Next Time His Look Might Be Priceless

Rose Bowl Confidential:

I was walking out the tunnel of the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, leaving the locker rooms, squinting into the bright stadium lights surrounded by darkness, when I spotted another man doing the same. He was ambling, hands in his pockets, by himself, toward the field.

It was Mike Price, the football coach from Washington State. The date was Sept. 13, and about an hour earlier, Washington State had defeated USC, two weeks after having won its season opener against UCLA.

Price didn’t know me from Adam, and I didn’t introduce myself. I could have been a Coliseum custodian. It didn’t matter. Standing in the end zone, the coach clamped a hand on my shoulder and said, “I just had to take one more look. You don’t get many times like this in your life.”

His team’s record was 2-0.

I have a feeling that if, sometime Thursday around twilight, Washington State has won again, and it ends this season 11-1, a coach is going to go off by himself for a few minutes, for one last look around.

Against UCLA, Washington State’s players wore their customary red jerseys and red pants.

I haven’t seen an outfit like that since Elvis.

*

The best prank a Washington State man ever pulled on a Michigan man was played in 1980. While shopping in Universal City one day, Keith Jackson, the ABC-TV sportscaster and a WSU alum, came across a coffee-table book called “Bo,” featuring photographs of one of the hot actresses of the day, Bo Derek.

Jackson and a broadcast-booth buddy, Bill Flemming, decided to flimflam another Bo, the Michigan football coach. Anonymously, they mailed the book to Bo Schembechler, but not before forging an inscription: “To my namesake, Bo. I admire your work at Michigan. I hope I get to meet you at the Rose Bowl. Bo Derek.”

Now there, Schembechler told his coaching staff, is incentive to reach the Rose Bowl.

Eventually, the pranksters confessed.

Schembechler had the last laugh. He met and became friends with the other Bo--even though “the woman didn’t know a damn thing about football”--and invited her to speak to his team, which she did.

I met the wife of Michigan’s current coach, Lloyd Carr, and we got to talking about Christmas. He gave her a coat. Laurie Carr bought a few things for Lloyd, but said, “I wasn’t sure what to give him. He’s the hardest man in the world to shop for.”

Still plenty of Bo gift books available, I would guess.

On TV, former Big Ten coach turned analyst Lee Corso observed: “Do you know why Michigan’s players like Lloyd Carr so much? Because he isn’t a phony. He’s real.”

Yes, throughout history, Michigan’s players have hated those phony coaches.

Charles Woodson, the 1997 Heisman Trophy winner, was asked the other day if it was true that he blew off Corso for a TV interview because Corso had advocated Peyton Manning of Tennessee for the Heisman.

“I don’t remember doing that,” Woodson replied.

Schembechler once stood by one of his quarterbacks, Jim Harbaugh, and said, “Look at this guy. They’re talking about him for the Heisman Trophy. The best football player in the country. Yes, sir. It might mean a lot to old Harbaugh here to have that trophy. Right, Jim?

“Well, I’ll tell you something. Harbaugh isn’t interested in any damn Heisman Trophy, because he knows at Michigan, we do not promote one player over another! Because football is a team game!”

Nice speech.

A speech like that by Carr, and the Heisman might have been won by Manning, rather than Woodson.

A quarterback who followed Harbaugh to Ann Arbor was Elvis Grbac. With the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL, Grbac has played quarterback under offensive coordinator Paul Hackett, USC’s new coach.

Hackett named his dog Elvis.

“Not after Grbac,” Hackett clarified.

The coach is a huge rock ‘n’ roll fan.

Bo Schembechler met Elvis in 1973.

Presley, not Grbac.

He was in Vegas for a coaching clinic. Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles were with him. After the show, Elvis invited Schembechler to his room, and gave him a tour of his clothes closet.

“This,” Schembechler said later, “was a lonely guy.”