Mike DeBord: 'Excellent Coach; Better Man'

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – An excellent coach and even better man.

Mike DeBord, who coached the Central Michigan football team from 2000-03, died on Tuesday. He was 69.

"It is with deep sadness that we learned of the passing of Mike DeBord, a respected leader and a valued figure in Central Michigan football history," said Matt Drinkall, who was named in December to lead the Chippewa program. "You still hear stories from his former players about the impact he made on their lives and our community. His legacy as a coach, as a person, and as a mentor will forever be remembered."

DeBord, an Indiana native, began his coaching career at Franklin (Ind.) College in 1982. His career resumé included several stints at Michigan. Herb Deromedi, the legendary CMU coach who concluded his hall of fame career as the Chippewas' director of athletics from 1994-2006, hired DeBord away from U-M.

"Mike was an excellent coach, but he was even a better person," Deromedi said. "He had the ability to criticize a player and chew him out, and then by the time he left the room, he had his arm around him. He was a player's coach; players loved playing for him."

One of those players, offensive lineman Adam Kieft, said DeBord possessed an incessant loyalty.

"He always tried to do things in the best interest of the players and the program," said Kieft, who played for DeBord at CMU before being drafted by Cincinnati Bengals in 2005. "He really put a lot of emphasis on trying to do things the right way and treating players with respect and trying to grow players into young men to be upstanding citizens."

DeBord's four CMU teams compiled a combined 12-34 record, but his recruiting efforts laid the foundation for what was to come. The Chippewas posted a winning record in five of the six seasons after he stepped down from the head coaching post, and they won three Mid-American Conference championships and appeared in four bowl games over that span.

"He had a great eye in evaluating talent," Deromedi said. "When he was the coach here at Central, he recruited so many of the players who went on after he left and had success."

Certainly, DeBord had an eye for talent and potential. But he also cared deeply for any and all of the thousands he coached over the years, Kieft said.

"When I went on some recruiting trips to some other schools, it almost felt like those schools didn't know a whole lot about me as a person before I showed up," he said. "Even before my recruiting trip he spent the time before I got there to learn a little bit about me, talked to my high school head coach and found out some stuff about me to make sure that I had a good experience while I was there and could relate to me.

"He put the emphasis on me as a person as much as a football player to enjoy what was going to happen in Mount Pleasant and the vision for the program."

DeBord returned to Michigan after leaving CMU. Deromedi, close friends in the coaching fraternity with U-M's Lloyd Carr, also worked in the U-M program after his retirement from CMU.

"I was always impressed that players that he had recruited to Central Michigan came by the football office at Michigan and thanked Mike because they knew that he was instrumental in the success that CMU had after he had left," Deromedi said. "That's quite a thing when you think about it. They came to Michigan basically to thank Mike.

"Nothing but great memories -- fond memories -- of him and his family."

And family, Kieft said, was paramount to DeBord.

"His family was very important to him, his kids, his grandkids – he was just really a great example of a man who loved his family and his family loved him and they spent a lot of time together," said Kieft, who today coaches high school football and is raising three children with his wife, Allie, in Cincinnati. "Just one of those people who makes you a better man as you get older because of the example he set for others."

Kieft said he periodically kept in touch with his old coach through texts and social media over the years. He saw first hand the influence DeBord had over so many as former players continually checked in as he dealt with the effects of a stroke he suffered in 2021.

"The influence he had on those guys that they felt obligated to come back and check in on him and the family is a testament to who he was," Kieft said. "He was around a lot of young men and he made them better men in the long run."

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