No one can claim that Michigan isn’t very good at football and basketball. The Wolverines are, at times, great at Hockey and baseball. The Nebraska Cornhuskers and the rest of the Big Ten likely have some envy aimed at the school in Ann Arbor and the programs that athletic director Warde Manuel leads. Off the field, however, Manuel and Michigan seem to do things the wrong way over and over.
The last week in Ann Arbor has been the Wolverines tripping over their own shoes over and over. First, it paid out $12 million for a report to a law firm that the school didn’t want made public. Interestingly enough, the school claimed they “couldn’t” release the report because of attorney-client privilege. This is where a sane person points out that Michigan is the client and can waive privilege.
By the way, according to the Detroit News, it’s not that the report wasn’t made public. It’s that the report was never produced.
“For $12 million, the university should have made a comprehensive report — whether it was given to the Board of Regents or not,” said Aaron Hernandez, director of the National Sports Law Institute and an associate professor at Marquette University Law School. “The university's board or general counsel clearly asked for the information to be given through verbal briefings to protect the university from legal liability and make it impossible to be obtained through a public records request.”
Nebraska should avoid the administrative chaos surrounding Michigan athletics
It’s hard to imagine that if Nebraska paid out $12 million to a law firm in the wake of a head football coach getting fired amid a scandal and then made sure no report was put together, that Husker fans would be ok with that. Are Michigan fans?
What was made public, out of these briefings, are pieces of info that Nebraska, or any other Big Ten school, should find more than a little concerning. “The university said the related investigation found misconduct was not ‘widespread' throughout the Athletic Department, but it wasn't always addressed ‘consistently, promptly, or in accordance with University expectations.’
It’s hard to reckon “not widespread” with comments like Manuel didn’t “always” address things quickly enough. In other words, there was more than one, and likely more than two situations where Manuel didn’t act quickly or decisively enough.
It’s also hard to reckon the university claiming that Warde Manuel didn’t act quickly enough, did things badly enough that they want him gone, but they’re fine with him sticking around until December. Not only that, a new report on Saturday found that the Michigan AD is getting a $7 million buyout. He will also receive a retirement contribution from Michigan totaling $108,000. Manuel will also receive “former athletic director privileges,” including “sports tickets and golf privileges.” The school has also agreed to pay $82,000 worth of attorneys’ fees.
To recap, Michigan had several scandals engulf the university over the last few years. The AD who was in charge when those scandals hit was found to have not acted quickly enough and is being forced out, but about as gently as possible. And to force him out, the university’s bill is more than $19 million.
Some might say that Michigan fans are happy to pay that money since they got a football and basketball national championship over that time frame. But the fact is that they got those championships without having to spend nearly $20 million.
The Wolverines certainly know how to put great athletic programs together. Neither Nebraska nor any other school in the Big Ten should model its athletic department’s administration after the way the Wolverines do things.
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