There were many mornings that Mike Grier got up for school to learn that his dad had already left for work. There were many days that his dad wouldn’t make it home for dinner, or even for the kids’ bedtime.
Bobby Grier was a coach and scout for the New England Patriots throughout the 1980s.
Now Mike is the general manager of the Sharks, the first Black GM in the 105-year history of the National Hockey League. His brother Chris holds the same title with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.
“I think the main thing my father instilled in us was his work ethic,” the new Sharks GM said. “Just the time and effort it took – and his belief that … if you want to have a winning franchise, it starts with how you treat people.”
For almost all of former general manager Doug Wilson’s 19 years in charge, the Sharks were a model of stability and consistency, packing SAP Center nightly and making the playoffs every season but one of his first 15. They have missed the playoffs the last three years and Wilson, after taking a leave in November due to an undisclosed illness, announced his resignation in April. For seven months, the organization has been lacking clear direction, drawing league-wide ridicule and criticism recently for its clumsy dismissal of coach Bob Boughner.
The men who played alongside Grier during a 14-year career that included three seasons in San Jose say the Sharks have found the man to right the ship.
“Mike will definitely bring exactly what they need – a younger guy, an inclusive guy,” said Jody Shelley, who played alongside Grier with the Sharks from 2007-2009. “But more importantly, he’s a hard worker, just like Doug Wilson.”
As a player, Grier, 47, was known as a gritty winger who also could score goals. When he joined the Sharks as a free agent in 2006, he brought with him the experience of more than 700 NHL games and several playoff runs, including an Eastern Conference final appearance the previous season with Buffalo.
Although the Sharks already had veteran stars such as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau on the roster, Grier was immediately viewed as a leader.
”I’ve been trying to get Mike on my team for 10 years,” then-Sharks coach Ron Wilson said that season. ”Guys like Mike are glue to a team.”
“Mike came in right away, he was obviously a competitor, tough to play against, a great team guy, a leader in the room,” Marleau recalled this week. “But for me, the biggest thing, it was always hard to play against him, and those are the types of guys you want on your team.
“I was just happy that he was wearing the same jersey.”
Grier started playing hockey at four years old. At nine, he was featured in Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd for scoring 227 goals over two seasons.
He wanted to follow older brother Chris into Pop Warner football, according to a New York Times story, but stayed with hockey because he exceeded the 120-pound limit.
After high school, he walked on at Boston University, a hockey powerhouse. Told he might never crack the lineup there, Grier did the Grier thing.
“Put in the work. Don’t run from the challenge,” he said Tuesday of his philosophy. “If you do that and believe in yourself, you’ll eventually get where you want to (go).”
By the end, Grier had played three seasons at BU, led the team to a national championship and been named a Hobey Baker Award finalist as the best player in college hockey.
“Looking back,” Shelley said of their time together with the Sharks, “you think how important he was in the locker room.”
Shelley recalled a game near the end of the 2009 season. The Sharks, on the verge of clinching the President’s Trophy as the team with the best regular-season record, were losing to the Los Angeles Kings after two periods. Shelley addressed his teammates before they went out for the third period.
“Let’s go get the President’s Trophy,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”
Grier simply smiled at him and said, “Jody wants the President’s Trophy.”
“Looking back, Griersy wanted nothing to do with it,” Shelley said. “He was saying, ‘This was not what we were there for.’”
Grier was focused on winning the Stanley Cup, not some regular-season prize. To this day, the Sharks have never achieved hockey’s biggest honor.
Already he is being tested in the new job. A day after being introduced as the new GM, one day before the NHL Draft, Grier faced the challenge of guiding the organization through the unexpected death of Bryan Marchment, a member of the Sharks family for five years as a player and the last 15 as a scout and development coach.
Grier had known Marchment since he first broke into the NHL in 1996, and was as devastated as anyone else. He eulogized Marchment on Thursday at the draft in Montreal and helped keep the Sharks focused in a time of shock and grief.
“We really do appreciate having Mike’s leadership around … just to keep us all together, to take the time to reflect and talk about the most important things,” said Joe Will, who had served as interim GM in Wilson’s absence.
Adding to the weight of the week is the ever-present issue of race. There are few Black people in hockey at any level, let alone the top ranks. Grier said being the first Black GM in the NHL is “something I’m extremely proud of.”
Former NHL goalie Kevin Weekes, the first Black analyst in ice hockey, said Grier’s hiring is “like a person landing on the moon.”
Dr. Harry Edwards, professor emeritus of sociology at UC Berkeley, offers a different view.
“People say he will open the door and set the standard. No, it doesn’t work that way. That’s not the sociological, that’s not the sport political, and that’s not the cultural dynamics that are involved here. That’s Disneyland analysis,” Edwards said of Grier’s hire.
“So I will absolutely guarantee you that one or two GMs in hockey, I don’t care if they win a championship, are not going to result in a sudden or even gradual increase in the number of African Americans in that position or in other front-office positions in the National Hockey League.”
For now, though, Grier’s sole focus is to get the Sharks back into a position of prominence.
Not only have they missed the playoffs three years in a row, but home attendance has cratered to record-low levels. The average crowd size this past season was 12,573, down from 17,266 three years ago.
“It’s crazy to see the turnaround and the difference” in attendance, said former Sharks player Devin Setoguchi.
But Setoguchi quickly added that he has “full faith in this organization,” a belief grounded in the hiring of his former teammate as GM.
“I think they definitely picked a good person. … I’m not worried about what this team has, and I think they just made a great decision.”
