On the morning of their most important recruiting weekend of the season, Central Michigan’s football coaches awoke to an unwelcome sight.
A powerful overnight storm had buried the campus in more than a foot of snow, hardly the ideal backdrop for wooing out-of-state prospects accustomed to warmer weather.
The unenviable task of clearing the snow fell to the two lowest-ranking members of the coaching staff. At daybreak, graduate assistants Matt LaFleur and Robert Saleh emerged from the sparsely furnished apartment they shared, clad in jackets and gloves and armed with snow shovels and rock salt.
They began by removing the snow from head coach Brian Kelly’s driveway and sidewalk so that no recruit or family member would slip when they arrived.