'Gary Moeller: Just Like a Good Neighbor'
Enjoy this book chapter on the Michigan football coach who molded men and friendships as surely as winning game plans
Photo Courtesy of University of Michigan Athletic Department
As promised earlier this week, my chapter on the late, great Gary Moeller, who passed away July 11, 2022 in his hometown of Lima, Ohio.
From “Go Blue! Michigan’s Greatest Football Stories,” Triumph Books, Chicago, 2013…
“Gary Moeller: Just Like a Good Neighbor.”
Gary Moeller used to live on Maywood Avenue in Ann Arbor. I had no idea that he did until we moved into a house in the same neighborhood and by chance I picked out a jogging route that took me down Maywood and onto Stadium Boulevard en route to either Almendinger Park or Michigan Stadium.
One hot summer day I was huffing and puffing my way down Maywood when a familiar face came into view in the front yard of this two-story brick house that I always thought looked a bit like a castle. It was Moeller, and he waved me over.
He chuckled about us being neighbors, asked how many miles I was going, and said I better get back on the run. “You don’t want to tighten up,” Moeller said. “But good seeing you.”
Over the years I would see his wife, Ann, much more than her husband. She would be out tending to her flowers and was such a vibrant and friendly person. Ann’s brother, Joe Morrison, the former New York Giants star nicknamed “Old Dependable,” ended up coaching against his brother-in-law, Gary, and nephew, U-M linebacker Andy Moeller, in 1985 as the head coach at the University of South Carolina.
Moeller and the Morrisons hailed from Lima, Ohio, where the passion for football is great. I was riding bikes with my sons past their house one day, and Gary invited us in to talk and share glasses of ice-cold lemonade that Ann had on the kitchen counter. He made a fuss over my boys, showed them some football mementoes, and told a few stories.
A reporter and a football coach can be good neighbors and also have a good working relationship. That’s possible if both sides are professional, respectful, and fair. And both of us were; there was never a problem between us.
Moeller replaced Bo Schembechler as the head coach in 1990 and had five outstanding seasons before moving on to the NFL. Lloyd Carr, who had Moeller serve as the best man in his wedding, replaced Moeller as Michigan’s head coach and led the Wolverines to their only national championship since 1948 in 1997 with a team sparked by Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson, a member of Moeller’s last recruiting class.
Moeller, more than anybody, took the Michigan program to a level even Bo could not reach. He was a definite meat-and-potatoes kind of guy with simple needs and none of the flash that other top recruiting college coaches such as Jimmy Johnson and Steve Spurrier possessed. But Moeller still found a way to connect with elite athletes. What in his approach allowed him to have that success?
“You just talk to ’em,” Moeller said. “Hey, but I lost a lot of players, too.”
Jerome Bettis, the Detroit Mackenzie running back, chose Notre Dame over Michigan. He was the best player Moeller ever lost, but he didn’t lose many. However, Moeller did land an All-American running back that same season in Ricky Powers, and the next year he signed the most pivotal player he secured as a head coach.
Tyrone Wheatley, the 1993 Rose Bowl MVP who rushed for 4,178 yards for the Wolverines, had pretty much decided to attend Michigan State as a senior at Dearborn Heights (Michigan) Robichaud High in 1991.
But he lived only about a 30-minute drive from Ann Arbor and was coaxed by Moeller into taking a visit. In a one-on-one conversation with Moeller in his office and walking around Schembechler Hall, Wheatley found himself captivated with Moeller after spending over an hour with him.
“I just wanted to play for that man,” Wheatley said of Moeller. He said Moeller was the only coach who wanted to go deeper than football with him, and that made all the difference. Wheatley became a Wolverine that day.
“Tyrone was a different kid,” Moeller said. “He tried to help raise his brother and sister. He wanted to be a father figure to them, and he was proud of that. I just told him, ‘You’ve got a big name, and you are a star. And you can come here and continue to be close to them. You’ll get a very good education and an excellent degree.’
“I could tell his family meant everything to him. And hats off to Tyrone—he was and is such a trustworthy guy.”
Charles Woodson, who was from Fremont, Ohio, spurned Ohio State to play for Moeller and Michigan. Despite rushing for more than 2,000 yards, Woodson chose to play cornerback on defense.
“We were recruiting Woodson on defense, and one night I got to thinking of a kid I lost to Ohio State named Mike Lanese,” Moeller said. Lanese caught 72 passes for 1,170 yards for the Buckeyes, includ[1]ing a critical third-and-long reception from Mike Tomczak that secured OSU’s 1984 win over Michigan.
“Lanese was a receiver-defensive back who we liked,” Moeller added, “and Ohio State went after him as a receiver and we lost him. I started thinking, ‘You know, Ohio State is going to go down there and tell Woodson he can be a running back, and we’re going to lose him that way.’ So one night I decided to give Woodson a call. I told him, ‘I’m going to make you a running back.’”
Woodson had no hesitation in turning down that offer. “He said, ‘Uh-uh, I’m not playing running back,’” Moeller said. “You think you have it all figured out as the head coach.”
Moeller chuckled, adding that he assured Woodson he could play cornerback.
“I reminded Charles of that when I saw him a few years ago,” Moeller added. “I’ll never forget that night because I was worried about losing him. But he just enjoyed playing cornerback most. Then when I wasn’t coaching Michigan, I remember watching him make that one-handed interception against Michigan State that was just unbelievable.”
Moeller was also the assistant coach in charge of recruiting Desmond Howard and his Cleveland St. Joseph High classmate, Elvis Grbac, for Michigan. They signed with Bo but flourished under Moeller in the pro-style offense he implemented along with quarterbacks coach Cam Cameron, who went on to become the head coach at Indiana University and briefly with the Miami Dolphins before serving as offensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens.
“Do you know that Elvis threw exactly one pass to Desmond in high school—exactly one?” Moeller said. “That team didn’t throw much. Elvis threw 110 passes as a senior, but we knew he had the strong arm and was very accurate. He was a big-time basketball player and went to St. Joe to play that first before really getting into football. It was the same thing with Desmond. He was a great little point guard, and they went a long way in the state tournaments.
“I thought they’d be pretty good, but I’d be lying if I said I thought they would do what they did.”
Elvis combined with Desmond to set NCAA records for most touch[1downs by one quarterback completed to one receiver for a career (31) and single season (19) in 1991, when Desmond won the Heisman Trophy in a landslide vote. Grbac departed Michigan owning every major career passing record.
“Elvis was big and different from the other quarterbacks we’d had,” Moeller said. “Was he heavily recruited? Probably not. But Purdue came in on him at the end and was our biggest competition for Elvis.
“It probably came down to Georgia Tech with Desmond. When he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, his mom said, ‘I told this Moeller guy, I don’t care about the football. I want this guy to get an education.’ She liked Georgia Tech a lot. His dad, J.D., loved the football, and both had a big influence on him. And J.D. liked Michigan—he saw us as big-time college football.”
However, the Elvis-to-Desmond combo almost never happened based on Desmond’s original position choice. Moeller said Bo had a talk with the freshmen on the first day of practice, and then he had them separate into the offensive meeting room with Moeller or the defensive meeting room with Carr.
“I’m talking to the offense,” said Moeller, then the coordinator on that side of the ball, “and I’m ready to say something to Desmond. But he’s not in the room. I said, ‘Where the heck is Desmond?’ Somebody told me he was next door with the defense. I said, ‘Well, get Desmond in here!’ He comes into our room and says, ‘I think I’m going to play cornerback.’”
Moeller could not believe it.
“I said, ‘Your dad is going to shoot me, Desmond! I promised him you would play running back.’ Desmond said, ‘I just want to play early.’ But I said, ‘This is what you came here for—to play offense.’ He didn’t argue about it and stayed with the offense. Desmond was just so explosive when he caught the ball, and he wouldn’t have to take as many hits as a receiver. But he was tough and could’ve played tailback like he did in high school.”
Desmond was red-shirted as a freshman in 1988, and Moeller said J.D. had no problem with him playing receiver. “No, J.D. was happy,” Moeller said. “He was very happy.”
Desmond, Woodson, and Wheatley—perhaps the three most exciting players to wear the Maize and Blue in the last 50 years—were very much influenced by Moeller. You can debate whether Anthony Carter, Braylon Edwards, and Denard Robinson belong in their company, but there is no denying that Moeller put together brilliant football talent and teams.
Consider this: Moeller was 44–13–4 for a .771 winning percentage that edged Carr (.763) and was just a shade below Bo’s .802. Moeller won three Big Ten titles in five seasons; he went 4-for-5 in Bowl games while splitting a pair of Rose Bowls; and he was 3–1–1 against Ohio State.
Moeller also did something that none of the conference’s coaching legends could match. His teams set the Big Ten’s record for most consecutive conference wins at 19 with the blockbuster teams from 1990–92. Those teams were powered not only by outstanding skill position players but offensive linemen such as future NFL players Steve Everitt, Greg Skrepenak, Dean Dingman, Matt Elliott, and Tom Dohring. Those five players shared the 1990 Gator Bowl’s MVP award.
Woody Hayes, for whom Moeller played and was a captain for as a Buckeyes linebacker, didn’t win 19 straight. Neither did Wolverines coaching giants Fritz Crisler or Fielding H. Yost or his mentor, Bo Schembechler.
Moeller first met Bo at Ohio State when Bo was on Hayes’ staff. They all won a national championship together in 1961 wearing Scarlet and Gray. Bo coached the offensive line, and Moeller played some center and guard as a two-way player.
“This might surprise everybody,” Moeller said, “but Bo was the nice guy at Ohio State. He never got on anybody. Now, Woody would get all over everybody. But Bo didn’t do that as an assistant. People would not believe how he changed and how aggressive Bo was when he started coaching at Miami and Michigan. I tell people, ‘At Ohio State, Bo was the nice guy.’ And they say, ‘Really?’
“Now, it was not that Bo was not tough back then because he was. He was honest from the start, too. He had a very good way of getting on players at Michigan and still having a relationship with them. He always made it a point to talk to players he got on, but he did it without being soft. And that was important. He would go up to them calmly and say, ‘This is important. Do you understand that?’ But Bo would not carry a torch around about something and burn you every day with it.
“The greatest thing I got from Bo was watching him handle players. He knew how to motivate, discipline, and earn their trust. And they truly enjoyed playing for him because they knew he cared about them. He knew how to handle situations and was a good person. He had good teaching skills and was not afraid to stand up for what was right. And he was not afraid to get on the superstars. That, too, was important.”
Moeller was on Bo’s staff at Miami of Ohio in 1967 and 1968, and came with Bo to Ann Arbor in 1969 as the defensive ends coach. Moeller replaced defensive coordinator Jim Young, who took the Arizona head coaching job in 1972.
And by 1977, after having defenses that led the nation in scoring defense in 1974 and 1976, Moeller was hired as the head coach at Illinois. He was only 36, a “boy coach,” when he first led the Illini. Bo was 34 when he got his first head coaching job at Miami in 1963 but didn’t crack the Big Ten until he was 40.
But Illinois was a disaster for Moeller. His teams from 1977–79 went 6–24–3, and he was fired.
“We were recruiting a great player not far from the Illinois campus,” said Carr, who was Moeller’s defensive backs coach on the Fighting Illini. “He was a great running back who we really needed. Word came back to us that he was going to another school that offered to buy him a car. A big alumni member in Champaign said to Mo, ‘Listen, I will take care of this and get this kid a car.’
“Now, we are going into our third year with a lot of pressure. And Mo says, ‘We are not buying him a car. Forget that!’ This guy withdrew [as a booster]. We didn’t get the kid, had a bad season, and we got fired. He knew we needed that kid but would not sacrifice his integrity.”
Bo, who fumed forever about Illinois not giving his prized pupil enough time, broke his own rule about bringing back assistants who left for Moeller. He returned as the quarterbacks coach at Michigan in 1980 and once again served as the defensive coordinator from 1982–87.
There was a scene from the visitors’ locker room at Spartan Stadium in 1985, after a 31–0 domination in a very hostile environment against a strong offense, that was special. Moeller puffed a victory cigar in the steamy locker room. The mist and the smoke drifted over to where Bo was seated a few feet away.
Unless you like to smoke in saunas, it wasn’t a comfortable combination. But it was a moment that provided the essence of savoring a complete and total victory over their intrastate rival, and Bo and Mo could not stop smiling through the haze. Everything feels good when you win and win big and stop a big running back.
Spartans tailback Lorenzo White ran for a Big Ten record 2,066 yards that season and finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. But in that game, White was limited to 47 yards on 18 carries. He had run for 226 yards the week before against No. 1 Iowa in Iowa City.
“They have a hard, tough defense,” White said. “But we missed a couple blocks, too. I kept feeling I might break one. I feel we can come back on anybody. I would say Michigan was perhaps better prepared than Iowa for us.”
Michigan State’s freshman starting offensive tackle, Tony Mandarich, became a phenomenon. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a story titled, “The Incredible Bulk,” and I wrote a feature on him for The Sporting News. Mandarich was perhaps the most publicized blocker the game has ever known, and he lauded his unique diet and workout addiction for his power and speed. Mandarich weighed 304 lbs. yet ran a 4.65-second 40-yard dash as a senior. He bench-pressed 225 lbs. a Herculean 39 times in a set.
He was later revealed to be on steroids, and SI ran another cover story, “The NFL’s Incredible Bust,” after he failed miserably for the Green Bay Packers, who made Mandarich the second overall pick in the 1989 draft—right after Troy Aikman and right before Barry Sanders. But in that game against the Wolverines, he was no factor at all.
Moeller took the cigar out of his mouth, smiled, and said, “We couldn’t allow White to get a crease to run to. So we had linebackers filling up the gaps. A back like White can make you miss, so the only way to stop him is with numbers. He’s going to make you miss, but he’s not going to make you miss on five guys in a row.”
His inside linebackers, Mike Mallory and his son, Andy, were smart and tough. Outside linebackers Jeff Akers and Jim Scarcelli were quick and agile. Middle guard Billy Harris was a load to get around. But the difference-makers were a pair of relentless tackles, future All-Americans Mike Hammerstein and Mark Messner, who was just a freshman.
“What that defense did so well was get focused,” Moeller said. “They were smart and allowed no big plays.”
Moeller had another truly great defense—one that would once again lead the nation in scoring defense. Andy followed his father into coaching and was the offensive line coach for the Baltimore Ravens when they won Super Bowl XLVII by a 34–31 score over the San Francisco 49ers, whose head coach was Andy’s high school and college teammate, Jim Harbaugh.
“Me and Ann went to that game in New Orleans,” Moeller said. “I was jumping up and down at the end, and Andy was looking up and signaling back and forth to us. My wife went crazy. It’s hard to believe Andy won a Super Bowl ring. And then with Jimmy on the other side, that was something.”
Andy has often spent the night at the Ravens’ coaching offices, sleep[1]ing between film sessions. And he comes by that tendency honestly.
Gary Moeller never ceased to look for an edge on film. Ann told me that he took film with him on their annual summer vacation to a lake. He was good about spending the day on a pontoon boat, swimming with the kids, and grilling for dinner. He kept the film in his suitcase. But when Ann and the kids went someplace for a few hours and left him alone, Moeller popped in the film.
“I came back and found him stretched out on the floor there, watching film,” Ann said. “He couldn’t have been happier.”
Moeller said, “I really enjoyed the strategy of the game. I could watch film all day and all night. I truly loved what I did.”
Bo’s assistants said that they would not dare leave the football building before he did during the season. He usually knocked off between 11:00 pm and midnight. But Moeller was one of those rare birds, like Bo, who didn’t mind the long hours and had an insatiable appetite for football.
“Mo had a great passion for the game and everything it entailed,” Carr said. “And he cared about the players so much. There is never a higher compliment than to say that.”
In 1987, Bo switched Moeller to offensive coordinator. Carr became the defensive coordinator. Bo assured that Moeller would have everything needed in his background to succeed him.
Jim Brandstatter, the longtime radio analyst for Wolverines football and host of the Michigan Replay coaching television show for Bo, Moeller, and Carr, laughed about a sideline scene of Bo and Moeller arguing at the 1981 Rose Bowl. Moeller was the quarterbacks coach that season.
“I looked down and Bo was shooing Mo away,” Brandstatter said. “Both of them were ticked off at each other about something. And on the next play, John Wangler threw a slant pass to Anthony Carter for a touchdown that was huge.”
The seven-yard touchdown made it 17–6 for Michigan with three minutes left in the third quarter of a 23–6 victory that was Bo’s first in Pasadena after five losses there on New Year’s Day.
“Years later,” Brandstatter said, “I asked Mo what the problem was before that touchdown. He said, ‘I wanted to run it off tackle, and he wanted to throw it.’ Bo told Mo that they could not cover Anthony on a slant route there. Who would’ve thought that Bo was the one arguing to pass? They were like co-offensive coordinators back then and went at it. But there was always that respect.”
And Mo had great success in following a legend—which seldom occurs. Years later, I was covering the Detroit Lions for the Oakland Press in Pontiac, Michigan, and Moeller was coaching linebackers for the Lions. We would meet every Friday afternoon after practice and interviews and talk about something we both loved—the football team at Ann Arbor Pioneer High.
My youngest sons, Brad and Derek, played there in a stadium kitty-corner from the Big House. And Brad was still playing at the time.
“What number does Brad wear?” Moeller asked.
I told him Brad wore No. 49.
Moeller’s eyes got as big as saucers, and a smile creased his face.
“No kidding!” he said. “That was Andy’s number, too. How did they do last week?”
One year at Lions training camp in Saginaw, Michigan, Moeller noticed that Brad had come up to watch practice before two-a-days began for Pioneer. He sought out my son and asked if he had brought his football cleats.
“They’re in the trunk of my car,” Brad said.
Moeller asked if he wanted to work out after that day’s afternoon practice, and my son couldn’t accept quickly enough.
They worked for about one hour on footwork and technique, and even got on the blocking sled. Brad was a tight end, but he also played some middle linebacker. He told me that he learned more in that short tutorial with Moeller than he had in all the previous football practices he had attended.
Hayes pounded a pay-it-forward principle into his players and coaches, and Moeller was following through on a lesson he’d been taught nearly 40 years prior. But he was also following through on being a good neighbor, and that is how I remember him most. And that is how the folks on Maywood viewed him, too. After Michigan beat Washington in the 1993 Rose Bowl, I noticed something funny hanging on the street sign off Stadium Boulevard as I jogged toward it. Somebody had printed “Mo-wood” on cardboard and rigged it over the aluminum street sign.
Those were the best of days for Moeller. I never believed that the national media or even Michigan fans appreciated all that he did. But then, Gary Moeller didn’t coach for anybody but his assistants and players. And he impacted some of the greatest players the school has ever had.
That was enough for Mo. Ann and Gary Moeller have long since moved away from Maywood. They now live the good life in a house on a lake just north of Ann Arbor in Hamburg.
I asked what he was proudest of from his time at Michigan.
“Upsetting Ohio State in ’69,” Moeller said. “I don’t think you can ever beat that. But from when I was the head coach, I’d have to say it was winning the Rose Bowl.” Grbac’s 15-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tony McGee finished off a 38–31 comeback win over Washington in Pasadena on January 1, 1993.
“Winning that game was so important for the players on that team to get recognized,” Moeller said. “My favorite moment was watching all the players sing ‘The Victors’ with our fans and the band. That’s what it’s all about, really the kids. And that’s what it was all about for me.”
Great story that brought back so many memories. Thanks!