is Michigan.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“You have to do everything you possibly can to develop your middle tier of talent. It’s your job, as the leader, to make those people do more than they thought they could—maybe more than you thought they could—and put them in the best possible position to help the team.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“Even the shift to presidents nationwide had its downsides. “The problem is,” Canham said, “they confused presidential control for presidential management. What would a bureaucrat know about that?”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“Arguably the nation’s greatest public university and its greatest college football program can both be found on the same campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan students, lettermen, alumni, faculty, and fans take a great deal of pride in that unique combination—and they watch the source of their pride very closely. They believe it’s not just Michigan’s victories that matter—on and off the field—but the values behind them that are so important, values that place a premium on community, achievement, and integrity. When they feel those values are threatened, they rise to defend them.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“Brandon envisioned a world in which the loser of the Michigan–OSU game could find redemption. That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works. You lose the game, you fume for 364 days until you have an opportunity to right the wrongs. This is not a carnival fun ride. It’s college fucking football.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“In fact, the top 11 games of total offense for any player at any position in Michigan history are all held by either Denard Robinson or Devin Gardner—best friends who lived together for three years. “I think we represented 1428 Brookfield Drive pretty well!”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“Contrary to the rumor mill, which often depicted Sarah Harbaugh as some kind of Las Vegas model attracted to Jim’s money and fame, who refused to leave California for Michigan, the former Sarah Feuerborn (pronounced “Fear-Born”) is not from Las Vegas, but Kansas City, the youngest of 11 children, whose father was an accountant at General Motors. She earned her degree in education from the University of Missouri, then moved to Las Vegas because teaching jobs were easier to get there.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football

“Goss, his wrestling coach, and other experts came up with sensible reforms to end the long-standing practice of extreme weight cutting, then told the Big Ten and the NCAA that Michigan would only wrestle under those rules, and would only wrestle against other teams that abided by them, too. Such a stand might have gotten another program blackballed from the wrestling community. But when it came from the Michigan athletic director, it proved to be the lever needed to reform the sport at every level, with the Big Ten adopting Michigan’s reforms, followed by the NCAA, and the high schools—a sequence of events that Yost, Crisler, or Canham would have readily recognized as Michigan’s influence at its best. Those rules are still in effect today.”
― John U. Bacon, Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football