Football team culture? The Daily isn't doing Michigan any favors.

There is value in contrarian discussion in order to ensure communities don’t get caught up in group think. That said, I don’t like how the article falsely equates some of the non Michigan incidents (domestic abuse, for example) with the Michigan issues. The examples he provides are mostly benign and not indicative of a systematic issue within the broader organization. And if the author’s objective is to point out how success and money generation give way to leniency in other areas of society, then there are literally 1000s of better examples worth citing. Dr. Anderson comes to mind from our own cherished university.
 

All going scorched earth on the way out the door

We're really overblowing how All left at this point. By no means was he even in the same zip code as scorched earth

For the article, I think the author is really reaching to imply the Michigan AD is doing win at all costs over a few minor incidents of varying seriousness. The Pearson saga is bad and dumb and made me lose a lot of faith in Warde, but otherwise you've got a bad retweet deleted after a few minutes and two very dumb incidents over 3 years in a very large athletic department. This is another Wednesday at the office for some universities. 

would that writer be kicked off the daily staff he committed the mazi offenses? i doubt it.

One of the goals of journalism should be to honestly raise legitimate questions about the actions of powerful people. Whether or not you agree with the writer’s conclusions, the factual aspects of the story are accurate. Michigan did remain silent about Smith’s felony gun charge and didn’t impose any discipline, there is evidence Schembechler knew about the abuse and did nothing, etc. It’s not their job not to be public relations shills for Michigan sports or the Michigan AD.

Yet we have high character players preaching otherwise....fuck you and the writer 

This is just sensationalized trash. Stoll's opening line, right under the headline about Michigan's athletic failures. Sites

 domestic abusers and sex offenders ... as long as they help your team win, it’s OK.  

But the article, of course, makes no mention of these offences.

Edwards re-tweeeted a Kanye West, tweet and apologized. So he should be suspended? 

Mazi had a legally purchased gun, some bullets and was speeding not the best look but a far cry from being a 'sex offender' or 'domestic abuser'.

The article is written by a low-rent troll, masquerading as a journalist trying to chew at the ankles of a program that's standing pretty tall right now.

Crying Buckeyes and trailer-park Stae fans might find inspiration from this, but anyone with relatively moderate intelligence will this this for exactly what it is: an unbridled, salacious, hatchet job. 

The Daily is financially and editorially independent from the University. Just FYI.

How exactly did All go "scorched earth"? All I saw on his Twitter was that things/people aren't always as they seem and he needs to do what's best for his family. Did he come out with specifics or say more or trash the program or any individuals?

Meh.  I will quote Brady Hoke, when speaking at a stadium employees meeting:  "if you have 4 kids of your own, and one of them is a knucklehead, imagine what it's like with 100 football players."

Also the Daily was never good.  It was something to read in the back of class when you didn't want to listen to lecture.

Some people fish in troubled waters. 

I think there is no issue with the way the player situations were handled. From what I can tell there are two ways of looking at this.
 

1.They are kids that made a mistake and as long as they learn and grow it should not be an issue. These were one time instances for these players they were not habitual offenders. Now, if they had more issues discipline would be warranted. 
 

2. In the world of NIL and players shopping there market value each year they can be viewed more like an employee. If a companies best employee was in the same situation as Mazi should they be fired? 
 

Whatever your take on Sharp, there are other examples of prominent sports journalists from the Daily -- Adam Schefter, Rich Eisen, the Athletic's Nicole Auerbach and Bob Wojnowski just to name a few.

To me the common thread among at least the most recent examples (Pearson, Smith) is that the Department seems more reactive than proactive. 

I was at UM in the 1980s - didn't always agree with everything the Daily wrote but did like seeing well researched points of view (e.g., nuclear freeze, selling off stocks of companies that did business in Apartheid South Africa) that were hot button issues of the day.

Problem today is that you can grab a few tweets, borrow a few internet stories (nobody seems to actually investigate their own stories anymore), hear from a few "anonymous sources," and "build a case" that someone is, to steal Obi Wan's quote, " You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." 

Simpson was totally unrelated to anything else listed (Warde's son owned the car and can loan it to whomever he likes). The Don simply screwed up by now considering the full impact of "liking" something - sorry but 19 year olds scan over content and "like" something without really embracing the content too deeply. People read one or two lines and "like" them without grasping the bigger context. Mazi, if we are to believe he really was in the process of getting a concealed permit, made the two-fold youthful error of speeding in a neighborhood and not having his gun emptied and in the far back of his vehicle. None of this reflects badly on the hundreds of UM student athletes.

Now - The Pearson saga was wholly embarrassing. I don't think Warde should have been fired for this, but Mel had more than enough due process time to know that this wasn't just one or two disgruntled players or employees trying to "get" the boss in trouble. Warde got the 3rd party investigation report in early May (after Mel's contract expired) but waited until August to formally announce he wasn't remaining as coach. My reaction, if I were Santa coming in, would be to review this very sternly with Warde and tell him anything approaching this again in any program will result in his dismissal. Maybe this happened. Set the tone on Day 1. Due process, yes. Avoiding the inevitable, no.

Yes! Exactly! See links like this…..walk away. DO NOT CLICK. DO NOT SHARE. 

Is sure seemed like Warde had to be coerced into the Mel decision; it was not my sense that he was just slow gathering facts, but that he wanted to give Mel and pass and was told by others that that wouldn't be allowed.

The program is not without issues. No program is. It's about how issues are dealt with, and there have been some fails in that area.

I don't know what Daily stuff you've seen lately, but I read it every day in the dining halls for 3 years in the late aughts, and the whiny snowflake rant above is just par for the course at the Daily. The dweebs at the Daily indulge in it because that's the culture of the industry. You get promoted for peddling garbage that turns the wheels of the Perpetual Outrage Machine. The Daily does good journalism from time to time, but its editorials and op-eds are just whiny rich kids attempting to get a leg up in the industry by talking down to the plebes. Dono is an outstanding young man who deserves a statue. It's sad that the Daily's privileged, prep school, east coast minions are willing to stoop this low to fill their portfolio for the NYTimes.

I agree with this take from the Daily. Many of us agree that the university and AD has been less than stellar in its response to any of these incidents. It's okay to be critical of institutions we love.

Really, this feigned ignorance and false moral high ground stretches much further back than the past couple years. Look at what’s happened with Bo Schembechler and the chilling accusations, corroborated by his own son, levied against him.

Correction, corroborated by one of his sons.  Bo's other sons have not corroborated these accusations.  I'm not necessarily sticking up for Bo on this point, just pointing out that Nick Stoll is papering over facts that don't support his narrative, which is the essence of clickbait journalism.

Wow. Based on many of the comments ITT--even the ones coming to the defense of the Daily writer--I was expecting some real cringe-worthy shlock.

That was a solidly written and constructed column.

You can critique it, you can disagree with it. That's totally fine. It's a complex topic. But this was well done and totally fair to print.

Sensational, just like most newspapers.

Not really bringing anything new to light.

I say pass.

This is a fucking terrible post, for so many reasons. I will not give them another click, hopefully the others reading this terrible post do likewise. Don't support this kind of "journalism", that is becoming the norm. Zero intellectual curiosity, just get views, and get people wound up to get more "interactions". It's so goddamn destructive, creates a scenario where the truth doesn't even matter, and just furthers this thoughtless way people interact and consume information today. 

Terrible. 

I can’t stand the Daily’s constant editorializing disguised as news and analysis. It’s full of pompous, self-righteous egotists who believe that they, and they alone, are the ultimate moral arbiters of truth. Many of there stories appear to be done just to spite others. They need to take a look in the mirror.