EAST LANSING — Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Jim Michalczik heard all about Michigan State from his mother, Maxine.
She was a proud Spartan who graduated as a medical technologist and eventually moved westward from her hometown Milwaukee to Seattle after getting married in 1965. Her husband, Joe, got a job as an engineer for Boeing there.
They welcomed their only son, Jim, in May the following year — her beloved alma mater won a share of their last football national championships in the fall of 1966. He heard his share of “Go Green” from her throughout his life.
“I grew up hearing about the Spartans,” Michalczik said Tuesday. “Even though I was a West Coast kid and spent my whole life on the West Coast, she was always talking about the Spartans and the Big Ten.”
Maxine died in 2012, just before Mark Dantonio’s revival in bringing MSU back to the national stage. Now, Michalczik has followed new head coach Jonathan Smith to his mom’s old college campus to help revive a long-languishing run game that once had been a point of pride to Spartans scattered around the country.
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New Michigan State football offensive line coach Jim Michalczik spent the past six seasons at Oregon State, where he worked under new Spartans coach Jonathan Smith and along with MSU transfer offensive lineman Tanner Miller.
MSU’s 89.5 rushing yards per game last season ranked 125th out of 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams and was the worst ground output in school history. The Spartans’ 81.3 rushing yards per game in nine league games ranked last in the Big Ten and was their worst ground output in conference competition since gaining just 66.0 per game in 2006. They ran for fewer than 96 yards a game against Big Ten foes in three of Mel Tucker’s…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/michigan-state-footballs-approach-run-100807132.html
Author : Detroit Free Press
Publish date : 2024-04-06 10:08:07
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