Years after sister's death, U-M tailback Hart carries on
It was a Saturday night. His mother was in the front of the house hanging curtains. Mike Hart was in the back with his two younger brothers and older sister, keeping an eye on them, like he often did.
Mike Hart assumed his other sister, 2-year-old Kaitlyn, was with his mother in the front. His mother thought the little girl was in the back with the older kids.
No one saw her slip out the patio door and climb the four-foot ladder affixed to the aboveground pool. No one saw her enter the water.
When the family realized Kaitlyn was missing and frantically searched the house, it was Mike Hart who checked the pool. She was floating when he found her. He jumped in and hauled her to the side. His mother pulled her out and started CPR. His older sister called 911.
Rescuers estimated Kaitlyn was in the water for maybe a minute. She died on the way to the hospital.
Mike Hart was 8 years old.
When he bursts through Michigan Stadium's tunnel Saturday to begin his final season as a Wolverine, the memory of that night isn't what will fuel him. The fury that drives Mike Hart when he runs has never been about conjuring up the tragedies of his life.
Instead, said Jamar Adams, his best friend and teammate, it's about his "desire to overcome."
This season Mike Hart has a chance to go down as the most prolific running back in U-M's history. But, as any coach on the team will tell you, with Mike Hart, success has never been about the numbers.
"Nothing ever intimidated him," said head coach Lloyd Carr, who didn't realize immediately what kind of player he'd recruited. Because of that, he said, "the players love being around him."
Even as a 5-foot-9, 190-pound 18-year-old, Mike Hart was convinced he'd make his mark quickly. He was right.
He took over the starting job in the second game of his freshman season. Some say he took over the soul of the team not long after. What they didn't know then was that he'd been preparing for the job all his life.
There were days when Mike Hart didn't know that, either.
'Old soul' takes charge
By the time he was 10, Mike Hart was helping cook dinner. Along with babysitting. And cleaning. And gauging the mood of his mother. As with many boys living in the house of a single mother, he tried to compensate with a man's presence.
The death of Kaitlyn made that even tougher. Sometimes the grief was so paralyzing that his mother, Rory Rushlow, couldn't function.
"And Michael would keep us together," she said. "He would save us. He was always an old soul."
Fred Jackson, U-M's running backs coach, witnessed that aura when he traveled to Mike Hart's hometown of Onondaga, N.Y., for the first time. He was walking the halls of the high school.
"And everybody wanted his autograph, everybody wanted a piece of him," Jackson said. "I'd never seen anything like that."
What Jackson had seen on film was gravy. He saw a little guy who didn't like going down. He saw a savant-like gift for finding open space. He saw a player without a sprinter's speed or a point guard's quickness, but with an ability to see things before they developed.
Long before he committed to Michigan, Mike Hart had become something of a local phenom. On the field, everything made sense.
Everywhere else, life didn't.
Or at least it didn't seem fair.
"I held stuff in," he said. "I had to be strong for my brothers and sister. But in football, I could just hit people."
Or elude them. Or elude them, then bull-rush them, then tell them they'd just been cracked by the smallest guy on the field. For with Mike Hart, it isn't just the daylight he seeks, it's the psychological domination of an opponent that goes with finding it.
"I want to break them down," he explained.
The field, then, isn't just for running. It's a stage, a place for a soliloquy, for verbal assault, for death by chatter.
"What do you expect," Adams said, "from a guy who gave himself his own nickname?"
Mike Hart calls himself "H2O."
"Says he can run like water," Adams said, "says he can slip through every little crack."
Somehow, he gets away with it. Maybe it's that smile. Maybe it's the joy with which he lives and plays -- last year, when asked what he was most looking forward to about the trip to the Rose Bowl, he said, "Roscoe's House of Chicken' N Waffles," a famous Los Angeles soul-food joint.
Maybe it's that without Mike Hart, the team knows it isn't the same.
"You can see it even during summer workouts," quarterback Chad Henne said. "When he's running with the team, we run harder. No matter where you are, you can always hear that voice."
Mike Hart loves to talk. At games. During practice. After movies. In the middle of the night.
"We used to take long walks around campus," Adams said. "We'd talk about life. About where we came from, where we were headed, what we wanted out of college, out of football. Now, we have cars. And we go to movies. Our plan is to become movie critics after football."
Mike Hart's plan is also to become a broadcaster. And a professional football player. And to financially take care of his family -- up to a point. Said his mother: "Michael told me recently that if he bought me a car, I'd better be able to afford the taxes and insurance. I mean, how many 21-year-olds think like that?"
He challenges everyone like that, including his head coach. Just not in front of anyone.
"We don't yell at each other on the sidelines," Mike Hart said. "If there is an issue, we discuss it behind closed doors."
His mother warned Carr from the beginning. She told him her son wouldn't back down, even from him.
At Big Ten media days in Chicago about a month ago, Mike Hart and Henne and tackle Jake Long were ready to be interviewed by local television stations. Carr was running late, holding everything up. When he finally arrived, Mike Hart looked over with a mock frown, then pointed to his watch.
"I think Lloyd Carr has found a younger version of himself in Mike," said Jamie Morris, another undersized yet effective running back who played at Michigan. "Mike is the guy that Lloyd wishes he could be publicly."
But as the coach at the University of Michigan, Carr can't always say want he wants. His senior cocaptain can.
"People tell me that we are alike," Mike Hart said. "People tell me how much he loves me. He won't tell me. But I know. It's a huge compliment."
What Carr will say is this: "He walked in here as an 18-year-old and never asked for anything. He's won everybody's respect."
And this: "I love Mike."
Responsible family man, student
A few days after Mike Hart's first trip to the Rose Bowl, back in his freshman season -- Texas beat Michigan, 38-37 -- he got a phone call from his mother. Doctors had found a brain tumor. She needed surgery.
Rushlow didn't want Mike to come back to New York. She wanted him to stay in Ann Arbor. She called Carr to tell him. Mike Hart had already talked to his coach, about custody of his younger brothers.
Carr told them if it was necessary, they'd help move Mike Hart's siblings into family housing. That way, he could take care of his family and continue his football and academic career.
"That was important," said Rushlow, who said her health is fine now.
Mike Hart had always excelled in the classroom. Sometimes, he tried to hide it, especially when he was younger.
"I remember once I had to threaten him," his mother said. "I told him if he didn't go to his National Honor Society induction ceremony in high school he wouldn't keep playing. He had this idea that jocks weren't supposed to be smart. A teacher told me he used to turn his test over as soon as he got it back with the score on it. He didn't want anybody to see it."
Mike Hart scored 1,280 on the SAT as a sophomore. He graduated with a 94% average, in the top five of his class. He especially loved math.
When he got to U-M, he wanted to keep studying it. He thought about business, too. In the end, he wound up in general studies.
"Michael wanted to graduate in 3 1/2 years. He had to play football. He convinced me, against my better judgment, that general studies would be the best path," Rushlow said. "He told me he'd go back for an MBA."
Mike Hart is scheduled to walk this December. When he reaches out to grab the diploma, a part of his little sister will be with him. Kaitlyn's face is tattooed on his left arm. "Never Forgotten" is etched below it.
He got it the summer before coming to Ann Arbor.
His mother didn't want him going to Michigan. Mike Hart had family in Detroit on his father's side. They hadn't been a part of his life, really. Though his dad lived in Syracuse, next to Onondaga, he was only sporadically around.
"More of a friend than anything," Rushlow said.
She wanted her son to go to Stanford, or some other place far away, where he could be a kid again, and leave the responsibility of his family behind.
But Mike Hart had always loved Michigan, partly because of the helmets, partly because of the lure of a family he never really knew. He wanted to reconnect with some of them. And he wanted to prove that a little guy could play at a big-time program.
So he got a tattoo, packed up and moved west, where every Saturday in the fall he still finds refuge on the field.
And every night he still calls home to check on his brothers.
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