Blue Blood explores the leadership principles and team culture that helped guide the University of Michigan football program to its historic 2023 National Championship. What made the 2023 championship season the right moment to share your personal perspective on Michigan football’s history and culture?

I was in the early stages of writing a business book called The Rules of the Game, which was about all the lessons I’ve learned during thirty years in the real estate business, when I decided to pivot. Throughout the fall of 2023, when I wasn’t running my real estate investment and management company, I’d been spending a lot of time with the Michigan football team. When they finished their season 15-0 and won the National Championship, I realized there was another story I needed to write first. So, I called my writing coach.

“Have you heard about Michigan football?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m reading about it right now in the Detroit News.”

“Take a look at the front page. You see the picture of J.J. McCarthy? He’s hugging a guy.”

“Yeah, I see it,” he said, then paused. “Wait a minute. Is that you he’s hugging?”

It was, and that, really, was when we started mapping out Blue Blood.

A few days later, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh told me that he was leaving the university to coach the Los Angeles Chargers. I also knew that several of the star players were leaving to train and prepare for the NFL Draft. It occurred to me that, other than the parade in the rain in January in Ann Arbor, this team was not likely to be properly celebrated. And that bothered me. Their National Championship was historic, and I knew I had inside information about what that team went through. No one else was going to write that story. Jim Harbaugh wasn’t going to write it. The newspaper reporters weren’t going to write it because they hadn’t seen what I had seen. They hadn’t been in the locker room like I had. They hadn’t hosted the team at Lake Charlevoix like I had. They hadn’t raised a glass with the coaches in the off-season, or heard all the recruiting debates, or conducted business training for the players. I’d done all that, and over the course of the last few seasons, I had become a close friend and confidant to many of the coaches, staff members, and star players. There wasn’t anyone else who could tell the story I could tell, so I felt compelled to switch gears and write Blue Blood. There was a gravitational pull. Hey man, you have to write this, or it’s going to be potentially lost.

What inspired you to become involved in mentoring Michigan football players and helping them prepare for opportunities beyond their athletic careers?

The original idea for our internship program for Michigan players came from Courtney Morgan. He’s currently the general manager for Alabama football, but in 2021, he was the director of player personnel at Michigan for Jim Harbaugh. I remember the day very clearly. We had just hosted the coaching staff at my farm on Lake Charlevoix, and we were gathering at the airport for a flight back to Ann Arbor when we learned that one of our two planes needed a part and couldn’t fly that day. So, some of us stayed behind to wait for another plane, and to kill time, we went to town for lunch.

Courtney and I got to talking, and he told me the story of a former teammate, Charles Drake, who had been a great football player but had struggled in the pros and in life, and had later committed suicide. Courtney felt that if his friend had been mentored and introduced to things other than football—connected with someone he could have turned to later in life for help—he might still be alive. “It’s our responsibility to do more than just coach these guys on a football field,” Courtney said. “We need to let our players bounce off people like you, Matt. To be mentored by people like you —someone who can show them they can be successful and happy outside of football.” That’s how we created the first internship program.

Each year, we bring in twenty players for an intense two-week seminar on business, investing, dressing for success, and more. Harbaugh bought into it completely, and each year he sent us the perfect combination of kids who needed it and would benefit the most from it. Some were destined for the NFL, and others wouldn’t play much at all. They were a mix of guys from all walks of life, handpicked by Harbaugh. One of the key components of the program is this promise: if you graduate, you get all the benefits Charles Drake never had. We’re here, we tell them. It’s a lifelong association. You don’t need me? Fine. Drop me an email once in a while and tell me what you’re up to. But if you need help, call me.

What leadership qualities do you believe contributed most significantly to Michigan’s success during Harbaugh’s tenure?

Number one: selflessness—putting your teammates and the team ahead of yourself. Number two: preparation unparalleled, unmatched preparation. Physically and mentally, whether that is in the weight room, the film room, or strategy sessions with your coaches. I’ve never seen a group of men more physically and mentally prepared than these players. They were mature, respectful, intelligent, and utterly committed to the task at hand. That was their ethos, and it was also the source of the great confidence and resilience they exhibited that year.

As people, they were kind and generous. They were larger than life in their thinking. Take a guy like Blake Corum. He didn’t measure himself just by how many yards per carry he got. What was he doing with his downtime? Giving time to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Conducting turkey drives and toy drives. Mentally, Blake and his teammates were totally immersed in what it meant to be a Michigan Man.

What do you hope readers who aren’t Michigan fans take away from the book’s exploration of leadership, loyalty, mentorship, and teamwork?

I like to think that the book is for anyone who wants to learn about what differentiates good from great. How do you go from good to great? This book helps you see what it takes and how to go about it. This book will appeal to more than just Michigan football fans, because it also explores the strategies, rules, and life lessons for how to be your best self and how to make others around you more successful.

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