There’s a Woman Behind Michigan’s Traylor (and Behind the Bench as Well)

UCLA’s chances of winning its second-round game in the NCAA basketball tournament today are based on the Bruins’ ability to contain a tall, wide, intimidating force.

It will be stuffed into a Michigan jersey. For two hours it will use every part of its generous body to push, prod and bang.

It will be the center of attention, inspiring the Wolverines, shaking the Bruins, a smart and fast heavyweight.

And nobody can stop it.

Not even Michigan’s 311-pound center, Robert “Tractor” Traylor.

“Sometimes I want to turn around and go, ‘Shhh, you’re supposed to be a grandma,’ ” he said.

Meet Jessie Mae Carter, bright smile, brighter hair, more jewelry than an outfielder, more heart than restraint.

And gawd, what lungs.

“I never realized how loud she was until Friday, when she sat three rows behind our bench,” Traylor said. “I heard some of that stuff and was like, hmmm.”

This is actually a story about Traylor, delightful and expansive and as dangerous to UCLA as a blow dryer to Steve Lavin.

This is a story about how this round, bald guy’s ability to pound on a bunch of smaller, skinnier guys will threaten UCLA’s season.

But first, this must be a story about the woman who raised him, his grandmother, 6 feet 3 and “kind of heavy-set” according to her kind grandson.

She sits behind the bench at Michigan games, screaming at referees, opposing coaches, Traylor and his teammates, exhorting and scolding and, well, mothering.

Every tournament team has a parent like this. But no other tournament team has a parent like this.

This March, Jessie Mae Carter has received more TV time than every weeping bench warmer combined.

“My baby is like, ‘Grandma, you get so much more TV time than me, why do I even play?’ ” she said, giggling.

As the 6-8 Traylor led the Wolverines to seven consecutive victories by an average margin of 18 points, there emerged a story behind the shouting.

It turns out, whatever Traylor is, Jessie Mae Carter was that first.

She is the one who raised him, one of 22 grandchildren, to tell the truth.

“You lie and you can’t keep lying, because it’s too hard to keep the story straight,” she said Saturday from the team hotel here. “You tell the truth, and it’s easy to keep telling it again and again.”

So when Traylor was criticized for recently saying he “guaranteed” the Wolverines were going to make the Final Four, he did not back down.

Not even Saturday, when a reporter suggested Traylor had actually said he would be disappointed if Michigan didn’t make it.

“No, I guaranteed that we would make the Final Four,” he corrected the questioner. “I don’t regret anything I say.”

Believe him, then, when he later said this about UCLA: “You’re kind of licking your chops and saying, ‘They’re not that big.’ But I know Kris Johnson plays tough in there, and they will be ready.”

Carter was also the one who taught Traylor not to be ashamed of his weight, which was as much as 340 pounds when he entered school three years ago.

“Everybody in my family, if they’re not tall, they’re heavy,” she said. “I cook heavy. We eat heavy. It’s natural.”

Besides, she said, “My baby is not fat, he is big-boneyed.”

So when Traylor was serenaded with chants of “Fat boy” by Davidson fans during Friday’s first-round victory, he smiled.

When he hears the “Hey, hey, heeeaay” chants of former Fat Albert fans, he chuckles.

When Michigan State fans showed up at the Michigan game this year wearing Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes on their heads, he laughed all the way to the locker room.

“Everybody dogs him, everybody,” teammate Travis Conlan said. “Hey, if I was in the stands, I would be doing the same thing.

“But he loves it. He thrives on it. We’re very lucky.”

Of course, sometimes enough is enough. Such as against Davidson, when 6-foot guard Ali Ton (no pun intended) made fun of his weight on the court.

“I’m like, ‘Hey midget kid . . . how dare you talk about how I look?’ ” Traylor said.

When a local sportswriter nicknamed him “Tractor” in high school, he was initially offended. But as with everything else, he has rolled past it.

“I hated it at first, now I love it,” he said. “The way I figure it, if people are looking at you, talking about you, you must be doing something right.”

He did exactly that this season as his game reached a new level. This, despite the controversial preseason firing of buddy Steve Fisher after an off-season in which the school investigated later-unsubstantiated rumors about Traylor’s involvement with boosters.

He led the Wolverines in rebounding (10.1), was second in scoring (16.2) and had a monster game in the victory over then top-ranked Duke with 24 points and 13 rebounds.

Yet he never forgot to make the 35-mile drive from Ann Arbor to his house in inner-city Detroit to hug his grandmother when she needed it.

That’s what Bruin fans should realize today when they watch this hulking man trample up and down the floor while glaring and scowling.

“I like myself to be portrayed as a mean guy on the court,” he said. “But really, I’m just a sweetheart at heart.”

Who else would give credit for increased, Charles Barkley-type skills to . . . an aunt?

Only Traylor, it seems, would admit that he hones his game during the summers by playing basketball against 41-year-old Lydia Johnson, a 6-foot-4 former pro who schools him on self-control.

“Every time we play, she elbows me, pushes me in the back and I can’t do anything back,” he said. “I mean, she’s my aunt.”

And only Traylor, it seems, would not be afraid to be seen crying in public, which is what happened at Fisher’s farewell news conference.

He also wept three years ago on the eve of his announcement that he would be attending Michigan.

He was the state’s Mr. Basketball, it was the school of his dreams. But his unemployed grandmother claimed she had just received an offer from a different school. If Traylor signed there, she would be given a $900-a-week job putting stamps on envelopes.

“He was crying, saying that he didn’t want to hurt me by going to Michigan,” she said. “I told him, ‘Baby, you don’t worry about me.’ . . . I’ve lived half my life without money, I can wait a little longer.”

Integrity won. It was the right choice for both. The nation will see that again today when the grandson tries to drive the Bruins crazy while the grandmother yells for the Bruin coaches to sit the heck down.

Three Big Ten referees heard so much from her this year, after Michigan’s final home game, they came into the stands to formally introduce themselves.

If his actions after the Big Ten tournament championship were any indication, that is where Traylor will run if the Wolverines beat the Bruins today.

Up into the stands, the third row, into the arms of the woman with the heart. Maybe if he hugs her long enough, that loud, loopy woman with the magenta hair will finally pipe down.

Let’s hope not.