Remembering Gary Moeller, a 'Special' Friend and Neighbor
Moeller, who died Monday at 81, was a dynamic football coach for the Wolverines. However, he also was quick with a glass of ice-cold lemonade, a joke and football lessons.
Photo Courtesy of the Bentley Library, University of Michigan
By Steve Kornacki
Gary Moeller was a great football coach, no doubt. However, he also was our neighbor in the Dicken Elementary School neighborhood of Ann Arbor. And the smiling face we’d see on bike rides or jogs is what we remembered most about him when news of his death came Monday.
Moeller was 44–13–4 for a .771 winning percentage and won three Big Ten titles in five seasons as Michigan’s head coach. He went 4-for-5 in bowl games while splitting a pair of Rose Bowls, and he was 3–1–1 against Ohio State. He 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.
However, he also was quick to invite you into his house for a glass of wife Ann’s ice-cold lemonade, tell the barber we shared a funny story about you or buy you an alarm clock after you forgot to set your watch back and missed a plane in Indianapolis.
He would pull your son aside for individual football instruction, and then love running into him years later at the coffee shops he frequented.
Gary had a zest for life and the game he loved.
And, quite interestingly, the boys both remembered the way he liked to use the word “special” and how it so accurately applied to him.
Derek Kornacki, who shares our writing topics at The Kornacki Wolverine Report, recalled him this way:
Whenever Gary Moeller was interviewed for TV, he had an endearing fondness for using the word “special” to describe his players and coaches. Except with his thick Ohio accent, it came out as, “spatial.”
It’s fitting that “special” was Gary’s go-to adjective for the people in his life because special is exactly what he was as a football coach and, more importantly, as a human being.
He was arguably the best Michigan football head coach of the modern era. What he accomplished as both a defensive coach and an offensive coach is astounding. He knew the game of football inside and out and was an innovator on both sides of the ball. He took Bo Schembechler’s ‘three-yards-and-a-cloud- of-dust’ offense, and transformed it into one of the most balanced, potent and exciting offenses in the collegiate game.
We’ll never fully know what Michigan lost as a football program when Moeller was let go. He was dismissed for conduct reasons after an unfortunate incident at a restaurant, but the real reason he was let go was purely political, and had more to do with the university brass at the time.
In my opinion, had he remained at the helm of Michigan football for 10-20 years, Michigan would’ve won multiple national championships. He was that good.
But not only was he a great X’s and O’s football mind, he was also a supreme recruiter. Easily one of the best the Michigan program has ever known. And not only could he get the players on campus, but what he helped mold them into while they were in Ann Arbor, both as players and as human beings, was… well, truly special.
But as great as Gary was as a football coach, the memories that I have of him that are my fondest are of Gary as my neighbor when I was a kid. I used to ride my bike through our neighborhood in the summer while my dad, Steve, would jog beside me, and on his jogging route towards Stadium Boulevard, was the Moeller house. And anytime that Gary was out in his yard, he’d always stop and talk with my dad, my brother Brad and me. He’d ask us how our baseball seasons were going and ask about our schools and how our studies were going. The way he always took an interest in our lives and always had time for us was… again, special.
It’s a sad day whenever one of your childhood heroes passes. It marks time in a cruel way. It’s always bothered me that Gary’s coaching career didn’t go the way it should’ve. Had he not encountered some unfortunate circumstances, there’d be two statues standing in front of Schembechler Hall today. But I know that what mattered more to Gary than any accolade or any win were the people in his life.
It’s because of people like Gary who’ve dedicated chunks of their lives to the University of Michigan, that when we sing “The Victors” and we get to the line, “Leaders and best,” we can sing it with pride. It’s people like Gary Moeller who make Michigan special.
Brad Kornacki, who shared the No. 49 Gary’s son, Andy Moeller, wore at Ann Arbor Pioneer, shared his thoughts on Moeller:
Hey, Dad, that sure is a tough loss. Sorry to hear that for the Moeller family. Thanks for asking me about my thoughts. It was nice to reflect back on the man and the legend :), and here’s what just came to mind:
As you know, I always respected and admired Coach Moeller. I really think he really got a bum deal ultimately at Michigan, but that never changed my overall impression of him. If you look at all the talent that ran through the tunnel and jumped up to touch that banner between 1990-1994, it’s astonishing.
I feel like so many of my all-time favorite guys played for Coach Mo: Derrick Alexander, Jarrod Bunch, Steve Everitt, Elvis Grbac, Desmond Howard, Tripp Welborne, Greg Skrepenak, Tyrone Wheatley, Jon Runyan, Amani Toomer, Mercury Hayes, Corwin “Cornflakes” Brown, Tshimanga Biakabutuka, Ty Law, Jarret Irons and my future teacher at Pioneer High School -- Brian “B-Town” Townsend.
I can still hear their names being called over the PA system and see Coach Moeller with his arms comfortably crossed, donning a Michigan sweater with a collar shirt underneath, poised with a confident, gentle smile.
Every time I hear his name come up, I hear him saying, “speeeecial” in my head. He had an unmistakable voice and laugh, which seemed fitting to follow Bo Schembechler.
Even though he had that stature, he was still just another Ann Arborite as well away from the Big House. I remember serving him multiple cups of coffee from both Clockworks Coffeehouse in Dexter and Cafe Felix in Ann Arbor in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. He was just another regular grabbing a cup to go. I would always have to mention my name and say that I was Steve Kornacki’s son, and he would always light up and get a kick out of that.
And that’s how I’ll always remember Coach Moeller and those years.
As for me, I now write features for The Toledo Blade. However, I wrote a personal column about Gary on Tuesday, and here’s a link to it:
Blade writer remembers Moeller for his neighborly gestures | The Blade (toledoblade.com)
Later this week, I will post a chapter from a book I wrote in 2013, “Go Blue! Michigan’s Greatest Football Stories.”
The chapter title: “Gary Moeller: Just Like a Good Neighbor.”
Back when I was helping out the U-M athletic department on occasion, I attended my first ever Michigan football kickoff luncheon the same year Coach Moeller started his Wolverines head coaching tenure. I remember laughing out loud at a joke Coach told to the media and thinking how unlike Bo he was, in that regard. But, during his preview about the upcoming season, I couldn’t help but get all excited about where he would be taking the team (pretty much into the 20th century with a dynamic pro set). I agree with you—had Coach Moeller been at Michigan for 20 years, he would have surpassed Bo’s records without a doubt. And if the Lions weren’t the Lions, they would have made him their permanent head coach. I can only imagine where he would have taken that team. I’ll remember him for his successes, though. That, and his smile.