BY MARK SNYDER • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • May 17, 2009 Steve Hutchinson and Brian Griese, key players on the 1997 national championship
team and longtime NFL veterans, are glad to carry Michigan’s football tradition on their shoulders. They established an Ann Arbor charity golf tournament two years ago and have expanded it into today’s event, the Griese/Hutchinson Champions for Children’s Hearts Celebrity Golf Tournament. “The core people involved are always Michigan guys,” Hutchinson said last week. “When Bo’s tournament ended, Charles (Woodson) and Jim (Harbaugh) took it over. When that ended, there was no organized thing getting guys back to Ann Arbor in the (football) off-season in a reunion setting. So that’s part of Brian and my motivation also.” What began as a one-day event in 2007, tied in with a reunion of the national championship team, has evolved into a weekend of activities entailing a reunion for all living Michigan football players Friday night, a fund-raising gala dinner with a silent auction at Crisler Arena on Saturday, and today’s tournament. The economic downturn hasn’t affected the tournament much, enabling the major fund-raising dollars to go to the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, the Michigan Congenital Heart Center and the Samara Mendu Fellowship Fund at Michigan in Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. “We’ve learned a lot,” said Hutchinson, who plays for the Minnesota Vikings. “Getting guys back isn’t a problem — we have a waiting list of guys. Brian and I like to do a mix of some of the players from the ’70s and ’60s to get them involved.”
Hutchinson also is flooded with requests from NFL pals who want in. He knows well enough that drawing LaDanian Tomlinson and Peyton Manning to an event could send the fund-raising pairings for those groups through the roof.