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Martin O'Malley

Martin Joseph O'Malley (born January 18, 1963) is an American politician serving as the 17th and current commissioner of the Social Security Administration since December 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 61st governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015 and the 48th mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007.

O'Malley was elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1991 and re-elected in 1995. He was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 after a surprise win in the Democratic primary. He won a second term as mayor in 2004. As mayor, O'Malley prioritized reducing crime within the city. O'Malley won the 2006 Maryland gubernatorial election, unseating incumbent Republican governor Bob Ehrlich. During his first term as governor, O'Malley implemented Maryland StateStat and became the first governor to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. O'Malley won reelection in 2010. In 2011, he signed a law that would make illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children eligible for in-state college tuition. In 2012, he signed a law to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland. Both laws were approved in referendums in the 2012 general election. O'Malley served as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association from 2011 to 2013. After leaving office in 2015, O'Malley was appointed to The Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School as a visiting professor focusing on government, business and urban issues.

Long rumored to have presidential ambitions, O'Malley publicly announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination on May 30, 2015. One of six major candidates, O'Malley struggled to gain support, and he suspended his campaign on February 1, 2016, after finishing third in the Iowa caucuses. He endorsed Hillary Clinton four months later. Since his presidential campaign, he has lectured at Georgetown University and Boston College Law School, and written two books about the use of technology in government. In July 2023, President Joe Biden nominated O'Malley to lead the Social Security Administration. He was confirmed by the United States Senate with a 50–11 vote on December 18, 2023.

Early life and education
Martin Joseph O'Malley was born on January 18, 1963, in Washington, D.C., the son of Barbara (née Suelzer) and Thomas Martin O'Malley. Martin's father served as a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Force in the Pacific theater during the Second World War, and recalled witnessing the mushroom cloud rise over Hiroshima while on a routine mission. Thomas later became a Montgomery County–based criminal defense lawyer, and an assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

O'Malley attended the Our Lady of Lourdes School in Bethesda and Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from the Catholic University of America in 1985. Later that year, he enrolled in the University of Maryland School of Law, on the urban campus of the University of Maryland at Baltimore, earning his J.D. in 1988, and was admitted to the Maryland bar that same year.

Early political career
In December 1982, while still in college, O'Malley joined the Gary Hart presidential campaign for the 1984 election. In late 1983, he volunteered to go to Iowa where he phone-banked, organized volunteers, played guitar and sang at small fundraisers and other events. In 1986, while in law school, O'Malley was named by then-Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski as state field director for her successful primary and general election campaigns for the U.S. Senate. He served as a legislative fellow in Mikulski's Senate office in 1987 and 1988. Later that year, he was hired as an assistant State's Attorney for the City of Baltimore, holding that position until 1990.

In 1990, O'Malley ran for the Maryland State Senate in the 43rd State Senate District in northeast Baltimore. He challenged one-term incumbent John A. Pica in the Democratic Party primary, and lost by just 44 votes. He was considered an underdog when he first filed to run, but "came out of nowhere" to lead Pica on election night. His loss was projected after absentee ballots were counted subsequent to the night of the election.

Baltimore City Council (1991–1999)
In 1991, O'Malley was elected to the Baltimore City Council representing the 3rd Councilman District (when each of six districts had three members) and served from 1991 to 1999. His 1991 election was endorsed by the editorial board of The Baltimore Sun.

As councilman, O'Malley served as chairman of the Legislative Investigations Committee and chairman of the Taxation and Finance Committee. As a councilman, O'Malley advocated for many reforms. During the 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he served as the Maryland coordinator for the presidential campaign of Nebraska U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey.

In 1996, O'Malley became a chief ally of City Council President Lawrence Bell at a time when Bell was engaged in a power-struggle with Mayor Kurt Schmoke. Fellow 3rd district councilor Joan Carter Conway joined O'Malley in aligning with Bell's positions on key votes. However, the other council member from the third district, Robert W. Curran, broke with them and instead voted for the mayor's preferred positions. O'Malley had previously been politically partnered with Curran, with the two having co-endorsed each other in the 1995 City Council election. Curran is also the uncle of O'Malley's wife. However, due to Curran's alignment with the mayor, in October 1996 O'Malley wrote an open letter assailing him.

By his second term, O'Malley was seen as a charismatic rising star in Baltimore politics, and was believed to be likely to soon seek a higher office. In a 1997 profile, Kevin Cowherd of The Baltimore Sun wrote of O'Malley, "To many, Martin O'Malley seems ideally suited to the role of reformer, almost as if he were born for the job. He is 34, tall, leading-man handsome, with a Chiclets smile that seems to make his face glow. Now in his second term as an elected official, he's articulate, passionate, charismatic in a Kennedyesque way. He's considered something of a loose cannon at City Council meetings, where the sight of him rising from his chair and clearing his through causes half the room to lean forward in anticipation"

Elections
O'Malley announced his decision to run for Mayor of Baltimore in 1999, after incumbent Kurt Schmoke decided not to seek re-election to a third term. His entrance into the race was greatly unexpected, and he faced initial difficulties as the only white candidate for mayor of a city which had been predominantly African-American since the 1960 Census and had recently had two successive black mayors. His strongest opponents in the crowded Democratic primary of seven were former City Councilman Carl Stokes, Baltimore Registrar of Wills Mary Conaway, and Council President Lawrence Bell. In his campaign, O'Malley focused on reducing crime and received the endorsement of several key African-American lawmakers and church leaders, as well as that of former mayor of Baltimore and Maryland governor William Donald Schaefer, who had served from 1971 to 1987. On September 14, he won the Democratic primary with a 53% majority and went on to win the general election with 90% of the vote, defeating Republican Party nominee, developer David Tufaro.

In 2003, O'Malley ran for re-election. He was challenged in the Democratic primary by four candidates, but defeated them with 67% of the vote. He had to wait more than a year to run in the general election because of a conflict between Maryland election law and the Baltimore city charter. At the same time that O'Malley won his first term, Baltimore citizens voted to move municipal elections to coincide with presidential elections. However, Maryland law gives the General Assembly sole power to set primary election dates, and the General Assembly refused to move the mayoral primary. In the November 4, 2004 general election, he was reelected with 87% of the vote. Due to the conflict, he was only elected to a three-year term rather than the usual four-year term.

Police and crime
During his first mayoral campaign, O'Malley focused on a message of reducing crime. In his first year in office, he adopted a statistics-based tracking system called "CitiStat", modeled after Compstat, a crime-management program first employed in the mid-1990s in New York City. The system logged every call for service into a database for analysis. The Washington Post wrote in 2006 that Baltimore's "homicide rate remains stubbornly high and its public school test scores disappointingly low. But CitiStat has saved an estimated $350 million and helped generate the city's first budget surplus in years." In 2004, the CitiStat accountability tool won Harvard University's "Innovations in American Government" award. The system garnered interest from not only Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty but even crime specialists from Britain.

His record as mayor of Baltimore has drawn criticism. O'Malley has been accused by many of establishing a zero-tolerance policing strategy, aimed at reducing the city's high murder rate but that instead led to the targeting and abuse of black communities.

While running for governor in 2006, O'Malley said violent crime in Baltimore declined 37% while he was mayor. That statistic came from an audit of crime that used questionable methodology and became the subject of controversy; he was accused by both his Democratic primary opponent Doug Duncan and his Republican opponent, incumbent Governor Bob Ehrlich, of manipulating statistics to make false claims. The Washington Post wrote at the time that "no evidence has surfaced of a systemic manipulation of crime statistics," but that "there is no quick or definitive way for O'Malley to prove his numbers are right."

Politics
O'Malley spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, arguing that 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry was a better choice for homeland security than President George W. Bush. In early 2005, Governor Robert Ehrlich fired aide Joseph Steffen for spreading rumors of marital infidelity about O'Malley on the Internet. O'Malley and his wife had previously held a highly publicized press conference to deny the rumors and accuse Republicans of partisan politics, although discussions in which Steffen posted the rumors were initiated by an anonymous user under the pseudonym "MD4Bush" who was later found to be Maryland Democratic Party official Ryan O'Doherty.

During a 2005 conference at the National Press Club, where mayors from across the U.S. gathered to denounce President George W. Bush's proposed budget, O'Malley compared the budget to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, declaring, "Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America's great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most. Years later, we are given a budget proposal by our commander in chief. ... And with a budget ax, he is attacking America's cities. He is attacking our metropolitan core." For this he was criticized by not only Republicans but fellow Democrats, and in a subsequent interview said he "in no way intended to equate these budget cuts, however bad, to a terrorist attack."

Other matters
O'Malley's data-forward approach extended beyond policing, affecting many other areas of city management. An example of this was that his administration took measurement of the time it took to repair the city's infrastructure in order to inform their approach to such work.

In 2002, O'Malley submitted a bid for the city to be the host of the 2004 Democratic Convention. This bid was considered a long-shot, as the city lacked a standard venue of sufficient space and capacity to host a major party presidential nominating convention. Baltimore's bid proposed the unusual solution of erecting a temporary canopy at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in order to provide a venue. If Camden Yards were to host such a convention, it was likely that the Baltimore Orioles would have needed vacate the venue for a roughly two-month period of their 2004 season. Of the five cities to enter bids, Baltimore was the only one not considered as a finalist to host the convention, which was ultimately awarded to Boston.

Media attention
In 2002, at the age of 39, O'Malley was named "The Best Young Mayor in the Country" by Esquire; and in 2005, TIME magazine named him one of America's "Top 5 Big City Mayors". In August 2005, Business Week Magazine Online called him one of five "new stars" in the Democratic Party, along with Senator and future President Barack Obama of Illinois, future Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, future Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and future chief of staff for President Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Business Week declared that O'Malley "has become the Party's go-to guy on protecting the homeland. The telegenic Mayor has developed a detailed plan for rail and port safety and has been an outspoken critic of White House security priorities."

Elections

O'Malley considered a run for governor in the 2002 election but decided not to run. In October 2005, after much speculation, he officially announced he would run in the 2006 election. He had one primary opponent, Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, who abruptly dropped out in June a few days after being diagnosed with clinical depression and endorsed O'Malley, who thus became the Democratic Party nominee with no primary opposition, challenging incumbent Bob Ehrlich. He selected Delegate Anthony Brown of Prince George's County as his running mate for lieutenant governor.

The Baltimore Sun endorsed O'Malley, saying: "When he was first elected mayor in 1999, the former two-term city councilman inherited a city of rising crime, failing schools, and shrinking economic prospects. He was able to reverse course in all of these areas." The Washington Post endorsed his opponent, but noted that O'Malley, while "not solv[ing] the problems of rampant crime and rough schools in Baltimore," had "put a dent in them" while criticizing his gubernatorial campaign for being too focused on Baltimore and offering "little of substance" on Washington-area issues. The Washington Times complained that O'Malley, along with the Maryland General Assembly, had moved too far to the left. O'Malley led by margins of several points in most polls during the campaign, but polls tightened significantly in the last week of the campaign. He ultimately defeated Ehrlich 53%-46% in the November 7, 2006, general election.

Major land developer Edward St. John was fined $55,000 by the Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor for making illegal contributions to the 2006 O'Malley gubernatorial campaign. The Washington Times reported later that the Governor's administration had issued a press release touting a new $28-million highway interchange leading from Interstate 795 to one of St. John's properties. Governor O'Malley's spokesman said there was no "quid pro quo," and a spokesman for the County Executive said the project had been a county transportation priority since before both O'Malley and the executive were elected.

In 2010, O'Malley announced his intention to run for re-election while Ehrlich announced he would also run, setting up a rematch of 2006. His future rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, said in a private email at the time that "he should be reelected by acclamation for steering the ship of state so well." Despite major losses for Democrats nationwide, O'Malley defeated Ehrlich in a landslide 56%-42%, receiving just over a million votes. Due to term limits, he was unable to run for a third term in 2014.

Budget

O'Malley called a special session of the General Assembly in November 2007 to close a projected budget deficit of $1.7 billion for 2008–2009, in which he and other lawmakers passed a tax plan that would raise total state tax collections by 14%. In April 2009, he signed the traffic speed camera enforcement law he had supported and fought for to help raise revenue to try to overcome an imminent state deficit. Through his strenuous lobbying, the measure was revived after an initial defeat and passed on a second vote.

Maryland StateStat
One of O'Malley's first actions as governor was to implement the same CitiStat system he used to manage the city Baltimore as mayor on a statewide level. Maryland StateStat was first tried in 2007 by a few public safety and human services agencies. By 2014, over 20 agencies were engaged in the StateStat process through monthly individual agency meetings and quarterly cross-agency Stats including BayStat, StudentStat, VetStat and ReEntryStat. (The EPA would later base its ChesapeakeStat program on O'Malley's innovative BayStat program.) In 2012, he launched Maryland's Open Data Portal- StateStat, which used the data in the Portal to track progress towards his 16 strategic goals. As one of the few states at the time linking progress directly to open data, Maryland led the nation in government transparency and accountability. O'Malley has said that President Obama has looked at StateStat as a potential model for tracking stimulus funding.

Democratic Party
O'Malley was elected as the vice chairman of the Democratic Governors Association for 2009–2010, and on December 1, 2010, he was elected chairman for 2010–2011.

Crime
Soon after entering office, O'Malley closed the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup, a notoriously violent maximum-security prison.

National popular vote
In April 2007, O'Malley became the first governor to sign legislation entering a state into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Designed to reform how states allocate their electoral votes, the national popular vote plan has since been enacted in fourteen additional states and the District of Columbia.

Immigration
In a debate during the 2010 campaign, O'Malley referred to undocumented immigrants as "new Americans" while endorsing stricter enforcement against illegal immigration by the federal government. In May 2011, he signed a law making the children of undocumented immigrants eligible for in-state college tuition under certain conditions. The law provides that undocumented immigrants can be eligible for in-state tuition if they have attended a high school in Maryland for three years, and if they or their parents have paid state income taxes during that time. In response, Delegate Neil Parrott created an online petition to suspend the law pending a referendum to be voted on in the 2012 general election. On November 6, 2012, a majority (58%) of state voters passed referendum Question 4 in support of the law O'Malley had signed.

During the 2014 crisis involving undocumented immigrant children from Central America crossing the border, O'Malley refused to open a facility in Westminster, Maryland, to house them. The White House criticized his decision as hypocritical given his prior comments that he thought deporting all these children was wrong, but he protested that his remarks had been mischaracterized.

Same-sex marriage
O'Malley supported a bill considered by the General Assembly to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland in 2011, even though Archbishop of Baltimore Edwin O'Brien had urged him as a Catholic not to support the bill in a private letter sent two days before O'Malley voiced his support. "I am well aware that the recent events in New York have intensified pressure on you to lend your active support to legislation to redefine marriage," O'Brien wrote. "As advocates for the truths we are compelled to uphold, we speak with equal intensity and urgency in opposition to your promoting a goal that so deeply conflicts with your faith, not to mention the best interests of our society." O'Malley responded, "I do not presume, nor would I ever presume as Governor, to question or infringe upon your freedom to define, to preach about, and to administer the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. But on the public issue of granting equal civil marital rights to same-sex couples, you and I disagree."

The Maryland House of Delegates approved this bill by 72–67 on February 17, 2012 and the Maryland State Senate passed it by a 25–22 margin on February 23. It was amended to take effect only on January 1, 2013, pending a voter referendum. After O'Malley signed the bill on March 1, 2012, referendum petitioners collected the necessary signatures required to challenge the law, but Referendum Question 6 in support of same-sex marriage passed by 52.4% on November 6, 2012.

Animal welfare
In 2013, O'Malley signed a bill to ban the practice of shark finning in Maryland, making it the sixth U.S. state to enact this regulation. The signature of this bill made Maryland the first East Coast state to make it illegal to possess, sell, trade or distribute shark fins.

Environment
O'Malley opposed a 2011 lawsuit filed by the Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. against Perdue Farms, a poultry agribusiness corporation based in Maryland. The lawsuit accused Perdue of allowing run-off phosphorus pollution from one of its contact farms into Chesapeake Bay. In 2014, he also promised to veto the Poultry Fair Share Act which would require poultry companies in Maryland to pay taxes to clean up the Chesapeake Bay equal to the existing cleanup taxes required of Maryland citizens.

Also in 2014, O'Malley approved the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in western Maryland but only on condition of tight regulations. He had previously blocked the technique from the region for three years, awaiting the report from the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission on the risks and benefits of this controversial procedure.

In December 2014, O'Malley issued an executive order to drive a Zero-Waste future for Maryland, but the plan was later cancelled by O'Malley's successor Larry Hogan in 2017 "in response to complaints from local governments.

Capital punishment
O'Malley, a long-time opponent of capital punishment, signed a bill on May 2, 2013, that repealed capital punishment in Maryland for all future offenders. Although the repeal did not affect the five inmates then on death row in Maryland, O'Malley commuted the sentences of four of them to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Gun control
O'Malley supported gun control in his second term. On May 16, 2013, he signed a new gun control bill into law.

Abortion
O'Malley is pro-choice and believes abortion should be legal without government interference until the time in pregnancy when the fetus might survive outside the womb. In Maryland fetus viability is defined as when, in a doctor's best medical judgment, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside the womb, which on average is 22–24 weeks.

2016 presidential campaign
After O'Malley stood in for 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at a Democratic campaign event on June 2, 2007, in New Hampshire, Maryland's Republican House Minority Leader Tony O'Donnell said in response, "It's the worst-kept secret in Maryland that the governor has national ambitions." State Senate President Thomas V. Miller Jr. said O'Malley's political future "comes into play in everything he does", adding O'Malley is "very much like Bill Clinton in being slow and deliberative and calculating in everything he does." Speculation about O'Malley's plans was further fueled by his high profile at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he was given a prime-time speaking slot on the second night and spoke to delegations from several states including Iowa, where the first presidential caucuses are held in election years, and Ohio, a key swing state in recent presidential elections. O'Malley's prominence at the convention generated both support for, and criticism of, his record. U.S. Senator Ben Cardin and Howard County Executive Ken Ulman praised his speech, with Ulman saying, "To borrow a catchphrase from his address, his career is moving forward, not back."

O'Malley publicly expressed interest in a presidential run in 2016 on multiple occasions. At a press conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at a National Governors Association meeting in August 2013, he admitted he was laying "the framework" for a presidential run. In October 2014, he discussed some of his potential policies as president during a panel discussion with Paul Hawken and Tom Steyer. In April 2015, he said he expected to make a decision on the race by the end of May.

After months of consideration, O'Malley indicated on Twitter that he would announce his candidacy on May 30, 2015, at Baltimore's historic Federal Hill Park, overlooking the city's picturesque downtown skyline and the Inner Harbor. On that date, he formally announced his candidacy for the 2016 presidential nomination.

On February 1, 2016, after performing poorly in the Iowa caucuses, however, he suspended his campaign, receiving only 0.6% of state delegate equivalents awarded in the Iowa caucuses while both former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont received over 49% each. After suspending his campaign, the former Maryland governor gave a speech, saying:

"Tonight, I have to tell you that I am suspending this Presidential bid. But I am not ending this fight. Our country is worth saving, the American dream is worth saving, and this planet is worth saving. So as we march forward to the fall, let us all resolve together that the love, the generosity, the compassion and the commitment of this campaign will continue to point our country forward."

Four months later, on June 9, 2016, O'Malley officially endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Subsequent work

After the end of his presidential campaign, O'Malley was speculated as a possible choice for United States Secretary of Homeland Security, should Hillary Clinton be elected president. This speculation was rendered moot as Donald Trump was instead elected, eventually choosing John F. Kelly.

On May 5, 2016, O'Malley joined the MetroLab Network, a group focusing on city–university partnerships and based at Heinz College (the public policy school of Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was appointed chairman of the advisory committee and made a senior fellow. O'Malley was subsequently made a fellow of the Institute of Politics and Public Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. After the Democratic primaries, O'Malley explored a potential run for chair of the Democratic National Committee. He later withdrew interest after Minnesota representative Keith Ellison received the endorsements of several major Democratic figures.

In June 2016, Boston College Law School's Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy announced that O'Malley would be its inaugural Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professor and teach at the law school during the Spring 2017 semester.

The Baltimore Sun reported on May 31, 2017, that O'Malley admitted that he along with other Democrats gerrymandered the state's 6th district in a successful effort to oust long-time Republican incumbent Rep. Roscoe Bartlett in 2012. In a 2013 deposition, O'Malley admitted, "It was my intent to create…a district where the people would be more likely to elect a Democrat than a Republican."

In November 2019, O'Malley encountered acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli II, in a Capitol Hill bar and confronted him with what The Washington Post reported one witness described as a "shame-invoking tirade" centering on the Trump administration's immigration policies. Also in 2019, O'Malley was elected to be a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (2023–present)
In July 2023, President Joe Biden announced he would nominate O'Malley to lead the Social Security Administration (SSA). The agency is headquartered in the suburbs west of Baltimore. On November 3, 2023, a confirmation hearing was held at the United States Capitol for the United States Senate Committee on Finance, where he reportedly received a positive reception. During his confirmation hearing, O'Malley vowed to focus on improving the agency's customer service area and "boosting the morale" of the SSA. The committee ultimately voted to advance his nomination in a 17–10 vote. His nomination was confirmed on December 18, 2023, by the United States Senate by a 50–11 vote. He was sworn in on December 20, 2023. Prior to his confirmation, the agency had lacked a permanent Senate-confirmed head since July 2021. Since O'Malley was confirmed merely to complete the remainder of the unexpired term to which Andrew Saul had previously been appointed, his appointment expires in January 2025.

Lisa Rein of The Washington Post described O'Malley as assuming leadership of an agency that had been afflicted by numerous challenges, including the impact left by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a shrunken agency workforce (its lowest in decades), poor employee morale, and issues with efficiency. O'Malley described improving its costumer service as his first priority.

O'Malley instituted a number of changes to the agency's operations after assuming leadership. One change has been simplifying forms (such as creating a "no to all" option on applications), removing excess requirements, and utilizing data exchange to decrease duplication. He has also worked to increase the shared distribution of workloads between different offices. He has also increased digitization, which has including expanding document upload and esignature access for staff and increasing the agencies "digital-first" approach to mail.

O'Malley has utilized his data-driven approach to leadership in this role. At the time that O'Malley assumed leadership, the agency was struggling with a significant backlog of pending claims in its disability program (a record-high 1 million). O'Malley analyzed data to find that the two greatest contributors to the length of processing times for claims were in state agency reviews and Social Security Agency-run hearings. The reviewed data also showed that the severity backlogs varied greatly between states. In response to these findings, O'Malley has pursued having the workload of handling claims be more flexibly shared, and has also sought greater engagement with external advocacy groups.

In a joint May 2024 commentary praising O'Malley as having been "the commissioner Social Security needs", former U.S. congressmen Earl Pomeroy (a Democrat) and Dave Camp (a Republican) praised O'Malley as making positive changes, "with diligence and speed, changing SSA’s policies and procedures faster than advocates have seen in generations." They particularly praised his ending O'Malley ended of the agency's practice of intercepting 100% of the monthly benefit of overpaid beneficiaries, instead making the default withholding rate 10%. Calling the previous practice "heavy-handed," they credited O'Malley as, "reframing SSA’s guidance to shift the burdens and presumptions to a more just balance .... making it easier for beneficiaries to ask SSA to consider that — in some circumstances — they both cannot repay and were not at fault."

In popular culture
According to David Simon, the creator of the HBO drama The Wire, the show's fictional mayor of Baltimore Tommy Carcetti is "not O'Malley," but O'Malley was one of several inspirations. Writing in Baltimore Magazine several years after the show had closed, Simon did disclose a private phone conversation with O'Malley as production of the show's second season was beginning, in which the mayor urged that the show's contents be changed to put Baltimore and his own administration in a better light, and threatened the show's continuation in Baltimore unless such changes were made.

O'Malley appeared in the film Ladder 49 as himself. He is a War of 1812 buff. History Channel's 2004 documentary First Invasion: The War of 1812 featured him in a segment regarding the British attack on Baltimore in 1814. He also appeared in the 2014 Travel Channel documentary The War of 1812 Trail. In 2019, he appeared on Ireland's The Late Late Show to discuss his love of Shane MacGowan's music.

Honors
The University of Galway awarded him an honorary degree in 2008.

Personal life
O'Malley met his wife, the former Catherine "Katie" Curran, in 1986 while they were both in law school. At the time, he was working on Barbara Mikulski's U.S. Senate campaign and she was working on her father J. Joseph Curran Jr.'s campaign for attorney general of Maryland. They were married in 1990 and are the parents of four children, Grace, Tara, William and Jack. Before the 2006 election, O'Malley's father-in-law, Joseph Curran, citing his age and his long career, decided not to seek re-election for attorney general, preventing any conflict of interest that might arise in having O'Malley as governor.

Religion
O'Malley is a Catholic, who was educated in Catholic schools and was described by The Washington Post in 2015 as "a pray-every-morning, church-every-Sunday believer."

O'Malley's March
O'Malley has said that he grew up surrounded by Irish music. While attending Gonzaga College High School in Washington D.C. in 1979, O'Malley and his football coach Danny Costello formed a band, Shannon Tide, which played Irish music and folk rock. After graduating from University of Maryland Law School, O'Malley went solo for a year. In 1988, he founded the Baltimore-based Celtic rock band O'Malley's March, in which he is still the lead singer and plays acoustic guitar and penny whistle. In addition to Irish music, the band's mainstays include June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore's "Ring of Fire," Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," the parlor song "Hard Times Come Again No More," The Pogues ' "Body of an American" and Passenger's "Scare Away The Dark". During O'Malley's mayoralty he wrote and performed a number of songs celebrating his adopted city and its strong Irish heritage.

As the bicentennial of the War of 1812 approached in 2012–2015, while still Governor he and his compatriots celebrated the British defeat in the "Battle for Baltimore" and other musical numbers at a stirring concert in Patterson Park in East Baltimore on the anniversary of the land and sea attack on Defenders' Day in September 2014. In addition to more traditional venues, the band performs for O'Malley's campaign events. In 2012, it played at the White House for 44th President Barack Obama as part of an extended Saint Patrick's Day celebration honoring Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny. O'Malley's March continues to perform following O'Malley's decision to end his 2016 presidential campaign. Through O'Malley's March, he has become close to Leo Moran and other members of The Saw Doctors.

Ancestry
O'Malley's father was of Irish descent; his paternal ancestors come from An Mám, County Galway. His matrilineal ancestry includes Irish, German, Dutch and Scottish. He is a member of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and the General Society of the War of 1812.

Electoral history

 * Mayor of Baltimore

 * Governor of Maryland

title: Martin O'Malley


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Bo Schembechler

Glenn Edward "Bo" Schembechler Jr. (April 1, 1929 – November 17, 2006) was an American college football player, coach, and athletic administrator. He served as the head football coach at Miami University from 1963 to 1968 and at the University of Michigan from 1969 to 1989, compiling a career record of 234 wins, 65 losses and 8 ties. Only Nick Saban, Joe Paterno and Tom Osborne have recorded 200 victories in fewer games as a coach in major college football. In his 21 seasons as the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, Schembechler's teams amassed a record of 194–48–5 and won or shared 13 Big Ten Conference titles. Though his Michigan teams never won a national championship, in all but one season they finished ranked, and 16 times they placed in the final top ten of both major polls.

Schembechler played college football as a tackle at Miami University, where in 1949 and 1950 he was coached by Woody Hayes, for whom he served as an assistant coach at Ohio State University in 1952 and from 1958 to 1962. In his first ten years at Michigan, Schembechler's teams squared off in a fierce rivalry against Hayes's Buckeyes squads. During that stretch in the Michigan–Ohio State football rivalry, dubbed the "Ten-Year War," Hayes and Schembechler's teams won or shared the Big Ten Conference crown every season and usually each placed in the national rankings.

In 1988, Schembechler assumed the role of athletic director at Michigan, succeeding Don Canham, the man who hired him as football coach in 1969. Schembechler retired as head football coach after the 1989 season. His longtime assistants, Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr, helmed the team for the next 18 years. Schembechler left the University of Michigan in 1990 to take a job as president of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers, which he held until 1992. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1993. During his later years, Schembechler remained in Southeast Michigan and hosted a sports radio show. He died in 2006 at the age of 77 on the eve of that year's Michigan–Ohio State football game, a historic No. 1 versus No. 2 showdown.

Outside of football, Schembechler came to posthumous public notoriety after 2018, when it was revealed that he was one of several high-ranking University of Michigan officials who covered up accusations of sexual assault against team doctor Robert Anderson. Anderson sexually assaulted more than 600 University of Michigan athletes, along with hundreds more individuals at other institutions.

Early life
Schembechler was born and raised in Barberton, Ohio, a suburb of Akron. His nickname "Bo" came from his sister's attempts to say "brother" when they were young children. Schembechler's father was a firefighter. One of Schembechler's seminal experiences was seeing his father refuse to accept a stolen copy of a civil-service exam—despite the fact that the other applicant was reported to have received a stolen copy himself. Schembechler's father took the exam without having received the answers, missed one more question than the other applicant, and did not receive the promotion he coveted. Schembechler often told the story, saying the experience taught him more about integrity than any lecture ever could have. Schembechler attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He played football under two legendary, and completely different, coaches. Sid Gillman, his first coach at Miami, was an innovative offensive mind and one of the fathers of the modern passing game. His concepts helped to form the foundation for football's West Coast offense. However, in early 1948, Gillman departed to become an assistant coach at Army, and was replaced by George Blackburn. Prior to Schembechler's last season, Blackburn left to join Gillman's coaching staff at Cincinnati, and he was replaced by Woody Hayes. The fiery Hayes embraced the run, eschewed the pass, and demanded tough, physical play from his linemen. Rather than innovation, Hayes stressed repetition—he wanted his players to run each play flawlessly. Over the next forty years, Hayes' impact on his young protege was clearly evident. Schembechler graduated from Miami in 1951 and earned his master's degree at Ohio State University in 1952 while working as a graduate assistant coach under Hayes, who had become OSU's head coach. After a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, Schembechler served as an assistant at Presbyterian College in 1954, followed by a year as freshman coach at Bowling Green. When Schembechler's former college teammate Ara Parseghian, Hayes' successor at Miami University, was hired as head coach at Northwestern in 1956, Schembechler joined him and spent the next two seasons there as a defensive assistant. In 1958, Hayes hired Schembechler to serve again on his staff at Ohio State. Schembechler spent five more years at Ohio State and became one of Hayes' most trusted assistants. During that time the two cemented their lifelong friendship. Schembechler was fond of recounting the number of times that Hayes "fired" him, only to send a graduate assistant to fetch him after tempers had calmed.

Schembechler, Hayes, Parseghian, and several of their "Cradle of Coaches" compatriots are the subject of the book Fields of Honor, written by coach John Pont's niece, Sally Pont.

Miami University
In 1963, Schembechler returned to Miami University to become head coach of his alma mater. Over the next six seasons, Schembechler led the Redskins to a 40–17–3 record, winning a pair of Mid-American Conference titles and finishing second three times. The team's top season was 1966, as Miami went 9–1 overall. Miami's offense was led during those seasons by quarterbacks Ernie Kellerman and Bruce Matte.

Schembechler was a candidate vying to succeed Milt Bruhn as head coach at Wisconsin in 1967. Immediately after a 40-minute interview in which he was offended that the hiring committee didn't take his candidacy seriously, he contacted athletic director Ivy Williamson to withdraw his name from consideration. Assistant coach John Coatta, who was the favorite to replace Bruhn from the start, was promoted. Schembechler continued to coach at Miami for two more seasons. His negative experience was a major factor in his convincing Bob Knight to reject Wisconsin's offer to become men's basketball head coach in 1968.

University of Michigan
Schembechler became Michigan's 15th head coach after the 1968 season, succeeding Bump Elliott. He was hired in fifteen minutes. It took athletic director Don Canham that long "to sense the intensity, the enthusiasm of a man destined to be a winner." Besides a stellar record at Miami he also "brought a unique five-man angle defense and a guarantee that he would make it work within five years." At Michigan, Schembechler became one of college football's greatest coaches. He won a school-record 194 games, lost only 48, and tied five for a winning percentage of .796. His teams never posted a losing season. In Big Ten Conference play, he had a record of 143–24–3 for a winning percentage of .850. His Michigan teams won or shared 13 Big Ten titles and made 10 Rose Bowl appearances. His .840 record during the 1970s was the best of any Division I coach. Schembechler led the Wolverines to a total of 17 bowl games, going 5–12 in 21 years, placing him ninth in all-time bowl appearances. He was voted national coach of the year in 1969 by both the American Football Coaches Association and the Football Writers Association of America.

Schembechler's greatest victory came in his first season, when he led the Wolverines to an upset victory over a standout Ohio State team coached by his old mentor, Woody Hayes. Hayes' Buckeyes dominated the series during the late 1950s and for most of the 1960s as Michigan fielded a number of uncharacteristically mediocre teams. In 1968, the year before Schembechler became head coach, Hayes made it clear how far Michigan had fallen behind its traditional rival, when the Wolverines lost 50–14. At the end of the game, Hayes decided to pursue a two-point conversion rather than a simple kick for an extra point. When Hayes was asked why he "went for two," he responded, "because they wouldn't let me go for three." The embarrassment of that outcome set the stage for the 1969 rematch.

In 1969, the Buckeyes entered the game as defending national champions and 17-point favorites with the top ranking in the country and a 22-game winning streak. Hayes' 1969 squad included five first-team All-Americans. But Schembechler's 7–2 Wolverines dominated a team Hayes later considered his best, beating Ohio State 24–12. In a single afternoon, Schembechler and his charges resurrected Michigan's football tradition and returned the program among college football's elite. Both Schembechler and Hayes, who remained personal friends until Hayes' death in 1987, agreed it was Hayes' best team and Schembechler's biggest victory. Michigan's win over Ohio State in 1969 is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in college football history and the most significant win for a Michigan team ever.

The Wolverines and Buckeyes proceeded to engage in a fierce "Ten Year War" that elevated an already storied Michigan–Ohio State football rivalry into one of college football's greatest annual grudge matches. For ten years the two dominated the Big 10, splitting ten conference titles between them and finishing second eight times. They were so dominant that the Big Ten earned a nickname of "Big Two, Little Eight" during that era. After a decade of memorable on-field stratagems, sideline antics, and locker room psychological ploys, Schembechler held a 5–4–1 advantage.

Schembechler's tenure at Michigan was also notable for the renewal of Michigan's rivalry with Notre Dame. Despite the fact that the two schools are located within 200 miles of one another and ranked first/second in both total wins and winning percentage in college football, they had not played each other since the 1940s. The resurrection of the rivalry was facilitated by Schembechler's close friendship with Ara Parseghian, Notre Dame's coach at the time of Bo's arrival. Schembechler, however, never had a chance to coach against his former mentor, as scheduling commitments prevented the series from resuming until 1978, after Parseghian had left Notre Dame and was succeeded by Dan Devine.

Despite Schembechler's success during the regular season, he was less successful in bowl games. His overall record was 5–12, which includes a 2–8 record in the Rose Bowl. The Wolverines lost the 1970 Rose Bowl, their first bowl game under Schembechler, while he was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack on the previous day. Michigan went on to lose their next six bowl games before winning five of the last ten they played under Schembechler. The only four of his 21 Michigan teams that did not play in a bowl, however, were a shade short of perfection, losing a total of three games while compiling a combined record of 39-3-1. One loss was by three points and a second was lost in the last seconds when a 33-yard FG attempt was ruled to be just wide of the goalposts.

Following the 1980 season, Schembechler gained the first of his two Rose Bowl victories by beating the Washington Huskies. The 1980 Michigan team featured the talents of Anthony Carter, a three-time consensus All-American. In 1980 Michigan stumbled early in the season, losing two of its first three games. As a result of the two losses, Michigan was eliminated from consideration for college football's national championship, finishing 4th in the end-of-season polls. But Schembechler maintained that his first Rose Bowl champions were the country's best team by season's end. They did not allow a touchdown over the course of their last five games, giving up nine points total.

Perhaps spurred by Carter's success, Schembechler's teams began to pass more during the 1980s, but Schembechler never completely shed his image as a run-first offensive coach. (A favorite saying of Schembechler was that "there are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them are bad.") At the same time, his teams continued to enjoy consistent success throughout the decade. Jim Harbaugh, a future NFL All-Pro quarterback and former head coach of the University of Michigan, led Schembechler's 1985 team to a 10–1–1 record, a 27–23 win over Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, and a No. 2 ranking in the final polls, the highest finish ever for one of Schembechler's teams. Schembechler's last two teams went to the Rose Bowl, splitting two games with USC.

Schembechler retired from coaching after the Rose Bowl in 1990. He decided to retire at the relatively young age of 60 because of his history of heart problems and was succeeded by Michigan's offensive coordinator Gary Moeller, whom he handpicked.

Schembechler was also the athletic director at Michigan from 1988 until early 1990. Just before the 1989 NCAA basketball tournament, men's basketball head coach Bill Frieder announced that he was taking the head coach position at Arizona State University, effective at the end of the season. Insisting on those in the program being dedicated to the school, Schembechler immediately fired Frieder and appointed assistant basketball coach Steve Fisher as interim head coach, while famously announcing that "a Michigan man is going to coach a Michigan team" in the NCAA tournament. The literal meaning of the Schembechler's quote was that only a current, 100 percent-committed university employee would coach the team, not Frieder, whose loyalties had just switched to Arizona State. Ironically, Frieder was an alumnus of Michigan, while Fisher was not. Fisher led Michigan to six straight victories in the tournament and the 1989 national championship. Schembechler witnessed the championship game, an 80–79 overtime cliffhanger vs. Seton Hall, two days after his 60th birthday (the semifinal victory over Big Ten rival Illinois was played on Schembechler's birthday). Fisher submitted Bill Frieder's name to receive the championship ring, however someone, likely from Schembechler's administration, removed his name. Schembechler would coach Michigan's Rose Bowl team in 1990 while having secretly accepted the role of President for the Detroit Tigers, publicly announcing the hire after the game.

"Those Who Stay Will Be Champions"
Schembechler began his tenure as head coach at Michigan with a rallying cry to his players: "Those who stay will be champions!" This slogan foreshadowed the challenges Michigan football players would endure from the dramatic culture change initiated by Schembechler, who emphasized toughness and introduced practices and conditioning far more rigorous than any of the players had been exposed to before.

His first training camp in 1969 saw around 140 players enter but a mere 75 emerging from the grueling camp and choosing to embrace Schembechler's system. Schembechler's subsequent successes and legacy of propelling the Michigan football program to further national prominence immortalized his promise to his players after accepting the head coaching position at Michigan. Every Michigan football player who played for Bo Schembechler and stayed at Michigan for four years left Michigan with at least one Big Ten championship ring. Furthermore, not once did any Michigan player under Bo endure a losing season during his tenure. As such, "Those Who Stay Will Be Champions" remains a beloved team slogan for the Michigan Wolverines and has been immortalized into the tradition and mythology of Michigan football.

Offer from Texas A&M
On January 15, 1982, Texas A&M offered Schembechler nearly $3 million for 10 years—the richest contract in the history of college athletics at that time—to become the school's football coach and athletic director. Schembechler turned it down. "Frankly, I've come to the conclusion that there are things more important in this world than money," Schembechler said. "For that reason, I've decided to stay at Michigan."

After Michigan
From 1990 to 1992, Schembechler was president of the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball. In 1991, he presided over the firing of Tigers' longtime broadcaster Ernie Harwell; the move was decried by fans and the press. Management at the Tigers' flagship radio station WJR later claimed responsibility for the sacking, but Schembechler and club owner Tom Monaghan were denounced for the decision. Schembechler was an opponent of female sports reporters in the men's locker room, defending Tigers pitcher Jack Morris, who told a female Detroit Free Press reporter in 1990, "I don't talk to women when I'm naked unless they're on top of me or I'm on top of them." Schembechler stated "no female member of my family would be inside a men's locker room regardless of their job description" and suggested "the whole thing was a scam orchestrated by you people to create a story." Schembechler was fired by the Tigers in early August 1992, via fax.

Schembechler maintained an office at the University of Michigan's football facility, which is named Schembechler Hall. His former assistants, Gary Moeller (1990–94) and Lloyd Carr (1995–2007), followed him as head coach. Schembechler was also active in numerous private charities. He was named a Lifetime Member of the Detroit Sports Media Association.

He also hosted a pre-game show "Big Ten Ticket" on the Detroit ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV along with sports anchor Don Shane. It was devoted to his analysis of the Wolverines, the Michigan State Spartans and other Big Ten Conference teams.

At Michigan's annual spring commencement on April 30, 2005, Schembechler was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree.

Health problems
Schembechler had a long history of heart trouble. On December 31, 1969, the eve of his first Rose Bowl appearance, he suffered a heart attack, and had another in 1987 while he happened to be at University of Michigan Medical Center for tests. He had two quadruple heart bypass operations, the first in 1976 and the second following his second heart attack.

During a taping of the WXYZ-TV program Big Ten Ticket in late October 2006, Schembechler collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Following the episode, he had a heart pacemaker implanted into his chest to regulate his heartbeat. As late as a week before his death, he had stated his doctors were still adjusting the device, which covered about half his chest.

Death
On Thursday, November 16, 2006, although he was not feeling well, Schembechler attended the funeral of his close friend and 1971 quarterback, Tom Slade. That night, Bo delivered his traditional Thursday night pep talk before the Ohio State game. According to The Detroit News: "Bo's speech was not about Ohio State, the Big Ten title or a national championship. The whole speech was about Tom Slade and how, if the players worked hard, listened to their coaches and stuck together as teammates, one day they might be as good a Michigan man as Slade. That was the goal at Michigan, not national championships." Schembechler finished by exhorting them to remember "the team, the team, the team!"

The next day, on November 17, 2006, Schembechler collapsed in a restroom stall at WXYZ-TV just prior to the taping of Big Ten Ticket around 9:15 am. He was taken to Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan where he was pronounced dead. He was 77 years old. At a press conference a few hours after his death, it was reported by his doctor, Dr. Kim Eagle of the University of Michigan Health System, that his death was from the terminal stage of heart disease, where the heart muscle itself does not respond to the pacemaker, a common cause of death for persons afflicted with severe heart disease. Schembechler died the day before one of the biggest games in the history of the Michigan–Ohio State football rivalry. He was not planning to attend the November 18 game in Columbus. Instead, Bo and his wife, Cathy, had packed the car and had planned to drive to suburban Dayton, Ohio to watch the game with his former Miami teammate and friend, Bill Gunlock.

The university's Regents approved a plan for the renovation and expansion of Michigan Stadium on the day of Schembechler's death.

On November 21, 2006, the University of Michigan held a memorial service for Schembechler in Michigan Stadium. Approximately 20,000 fans, ex-players and coaches including former Schembechler player and assistant coach and then LSU head football coach Les Miles were in attendance, as well as former Ohio State head coaches Earle Bruce and John Cooper, along with then Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel and staff. Schembechler is interred at Forest Hill Cemetery in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Before his death, Schembechler had agreed to be an honorary pallbearer for former Michigan Wolverine and University of Michigan alumnus President Gerald Ford. Ford, himself a center at Michigan in the 1930s, died on December 26, 2006. A pew inside Washington National Cathedral was draped with a University of Michigan stadium blanket in Schembechler's memory.

Role in sexual assault scandal
Beginning in 2018, hundreds of former student-athletes who played at the University of Michigan have come forward with allegations of inappropriate and unwanted medical treatment by university doctor Robert Anderson. Anderson was employed at the university from 1966 to 2003, and died in 2008. After many lawsuits, an independent investigation was conducted by WilmerHale, LLP. Their 240-page report stated that over 600 former student-athletes at the University of Michigan experienced these assaults.

One former player claims Schembechler told him to "toughen up" when he reported an incident of Anderson fondling his testicles during an examination.

In June 2021, Schembechler's son Matt Schembechler came forward, saying he was molested at age ten by Anderson during a routine physical in the 1960s, and that Schembechler went to "great lengths" to ensure Anderson kept his job after Matt's mother told AD Don Canham, who was ready to fire Anderson before Coach Schembechler's intervention. Upon telling his father what happened, Matt said: "That was the first time he closed-fist punched me. It knocked me all the way across the kitchen." Schembechler's other son (and Matt's younger half-brother), Glenn Schembechler, refused to believe Matt's version and stated, "I can tell you unequivocally no one ever told Bo", because in his opinion, "Bo would have done something."

Personal life
After Schembechler married Mildred (Millie) in 1968, he adopted her three sons: Donald (Chip), Geoffrey, and Matthew. Then, Schembechler and Millie had a son, Glenn III (Shemy). Millie Schembechler died August 19, 1992, at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after an eight-month battle with a rare form of cancer. She was 63.

Coaching tree
Played under: Coached under: Assistant coaches who became head coaches: Former players who went on to become head coaches
 * Sid Gillman: Miami (OH)
 * George Blackburn: Miami (OH)
 * Woody Hayes: Miami (OH)
 * Woody Hayes: Ohio State University
 * Bill Crutchfield: Presbyterian
 * Doyt Perry: Bowling Green
 * Ara Parseghian: Northwestern University
 * Cam Cameron: Indiana (1997–2001), Miami Dolphins (2007)
 * Lloyd Carr: Michigan (1995–2007)
 * Jack Harbaugh: Western Michigan (1982–1986), Western Kentucky (1989–2002)
 * Bill McCartney: Colorado (1982–1994)
 * Dave McClain: Ball State (1971–1977), Wisconsin (1978–1985)
 * Frank Maloney: Syracuse (1974–1980)
 * George Mans: Eastern Michigan (1974–1975)
 * Les Miles: Oklahoma State (2001–2004), LSU (2005–2016), Kansas (2019–2021)
 * Gary Moeller: Illinois (1977–1979), Michigan (1990–1994), Detroit Lions (2000)
 * Don Nehlen: Bowling Green (1968–1976), West Virginia (1980–2000)
 * Tom Reed: Miami (OH) (1978–1982), NC State (1983–1985)
 * Paul Schudel: Ball State (1985–1994), Central Connecticut State (2001–2003) (Schudel also played for Schembechler at Miami (OH)
 * Larry Smith: Tulane (1976–1979), Arizona (1980–1986), Southern California (1987–1992), Missouri (1994–2000)
 * Chuck Stobart: Toledo (1977–1981), Utah (1982–1984), Memphis State (1989–1994)
 * Bob Sutton: Army (1991–1999)
 * Dick Tomey: Hawaii (1977–1986); Arizona (1987–2000); San Jose State (2005–2009)
 * Elliot Uzelac: Western Michigan (1975–1981), Navy (1987–1989)
 * Ron Vanderlinden: Maryland (1997–2000)
 * Jim Young: Arizona (1973–1976), Purdue (1977–1981), Army (1983–1990)
 * Mike Hankwitz: Arizona (2003), Colorado (2005)
 * John Mackovic: Wake Forest (1978–1980), Kansas City Chiefs (1983–1986), Illinois (1988–1991), Texas (1992–1997), Arizona (2001–2003)
 * Jim Harbaugh: San Diego (2004–2006), Stanford (2007–2010), San Francisco 49ers (2011–2014), Michigan (2015–2024), Los Angeles Chargers (2024-present)
 * Curt Mallory: Indiana State (2017–present)
 * Les Miles: Oklahoma State (2001–2004), LSU (2005–2016), Kansas (2019-2020)
 * Mike Hankwitz: Arizona (2003), Colorado (2005)
 * Dave Elliott: Morningside (1996–2000)
 * Joe Novak: Northern Illinois (1996-2007)

Although neither served as a head coach, Dave Brandon, Jim Hackett, and Warde Manuel played under Schembechler and went on to become University of Michigan's athletic directors.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bo Schembechler


text:
Category:Unitarian Universalism

Unitarian Universalism (UUism), or Unitarianism, is a theologically liberal religion characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". UUism was formed by the merger of Unitarian and Universalist groups. Its roots are in Protestantism, although belief in Christianity is no longer required for adherents to modern UUism. Most modern Unitarian Universalists (UUs) do not consider themselves Christian. This category is for all articles and files that pertain to UUism. Articles and files should, if possible, be placed in the appropriate subcategory instead of in this category directly.

__NOGALLERY__

title: Category:Unitarian Universalism


text:
Boxelder bug

The boxelder bug (Boisea trivittata), also called box bug, maple bug or, inaccurately, box beetle, is a species of true bug native to eastern North America. The western boxelder bug Boisea rubrolineata is a relative of this species and is native to western North America. Boxelder bugs are found primarily on boxelder trees, as well as on maple and ash trees.

Etymology
Trivittata is from the Latin tri (three) + vittata (banded).

Biology and description
The adults are about 13 mm long with a dark brown or black coloration, relieved by red wing veins and markings on the abdomen, with dark red eyes; nymphs are bright red.

Boxelder bugs feed almost entirely on the developing seeds of boxelder, maple, and ash trees.

Boxelder bugs feed, lay eggs and develop on boxelder trees, most commonly occurring on female trees as they produce seeds. Boxelder bugs prefer seeds; however, they also suck leaves. They can be frequently observed on maple as these trees provide them with seeds as well. Boxelder bugs overwinter in plant debris or protected human-inhabited places and other suitable structures.

Taxonomy and similar species
The eastern boxelder bug is sometimes confused with insects belonging to the genera Jadera, Pyrrhocoris, and Melacoryphus.

They may also be confused with the western boxelder bug (Boisea rubrolineata) which are near relatives in the same genus.

The name "stink bug", which is more regularly applied to the family Pentatomidae, is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to Boisea trivittata. Instead, boxelder bugs belong to the family Rhopalidae, the so-called "scentless plant bugs". However, boxelder bugs are strong-smelling and to discourage predators will release a pungent and bad-tasting compound upon being disturbed. This allows them to form conspicuous aggregations without being preyed on.

Boxelder bugs are also sometimes confused with milkweed bugs, genus Lygaeus for having a similar appearance.

Range
Boxelder bugs are a native species in North America.

The current range of this species covers the eastern United States, southern Canada, Mexico, and south into Guatemala. There have also been many sightings of them in South Africa, but there is a high chance that these individuals are a part of the species Boisea fulcrata, another related species.

In 2020, this species was introduced as a non-native species in Chile and is becoming an invasive species in that region. The introduction follows the use of maple trees as ornamental plantings.

Overwintering, sometimes in homes
Boxelder bugs are not universally considered pests within their native range. Boxelder bugs are harmless to people and pets.

During certain times of the year boxelder bugs cluster together in large groups while sunning themselves on warm surfaces near their host tree (e.g. on rocks, shrubs, trees, and man-made structures).

This is especially a problem in the fall when they are seeking a warm place to overwinter. Large numbers are often seen congregating on houses seeking an entry point.

If they gain access, they remain inactive behind siding and inside of walls while the weather is cool.

Once the home's heating system becomes active for the season, the insects may falsely perceive it to be springtime and enter inhabited parts of the home in search of food and water if there are any openings that allow them to do so. Once inside inhabited areas of a home, their excreta may stain upholstery, carpets, drapes, and they may feed on certain types of house plants.

In the spring, the bugs leave their winter hibernation locations to feed and lay eggs on maple or ash trees. Clustered masses of boxelder bugs may be seen again at this time, and depending on the temperature, throughout the summer.

Their outdoor congregation habits and indoor excreta deposits are perceived as a nuisance by some people, therefore boxelder bugs are often considered pests in those contexts.

The removal of boxelder trees and maple trees can help control boxelder bug populations, but can also result in the loss of a native tree.

Providing ample native woodland or other natural landscape helps Boxelder bugs overwinter without becoming a nuisance, along with helping many other species within the same ecosystem such as ground bees also native to North America.

Relationship to agriculture and gardening
Although they specialize on eating the seeds from maple, boxelder and ash, they may pierce other parts of the plant while feeding, but incidentally.

They are not classified as an agricultural pest and are generally not considered injurious to ornamental plantings.

They are known to damage some fruits in the fall when they leave their summer quarters in trees and seek areas to overwinter. Feeding by the bugs produces dimples, scars, fruit deformation, corky tissue, and even premature fruit-drop in strawberries and some tree fruits. But they are not major agricultural pests.

Predation by other animals
Spiders and cats are minor predators, but because of the boxelder bug's chemical defenses few birds or other animals will eat them. Boxelder bug populations are not affected by any major diseases or parasites.

title: Boxelder bug