Bo Schembechler’s approach to running an organization was pure old-school.

On the eve of the 1989 NCAA basketball tournament, the University of Michigan’s athletic director learned that his coach, Bill Frieder, was planning to jump ship after the season. Most AD’s, however disappointed, wouldn’t fire their coach before the tourney. Not this one. “I didn’t sleep on it. I didn’t deliberate over it. And I sure as hell didn’t consult some damn committee about it. I made up my mind right then and there.”

Welcome to the brain of Bo Schembechler.

Unless you’re from someplace devoid of college football (outside the United States, in other words), you know that for two decades Schembechler ran the football program at Michigan — the most successful coach at one of the country’s most successful programs. He had a swan song as Michigan’s AD, when he made the decision mentioned above. (That “coachless” team went on to win the national title.) And before he died last year (of heart failure at age 77 after collapsing while taping a TV show), he was writing an engaging, often humorous book on leadership, Bo’s Lasting Lessons (Hitachi Book Group), published posthumously this year with the assistance of John U. Bacon.

As you might expect from a man who learned his craft from coaching legends like Ara Parseghian and Woody Hayes, Schembechler was old-school and proud of it. While football is the source of many of the book’s anecdotes, leadership is its focus, with a concentration on the world of business.

Be warned (or be relieved): This is no B-school textbook. Schembechler writes in his own breezy vernacular; what he lacks in literary finesse he makes up in directness. There’s good advice here — how to motivate superstars and scrubs alike, how to use the team to set high expectations — but two areas make this book special: first, the examples of how Schembechler employed his values in real-life situations; second, the revelation that this gruff, ill-tempered sideline maniac was a people person. He loved his players, All-Americans and walk-ons alike. He hung a now-famous sign in the locker room that read those who stay will be champions. He wasn’t talking about just football. Bo’s Lasting Lessons lives up to its title: Like the man himself, it makes plain what needs to be made plain. CL

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