Bo Schembechler was a details man, and he knew what he was doing when he put two freshmen in a dorm room together in the summer of 1986. Vada Murray did not meet NCAA academic standards to play his first year. Warde Manuel was a stellar high school student. Bo figured Manuel could help Murray learn proper study habits.

It was a smart plan, but it hit a snag.

"That first semester," Manuel recalled Thursday, Murray "kicked my ass."

Murray, a former Michigan safety, died Wednesday after a battle with lung cancer. He was 43. He was not a smoker. He left behind his wife, Sarah, and three children, Deric, Kendall and Harper -- ages 12, 8 and 6.

It is the worst kind of unfair. But this is not about how Murray died. It's about how he lived. It's about a man who arrived at the University of Michigan in 1986 and was told he didn't belong -- and who proved, for the next 25 years, that he did. From starting safety to Ann Arbor police officer, Murray epitomized the values Schembechler tried to teach...

Vada Murray

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.