(Photo, "This Chip Shot Should Do It", was taken by yours truly on Sept. 1, 2007, moments before the Michigan Wolverines found themselves on the losing end of one of the greatest upsets in college football history.)
Oh, what I would give for a bottle of truth syrum and five straws. One each for outgoing Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, athletic director Bill Martin, current (and future) LSU coach Les Miles, his athletic director, Skip Bertman, and ESPN "journalist"/analyst and Ohio State alum Kirk Herbstreit.
So much information these people possess, so many answers, so many things they will NEVER tell a living soul. Sure, you can ask them whatever you like, and you can bet they'll have something nice and polished to say in response--be it the politically correct statement, the rehearsed answer their employers are telling them to say, or the calculated angry explosion in lieu of response. But just think how cool it would be to really know what went on and why. We could see how things appeared (and how they smelled). We could see who the winners and losers were. We could see the apparent motives and yet we now can only speculate as to the real reasons.
So while they're knocking back the syrum, I've pulled together an unofficial inquiry. Being that "20 questions" is a popular number, here are my 20 for what I will call Herbiegate. (Why not? Every contraversial series of events gets the "-gate" suffix from some media figure anyway. I had to do it once in my lifetime.) Here's what I'd ask these five suspects (as well as the powers that be at ESPN), while they slurp away at their potion like doey-eyed teens sharing a big choloate malted at the ice cream parlor...
1. to Miles: Does your new $3.0 million contract extension have a "Michigan Clause" built in, like the old one?
2. to Martin: Had you leaked your "assurance" that Miles was your #1 man on Friday, there's a strong chance he would have taken a leap of faith instead of agreeing to continue at LSU, as yours was the job he has always wanted. But countless people reported that you were unreachable all day, on this most crucial of days to be reachable. You've been quoted as saying that you're putting all your energies into the process, that this is your primary responsibility. So where were you last Friday?
3. to Herbstreit: How could you feel you had enough information to run with your story, when you didn't even know that Martin and Miles hadn't spoken with each other?
4. to the program director at ESPN: How on earth would you allow one of your reporters to break a story of such magnitude, one that would impact the futures of two prominent college football programs, hours before one of them was to play their conference championship game, based on such little evidence? As journalists, what exactly told you Herbstreit's story was solid enough to run with?
5. to Herbstreit: Being that I've never heard of anyone apologizing to a guy for making him a million dollars in one day, I can't help but be curious... what did you apologize to Miles for when you called him Saturday night? And did you call Martin as well, since he seems to be a more deserving recipient of your mea culpa?
6. to Martin: If Miles was not your top choice, which your lack of persistence seems to indicate, was there someone else you had in mind? Or are you waiting for one of your 20 candidates to "shine" during the interview process?
7. to Martin: You've mentioned such selection criteria as number of DUIs, whether he pays his bills and behaviors that could embarrass the university. What priority do you place on his coaching and/or recruiting abilities? Aside from your job title, what specifically qualifies you to choose a head football coach, particularly one who holds the fate of a perenially successful program in his hands?
8. to Herbstreit: Would you have broken a similar story in similar circumstances had the coaching vacancy been at Ohio State?
9. to Martin: You knew this would be Carr's final season back in September. With this in mind, after watching an entire season of college football, please tell me you have one or two names that you would love to see as the next Michigan coach. Right?
10. to Bertman: According to reports, you begain crafting Miles' extension last Wednesday and finished on Friday. After Herbstreit's "scoop" on Saturday morning, you revised the contract and reached a verbal agreement with Miles before your school's game that afternoon. If you felt the need to rush a contract together in less than three days, particularly one that forced Miles into an immediate answer, why then are you giving him six weeks (until after the BCS Championship game) to sign it?
11. to Martin: If Miles was THE top candidate in your eyes, why would you bother calling his agent on Sunday, a day after he put together a $3.0 million contract for his client, to tell him Miles was one of several candidates you were considering? Did you think you were being shrewd, and if so how did you think they would respond?
12. to Carr: did the timing of your retirement have anything to do with your predecessor announcing his retirement after the Ohio State game in 1989? And if this was your intention, why did you announce the press conference on the day before the Ohio State game? Given that Bo's mid-December announcement was by design a surprise to most, why did you tip off your intentions before the biggest game of the season when it would very likely become a distraction?
13. to Herbstreit: If you hadn't gone on the air last Saturday morning with your story--which you now realize was untrue--where do you think Les Miles would be coaching next season?
14. to Martin: you mean to tell me you have 20 candidates and plan on conducting 20 interviews? Wasn't the timing of Carr retiring--a topic he surely discussed with you--designed to have a new coach in place before the heart of recruiting season? In light of your comments about having 20 candidates you plan to interview for the position, do you honestly think you'll reach a decision by the end of 2007?
15. to Martin: Being that you likely won't spend the sum a high-profile name would demand, you will end up taking a chance on a somewhat (or completely) unproven coach. Loyalty being a cornerstone of the Martin regime (as exemplified by your six-year experiment with basketball coach Tommy Amaker, who never reached the NCAA playoffs), how long will you tolerate a lack of success on the football field? In other words, should the new coach preside over Michigan's first losing season since 1967, which given the above point is a very realistic possibility, do you have the stones to pull the plug on your coaching choice? Or could there be multiple losing seasons in Michigan's immediate future?
16. to Herbstreit: If you still stand behind your story and the source(s) behind it, if you feel you did nothing wrong, why do you now say that you will never gather information and report news again?
17. to Carr: You have been quoted as saying that you don't plan on being a part of the selection of your successor, and that you timed the announcement of your retirement to allow for a new coach to take over. Yet you agreed to retire only after assuring the yet-to-be-named coach that he must keep your staff for the 2008 season, and now there are rumors that your not being in Miles' "camp" may have played a part in what happened. Why do you act like you're not involved when you really are?
18. to Herbstreit: How could you say you're not comfortable breaking stories and you'd rather leave it to the true journalists, yet do what you did on Saturday?
19. to the program director at ESPN: We the public now know that as of Saturday morning, Miles and Martin had never actually spoken, much less met. Now that you realize the story was not only inaccurate but led to the course of events that transpired, why have you not apologized for the release of such misinformation, or the fact that your irresponsibility alone created the news that it did?
20. to Martin: No potential candidate has anywhere near the level of ingenuity of Boise State head coach Chris Peterson, who built a perennial power in Idaho and could do wonders given the product of Michigan football. Since you blew it once already by letting Miles get away, will you please give Peterson a fighting chance for the job? I'll drop to a knee and ask for your hand in marriage if you do, I promise.
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