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Posted on Tue, Aug 4, 2009 : 9 a.m.

Stan Parrish and Ron English remain fond of Lloyd Carr

By Michael Rothstein

DETROIT - He came to speak to the conference as a whole, but two men in the room could have predicted what Lloyd Carr would say during the Mid American Conference luncheon last Friday at Ford Field.

Considering they coached under Carr at Michigan, it isn't much of a stretch. Ron English and Stan Parrish are both first-year head coaches in the MAC, Parrish taking over for another former Michigan assistant, Brady Hoke, at Ball State and English notching his first head coaching gig at Eastern Michigan.

English said he hasn't seen too much of Carr because, well, the guy's been busy.

"I'd have him over as much as I can, but he's so busy playing golf and eating cupcakes I can't get him to come over," English said.

English coached under Carr as recently as 2007. Parrish hadn't been under Carr's coaching tutelage since 2001, but he did win a national title as an assistant in 1997.

It's a strong memory for Parrish.

"My forever image in my mind, my mountaintop, was in the locker room after the Rose Bowl," Parrish said. "He stood up on top of the chair and he said, 'Gentlemen, you just won the national championship.'

"That just doesn't happen. For him to proclaim us the national champions, we never thought we were that good. We just trudged along that year, and when a guy gets to stand up and do that, I can close my eyes and still see him standing on the bench or the chair or whatever it was."

There are other memories, too, but what Parrish learned the most from Carr was how to motivate players. Parrish dubbed Carr a "player's coach" and seemed amazed still, almost a decade later, how he could make others believe with the same passion he did.

A guy from Ohio, he saw it frequently during Ohio State-Michigan week.

"My first year, he had all the guys from Ohio, which I was one of, stand up in the room," Parrish said. "He'd go around and be like 'Parrish, Ohio State didn't want you on their staff.' Like that, and he had a humorous little thing going around to all of us from Ohio and basically told us we weren't good enough for Ohio State so we ended up at Michigan, so let's go beat them.

"I just thought that was button-pushing again. Like OK, we're getting on the bus to go to Columbus. We'll see."

A TRIBUTE TO LLOYD CARR, COMPLETE WITH CHEVY TRUCKS SONG:

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for annarbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558 or by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com.

Comments

hotsauce_gm

Tue, Aug 4, 2009 : 11:35 a.m.

I wish Carr would come out of retirement and coach EMU instead of having English at the helm.

tater

Tue, Aug 4, 2009 : 8:45 a.m.

Now that he's not coaching UM anymore, Carr is sorta growing on me, too. I like him a lot more as a coach emeritus than as someone who was watching the game pass him by.