Tom Izzo and Steve Mariucci were teammates in three sports at Iron Mountain High, roommates at Northern Michigan, and they are still each other’s biggest fans
Two of the most famous coaches in American sports grew up as best friends in the same little U.P. town. And more than half a century later, they still are.
Tom Izzo and Steve Mariucci both came up in Iron Mountain, the old mining town tucked into the western U.P. right against the Wisconsin line.
As kids, they were inseparable. At Iron Mountain High School, they were teammates in football, basketball, and track.
Steve Mariucci
Photo: Marianne O’Leary / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
Then they went off together to Northern Michigan University in Marquette, the same Lake Superior town where Yoopers head out to catch the Northern Lights over the water. They roomed together in Gries Hall.
And here is the wild part. At Northern, they took completely different paths and both became Division II All-Americans. Mariucci as a star quarterback, Izzo as a standout basketball guard.
Mariucci led the NMU football team to a national championship in 1975. Izzo, who arrived as a walk-on, earned a scholarship, set a school record for minutes played, and was named team captain.
The two were so close they lived together for seven years, through college and then as young assistant coaches back at NMU.
“We lived together seven years, and we had a white grease board at our house,” Mariucci once recalled. “We’d X and O just for fun.”
From there, Izzo’s road led to Michigan State, where he was hired as head coach in 1995. Three decades on, he is still the Spartans’ coach.
He has won a national championship, reached eight Final Fours, and built the longest active NCAA Tournament streak in the country, 28 appearances and counting. In 2016, he was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Mariucci went the football route, rising to head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and then the Detroit Lions. He opened his head-coaching career in San Francisco with 17 straight regular-season home wins, still an NFL record. These days you can catch him as an analyst on NFL Network.
Through all of it, the two Yoopers never drifted apart. When Northern Michigan retired Izzo’s jersey in 2024, it was Mariucci who surprised him with the news on camera, in front of more than 10,000 fans. Izzo teared up.
It is the kind of story that reminds you the U.P. has always punched way above its weight, the same way a tiny spot like the town thousands drive past on US-41 holds a story most folks never hear.
Two boys from a mining town near the Wisconsin border, who learned to compete side by side on the same fields and courts, ended up at the very top of two different sports. And they never once forgot where they came from, or each other.
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Topics: Tom Izzo, Steve Mariucci, Iron Mountain, Dickinson County, Northern Michigan University, Michigan State, NFL, Upper Peninsula, Yooper
Sources: The Mining Journal, Sports Illustrated, and Michigan State University Athletics.
Featured Photo: Detroit Regional Chamber / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
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