Bo Schembechler coached at Michigan for 21 seasons, taking his teams to 17 bowl games, including 10 Rose Bowls. AP

His last game as Wolverines coach was a 17-10 loss to Southern California in the 1990 Rose Bowl. One week later, Schembechler, who also had been serving as Michigan athletic director since July 1988, was hired as president of the Detroit Tigers.

Schembechler's signature moment as athletic director probably came in March 1989, when basketball coach Bill Frieder accepted a job at Arizona State on the eve of the NCAA tournament.

An angry Schembechler declared, "A Michigan man will coach Michigan, not an Arizona State man." He refused to accept Frieder's 21-day notice and named assistant Steve Fisher as interim coach. The Wolverines went on to win the national championship by beating Seton Hall 80-79 in overtime.

Schembechler's tenure as Tigers president from 1990-92 was less rewarding.

He was blamed for firing beloved broadcaster Ernie Harwell after the 1991 season, but WJR general manager Jim Long later said he was the one who did not want Harwell back. Schembechler hired extra coaches for every farm team, upgraded all the facilities and introduced football-style strength and conditioning programs. But those moves bore little fruit at the big-league level.

The Tigers last winning season was in 1993 until they advanced to the World Series this season.

Tigers owner Tom Monaghan fired Schembechler as Tigers president the day before he sold the team to Mike Ilitch in August 1992 -- and 13 days before Schembechler's wife, Millie, died at age 63 of adrenal cancer. Schembechler sued, claiming Monaghan had broken a contract the Domino's Pizza owner had jotted down on a napkin. They settled out of court in 1994.

Schembechler was an intense disciplinarian, and his gruff persona belied devotion to his players, both during and after their playing days in Ann Arbor.

"He preached the team from day one, and it's still being taught now," offensive guard Reggie McKenzie, who played for Schembechler from 1969-71, said when he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

McKenzie said Schembechler's iron hand almost prompted him to quit. But he added: "I learned to beat him by doing it the right way every time, all the time. That's the attitude we had at Michigan."

Schembechler was born April 1, 1929, in Barberton, Ohio. He graduated in 1951 from Miami of Ohio and earned a master's degree in 1952 at Ohio State.

After serving in the Army, Schembechler held assistant coaching jobs at Presbyterian College in 1954 and Bowling Green in 1955, then joined Ara Parseghian's staff at Northwestern in 1958 before returning to Ohio State as an assistant to Hayes.

Schembechler became head coach at Miami of Ohio in 1963, winning two Mid-American Conference titles in six seasons. In 1969, he took over a Michigan program that had endured losing seasons in six of the previous 11 years.

Schembechler was inducted into the Miami University Hall of Fame in 1972, the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1989, the University of Michigan Hall of Honor in 1992, the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame in 1993.

Bo and Millie Schembechler had one son, Glenn III. Schembechler and his second wife, Cathy, married in 1993.

"We truly lost a great man, husband, coach and mentor," former Michigan running back Billy Taylor, who played on Schembechler's first team in 1969, said from his car outside Schembechler Hall. "People like Bo come around once in a lifetime."

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