Warde's hires at U-M so far: reason to be confident
I know the average person doesn't follow the "non-revenue" sports at Michigan but for those that do, you can learn things about Warde and what he may do with the MBB hire by looking at the hires he has made for other sports.
Let's look-
June 2016-
Just months into his tenure, M Tennis head coach Adam Steinberg resigned to take the job at Arizona State to restart their program that was at the time dropped. Steinberg is a great coach who won a national championship in 2005 and turned the M Tennis program around in just 2 seasons (7-17 year one, 21-8 in year two) and currently has the program right behind OSU who has been on top in the B1G for years.
April 2017
After legendary Red Berenson came back for one brutal season to sadly fall on his sword and go out the wrong way, Warde went out and made the no-brainer hire of Mel Pearson. Mel took over Michigan Tech in 2011-12, a program that had been an absolute trainwreck for many years. Won 5 games total multiple times prior to his arrival. Mel turned Tech around and won the WCHA title, getting the Huskies to their first NCAA Tournament in 35 seasons in his 4th year.
Year 1 of Mel Pearson at Michigan started off really badly but great senior leadership managed to turn the ship around and the team went to the Frozen Four for the first time since 2011. This past season was not good but we didn't have good leadership from the seniors captains by all accounts. Lack of dynamic forwards, an injury to a first round draft pick and inconsistent goaltending led to a 13-16-7 season. Things should get better as Mel gets his guys in here. Nobody should be complaining too hard after a Frozen Four in year one.
May-June 2017
Warde fires BOTH men's and women's lacrosse coaches. Both the first coaches in the respective program's histories. Both did very poor jobs establishing a good culture which led to very little success on the field.
On the men's side, Warde hired Kevin Conry from Maryland, the defensive coordinator of the 2017 national champion. Conry posted an 8-6 record in 2018, a season that included the first win over a top-5 opponent in program history when Michigan beat #4 Notre Dame. The Wolverines also closed 2018 with an OT upset win at #14 Penn State on senior day. 2019 was a setback as the season was derailed by injuries early on. Michigan struggled to a 4-9 record but managed to upset #10 Ohio State on senior day, the first win in the rivalry in program history.
On the women's side...........holy shit. Warde's best hire yet. Then-29 year old Hannah Nielsen was named head coach. Pretty much was the Michael Jordan of women's lacrosse in her playing days at Northwestern where she won 4 national titles as a player and won the lacrosse-equivalent of the Heisman twice. Michigan went 7-10 in year one but she completely changed the culture and attitudes.
If you've paid attention to the threads on the board this spring you've seen how well WLAX did in 2019. 16-4, the first winning campaign in program history. Countless amounts of records set and history made this season. First B1G Tournament qualification, first national ranking, all the way up to #7 at one point, first NCAA bid and hosted. The future seems even brighter once Nielsen gets her players in here.
April 2019-present
In addition to the MBB coaching vacancy, Warde is also working on getting a new Men's Golf coach. Chris Whitten resigned at the end of the season to take a job outside of coaching. Being that there is next to no inside info on Michigan Golf we don't know what actually happened. If he was done with coaching or if Warde told him he's done at the end of the year. Whitten was not under contract (seriously) and his coaching career here has been subpar (no pun intended). Especially disappointing choice to replace Andrew Sapp who left M for North Carolina after getting Michigan to the Final Four in 2009. Good to see some changes are coming for a program who has not won the B1G Championship since 1952.
Warde has done a pretty good job with the hires (and firings) he's made so far. No home runs but he's made some solid decisions.
If you analyze your post, his record with hires is mixed. Two the three hires has below par years, the WLAX coach seems like a possible gem. He paid the tennis coach more as a reaction to him leaving, if memory serves, instead of being locking him up previously. I’ll add that he has no buyout in Beilein’s contract. A standard practice fail.
I have very little to zero faith he won’t screw this up. I hope you’re right and I’m very wrong.
I'm calling his tenure a complete failure until he recognizes the talent in Wolverbear and signs him to a contract within the athletic department.
That was not a debacle. It was a good hire. Social media stupidity & fans inability to actually know what they're talking about is what turned that into a debacle.
Exactly. There would’ve been an army of defenders of that hire if it was a Football or MBB hire.
He should’ve never buckled to pressure.
And for those asking, Ronda Faehn was an assistant hired by Bev Plocki and approved by Warde. And it should’ve stuck.
It was a good hire - but Warde's incompetence turned it into a fail.
If you are going to make a controversial hire, you need to begin by tilling the soil a bit. Be prepared that you will get hard questions about it, and don't be sitting around scrambling to prove you did your due diligence, but present it up front without being asked.
Reach out to the Twitter folks who can burn your decision to the ground like Denhollander. See if you can get her on board ahead of time KNOWING that when you hire anyone from the radioactive ruins of MSU or USA Gymnastics you are going to have people asking those who might think you fucked up or were tone deaf.
Warde turned what could have been a brilliant hire into a dumpster fire because he failed to anticipate any of these obvious steps he could and should have taken.
Yes and no. A better hiring presser where we bring it out in the open would’ve been a lot better
I think Warde's been a solid B so far- I don't give him too much shade for the tennis coach thing (that's a push IMO) and the thing with WGym was a very unique situation that was a PR mistake in not understanding the severity of the potential reaction. Hindsight makes us all look like geniuses in that situation and, as I recall, everyone with direct knowledge of the coach in question went to bat for her and I took that as supporting Warde's original decision.
Hockey was a slam dunk, but it still goes into the book as 2 pts. Lax has been outstanding.
IDK what to think about the Beilein buyout. On the one hand, it's standard practice, on the other, it's not what led to him leaving (the state of college BB was the reason JB left - Warde can't do anything about that) and not having one could have been a show of good faith/trust/support in Beilein's eyes.
Overall performance of all the sports has been outstanding by all measures recorded in the industry (team performance, attrition, APR, BTT, NCAA violations).
I'm not listening to people's choice for coach on here. Most of you all want JB fired 3 years ago.
First section needs work--think you mean to say Steinberg came here; text is muddled. This rendition omits the gymnastics debacle, and the biggest issue that I see it exposing: guy is not getting out in front of the public on any of these hires, good or bad, and making the case.
No, what I meant to write was Warde convince Steinberg to go back on his word and stay at Michigan.
This dumb broken board won’t let me edit it.
"...guy is not getting out in front of the public on any of these hires, good or bad, and making the case"
This is my issue. He doesn't have to give a step by step accounting, but he should be more accountable than he has been. I love that he lets the coaches handle their stuff, but there are times when he should step up and put the power of his position behind them publicly. He never does that.
BTW, the tennis coach left, and Warde brought him back. The gymnastics coach was a quality candidate that got caught up in detritus, and that should have been highlighted. Instead, he backed down and gave in to twitter rage.
I agree. This is the main/only issue I have with Warde. Hopefully it will change in time as he feels more secure/grows in his role
I hate to be "that guy" but it doesn't matter is we win national championships in every non-revenue sport year in year out. If Warde screws up men's basketball and football his tenure will be a failure. We all know what sports pay the bills for the UM AD.
there doesn't appear enough material to determine anything... the big hire is on the docket...
btw betoline had lavall jordan the favorite.. he hasnt performed well at butler.
True, there is a record of success there, but hiring for MBB and Football are way different games than for every other sport.
I agree that we need to have faith and let things play out, not only with the choice but also we should wait until that choice has results. Data will reveal how well Warde does with this hire, and we won't know that until 2024.