Mark Dantonio credits his Michigan State football 'legacy' to former players, others
EAST LANSING — One by one, former Michigan State football players walked into Breslin Center for a Friday night family reunion.
As they hugged and caught up with one another, their patriarch strolled toward the doors. And when Mark Dantonio looked inside, everything the new College Football Hall of Fame member strived to build — reaching heights the Spartans had not experienced in a half-century — came into focus.
To borrow a favorite phrase of his, Dantonio sensed a completion of another circle.
The 68-year-old former head coach, who from 2007 until his retirement after the 2019 season became the Spartans’ all-time winningest coach, learned in January he will be one of three coaches to join 19 former players in the upcoming College Football Hall of Fame class. The formal induction is Dec. 10 in Las Vegas at the annual National Football Foundation awards dinner.
On Saturday, during MSU’s prime-time showdown against No. 3 Ohio State (7:30 p.m., Peacock), Dantonio’s name will be unveiled in the Spartan Stadium Ring of Fame. He also will go into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame after helping the Spartans win the 2014 game there, one of the many highlights of his 114-57 tenure at MSU that included three Big Ten titles (2010, 2013, 2015), a College Football Playoff appearance (2015) and 12 bowl appearances in 13 seasons.
Yet to Dantonio, the personal accolades only partially belong to him.
“I hope every one of these players that are here, and everybody that really worked with us closely, sees a little bit of their name up on that award, because I think these are program awards,” Dantonio said before celebrating with nearly 400 people Friday, including nearly 200 of his former players and assistants. “I think these are things that, you don't get there without a lot of people. And everybody's got to be pulling in the right direction and doing their job and be excellent at their job.
“So when we came here, we wanted to build a legacy. And I think that's what we did as a program.”
MSU athletic director Alan Haller, who was on the search committee that interviewed Dantonio in a Cincinnati airplane hanger before the school hired him in late 2006, said the iconic coach’s spot on the façade of the stadium alongside Duffy Daughterty and other legendary Spartans was both deserved and overdue.
“I wanted to do it even before he got into the College Football Hall of Fame. But everybody told me, ‘You gotta wait, you gotta wait, you gotta wait.’ I was like, 'No, I want to do it now,’” Haller said Friday. “So for me, it was a couple years too late. This guy deserves it. I know we're not into statues around here, but I think he's meant that much to our community where we should consider it.”
Dantonio first arrived at MSU almost 30 years ago as a defensive backs coach on Nick Saban’s first staff before the 1995 season. He spent six years as an assistant with the Spartans before becoming defensive coordinator at Ohio State, where he helped win their 2003 national championship. After going 18-17 from 2004-06 in his first head coaching job at Cincinnati, Dantonio arrived at MSU to replace John L. Smith, promising titles and a goal of becoming a consistent winner again.
He did just that, leading the Spartans to success that had not been achieved since Biggie Munn (1947-53) and Daugherty (1954-72). He surpassed Daugherty as the school’s winningest coach in 2019, then announced his retirement in February 2020.
And Saturday, he joins Munn and Daugherty as the only coaches in MSU’s Ring of Fame.
“It's been a good career,” Dantonio said. “I coached for 41 years, and a lot of different people were in and out of my life. The players, I think that's what I'll remember. … My name might go up there, but I hope everybody feels a piece of that.”
After his successor, Mel Tucker, was suspended and then fired last fall, Dantonio returned to work with the team and interim head coach Harlon Barnett, one of his former assistants, in more of an advisory capacity. He returned to retirement after Haller hired Jonathan Smith in November but has visited the program on multiple occasions since, and he attended the Spartans’ win at Maryland on Sept. 7.
“For him to come back, it was kind of full-circle,” said MSU fifth-year senior linebacker Cal Haladay, who was part of Dantonio’s final recruiting class.
Dantonio and his wife, Becky, split their time between homes in west Michigan and Florida. However, he has been both watching the Spartans from afar and up close. And he feels Jonathan Smith’s program once again is charting a course to what he did when he was hired almost 18 years ago, using the program’s past to point a direction to future success.
“Where I see the direction going with coach Smith is very, very positive,” Dantonio said. “I've watched all the games, they're very resilient as a football team. I think that comes from the head coach. They can play through the smoke, as I used to say. And when things bad happen, they can get up and they can go the next play and be successful.
“So you see that. And this is Year 1, Game No. 5 coming, and there's a lot of positives point to. I think the future is very, very bright.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mark Dantonio credits Michigan State football 'legacy' to others
