The buck stops here — even if Warde Manuel preferred it didn’t.
See, he either never learned or forgot what President Harry S. Truman knew about making hard decisions and accepting the fault of his subordinates. Everything is your fault when you are the man in charge.
For Manuel, that means losing the job he loves after Michigan offered Manuel a buyout to leave his athletics director position before his contract expired, following an investigation by an outside law firm that uncovered details of a culture of irresponsibility.
The University of Michigan paid law firm Jenner & Block nearly $12 million to rummage through its athletics closet and its bins and uncover its sins. The firm has been compensated similarly to the reported cost of Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood for three whole years because Manuel’s house has not been in order, despite Michigan football and men’s basketball getting good again.
Warde Manuel in April. (Photo by Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images)
Manuel — Michigan’s AD from 2016 now through the end of 2026 — has arguably been the nation’s best AD based on pure performance since 2021. And yet, he is out of that job not four months after watching the Wolverines’ men’s basketball team win the national title.
Explaining why begins in February 2021.
One of Manuel’s first brilliant acts was getting former head coach Jim Harbaugh to accept an insulting and incentive-laden contract. And thus, 2021 began the best three-year run the Wolverines have seen on a football field this century: three Big Ten titles, three trips to the College Football Playoff and a perfect 15-0 run to the 2023 national championship.
However, those three years are checkered with coaching scandals.
Jim Harbaugh in 2023 during Michigan’s national championship-winning season. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Harbaugh received a 10-year show-cause order, a three-game suspension for violating Big Ten sportsmanship policy from B1G commissioner Tony Petitti and financial penalties from the NCAA that will cost the university $30 million, according to Manuel. Harbaugh’s consequences were the result of allowing former offensive analyst Connor Stalions to orchestrate a robust sign-stealing operation that gave the Wolverines an unfair competitive advantage against opponents.
Those facts reveal how the Michigan athletics department operates in comparison to the rest of the country. But there’s more.
Former Michigan assistant coach Matt Weiss was indicted on 24 federal charges stemming from allegations that he secretly accessed more than 3,300 student-athletes’ private accounts to steal intimate photos and videos between 2015 and 2023.
Former head football coach Sherrone Moore, who succeeded Harbaugh, was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with former Michigan staffer Paige Shiver and was fired in December. Moore, later, trespassed into Shiver’s apartment and was arrested the same day he told Manuel about his violation of university policy.
Sherrone Moore in 2025. (Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images)
But according to The Wall Street Journal, Manuel knew about Moore’s close relationship with Shiver as early as Aug. 29, 2024. He informed Moore in handwriting on Michigan letterhead that he was concerned about Moore’s closeness with his executive assistant.
“I told him I didn’t remember if we had already discussed [it], but that she couldn’t accompany him on trips,” Manuel wrote.
On Tuesday, July 14, Manuel gave an interview to The Michigan Insider where he defended his record as an administrator at Michigan since 2016 and let it be known he had no intention of leaving his post willingly. His supporters would have seen him as a convenient scapegoat for decisions made by others.
“I don’t need the credit [for Michigan’s success],”Manuel said, “but I’m not going to stand idly by and let people say all this happened despite Warde Manuel.”
Stop.
First, no one says your name alongside the wins you helped put on the board because that’s what the money’s for. Second, that’s what history exists to record. And, buddy, you’re in that record.
But going on a radio program to discuss your résumé isn’t what blue-blood athletics directors do, unless they have something to address that ain’t among their greatest hits.
You need us to say it? OK.
It happened not despite of Warde Manuel, but because Warde Manuel is the athletics director at the storied University of Michigan. This is true while 31 other Power 4 programs have turned over athletics directors in the last two years.
It happened because Warde Manuel is the man who oversaw Jim Harbaugh, Matt Weiss and Sherrone Moore as employees at Michigan.
It happened because Warde Manuel was the AD while Paige Shiver went from Michigan intern to victim of a head coach’s abuse of power.
Just as every upstanding and courageous Michigan athletics employee is your people, Jim Harbaugh is your people. Matt Weiss is your people. Connor Stalions is your people. Sherrone Moore is your people. Paige Shiver is your people.
Just because you acted when the time came does not absolve you of responsibility for the culture that created space for Weiss’ indictment, Harbaugh’s flippancy for NCAA rules, Stalions’ willingness to bend them, Moore’s abuse of power and Shiver’s injury.
Jim Harbaugh and Warde Manuel in 2016. (Photo by Adam Ruff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
I know the character of his coaches is important to him because Manuel said so in the same July 14 interview when he expressed why he hired Mike Boyton, Jr., to be head coach of the Michigan men’s basketball team: “Mike is a great person.”
Manuel said similar things about new Michigan football coach Kyle Whittingham, who he hired last December. Most Michigan Wolverines are, presumably, good people. But when they are not, and their transgressions are severe, the university has a duty to objectively question its leadership and take appropriate action.
That appropriate action happened to Warde Manuel. I know this because I believe an objective look into the history of the past six years would likely lead Warde Manuel to fire Warde Manuel as well.
Michigan in Joel Klatt’s post-spring top 25 🏈 Joel Klatt Show
