Michigan football's problem is hiring, not sign-stealing
It's been said, but I thought I'd compile a list:
D.J. Durkin: 2015. Didn't cause trouble at Michigan AFAIK, to be fair, but later got a player killed at Maryland.
Matt Weiss: 2021-22. Computer crimes.
Glenn "Shemy" Schembechler: 2023. Bigot.
Connor Stalions: 2022-23. Conned the program and as a result has given everyone a big headache.
Alex Yood: 20??-2023. Accused of soliciting a minor.
Did I miss someone? I'm nervous that I missed someone. I deliberately left off Bob Shoop (2020), because we really know nothing about his odd disappearance.
Note Stalions is by far the least offensive of the lot. He didn't get anyone killed, he's not being investigated by the FBI, and there's no evidence he's a bigot or a pedophile. Also note the first half of Harbaugh's tenure was nowhere near as eventful as the past several years, and it's really not clear if Michigan knew what Durkin was capable of.
But even all that said, this is a problem! The coaching staff isn't that big so Weiss, Shemy, Stalions, and Yood alone make for a terrible streak. If Harbaugh's to stick around (and frankly this is a track record well worth a raised eyebrow, however well the team's doing), the Athletic Department clearly needs to step in and vet his hires. I'm not buying any argument that Manuel is "too busy" or otherwise unable to do this, for two reasons:
1) When your football coach is causing this much trouble, the question is not whether to intervene, but to what extent.
2) On that, if Manuel would get off his ass, the AD has the revenue and agency to create a position that literally does nothing but vet Harbaugh's hires, and would pay itself back in problems avoided. The entire point of a leadership position is to delegate, so delegate this. Hire a damn firm if you have to. To state the obvious to anyone who's gone through a background check, there are companies that specialize in this.
There is absolutely no way Michigan is helpless here. They can't afford to do nothing, really.
FWIW, fuck the NCAA. Considering the legacy of Robert Anderson to put things in perspective, I couldn't give a flying fuck about signs or coaches' fee-fees. But also considering the legacy of Robert Anderson (which was settled less than a year ago), this is the one thing Michigan cannot afford to fuck up, yet the quality of hires seems to be going in the wrong direction. What's next, and is anyone going to do anything about it?
If anything, all the attention on sign-stealing is distracting from a genuinely serious problem. Stalions is a lunatic, but Michigan's hired worse. That. . . that is. . . our attention should be focused on that.
November 3rd, 2023 at 2:52 PM ^
The last time I got hired (VP marketing position), I was interviewed by: The outside recruiter that submitted me for the job, 2 HR people, and the hiring manager (CMO) - all by phone. Then, I was flown in for the day and interviewed with 8 of the 10 C-suite people, including the hiring manager and CEO. That's 12 interviews in total.
They also did a background check (including checking my social media), drug testing, and the recruiter personally called my references and submitted his findings to the company. After all of that, I was finally offered the job.
I've had a few jobs at the director/VP level and interviewed for several more, and frankly, that's not out of the ordinary. At other places, I've had to meet with psychologists, have lengthy dinners with people, and meet my prospective team members or peers.
I don't think it's asking too much of Michigan to apply a similar level of rigor for the coaching staff and important analyst positions. Perhaps not for really low level positions, but something better must be done. Michigan is a big time program which, crucially, is the face of the University in many ways. It has a lot of strikes against it at this point. A substantial, legit vetting process is now required or we can't keep claiming accidental, bad apple hires. We have an absolutely world class business school that could help with best practices from the business world. Use it, I'm absolutely certain they would be happy to help.
November 3rd, 2023 at 8:46 AM ^
The thing that everyone knows is worth a diary?
November 3rd, 2023 at 9:23 AM ^
I'm not saying there isn't a problem. But when you lay it out like that, 5 bad hires in 8 years is pretty pedestrian. And Durkin did nothing but a good job while he was here. I'm not sure it's fair to point to him as an example when his malfeasance (as horrific as it was) happened at his NEXT job.
And I'm equally unsure there's anything "there" with Yood's hiring. For all we know his background was clean when he was hired; he did something bad and was immediately fired for it. The vetting for Shemy and Stallions was either nonexistent or inadequate. But I'm not sure the others really apply here.
November 3rd, 2023 at 9:42 AM ^
Dan Enos stands out to me as a weird one
November 3rd, 2023 at 9:44 AM ^
The only bad hire for the reasons you specify here is Shemy. They didn't do their due diligence. I don't know how you can include someone whose transgression happened after his employ at Michigan (Durkin). We don't know what Weiss did, and so have no idea if he had done it before or if there was any indication or red flag in his background that he would do it again. I would put an asterisk next to his name with "waiting for more information." Alex Yood seems to have no record, so how would Michigan know he would do this? You're asking Michigan to be super human in their ability to know what lurks deep inside people. And finally Conor Stalions -- this is absolutely to be determined. We don't know what they knew about him, and whether it would be the red flag needed to put the brakes on hiring him.
November 3rd, 2023 at 10:26 AM ^
"The only bad hire for the reasons you specify here is Shemy. They didn't do their due diligence."
They never should have been any diligence to do.
Even without knowing about his racist BS - Shemy should never have been hire merely for being the son of Bo Schembechler.
November 3rd, 2023 at 10:46 AM ^
Horrible take to judge someone simply because of their family.
November 3rd, 2023 at 1:00 PM ^
It's an appearances job where PR matters immensely. The Schembechler name is bad PR.
November 4th, 2023 at 6:41 AM ^
Only to some... clearly the university still feels it is a fine enough name to keep on a building, a statue, and other places of prominence.
November 3rd, 2023 at 4:02 PM ^
I mean Shemy’s issue was his social media presence, and Connor Stalions had plenty of red flags there (not “liked racist memes”, but definitely stuff that would make you think this guy was a major risk of being a loose cannon).
So if we’re gonna ding the AD for failing to scrub online presence, I think they fall in the same bucket.
November 3rd, 2023 at 9:58 AM ^
D.J. Durkin: 2015. Didn't cause trouble at Michigan AFAIK
Disagree. His dalliances with Maryland really wrecked the '15 OSU game.
November 3rd, 2023 at 11:26 AM ^
What is the university wide policy for background checks, does the AD have their own HR department? Are we assuming that Jim Harbaugh overrides a HR background check?
November 3rd, 2023 at 12:13 PM ^
It's much more work, but I'd wonder what's the denominator (bad eggs to staff hired) and then compare that to what's public at peer institutions.
November 3rd, 2023 at 3:58 PM ^
Can we at least acknowledge that “liking bad tweets” being obviously worse than potentially committing serious NCAA violations that harm the program is a “very online bubble” take?
Not defending Shemy here, just noting that if we’re considering it a capital offense that the AD failed to notice that Shemy had clicked “like” on some racist tweets, maybe we all ought to go touch some grass.
November 4th, 2023 at 3:05 PM ^
It's comparing apples and oranges, but having a guy in your employ who likes racist tweets isn't a good look.
In any event, Shemy liked the racist tweets before he was hired, while Stalions (as far as we know) had no obvious blemishes like that at the time he was hired.
November 4th, 2023 at 8:13 AM ^
Shemy is the most egregious one because it was so simple to check. Stalions is 2nd, but we have no idea how the interview process went.
I have a talented but problematic person reporting to me right now (hired one month before me, so I was not involved in the process). I keep wondering how some of these problems could have been missed in the interviews. But the person’s upside may have clouded better judgment. And I can’t easily fire them because (a) they are producing in certain respects and (b) I work for a big company full of HR processes. All I’m saying is, at big organizations these things will happen.
November 4th, 2023 at 10:40 AM ^
I rarely post anymore but logged in just to +1 this. JH is a great coach and has an eye for finding players and coaches who are excellent on the football side. However at least for coaches he’s terrible on the HR side, the question of whether the coach (despite being good at football) is a decent or reliable person. Not that different than Mike Shanahan or numerous others being fantastic coaches and mediocre at best GMs. Let JH do what he’s good at and give him some damn support on what he isn’t.
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