Ann Arbor — Before Jim Hackett was Michigan’s interim athletic director, he was a young boy growing up with three brothers in London, Ohio, the son of Bill Hackett, a veterinarian who just happened to be a consensus All-American from Ohio State in 1944 and the Buckeyes’ captain in 1945.
Jim Hackett was the son who got away.
His high school friend and teammate, kicker Bob Wood, who still shares Michigan’s record for most made point-after kicks in a season, was already playing for the Wolverines, and Wood had given Hackett insight into the Michigan program, something he could not get at home.