Jon Falk is Michigan’s link to the days of Woody and Bo

It was the day before Michigan’s game against Army and Jon Falk was nowhere to be found.

Falk, Michigan’s legendary equipment man, had an interview scheduled with The Athletic at Schembechler Hall. Ten minutes went by, then 15, but there was no sign of him. Finally he was located at Michigan Stadium, where he was attending to an emergency. The next day was going to be a warm one, and the stadium’s sideline fans weren’t working. Falk, 70, was the person dealing with the problem.

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Falk retired as equipment manager after the 2013 season and returned a year later to serve as an adviser to coach Jim Harbaugh. His duties are vague, but it’s not unusual to find him immersed in a menial task or troubleshooting an unexpected problem. You get the sense that if Harbaugh asked him to scrub toilets with a toothbrush, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

“People ask, ‘What do you do for Jim?’” Falk said. “Pretty much anything he asks. I’m here as long as Jimmy needs me.”

When the interview happened a few days later, Falk came prepared. He had a manila folder of notes recounting his stories from 40 years inside Michigan’s locker room. He also had an updated spreadsheet of his win-loss record, which has to rival that of any equipment man in history.

“I’ve been in 544 games at Michigan and I’ve won 393 games,” Falk said. “I’ve lost 144 and I’ve tied seven games. I keep a record of that, just a running record.

“I didn’t count the year that I was off, because it wouldn’t have been fair.”

With little introduction, Falk launched into storytelling mode. It was like listening to a record of Michigan football history, one that would play for hours on its own unless someone bumped the needle out of its groove.

Many of Falk’s stories involve Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes, famous antagonists in the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry. There was Falk’s first day of work in 1974, when Schembechler angrily ejected him from the building for wearing a red Miami of Ohio jacket. The time Falk spent $10,000 on a JUGS machine so the Wolverines could prepare for Ohio State punter Tom Skladany, then had to explain the expenditure to Michigan’s athletic director. The time Falk served as an emissary between Woody and Bo, relaying messages from one locker room to the other while they argued about who would take the field first.

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“If you’re going to ask questions, you can ask,” Falk said at one point, coming up for air.

If there’s a thread connecting Falk’s stories, it’s his undying devotion to Michigan and to Schembechler, whose approval he desired above everything else. Schembechler is the gruff, unyielding authority figure in every story, barking orders and meting out meager praise. Falk is the loyal lieutenant, always trying to please.

The measure of their relationship was Schembechler’s unwavering trust. When Schembechler hired him, he made it clear Falk was in charge of more than the helmets and shoulder pads. He was Schembechler’s proxy in the locker room, sniffing out potential problems and offering players a sympathetic ear.

“He knew, and still knows, everything about Michigan football,” said Erick Anderson, who led the Wolverines in tackles four straight seasons from 1988-91. “He was a gatekeeper of knowledge. I think that came from being Bo’s right-hand man. He was privy to things.”

The famous example occurred in 1998, when Lloyd Carr was coaching the Wolverines and Tom Brady was splitting time with Drew Henson at quarterback. Falk sensed Brady was upset with the situation and called him into his office. You’re the leader of the football team, Falk told him. If you show any sign you’re disgruntled or you’re upset, the locker room is going to fracture.

“He exploded for about 15 minutes,” Falk said. “When he got done, I looked at him and said, ‘OK, you got it off your chest. Go out there and play football and be the leader of this team.’”

Years later, Brady still cites Falk as an influential figure in his career. When Michigan paid tribute to Falk last season, Brady sent a video dedicated to one of Falk’s signature phrases. Falk collected rings from Michigan’s various championship seasons, and whenever he was asked to pick a favorite, he gave the same response: My favorite ring is the next ring.

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“That inspired me in a lot of ways,” Brady said in the video, spreading out his collection of Super Bowl rings. “It’s kept me going a long time.”

Long before Brady, Falk helped a different Michigan quarterback escape Schembechler’s doghouse. It was winter 1984, and Harbaugh was a redshirt sophomore preparing to take over as the Wolverines’ starter. But first, Schembechler had to let him back on the team.

A ruckus had broken out at the dorm where Harbaugh and some other players were living. Schembechler caught wind of it and gave Falk instructions to clean out Harbaugh’s locker. When Harbaugh arrived in the locker room and found his possessions gone, he broke the news to Falk that Bo had suspended him from the team.

“The experience was somewhat unnerving to say the least,” Harbaugh wrote in the foreward to Falk’s book, “Forty Years in the Big House.” “…(I)t seemed like Big Jon Falk was the only person I could talk to.”

Falk responded by proposing a road trip. He was planning to visit his mother and grandmother in Ohio that weekend, then drive to Bloomington to watch a Michigan-Indiana basketball game and see his friend Bob Knight. Did Harbaugh want to tag along?

Before the game, Falk took Harbaugh to meet Knight. He explained Harbaugh was in line to be Michigan’s starting quarterback, then mentioned the dust-up at the dorm and Harbaugh’s suspension.

“He turned around to Jim and said, ‘Let me tell you something. If Bo Schembechler kicked you off that football team, you listen to what he’s telling you, because he’s doing it for your own good,’” Falk said.

By the time they returned to Ann Arbor, Falk was convinced Harbaugh had learned his lesson. When he suggested it was time to reinstate Harbaugh to the team, Schembechler took umbrage. Only Bo decides when he comes back on the team, he growled, and nobody else but Bo!

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“Three days later,” Falk said, “Jimmy was back on the team.”

For a Michigan freshman, first impressions of Falk could be jarring.

Falk made sure the freshmen knew their place and permitted no grumbling about their gear. In the days before every player had a locker full of Nike swag, players were issued two standard outfits: Big Jonny Blues and Big Jonny Grays. Wrong size? Tough luck.

Anderson learned that lesson the hard way. As a 190-pound freshman, he was given shorts that were two or three sizes too large. When he approached Falk to ask for a different size, he was chased out of the equipment room with a torrent of expletives.

“The worst thing to be on a Michigan football team is a freshman when it came to Jon Falk,” Anderson said. “You were the bottom of the barrel.

“The great thing about Jonny was, as you earned your stripes, as you moved up, there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do.”

Jamie Morris remembers arriving on campus as a 5-foot-7 running back from a small town in Massachusetts, wide-eyed and barely 150 pounds soaking wet. His first instruction was to see Falk for his practice gear. He walked to the equipment room and saw a large man pedaling furiously on an exercise bike.

“Come on in, little fella,” Falk barked.

Falk rarely called freshmen by their names — it was always “little fella” or a more profane alternative. Once he got past the gruff exterior, Morris came to consider Falk a friend and confidant. Falk was the team meteorologist, always pulling out the right pair of spikes for the weather conditions. He accommodated Morris’ superstitions by letting him try on his uniform the night before a game, and Falk was the person Morris sought out when he was feeling homesick.

Morris would have a record-setting career at Michigan, rushing for 4,392 yards from 1984-87. While others questioned his size, Falk was the one who convinced him he had what it took to play for Schembechler.

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“When they saw me, everybody would laugh and say, ‘What’s he gonna play?’” Morris said. “It was Jon who saw something in me, saw a spark in me, told me how good I could be.”

During rivalry weeks, Falk was responsible for setting the tone in the locker room. If anyone’s mind was in the wrong place, Falk could sense it. He was a direct extension of Schembechler, communicating the culture and history of the program to each generation of players.

Of course, no game mattered more than Ohio State. Being from Ohio, Falk understood that before he understood anything else about Michigan football. During one of his first days on the job, after swapping his red coat for a blue one, Falk sat in Schembechler’s office for his orientation. Schembechler asked what he knew about Michigan football, and Falk passed the test.

“I said, ‘Well, I know Bo Schembechler is the football coach, I know Michigan plays Ohio State every year for the Big Ten championship, and I know everybody in Ohio hates Michigan,’” Falk said.

“He said, ‘Well, you’ve pretty much got it summed up.’”

As bitter as their rivalry was on the field, Schembechler and Hayes had an abiding mutual respect. Bo played for Woody at Miami of Ohio and coached for him at Ohio State. When they weren’t trying to outwit each other in The Game, their relationship was warm and cordial.

“They loved each other,” Falk said. “They could never tell each other that, but they loved each other.”

In 1987, Falk accompanied Schembechler to Dayton, where Bo was being honored at a banquet. Hayes, in poor health and nearly a decade removed from his firing at Ohio State, was scheduled to give the introduction. Schembechler spoke to Hayes beforehand and was shocked by how frail he seemed, barely able to walk or speak above a low mumble. He urged Hayes to stay home, but the old man insisted on being there.

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Hayes summoned the strength to deliver his speech, but Schembechler could tell he was fading. On the plane ride home, he lamented how stubborn Hayes had been in refusing to skip the banquet.

“He’s just so damn hard-headed,” Schembechler said.

“I’ve got a friend who’s just like that,” Falk replied.

A day or two later, Hayes was gone.

Falk thought of that story in 2006 as he watched Schembechler shuffle in front of the team to deliver his customary Ohio State speech. It was two days before the biggest Michigan-Ohio State game in years, the No. 1 Buckeyes vs. the No. 2 Wolverines in Columbus. Schembechler, 77, had been battling heart problems, and Falk was struck by how weak he appeared.

“I told myself, ‘Oh no, he looks just like Woody did back in ’87,’” Falk said.

As Schembechler spoke about beating Ohio State, his vigor returned and his voice reached a crescendo. Falk rushed to the front of the room afterward to shake his hand and congratulate him on a great speech.

“Are you being serious?” Schembechler asked him.

“One of your best,” Falk replied.

Falk said goodbye to Schembechler and took off for Columbus. The next day, his phone rang. Schembechler had collapsed that morning while preparing to tape his TV show at WXYZ-TV. Just like Woody, he’d delivered his final address and died the next day.

As he processed the news, Falk thought about the ways Bo Schembechler had changed his life. He was a kid who’d barely left Ohio when Schembechler called to offer him a job at Michigan. His dream had been to visit the Rose Bowl, something he did many times over. He’d been with Bo in private moments, seen him at his best and worst, eaten countless dinners at Schembechler’s dining room table and cared for him as his health declined. It was a relationship that went far beyond the job description of a coach and his equipment manager.

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“I would say that Bo probably filled in for some of the fatherly things,” Falk said.

To understand the whole story, you’ve got to go back to the beginning. Falk grew up on a farm in Ohio, and his father believed that was where he belonged. His mother wanted him to go to college at Miami of Ohio. They argued, and his mother won. Jonny went to college.

“I was close to my dad,” Falk said, “but when they got divorced, I didn’t go out there very much.”

Falk remembers his mother standing in his doorway, crying. It’s 4:30 in the morning. He’s 23 years old, and he’s just interviewed with Bo Schembechler for a job at Michigan. He’s decided to stay in Ohio, to look after his mother and grandmother, to forget about this crazy idea. Through her tears, his mother is telling him no. He needs to go. So he goes, and after more than 30 years at Schembechler’s side, he’ll sit next to the phone, think about their time together and have only one regret.

“The only regret I had was I didn’t tell Bo I loved him,” Falk said. “I never got a chance to say, ‘Hey, I love you, Bo.’”

Last spring, Falk was on vacation with his wife in northern Michigan. His own heart had been giving him trouble, so doctors gave him a device that allowed them to monitor his heart rate from afar. Walking down a flight of steps, Falk slipped and knocked himself unconscious. He woke up disoriented, feeling as though he’d been asleep for hours. His wrist was broken.

The phone rang, and a nurse from Chicago asked Falk what was happening. He explained that he’d fallen on some steps and broken his wrist.

“Sir,” the nurse said, “you need to go to the hospital. Your heart stopped for 11 seconds.”

Falk called Harbaugh immediately — “Uh, Jimmy, I’ve got a little problem” — and rode in an ambulance back to Ann Arbor. The cardiologist checked him out and told him he was lucky to be alive. Falk’s heart had managed to restart itself, but it was beating too slowly. He needed a pacemaker, just like Bo.

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Before his surgery, Falk sat in a hospital room with Jim and Jack Harbaugh. After lamenting the conversation he never had with Schembechler, Falk made a vow never to repeat the mistake.

“I said to Jim, ‘I just want you to know, Jim, I love you,’” Falk recalled. “He said, ‘I love you too, Jon.’”

A near-death experience might be enough to nudge most people into permanent retirement, but not Falk. Soon he was back at work, puttering around Schembechler Hall, doing whatever menial task presented itself. When the fans that cool the Michigan bench stopped working, he was on the job. And when the Wolverines play the Buckeyes on Saturday, he’ll be back on the sideline, reprising his role in the all-consuming drama that is Michigan vs. Ohio State.

“You know why?” Falk said, collecting his notes as the interview concluded. “I’m looking for my next ring.”

(Top photo: Tony Ding / Associated Press)