The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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10 THE WOLVERINE MAY 2017 INSIDE MICHIGAN ATHLETICS love for Ann Arbor, and will work as a special advisor to Manuel in the athletic department. He'll certainly have a say in who becomes his successor. "I hope there's some Michigan awareness or Michigan connection for a coach that will feel the right way about what a Michigan man should be like or what a Michigan team should be like," Berenson offered, regarding the next head coach. "We've got some of those coaches here today, and we've got some great alumni here today. "I'm sure Warde will make the right decision. It might be an easy decision, it might not be. We're going to get a lot of people interested." Whoever it is — and Berenson has produced plenty of strong assistant coaches who will be vying for the job, among others — he'll have work to do to match Beren- son's mere presence. The no-nonsense, this-is-how-it's- done, take-no-guff approach permeated Yost Ice Arena for decades. It affected future NHL players and anyone associated with Michigan hockey. It drove teams to championships and provided a steadying influence when anything short of the Frozen Four became a disappointment. Berenson's bluntness and edge could get the best out of anyone who strapped on skates. Michigan senior advisor to the athletics director Bruce Madej appeared on WTKA Radio the day after Berenson announced his retirement. Madej plays a little hockey himself, and enjoyed a relationship with Berenson beyond that of a sports information director and a head coach. Madej told the story of getting "invited" by Berenson to join him and a host of former Wolverines for an alumni game roughly 10 years ago. "I'm coming back from the Big Ten football luncheon in Chicago, and I get this phone call," Madej recalled. "I hadn't played hockey on a team in a couple of years." It was Berenson on the line, asking him if he still had his hockey equipment. Madej responded in the affirmative, and Berenson put him into service. "'4:30 — you're going to be at Yost, playing left wing during the alumni game,'" Madej recalled Berenson say- ing, in typically direct manner. "And he hangs up." Nobody told Berenson no, so Madej showed up to join a host of highly talented former Wolverines for the game. He earlier received marching orders from his wife: Hey, do me a favor. Don't die on the ice. "I've got butterflies, because I'm playing way above my pay grade," Madej recalled. "I'm playing against a guy … who goes around me and scores a goal. I get to the bench and Red looks at me. He says, 'What was THAT?' "I said, 'Red, Suzette told me she didn't want me to die on the ice.' He looked at me with a straight face and said, 'If you're going to die on the ice, you'd better die trying.'" The realization having set in that this was more than a pick-up hockey game, Madej steeled himself for action. "I come up to the faceoff, and I grab him by the jersey," Madej recalled. "I say to him, 'Hey, you can't go around me again. I am going to grab you.' "He starts laughing, because I've got his jersey, right at the base of it, holding him. He looks at me and he slides the stick up and down. For those in hockey who know it, when you slide the stick up and down, it basically means they're going to give you a butt end in the corner. "He looks at me and he says, 'Bruce, you keep on grab- bing me like that, I'm going to give you a little of this,' and he slides the stick up and down, like he's going to give me the butt end the next time I'm close. "I look at him with a straight face and I say, 'I'd rather take the butt end from you than to go back and take this bleep-bleep from Red on the bench.' He couldn't stop laughing." With Berenson's presence, Michigan hockey became no laughing matter for decades. He goes down as one of the greatest coaches ever to guide a program in Ann Arbor, one who revived a sport and took it to the pinnacle. ❏ Michigan hockey played in several unique venues under Berenson, including in the 2012 Frozen Diamond Faceoff, which resulted in a 4-1 win over then-No. 2 Ohio State, at Progressive Field in Cleveland, the home of Major League Baseball's Indians. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL