Michigan and Coach Harbaugh Rescind Offer to DG South Football Star

As a little kid, Erik Swenson developed an unwavering, uncommon certitude about his future.

He’d play football, go to high school at Downers Grove South, and eventually play for the Michigan Wolverines.

He knew this in his heart and felt this in his bones.

Now a 6-foot-7-inch, 310-pound offensive tackle, this very big kid has held onto the dream he hatched as a 5-year-old boy. His bedroom, decorated in Wolverines maize and blue, reminded him every day of the next step in his life’s journey. More than two years ago, already a blue-chip high-school football recruit who joined the starting offensive line as a freshman, Swenson pledged himself to the University of Michigan.

In recent years, other schools tried to lure this mountain of a man to their fields of glory: Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama among them. But under the big 77 on his jersey beat the heart of a Wolverine.

Swenson turned away everyone.

On Tuesday, the University of Michigan and head coach Jim Harbaugh broke that heart, turned away Swenson and took away his scholarship offer. The coaches are going with other players, reports the Detroit Free Press, noting Swenson was the earliest commitment in the 2016 class of Michigan recruits. Swenson signed on under former coach Brady Hoke, and the DG senior held onto his commitment to Michigan through years of uncertainty with the football program.

Swenson’s friends questioned his loyalty to Michigan after Hoke was fired. After Harbaugh took over the storied program, Swenson told the Chicago Tribune his faith was vindicated. He was more excited than ever to play for Michigan and a coach who’d once played quarterback for the Chicago Bears.

In August, Swenson joined Harbaugh and other recruits at the team’s summer barbecue in Ann Arbor.

“Now all (of the doubters) are saying I was the smartest kid to stick around,” Swenson told the Tribune in August.

One month ago, Michigan’s offensive line coach, Tim Drevno, told Swenson to “get ready to play for us,” the Tribune reports.

DG South coach Mark Molinari told the Free Press he’s stunned.

“It’s unfortunate for a kid who had committed and was going to do the right thing and never tried to hold four or five offers,” Molinari said. “We didn’t ever think we were going to be in this situation, and Erik is. We’re kind of scrambling around. There have been a lot of schools that have called, but as a 17-, 18-year-old kid, when you make that commitment, you expect it’s going to be held up on the other end.

“That obviously did not happen.”

Molinari knows loyalty is an integral part of Swenson’s character, as much a part of him as his broad, strapping shoulders and his head for football.

Swenson grew up two blocks from DG South High School, his mom’s alma mater. As a middle schooler and junior high football player, the boy already had developed a reputation as a great football player. High school coaches were taking notice, particularly the region’s Catholic-school powerhouses.

But Swenson, who played for Downers Grove Christian school, knew the Mustangs were his team and he resisted all attempts to draw him elsewhere.

“We obviously knew about Erik and heard about him when he was younger,” Molinari told the Chicago Tribune in a feature published during Swenson’s final high school football season. “When Erik was in seventh and eighth grade, a lot of people already knew about Erik already. Obviously, there were a lot of Catholic schools hovering around trying to get him to come to their school.

“He was dead set he was going to come to Downers Grove South.”

And he was dead set on Michigan, too.

Erik Swenson Highlight Video

• read more from Mark Snyder’s report in the Detroit Free Press

Swenson, the No. 15 ranked tackle of the 2016 class, told the Free Press he wishes the coaches had told him sooner. He was scheduled for an official visit on Jan. 15, and that was postponed for a week. When he didn’t received details about the rescheduled visit, he reached out to the coaches.

“They said, ‘You’re not going to come up anymore,’” Swenson told the Free Press. “That’s pretty much all that happened in that phone call. We didn’t talk that much longer.”

He heard the news from an assistant. Swenson never spoke with Harbaugh.

His high school coach was told Swenson could try out for the team as a walk-on.

Now, most of the top programs that tried to recruit Swenson have signed commitments from other players. Their coaches have told Swenson they cannot do to them what Michigan has done to him. He respects that.

His dream denied, Swenson must find a new path. Swenson said Northwestern, Illinois, Central Michigan, Minnesota, UCLA, Arkansas and other schools have called on him since word of Michigan’s snub broke. On Twitter Wednesday, Swenson said he will refrain from speaking until he has clarity into his future.

He also tweeted a message to Michigan fans.

“I would like to thank the University of Michigan community for the love and support. ... It was my full intention to play in front of you all in the Big House,” he wrote on Twitter. “God has another plan.”