Carr Grants Dying Wish

ANN ARBOR, Mich – Lloyd Carr usually doesn’t let anyone else run his Michigan Wolverine team. However, for 10-year-old Desmond Dierdorf Jones he made an exception. The Michigan coach met last week with Desmond, who had been told by doctors weeks earlier that he might only have weeks to live.


“He was a big Michigan fan in general, especially football, and especially of the greatest quarterback in this modern era – Chad Henne,” said his mother Mrs. Jones.

Carr showed up at the Jones’ home in Ann Arbor, Michigan and talked to Desmond Dierdorf about old pranks that he used to pull on Tom Brady back when he coached him at Michigan. He told Desmond that he would intentionally make Brady run wind sprints at the end of practice, then Carr would sneak out and slit Brady’s tires with a broken beer bottle so he couldn’t get home at night. Then he would do little things like place used chewing gum in between the pages of Brady’s play book and take all his clothes out of his locker and throw them in the pool while Brady was at practice. Then as the ultimate prank, Carr said that he decided to bench Brady behind Drew Henson because he always thought it was funny to see Tom (Brady) leaving practice in tears.



“While there I gave him an opportunity to hammer me on getting blown the f**k out in last years Rose Bowl to Texas and single handedly launching Vince Young’s Heisman campaign for this upcoming year,” said Carr. “He (Desmond) got me pretty good, and it reminded me of my wife when she called me a big fat loser after the debacle and took my two dogs and kicked me out of the house.”

Before leaving, Carr asked Desmond Dierdorf a question. He asked him if there was anything that he could do for him. Desmond responded that his only request on his deathbed was for Chad Henne to start at quarterback for two straight years no matter what. Even though Carr had highly sought after QB recruit Matt Gutierrez waiting in the whim to help save a dismal Wolverine team, Carr granted the wish and said that Chad Henne will start for the next two seasons under all circumstances.

Desmond Dierdorf never got to see Chad Henne lead Michigan to a painful 7-4 season and Pre-New Years Day Bowl game. He also missed out on Chad Henne’s often outrageously bad performances against Notre Dame, or when he slipped without being touched and fell down, like a school child who fell off the monkey-bars during recess, on the last play of an excruciating Wisconsin loss.

And when Michigan faced a grueling Ohio State defense and a healthy, robust, athletically superior Gutierrez could have won the highly touted rivalry game the question was raised, “what are we going to do?” Carr responded, “we have no choice, put Chad in the game.” The end result was a loss to the Buckeyes and the crippling of a once proud program, but it’s a message that reached all the way back to a family in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

A Skylar Novak Joint