Kornacki: Bolden Leaves Ohio, Finds Home at Michigan
11/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 25, 2014
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Michigan outside linebacker Joe Bolden is the son and nephew of football coaches. Bolden studied his first videotape of a game he played in when he was seven and went on to become a star at Cincinnati Colerain High and the captain of his Under Armour All-America Game team.
And yet Ohio State wasn't interested in offering him a scholarship during his senior season, when Luke Fickell was the coach. That changed when Urban Meyer took over the Buckeyes, but Bolden wasn't going to be swayed on his decision to become a Wolverine.
Bolden said Mike Vrabel, a Buckeyes assistant coach at the time, saw Bolden at the prestigious All-America game in St. Petersburg, Fla., and spoke to Meyer about him. Kerry Coombs, the new Buckeyes cornerbacks and special teams coach under Meyer, had known Bolden for more than 10 years because Coombs had been the head coach at Colerain and his son, Dylan, played there with Bolden.
"Vrabel called Meyer and Meyer called my uncle," said Bolden, whose uncle, Tom Bolden, was the head coach at Colerain when he played. "They wanted to offer me, but at that point I was committed to Michigan and already enrolled in classes. To me, at that point in time, it didn't matter. I made my commitment to Michigan, that's where I'm coming, that's where I'm going to be -- that's my word.
"So, I didn't actually find out until a couple weeks later and my dad (Dan, the Colerain athletic director) decided to tell me. And I think my uncle and my dad handled that well because they know me and know what I would've said."
So, his father and uncle and uncle made the decision for Joe?
"Correct," he said. "My uncle said, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' because I'm here at Michigan. And my word is my word. And I'm not going to break my word if I give it to you."
Do people back home come back at him for his decision to leave the state for Michigan?
"At times," said Bolden. "But a lot of people know me and know who I am. They know the reasons why I made the commitment here and support it."
He played for the Wolverines at Ohio State as a freshman on special teams and as a reserve. But he will visit Columbus to play the Buckeyes at noon on Saturday Nov. 29) as one of the leaders of the Wolverines' defense. Bolden is second on the team with 93 tackles and has two sacks and four tackles-for-loss.
"You can see him flying to the ball every single play," said Wolverines middle linebacker Jake Ryan, a Butkus Award finalist. "Me and him, that's our mentality. And Joe's very smart; he watches film a lot."
Michigan head coach Brady Hoke said, "Joe's very intelligent in how he watches film and what he sees. He truly is dialed in with (defensive coordinator Greg) Mattison on a lot of down-and-distance things. He really communicates well because he does know it so well that he's confident in it."
What makes him that confident?
"Just studying film and the game plan -- knowing their tendencies," said Bolden. "(Mattison) explaining to us what we need to get done, and us going out and doing it, really playing off one another."
Bolden has been studying game film since he was in second grade.
"I remember in Little Pro (youth football) sitting down with my dad and my dad watching tape with me," he said. "I started playing when I was four, and by seven, maybe, we were watching just to figure out, 'These three plays on offense are the ones you're going to have to stop.' As a kid, we always had that team mom who filmed the games."
His father played on both sides of the ball at Hanover College and coached him in youth leagues. His uncle was a quarterback at Wittenberg University and coached him throughout high school.
"I was at my first football game when I was two weeks old," said Bolden. "It's just something I've been around my whole life. My dad played both offense and defense in college, and his knowledge of the game is unbelievable. My uncle knows the game inside and out and has a different mindset -- he was a quarterback. They've been teaching me and coaching me my whole life."
Bolden, a junior, expects to follow in their footsteps with a career connected to athletics whenever his playing career is over.
"I'm studying sport management," he said. "It runs in the family with my dad being an athletic director and my uncle being a head coach. I love coaching. And marketing sparks an interest. That's something, and coaching definitely."
Bolden said he spends his time away from football "staying on top of my classes" and with his girlfriend, Kristen Dodge, a senior and two-time captain of the Michigan women's tennis team, which has won three consecutive Big Ten championships.
"I hang out with her until she gets tired of me," Bolden said with a laugh.
And then he'll probably turn up at Schembechler Hall to watch film. The challenge this week is stopping Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett, who leads the Big Ten with 318.8 yards of total offense per game, 33 touchdown passes and a 171.4 passing-efficiency rating.
"He does a good job of hitting it up in between the tackles and finding a crease," Bolden said of Barrett, who has run for 849 yards and nine touchdowns. "And if you are able to run the ball, it sets up your passing game."
Bolden likely is determining the three plays he needs to stop most -- just like his father taught him all those years ago.
The game's outcome is to be determined, but one thing's for sure.
"As soon as I came here," Bolden said of Michigan, "I knew this was the place for me."
