Mary Sue ???
1) Mary Sue drives down to Toledo with Bill Martin and approves hiring Rich Rodriguez to replace Lloyd Carr.
2) Mary Sue hires Dave Brandon to replace Bill Martin as AD two years later.
3) Mary Sue then approves her boy Dave Brandon's choice to fire Rich Rodriguez and replace him with Brady Hoke.
4) Hoke is a bust and terminated.
That's a lot of decisions that all turned out wrong, and all were on her watch or have her fingerprints on them. Is her legacy impacted?
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:46 PM ^
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:49 PM ^
THE MICROPHONE!!!
December 3rd, 2014 at 10:08 AM ^
What a crazy explanation that was.
Yeah, the person who speaks through a microphone in the center of Michigan stadium every year at commencement is suddenly perplexed by speaking into a microphone.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^
That's ironic coming from you Mr. Sheen.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:56 PM ^
She's just sooooooooo proud
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:04 AM ^
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:49 PM ^
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:50 PM ^
Much like Lily and James Potter, she put her faith in the wrong people.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:35 AM ^
Damn it
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:13 AM ^
I logged in just so I could upvote this.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:40 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 9:01 AM ^
She was aware, but not fully aware.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:43 AM ^
I haven't heard that name in a long time. Upvoted for Afghan Whigs reference.
December 3rd, 2014 at 4:50 AM ^
Many may disagree, but I think his best work actually came with Twilight Singers. If you're a fan of Afghan but don't know Twilight, you really should. Blackberry Belle is a top 20 all time album for me.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:53 PM ^
I believe the word you're looking for is "Coleman"
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:04 AM ^
then Brandon, then Hoke. It's over. Let's see who we get next.
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:05 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:09 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:12 AM ^
This goes out to all my freaks out there...Big Poppa Pump is your hookup! Holla if ya hear me!!
December 3rd, 2014 at 5:43 AM ^
scottie did not look like that. he was wrestling at 177. i can only imagine the amount of juice and HGH it took to get there, and hope that he doesn't get kidney and/or liver cancer because of that.
December 3rd, 2014 at 7:22 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:15 AM ^
I can blame the last 7 years of Michigan football on Mary Sue?
In all seriousness, my son and I both live a long way from Ann Arbor, and we go to one game a year together for a father-son bonding weekend. BYU for UTL next season, or a road trip to Salt Lake City to pay back Utah for beating us twice in the Big House? Thoughts?
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:13 AM ^
Are you suggesting she should be fired?
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:13 AM ^
I mean she basically gave DB the job because he raised a lot of money, which is a problem, but the athletic department is, to be honest, pretty low on the list of things that matter for a university president.
As for hiring RR/Hoke? I damn well hope POTUM signs off on whomever the AD asks for. She doesn't have the time or expertise to evaluate hires below direct reports. She should defer to athletic department on hiring football coaches, the history department for tenure decisions, etc.
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:16 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:17 AM ^
I don't know why, but I laughed at this.
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:33 AM ^
You make four good points, but the before the first item you mentioned, she messed up the hiring of Les Miles. According to Bacon in Three and Out, Martin was in the process of hiring Miles (by telephone), but Mary Sue insisted on meeting him face to face first, which Miles couldn't do right away since he was preparing his team for the big bowl game. LSU got wind of the talks and made Miles the offer he couldn't refuse (unless he had a deal with UM, which he probably would have had, if Mary Sue had let Martin do his job).
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:47 AM ^
The job of the President of the Univeristy of Michigan is to maintain the academic quality of one of the top public universities in this country and one of the top research universities in the world. Putting a winning football team on the field is a nice side goal, but hardly his or her major responsibility. Also from a wider perspective, men's basketball, the other marquee college sport, came back from the wilderness during her tenure, right?
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:24 AM ^
but some of us still have unrequited feelings for her:
...Mary Sue, we're so in love with you!
December 3rd, 2014 at 6:43 AM ^
steadily decline in the US News and World report rankings on her watch?
So I'm not surprised that she would botch something like the most cherished program within the athletic department.
December 3rd, 2014 at 6:56 AM ^
Ergo, responsible.
I am told the AD search committee gave her a list of 6 names, which did NOT include DB.
December 3rd, 2014 at 7:25 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:02 AM ^
Of course it impacts her record. It is her record.
The question is, how bad is her record? My opinion is fair to poor. I don't think she did a very good job as POTUM.
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:51 AM ^
She was loved by students and was a homerun fundraiser. Those two alone (well, fundraising alone) are enough to give her a satisfactory grade.
What else do people want out of a U president?
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:21 AM ^
1) Mary Sue drives down to Toledo with Bill Martin and approves hiring Rich Rodriguez to replace Lloyd Carr.You say drive down to Toledo like that's a big deal. It's a 45 min, 60 max, ride to a meeting where one of your major employees is going to hire the University's highest paid employee. Of course you have that meeting in person. Not even worth noting.
2) Mary Sue hires Dave Brandon to replace Bill Martin as AD two years later.At the time, this was the obvious, no-brainer hire. Again, nothing to see here.
3) Mary Sue then approves her boy Dave Brandon's choice to fire Rich Rodriguez and replace him with Brady Hoke.No University president, without major cause, is going to not allow their athletic director to make coaching hire decisions. Why is this a point in your argument?
4) Hoke is a bust and terminated.Yep.
That's a lot of decisions that all turned out wrong, and all were on her watch or have her fingerprints on them. Is her legacy impacted?Her fingerprints? One decision has her fingerprints on it: Dave Brandon. He was an idiot, slowly at first, then with more sweeping actions once she was on her way out. I really don't know what your point in all this is. It's not the President's job to field a winning football team.
December 3rd, 2014 at 9:07 AM ^
December 3rd, 2014 at 9:32 AM ^
In retrospect, yes. But at the time it was most certainly a no-brainer. Pretty much everyone, including this blog, thought the hire was a good one.
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:37 AM ^
Every so often, someone with a huge ax to grind comes out of the woodwork and starts passive-aggressively (or not so much) bitching about Mary Sue. I even see some blatant factual errors in this thread. What's the deal? Is there a specific reason some people hate her so much?
She was largely hands-off once she hired Brandon, and it wasn't apparent that he was a Batman villain until a couple of years later.
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:58 AM ^
the over-reach here makes it pretty obvious it's just a women-hating thing.
I mean, it was literally peanut-butter-jelly-time when Rich Rod was hired, that was considered (by many) a coup at the time.
December 3rd, 2014 at 1:43 PM ^
See my response to your comment below. Might help you to "get it."
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:36 AM ^
Well, she doesn't have any prior head coaching experience, and her recruiting is a bit dodgy, but she does well with the alumni. Do we know if she prefers the spread or pro-style? Obviously, I'd like Harbaugh or MIles first, but if we have to go outside the Michigan Man tree, we could do worse.
/s
December 3rd, 2014 at 9:28 AM ^
as she was President at the time of the huge decline in football at Michigan. It could be bad luck or bad judgement. I mean at the time, Brandon was supposed to (and did) lead huge fundraising efforts and RR has proved that he's an excellent coach.
I think it's just ba luck as opposed to incompetence.
December 3rd, 2014 at 9:29 AM ^
lmao...
You are blaming the current football team on the university's president? You really think Mary Sue had major input on our coaching hires? I certainly hope not. The only thing she had any hand in was hiring Dave Brandon, which at the time seemed like a wonderful idea to pretty much everybody. Would you really have wanted Mary Sue of all people to veto the Athletic Director's choice for a head coach? What makes her qualified to do that in your eyes? Not to mention, she has so many bigger things to handle as the president of the University of Michigan - unlike what MGoBlog may tell you, the school is about more than football.
ridiculous
December 3rd, 2014 at 9:33 AM ^
Mary Sue Coleman was president of this University for 12 years. During that time the state's finances went completely in the tank, the wealthiest people in the state did quite poorly themselves, and state support of public universities nationwide plummeted. During this time she kept the school's finances in order and the academic standing basically stable, even compared to the private universities who are not depending on falling state funding. The depth and breadth of skills needed to do this is absolutely incredible.
Hiring Brandon was likely a complicated calculus that involved politics within the Board and fundraising for both the department and University. It looks good for her to give a high-level post to a Republican and the Stephen Ross gift, among others, makes it clear that having someone who's buddies with the richest alums nationwide is helpful.
The state of the football team is a wonderful hobby for us and an important part of the Michigan community. If it's one of the main judgments on her career, though, our values are not good.
December 3rd, 2014 at 10:22 AM ^
Agree completely.