After 30 years of distinguished service to U-M, associate athletic director and former head football coach Lloyd Carr will officially retire from the athletic department on Sept. 1.
“I am thankful for the wonderful opportunity to assist two great coaches here in Bo Schembechler and Gary Moeller and I will always appreciate Joe Roberson’s decision to name me the head coach in 1995,” Carr says. “I am also appreciative for those I worked with and for all the great friendships I have developed.
File photo,
U-M Photo Services.
“Most of all, I am thankful for the young men I coached and for all the memories I have from my time at Michigan.”
Carr’s accomplishments off the field can be measured by his success as a fundraiser for many charitable causes, including his role as co-chair for the campaign to build a new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, which will open in the fall of 2011. He will remain active in fundraising and keep his position as co-chair for the fundraising effort for the hospitals. He has also aided both the athletic department and the university as a highly sought-after speaker, serving on special committees, and providing helpful advice and mentoring to coaches and staff.
“Lloyd Carr’s legacy is an impressive and important part of Michigan’s rich history and tradition of excellence in football,” President Mary Sue Coleman says. “He has served the university as well through his advocacy and passion for a number of philanthropic causes. We are grateful for his long and successful service and wish him well in retirement.”
“I have known Lloyd since he came to Michigan as an assistant coach,” says Dave Brandon, director of Intercollegiate Athletics. “Coach Carr is a man of integrity. I admire and appreciate his love for all of our student-athletes and his many contributions to not only our university, but his work on behalf of numerous charitable causes throughout the State of Michigan.”
Carr is retiring after two-and-one-half years as an associate athletic director, but his accomplishments as U-M’s 17th head football coach will be an enduring memory.
Following the 2008 Capital One Bowl, Carr retired as U-M football coach with an overall record of 122-40 (81-23 Big Ten), a national championship and five Big Ten Conference titles. He is one of only three U-M coaches to win more than 100 games, an achievement only surpassed by Schembechler and Fielding H. Yost. He is the only coach to have taken Michigan teams to a bowl game in each year he served as head coach and he is the fifth head football coach to lead Michigan to a national title (1997).
Carr became the second Big Ten coach to post an undefeated regular season record during his third year of head coaching. He also wrote himself into the NCAA record books, becoming just the seventh coach in NCAA history to have reached 29 wins in three seasons of coaching.
Carr also has been active in support of women’s athletics, endowing a women’s athletics scholarship that is presented annually to a U-M female student-athlete. He initiated the Women’s Football Academy and U-M Men’s Fantasy Football Experience, which donate all proceeds to the Comprehensive Cancer Center through the establishment of the Coach Carr Cancer Fund in 1998 in memory of his mother, Pauline, who died of breast cancer.
In the past, he also worked with Special Olympics, served on the NCAA Rules Committee and was a member of the American Football Coaches Association Board of Trustees. He annually hosts the Hall of Fame football camp in his hometown of Riverview, Mich. He was also given the Philip Hart Public Service Award from the Michigan Women’s Studies Association and the Dodge National Athletic Lifetime Achievement Award.
