Commentary : He Won NCAA Title, but Can Fisher Coach?

Brent Musburger, the CBS-TV sportscaster, had it all planned. Immediately after Michigan won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship game Monday night, Bo Schembechler would come on the air to announce that Steve Fisher, the most famous interim leader since Gerald Ford, had the job. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

Unfortunately for those in TV land, Schembechler’s flair for dramatics is pretty much limited to finding new and exciting ways to lose the Rose Bowl.

I didn’t hear the conversation between Musburger and Schembechler, but I imagine it ended with Bulldog Bo chewing on Brent’s arm.

Of course, the easiest thing in the world would be for Schembechler, who is Michigan’s football coach, athletic director and resident curmudgeon, to hire Steve Fisher as the head basketball coach.

All Fisher has done since taking over for Bill Frieder (Do you feel sorry for him? Not even a little bit?) is win six consecutive tournament games and a national championship. Which is something like saying that all Lindbergh did was fly across the ocean.

Face it, the guy’s a hero. Yes, he looks like a doorman, or maybe a shoe salesman, but he knows an X from an O and he’s coached a national champion, which is more than Schembechler ever has done.

And public sentiment is running pretty high.

Unfortunately for Fisher, if there’s anyone who can resist public sentiment, it’s Schembechler, who didn’t put in the forward pass until about 1987.

Nothing scares Bo. He’s had three heart attacks. They didn’t scare him. A 275-pound lineman doesn’t scare him. You know Steve Fisher doesn’t scare him.

Someone from the Michigan inner sanctum passed along this Schembechler scouting report on Fisher:

“I know he can coach. He knows what to do during timeouts. He’s pretty calm on the bench. But is he tough enough? My golly, you’ve got to be tough to be a coach.”

If you know Bo at all, you can hear him growl as he says these words. Yes, he actually growls. Fisher doesn’t growl. Fisher says things like, “I’m the happiest man on earth,” in that flat Midwestern accent that somehow fits him perfectly.

He’s probably a nice guy. For me, the question isn’t whether he’s tough enough -- he’s not fighting Mike Tyson -- but whether he’s good enough. Michigan is a great program, one of the best in the country. You can attract a first-rate coach there, even after years in which you don’t win the national championship.

Whether or not Fisher can coach is tough to evaluate. Maybe the team was coming together just as Frieder announced he was jumping ship (after he said he was jumping, remember, Bo gave him a little premature push). Or maybe it was Fisher’s relaxed style that allowed the team to play so well under such immense pressure. Of course, if you just want someone who’s relaxed, why not hire Perry Como?

I can say this about Fisher. His team gave up all of a 12-point lead Monday against Seton Hall, which, we know, can overcome a deficit. But Seton Hall got help this time as Michigan took hurried, ill-conceived and sometimes unimaginable shots. Sean Higgins would work the 45-second clock down to, say, 42 seconds before firing away.

And in the semifinal game, when Michigan beat Illinois on a last-second shot, the shot that might have won it was taken by the wrong person from the wrong part of the floor, and only a long rebound saved the day.

Can he coach? Who knows?

Can Michigan afford not to hire him? My guess is that Schembechler, as tough as he is, doesn’t really have a choice. If you don’t give Fisher the job and the guy you hire flops, you leave yourself as wide open as Glen Rice always seems to be.

Who is this guy Fisher anyway? His only other head-coaching position was at Rich East High School in Forest Park, Ill. From there, he became an assistant at Western Michigan, and for the last seven years he served Frieder at Michigan. He’s 43, at that age where if you don’t get a head-coaching job soon, you become either an assistant coach for life or an insurance salesman.

Before this season began, Fisher had told Schembechler he was beginning an all-out search for a head-coaching job. Well, the search ended right at Ann Arbor when he got the interim position, with the emphasis on interim.

Now he says he hopes and prays he gets the Michigan job but feels certain he’ll get one somewhere.

And what does Bo say? That Fisher definitely will be interviewed. For the record, Bo never mentioned hearing any prayers.

But soon, there will be a parade, and Fisher’s name will be on the lips of tens of thousands of grateful, check-writing alumni. It won’t just be a wave of support, but a tidal wave. If Fisher doesn’t get the job, it will be a bigger upset than supposedly coachless Michigan winning the national championship.