Michigan Can’t Erase ‘Mo Thing’ : College football: Carr took over when his longtime friend resigned after arrest.

Bruce Madej, Michigan’s assistant athletic director, was at home enjoying his Saturday off when the phone rang. It was one of the local newspaper writers. Could Madej confirm or deny a report that Wolverine Coach Gary Moeller had been arrested the night before--April 28--at an Ann Arbor restaurant?

“Yeah, right,” Madej said, thinking the whole thing was a joke.

“No, really,” the reporter said.

“Give me an hour,” Madej said.

He called Moeller’s house. Moeller’s wife, Ann, answered.

“Yeah, Ann, sorry to bother you,” he said, “but can you put to rest this crazy rumor about Mo getting arrested?”

Ann said nothing at first. And then, “Uh, Bruce, you better talk to Gary.”

The reports were true. Moeller, intoxicated to the point that Southfield, Mich., police feared he might suffer alcohol poisoning, had been charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery. His arrest came after police responded to a 911 call asking for help with Moeller, who by then had broken drinking glasses on his table, approached women to dance and refused to leave the restaurant.

Taken later to a local hospital, Moeller turned to the officers, who were taping the conversation, and said: “You know what the reality of the thing is? If you’re a football coach? You know and I know that everybody’s out to get your . . . .”

On May 4, the former center/linebacker on Woody Hayes’ 1961 Ohio State national championship team resigned in disgrace. On May 8, he pleaded no contest to the charges and was later fined $400.

On May 16, Lloyd Carr, who had heard the news of Moeller’s arrest on the radio, was promoted from assistant head coach to interim head coach. He would replace his boss and friend of nearly 10 years.

Congratulations.

*

Nine polished Michigan helmets sit on a shelf behind the wooden desk. Moeller had them placed in the office after he took the job in 1990 and there they remain, despite a decorating tip by Carr’s wife, Laurie.

“She thinks I should take them down,” Carr said.

Perhaps out of deference to his old friend, or perhaps because he has more important things to do, such as face Virginia on Saturday in the Pigskin Classic at Ann Arbor, Carr hasn’t ordered their removal. In fact, Carr shifts and squirms in his seat whenever Moeller’s name is mentioned.

“This is kind of where I am with that,” Carr said politely. “If anything more is going to be said on that issue, then I think that is for Mo to talk about.”

Moeller, now an assistant coach with the Cincinnati Bengals, isn’t talking--at least not about the incident that led to his departure. He declined to be interviewed. Michigan Athletic Director Joe Roberson also chose not to discuss the specifics of the Moeller incident. “I’m not going to talk about the Mo thing at all,” he said.

Illinois Coach Lou Tepper, who got to know Moeller during the last eight seasons, isn’t so shy.

“There was never a hint of an alcohol problem,” Tepper said. “He was high intensity, yes, but not out of control.”

Still, after praising Moeller for his coaching ability and his ethics, as well as acknowledging the human frailties and pressures of his profession, Tepper said Michigan did the right thing by accepting the resignation of the Wolverine coach.

“I think you have to be someone of awful high character,” Tepper said. “I personally think that if I were found with another woman, you ought to fire me. If I’m cheating, you ought to fire me. If [I] willfully break [NCAA] rules, you ought to fire me.”

And if you have one drink too many?

Tepper paused. “I’d say, probably yes.”

Even Carr, again taking great pains not to speak about Moeller’s situation, said Michigan demands more out of its players and its coaches.

“I’m sure as hell not perfect, but I do think being held to a higher standard is what coaching is all about,” he said.

Moeller isn’t entirely forgotten. At the “M Den” at the local mall, where you can buy Wolverine helmet snack bowls and maize and blue mailboxes, the videotape of “Mo’s First Season” sells for $20. There are plenty of copies available.

And don’t bother looking for an official explanation of “the Mo thing” in the 208-page Michigan media guide. There is a solitary mention of his resignation, a year-by-year breakdown of his 44-13-3 record and a brief description of his five bowl appearances, including two trips to Pasadena. Otherwise, it was as if he never set foot on campus.

Roberson’s first instinct was to conduct a nationwide search for a replacement. Calls poured in, mostly from friends of coaches who wanted to be considered for the opening but were too vain to call themselves. That’s how the hiring game is played. Former Michigan assistant and Colorado coach Bill McCartney, who didn’t contact Roberson, was thought to be a possibility until he pulled his name from consideration.

As the season approached and the list of resumes increased each day, Roberson sought the advice of Penn State Coach Joe Paterno and former Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler. Should he hire outside the program or stick with someone already on the staff?

“They all made the same point to me,” Roberson said. “Unless I was writing off the upcoming football season . . . that continuity and stability were the issues. They all said the same thing: keep the staff together.”

So Roberson did as Joe and Bo suggested. He looked at the existing Michigan staff and decided on Carr, who had the longest tenure (15 years) of any Wolverine assistant. Carr was a motivator, an organizational master and, using one of Schembechler’s pet phrases, “a Michigan man.”

Carr, 50, didn’t lobby for the job. When Moeller left, Carr’s only request to Roberson was for the opportunity to remain at Michigan while his son, Jason, a reserve quarterback, completed his senior season. Roberson did him one better: He named him head coach, but with an escape clause. If Carr falters, Roberson will look elsewhere at season’s end.

“I won’t make a bigger decision as an athletic director,” Roberson said.

*

For years, Carr had been looking for the book and then, one day at an Ann Arbor art fair, there it was: “Football for Player and Spectator,” by Fielding Yost, the legendary Michigan coach who is second only to Schembechler in Wolverine victories and Big Ten Conference titles. He paid $40 for the old blue-bound hardback and considered it a bargain.

“I don’t, uh, like to talk about myself,” said Carr, who sounds a little bit like Jimmy Stewart, “but I have a passion for Michigan and a passion for the game of football.”

He has always had a feeling for the game. When he was growing up in Tennessee, Carr joined the 4-H Club not because of some fondness for agriculture, but because the members made an annual pilgrimage to Knoxville for University of Tennessee games. He moved to Michigan, played quarterback at the same Riverview High as McCartney, played at Missouri (as did McCartney), transferred to Northern Michigan and later became a high school coach.

In 1976, he accepted a coaching job at Eastern Michigan, stayed two seasons and joined Moeller’s staff at Illinois. The Illini promptly finished 1-8-2, then 2-8-1 and Moeller, as well as Carr, was fired.

“That was a very painful experience for me,” Carr said of his first and, so far, only firing. “It was the realization that if you don’t get people in the stands, you’re going to be let go.”

For four months, he sweated it out. Then Schembechler called. Would he like a job coaching the defensive secondary?

“It was the greatest break of my life,” Carr said. “And because of what I had experienced, I’ve appreciated every single day I’ve coached at Michigan.”

Carr has said he had the best assistant coaching job in America. Now he has one of the most difficult head coaching jobs in college football. There isn’t too much pressure. All he has to do is fill the 102,501-seat Michigan Stadium, beat Ohio State, make a serious run at the Big Ten championship, survive a schedule that, besides Virginia, includes Illinois, Boston College, Penn State and the Buckeyes, win a bowl game and do it without an experienced quarterback, as well as recruit players with an interim label stuck to his name. Do that and the job is his. Probably.

“I’ve had no discussions about anything beyond this season,” Carr said. “Frankly, that’s the way I prefer it. I just strongly feel that it can’t be an issue.”

Just in case Carr needed a pep talk, Schembechler stopped by his office not long ago and divulged a state secret. Guess what? Back when Bo succeeded Bump Elliott in 1969, he was scared stiff.

“Listen,” Schembechler said that day, “I want you to understand that fear of failure and fear of losing is all a normal part of this job. Lloyd, I had those fears. It’s not just you that has them.”

Carr still can’t believe Schembechler’s confession.

“That was an amazing thing for me to hear him say,” Carr said. “None of the coaches or the players ever knew that.”

Carr is nervous about the season, not because the head coaching job depends on it, but because he doesn’t want to let Michigan down.

“I truly believe that things will work out for the best,” Carr said. “Regardless of what happens, I will always love Michigan. There is no circumstance that will ever change my love for Michigan.”