The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1169070
42 THE WOLVERINE OCTOBER 2019 going to be tough. Probably took me 15 minutes to call my dad. Calling my mom would be harder." While Grant paced along the far grass practice field, still in his workout clothes, his dad's phone started ring- ing, and Grant started crying. After he finished both calls, "I knew it was the last time I'd walk across that field as a player. But then there was this great moment of peace." Newsome knocked on Harbaugh's door, and got right to the point. Harbaugh nodded. " We want you to stay in the program and keep your scholarship, and we'll do whatever we can do for you." They honored Grant's scholarship — not a small thing when it costs $67,160 for an out-of-state graduate student — then asked Grant how he wanted to contribute. Newsome decided to work with the analysts, assist the tight ends, and start his master's degree in public policy at Michigan's Ford School, where he carries a 3.80 GPA. Given everything, did the Newsomes think it was all worth it? "I get that question a lot," Grant New- some told me. "Michigan football has given me so much more than I can ever give back — and not just the games and accolades. The support, the teach- ing, the experience. The alumni net- work. And especially the guys you get to know, on a level I don't think other students could even understand. "So if you ask me, would I do it all again — all of it? My answer is simple: Absolutely. In a heartbeat. Sign me up. I don't regret a second." The key, in hindsight, was pursu- ing more than football — just like his mother had advised him. "Every day Grant wakes up and sees his leg, it will always be a reminder of his struggle," Leon said. "But he also has a degree from the University of Michi- gan, and next year he'll have a master's degree from the Ford School. He has something else, the steel to handle the next phase of his life, the next surprise — whatever it is. "I believe to the bottom of my heart that Grant will leave Michigan as well prepared to face the world as any young man could be." ❏ John Bacon keeps secrets better than most, and had to when writing his newest book on Michigan football. After all, when you get standout Wolverines making ex- plosive comments on their feeling about the Michigan State rivalry on game week, it's tough not to run with them. But he couldn't. They were for a book that wouldn't be out for nearly a year, and everybody knew it. "I promised all of them, none of this stuff was going to get out before the 2019 season," Bacon recalled. "… It kills you. You know damned well what an unbelievable story you're sit- ting on. If the people only knew, right now, what they're think- ing before the game. That's the real payoff, in many ways, of this book. These guys told me in real time, how they felt about the Spartans, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday …" Michigan fans will certainly appreciate the payoff in OVER- TIME: Jim Harbaugh And The Michigan Wolverines At The Crossroads Of College Football. The book tracks Harbaugh's team throughout their road to 10-3 in the 2018 season, but it does so much more. From a deep dive into offensive lineman Grant Newsome's career- ending injury, to an insightful look into Harbaugh's formative years, to a glimpse at cheating in college football — including Rashan Gary stating he was offered upwards of $300,000 to go elsewhere — this tome reaches well beyond the field. "We all know how the season ended," Bacon noted. "It's 10-3, and guess what? They lose to Ohio State. "I hate to ruin the punch line for you, but there it is. The answer has got to be, what can I tell you that you have not already seen or known?" He does that, through more than 100 interviews with Michigan players, coaches, staffers, parents and others, in- cluding grade school friends of Harbaugh, his father, Jack, and his brother, John. Bacon insists he didn't jump into the project with a precise outline for where he was going. "If you go into one of these seasons with a premeditated notion of what you're going to write about, you're screwed," Bacon said. "The reader smells that and feels that. What you have to do is go along for the ride and see what bubbles up. "What bubbled up in this were eight great players — four offense, four defense. Jared Wangler had to pay his way his last season and is a helluva story. Noah Furbush is an unbe- lievable student as well as an outside linebacker. "Of course, there's Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr., Chase Winovich, Shea Patterson, Karan Higdon and Ben Bredeson. What I ended up getting — and this is from the quality of people I was talking to — is what it meant to them as they were experiencing all these things." The deeper peek behind the curtain involving game weeks and football Saturdays can't be dismissed. Even for those who experienced it up close, talking in person with Har- baugh and the players, there's plenty to discover. That's especially so with the MSU and Ohio State seg- ments, sure to stoke those rivalries. "Harbaugh, apparently, gave a killer speech on Monday [be- fore MSU], which is not usually his style," Bacon said. "He's not a fire-and-brimstone speaker. He put some more gasoline on, on Friday, and Shea Patterson said, 'Man, you do not forget a speech like that. You don't forget the look in his eyes.' "And they're telling me this before kickoff. You know they're hanging it out there pretty good. "Chase [Winovich] said, 'If we lose this game, after all that, we will look like idiots.' In talking about them before the game, they were hanging it all out there." Everyone saw Bush's scuffing up of the Spartan "S" on the stadium surface. Most heard about the warm-up walk- through dustup that led to it. Those looking on afterward saw the Wolverines celebrate with the Paul Bunyan Trophy on the field, breaking tradition but following similar displays by the Spartans in recent years. What nobody witnessed involved Winovich, hours later, unable and unwilling to fall asleep. "It mattered to them," Bacon said. "Chase Winovich said that night when he got home, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, and he did not want to go to sleep. He did not want this day to ever end." This book will matter to Michigan fans, and some won't want it to end. Bacon throws back the curtain in a fashion that doesn't happen often with the tight ship (or subma- rine) Harbaugh runs, incorporating detail sure to score with readers. — John Borton John Bacon's Newest Book Is A Labor Of Love