Chris Willertz, right, with Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer, left, and staff of SportsLeader, Inc. CHRIS WILLERTZ: MSU '88 Rose Bowler Now Motivational Speaker
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Former Spartan Chris Willertz of Bay City now speaks to coaches on the topic "How to Reach the Heart of the Athlete."
And, he is part of a national motivational program that inculcates virtue as an important personal attribute for athletes.
That's a topic that Mark Dantonio might have something to say about, given his personal style and his MSU Spartans' startling victory against a favored Ohio State a week ago Saturday.
Obviously, reaching the "heart" of the athlete is the secret to coaching.
It's hard to remember back a quarter of a century, but Michigan State's football team beat the University of Southern California twice in the same season, 1987.
Well, actually the second victory was on Jan. 1, 1988, at Pasadena, California.
One of the players on that team was a 1985 Bay City Handy High graduate, Christopher Willertz, son of the mayor of Bay City 1974-1977, the late John Willertz and his wife, Jackie.
The elder Willertz, a History professor at Saginaw Valley State University, died in 2001 at age 63.
Young Willertz excelled in football, basketball and track (shot put) at Handy and graduated third in his class with a 3.9 grade point average.
A defensive end, Willertz lettered 1986-1989 and was a member of the 1987 Big Ten Championship team as well as the 1988 Rose Bowl Champion Spartans.
Chris also was on the Academic All Big Ten in 1988 and 1989, made second team Academic All American in 1989 and was named Most Improved Player in 1989.
Chris began coaching freshman football at Hamilton, Michigan, for two years and then went to Simon Kenton High in Kentucky. In 1997 he was named defensive line coach at Oak Hills High and then was defensive coordinator at Winton Woods High, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2000-2004. He also coached the wrestling team. Chris coached linebackers at Cinci's elite Archbishop Moeller High 2005-2006.
He is now on the staff of SportsLeader, a national motivational company from Louisville, Kentucky, working with teachers, administrators and coaches at all levels and all sports.
In late January Willertz will be speaking to the staff of the Bay-Arenac Career Center.
The program is described: "SportsLeader is a virtue-based mentoring and motivation program for coaches of all ages, youth through professional, for boys, girls, young men and young women. It is for schools and teams, whether public or private, who are interested in a structured, intentional and specific method and curriculum to help teach virtue."
Willertz is featured in a video at: http://www.sportsleader.org/video/coach-chris-willertz-father-son-ceremony-intro
Michigan State, led by former Pittsburgh Steelers assistant coach George Perles, had its best team in many years, beat traditional Big 10 powers Michigan and Ohio State, and won the Big 10 by 1½ games over Indiana and Iowa, who tied for 2nd place.
The Spartans followed up the USC win by a 31-8 loss at Notre Dame, and then a 31-3 home loss to Florida State. The season got back on track with a 19-14 win at Iowa.
A dramatic 17-11 win over in state rival Michigan occurred on October 10. On October 31, the Spartans defeated Ohio State, making this the first season since the 1966 National Championship when the Spartans defeated both Michigan and Ohio State.
The Indiana Hoosiers also had beaten Michigan and Ohio State, and the meeting between Michigan State and Indiana on November 14 determined the Big Ten championship. Michigan State won 27-3 to clinch their first Rose Bowl appearance since the 1965 season.
(Note that they are the only team in college history to not only beat Big 10 powers Ohio State and Michigan in the same season, but also the USC Trojans twice.)
USC struggled early in the season and was only 4-3 after 7 games, but won its next 3 to set up a showdown with rival UCLA (9-1-0) for the Pac-10 title and Rose Bowl berth.
The Rose Bowl game was a rematch of the season opener in East Lansing, that Michigan State won 27-13.
The game was dominated by defense; Michigan State linebacker (and game MVP) Percy Snow, had 17 unassisted tackles, and accounted for 4 USC turnovers.
After USC tied the game early in the 4th quarter at 17, Michigan State marched to a game winning field goal by John Langeloh with 4 minutes to play.
The key play of the drive was a 3rd down play in which Michigan State quarterback Bobby McAllister was nearly sacked, then scrambled and at the last second found receiver Andre Rison at the sideline for a first down that kept the drive alive.
USC had time to come back, and Trojan QB Rodney Peete led USC on a drive to the Spartan 29-yard line with 2 minutes to play. But Peete fumbled the next snap, Michigan State recovered, and the Spartans ran out the clock.
MSU columnist Steve Grinczel interviewed star running back Lorenzo White, strong safety John Miller and former coach George Perles about the Rose Bowl: "MSU's hunger to return to the Rose Bowl has grown exponentially, Perles says, in the intervening years, being the most recent Spartan team to have been there is a bittersweet distinction for White and Miller.
"Did I think 25 years would pass since Michigan State's last Rose Bowl? No," White says. "The way I look at it, the teams of the last two years should have been in the Rose Bowl, but for whatever reasons couldn't go.
"But that just makes what we did that much more special to know we were the last team to do it. We're talking about some history here and what the '65 and '66 teams did with their National Championships by setting a path for our good season, puts us in that kind of category with the Spartans of today."
Says Miller, "It makes me mad that we haven't been back since. I never thought that 25 years later I'd be sitting here today talking about how we were the last team to go because we have such a better football program than that. Coach (Mark) Dantonio has certainly got the program absolutely the strongest it's been in 25 years and the buzz is back.
"Hopefully, what (MSU) is going through this year really sets them apart with regards to some of the younger players similar to how it did us from '86 to '87. It's just a matter of time before we blow through it and get back to Pasadena."
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