John U. Bacon

Since the Michigan and Wisconsin football teams first played each other in 1892, Michigan has won a decisive 80% of those games.

The difference was one man: Bo Schembechler, who beat the Badgers 18 of 19 times. If Schembechler had coached Wisconsin, instead of Michigan, the record would be almost even.

That actually almost happened. And it all came down to a 40-minute meeting, 43 years ago.

Schembechler became the head coach of his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, in 1963, at the ripe old age of 33. After Miami won its league title in 1965 and ’66, Wisconsin came calling for the head coach.

Wisconsin set up an interview for 10 o’clock on a Sunday night. Bo walked in to face 20 guys sitting around a room, looking bored. One of the members actually fell asleep, right in front of Bo – which thrilled him. They also had a student who seemed to relish asking smart-aleck questions – which thrilled him even more.

The whole thing lasted just 40 minutes. The second Schembechler got out that door he walked to the nearest pay phone and called the Wisconsin athletic director, and told him to withdraw his name from consideration.

Schembechler already knew they were probably going to hire an assistant coach from Notre Dame anyway, so it was mostly for show. He didn’t appreciate that, either. But Bo knew one thing: even if Wisconsin still wanted him, he no longer wanted Wisconsin.

The process also made Schembechler realize his destination was the Big Ten, and he was going to hold out until he got there.

He turned down Tulane and Pitt, Vanderbilt and Kansas State. Finally, in 1968, Schembechler got a call from Michigan’s outgoing head coach, Bump Elliott, who was recruiting his replacement. Schembechler was interested, of course, but let them know he was not about to go through another dog-and-pony show like Wisconsin’s.

“Michigan didn’t need some silly committee or student rep to check me out,” Bo told me, “and I didn’t need any dime-store tour of the campus to appreciate what Michigan had to offer.”

Two days later, they sealed the deal with a handshake.

A year after Schembechler’s disastrous interview at Wisconsin, the Badgers offered a young basketball coach named Bobby Knight the top job. Knight called Schembechler at six in the morning for his advice.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Bo said, “but I was unimpressed. If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t go to Wisconsin.”

Knight didn’t, of course. Two years later, he took the job at Indiana.

The Badgers lost out on a football coach who would go on to win 13 Big Ten titles, and a basketball coach who won 11 more, plus three national titles.

Instead, Wisconsin got a revolving door of five football coaches and six basketball coaches, none of whom ever won a single Big Ten title. They did, however, get shellacked by the coaches they could have had, year after year.

And it was all because of one shabby, 40-minute interview on a Sunday night in 1967.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

That's a .06 - or .02 below the legal limit of .08.

A group of 20-something women emerged giggling from Melange on Main Street. They were at first uncertain if they really wanted to try the free preliminary breath tests being offered at a sidewalk table. But after one had a painless encounter with a hollow plastic tube, they were all convinced, “Oh, I want to try!”

The idea behind the free breath tests, sponsored by the Breddell & Bredell Arrive Alive Foundation, is to give folks an objective assessment of what their blood alcohol content level is compared to how impaired they feel after having something to drink. The first young lady blew a .02, well below the .08 legal limit, but not everyone in her group came in under that upper bound.

Even if this group of females was not out on the prowl, they were dressed sharp enough that they could have been. And The Chronicle’s question, “So, were you just at the game?” was intended as a joke, meant to draw attention to the contrast between their “little black dress” type outfits and the T-shirted post-game crowd (Michigan-Wisconsin). When the answer came back flat, “No, we didn’t go to the game,” we scored that above the legal limit on our own private Blood Alcohol Chronicle scale. But we were not handing out yellow cards like the Arrive Alivers were, on which was written the reading that breath-testees had achieved on the Intoximeter device.

A yellow card attested to the .00 score of one non-drinker, Pastor Sam Johnson, of the Bible Tabernacle, located at 825 N. Maple Rd. Watching one post-game celebrant receive a yellow card with a .13 reading, Pastor Johnson offered, “I’ll trade cards with you if you’ll never drink again!” Johnson said he only drank as a part of communion. Where we were sitting was in the same block of Main Street where the Sears store used to be located back in 1954 when Johnson moved from Mississippi up to Ann Arbor. Johnson worked at that Sears store.

Wisconsin Drinking Team. Where were they when the football team needed a two-pint conversion?

A different post-game celebrant proved that the plastic tube really is perfectly hollow and directs air past a sensor in the measuring device and on straight through – right into the face of anyone who might have been observing closely on the other side. No surprise to The Chronicle’s nose that he scored over .08.

The closest thing we saw to friction between Michigan and Wisconsin fans was two Rush Street servers clapping rhythmically, singing The Victors as a farewell gesture to several Badger fans as the giant red bus they had just boarded pulled away down Main Street.

The Chronicle didn’t document what they eventually scored on their breath tests, but it didn’t matter for Wisconsin Badger fans Jedidiah and Tony, who were headed to the Holiday Inn via taxi. Tomorrow it’s back to Wisconsin the same way they came: Amtrak. Jed will return to work as a civil engineer designing traffic roundabouts, while Tony will go back to work as a construction engineer. Jed was disappointed in the outcome of the game, characterizing the penalty assessed to the Badgers on a two-point conversion attempt where they had apparently tied the game as “a bullshit call.” He conceded, though, that there were maybe a couple of other questionable calls that had gone their way – a fumble recovery that took place out of bounds, for example. If the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Madison doesn’t have Tony on their payroll they should consider it. “You should visit Madison,” he exhorted us not just once.

Miscellaneous: There was briefly a random constellation of three alums of Teeter Talk within a 10-foot radius on the Main Street sidewalk: John Roberts, Chris Easthope (helping John and Lynne Marie Breddell staff the free breath test table), and Frank Anderson.