_(1).jpg) Carr in 2013 | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1945-07-30)July 30, 1945 (age 80) Hawkins County, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| 1964–1966 | Missouri |
| 1967 | Northern Michigan |
| Position | Quarterback |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1968–1969 | Nativity HS (MI) (assistant) |
| 1970–1973 | Belleville HS (MI) (assistant) |
| 1974–1975 | John Glenn HS (MI) |
| 1976–1977 | Eastern Michigan (assistant) |
| 1978–1979 | Illinois (DB) |
| 1980 | West Virginia (DB) |
| 1980–1986 | Michigan (DB) |
| 1987–1990 | Michigan (DC) |
| 1990–1994 | Michigan (DC/AHC) |
| 1995–2007 | Michigan |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 122–40 (college) 12–5 (high school) |
| Bowls | 6–7 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 1national (1997) 5Big Ten (1997–1998, 2000, 2003–2004) | |
| Awards | |
| AFCA Coach of the Year (1997) George Munger Award (1997) Paul "Bear" Bryant Award (1997) Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award (1997) Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award (2007) | |
| College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 2011 (profile) | |
Lloyd Henry Carr Jr. (born July 30, 1945) is an American formerfootball player and coach. He served as the head football coach at theUniversity of Michigan from 1995 through the 2007 season, replacingGary Moeller.[1] Under Carr, theMichigan Wolverines compiled a record of 122–40 and won or shared fiveBig Ten Conference titles (1997, 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2004). Carr's undefeated1997 team was declared thenational champion by theAssociated Press. His record coaching against top ten-ranked opponents was 20–8. Carr was inducted into theCollege Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2011.
Born inHawkins County, Tennessee, Carr moved with his family toRiverview, Michigan when he was ten years old.[2] Carr's picture is still on display in theRiverview Community High School gym lobby, where he quarterbacked the Pirates to an undefeated season in 1962. A talented athlete, Carr playedcollege football and college baseball for three seasons at theUniversity of Missouri, and one season atNorthern Michigan University (NMU) while earning hisMaster of Arts in education administration. He was a star quarterback at NMU and led the Wildcats to an undefeated season in 1967. Carr had originally played underDan Devine at Missouri, following fellow Riverview graduatesWoody Widenhofer andBill McCartney. Carr transferred to Northern Michigan when the man who chiefly recruited him to Missouri,Rollie Dotsch, was named head coach.
Carr received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan shortly after retiring.[3] He also received anhonorary degree fromAlbion College in 2008.
Carr's coaching career began as an assistant atNativity High School (Detroit, Michigan) in 1968–69, and atBelleville High School (1970–73). He became head coach atJohn Glenn High School inWestland, Michigan in 1974 and earned Regional Class A Coach of the Year honors in 1975 following an 8–1 season.
Carr's collegiate coaching career started with two seasons as an assistant coach atEastern Michigan University (1976–77) under head coachEd Chlebek, followed by two seasons as an assistant coach atIllinois (1978–79) under head coachGary Moeller. He was briefly the defensive backs coach atWest Virginia in the summer of 1980 under head coachDon Nehlen,[4][5] before departing for Michigan in the fall to work under head coachBo Schembechler. At Michigan, he was reunited with Moeller, who was returning as an assistant coach. Carr was the team's defensive secondary coach for his first seven seasons and then defensive coordinator from 1987 until 1994. When Moeller succeeded Schembechler in 1990, he granted Carr the title of assistant head coach.
Carr was named Michigan's interim head coach on May 13, 1995, following the resignation ofGary Moeller nine days earlier due to off-the-field trouble. Though athletic director Joe Roberson initially declared that Carr was not a candidate in the search for Moeller's permanent replacement, Roberson reversed his earlier position and formally named Carr Michigan's 17th head coach on November 13, 1995, after Carr posted an 8–2 record through his first ten games. His very first game as head coach, at home againstVirginia in late August 1995, was at the time Michigan's largest-ever comeback win, from 17–0 down. Carr has acknowledged that had Michigan lost that game, he might not have been given the permanent coaching job.
In 1997,Carr's team defeatedOhio State, 20–14, making him the third Michigan coach to defeat Ohio State in each of his first three games, followingFielding H. Yost andFritz Crisler. The Wolverines concluded that season with a win overWashington State in theRose Bowl, after which Michigan was namednational champions by theAssociated Press. They were also awarded theMacArthur Trophy by theNational Football Foundation and theGrantland Rice Award by theFootball Writers Association of America, given annually to the nation's most outstanding football team. For his efforts Carr received thePaul "Bear" Bryant Award and theWalter Camp Coach of the Year Award.
During the 2003 season, Carr joined Yost,Bennie Oosterbaan and Schembechler as the only coaches in school history to serve for more than 100 career games. The Wolverines won consecutiveBig Ten Conference championships in 2003 and 2004, earning the school's 18th and 19th appearances in the Rose Bowl. In 2005, Carr recorded his 100th career victory againstIowa. He ranks third in school history in career victories, behind only Schembechler (194) and Yost (165).
At a Sunday team meeting, on November 18, 2007, after the completion of the 2007 regular season, Carr told his team that he was retiring after Michigan's bowl game, and he made his official public announcement at a press conference on Monday, November 19, 2007. On the eve of his final game versus the defending national championFlorida in theCapital One Bowl, Carr was awarded theBobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award,[6] despite the Wolverines’ season-opening loss to Division 1-AA Appalachian State.
On January 1, 2008, then-unrankedMichigan beat ninth-ranked Florida, 41–35, in the Capital One Bowl, allowing Carr to record a win in his final game as Michigan's head coach. The Gators were led by head coachUrban Meyer andHeisman Trophy winnerTim Tebow. In the celebration that followed, Carr was carried off the field by his Michigan players. In the finalAP Poll released after the game, Michigan was ranked #18.[7]
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Carr was among the winningest active football coaches in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A). His teams won five Big Ten titles and the 1997 national championship after beating Washington State in the Rose Bowl. In addition, Michigan was ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 for all but nine of its games under Carr (all occurring in 1998, 2005, and 2007). Only once during his tenure did Michigan conclude its season unranked (2005). Carr became the first Wolverine coach to win four straight bowl games, beatingAuburn, 31–28, in the2001 Citrus Bowl, after leading Michigan to victories in the 1998 Rose Bowl, 1999 Citrus Bowl, and the 2000 Orange Bowl.Carr was inducted into theRose Bowl Hall of Fame on December 30, 2013, at the Pasadena Convention Center.
Carr finished his Michigan head coaching tenure with 122 victories, the third-most in school history. He posted a winning record against two of Michigan's three top rivals, going 5–4 againstNotre Dame and 10–3 againstMichigan State, while faring 6-7 againstOhio State. Carr also recorded a 9–2 record againstPenn State.
While Carr never posted a losing season (either in Big Ten play or overall), the second half of his tenure was less successful than the first half in two respects: his performance against Ohio State and in bowl games. While he won five of his first six games against Ohio State, he lost six of his last seven. Likewise, after winning five of his first eight bowl games, he lost four consecutively before winning his career finale against Florida. In his final season, fifth-rankedMichigan lost its home opener toFootball Championship Subdivision memberAppalachian State in what is consideredone of college football's largest upsets.[8]
Carr was inducted into the Northern Michigan University Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, and theUniversity of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 2015.[9]
In addition to his work on the football field, Carr is involved with the University and the community. He has been active in support of women’s athletics, endowing a women’s sports scholarship that is presented annually to a female student-athlete at UM.
Carr has served as the chairman of the WJR/Special Olympics Golf Outing. He and his wife, Laurie, were also co-chairs of the 2002Washtenaw CountyUnited Way Campaign. Carr serves on the NCAA Rules Committee and is a member of the American Board of Trustees.
Since 2004, an annual summer "Carr's Wash for Kids" has been held with the proceeds benefitingC.S. Mott Children's Hospital. Coach Carr has probably been the most visible celebrity raising money for the new Mott hospital building, discussing it often on Michigan Replay and sporting a bracelet showing his support for the hospital for several years.
Carr also hosts the Hall-of-Fame Football Camp in his hometown of Riverview, Michigan. In 2008, the city renamed the former Pennsalt Park "Lloyd Carr Park" in his honor.
He was an assistant athletic director at Michigan through 2010, after he retired as head football coach.
Carr is also cohost, withWXYZ-TV sports director Tom Leyden, of the DetroitABC affiliate's college football pregame show,Big Ten Ticket, which focuses primarily on the Wolverines, theMichigan State Spartans and otherBig Ten football teams.
On January 21, 2016, Carr was named to theCollege Football Playoff Selection Committee.[10]
Lloyd Carr's first wife, Karen, worked atPioneer High School inAnn Arbor, Michigan. Carr married his second wife, Laurie, in 1994, one year before he became the Michigan head coach. It was the second marriage for both of them. The couple lived in Ann Arbor until 2019, when they moved toSouth Carolina. During their short time there, Laurie was diagnosed with cancer.
They returned to Ann Arbor in 2020, where she received treatment at theUniversity of Michigan Hospital. Laurie Carr died of cancer at the age of 70.[11]
In 2015 Carr's grandson Chad died at the age of five ofdiffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a rare and difficult to treat cancer. The ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation was created in his honor to raise money for research.[12]
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | Coaches# | AP° | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan Wolverines(Big Ten Conference)(1995–2007) | |||||||||
| 1995 | Michigan | 9–4 | 5–3 | T–3rd | LAlamo | 19 | 17 | ||
| 1996 | Michigan | 8–4 | 5–3 | T–5th | LOutback | 20 | 20 | ||
| 1997 | Michigan | 12–0 | 8–0 | 1st | WRose | 2 | 1 | ||
| 1998 | Michigan | 10–3 | 7–1 | T–1st | WFlorida Citrus | 12 | 12 | ||
| 1999 | Michigan | 10–2 | 6–2 | T–2nd | WOrange† | 5 | 5 | ||
| 2000 | Michigan | 9–3 | 6–2 | T–1st | WFlorida Citrus | 10 | 11 | ||
| 2001 | Michigan | 8–4 | 6–2 | 2nd | LFlorida Citrus | 20 | 20 | ||
| 2002 | Michigan | 10–3 | 6–2 | 3rd | WOutback | 9 | 9 | ||
| 2003 | Michigan | 10–3 | 7–1 | 1st | LRose† | 7 | 6 | ||
| 2004 | Michigan | 9–3 | 7–1 | T–1st | LRose† | 12 | 14 | ||
| 2005 | Michigan | 7–5 | 5–3 | T–3rd | LAlamo | ||||
| 2006 | Michigan | 11–2 | 7–1 | T–2nd | LRose† | 9 | 8 | ||
| 2007 | Michigan | 9–4 | 6–2 | T–2nd | WCapital One | 19 | 18 | ||
| Michigan: | 122–40 | 81–23 | |||||||
| Total: | 122–40 | ||||||||
| National championship Conference title Conference division title or championship game berth | |||||||||
| |||||||||
In the Carr era, several Michigan players won national and conference awards:
