Warde Manuel comments about Juwan Howard and Jim Harbaugh

Fire Warde

No AD or GM has ever said “Coach X sucks, I’m firing his lame ass tomorrow.” It’s always “Coach X has my full support.” Then Coach X gets canned, or not. But the public statements remain positive.

Are we here yet?

I really do not care about firing Warde now. I wanted him fired before he fucked up the contract negotiations. He hired the right guy in Moore, for about the right money, so whatever.

You can't judge Warde on Howard til the end of season. My issue with Warde is that he didn't say anything to support Harbaugh.  When everything happened this year, he was always after the fact before he spoke up.  I believe that he should have pushed back on the BIG and NCAA and supported Harbaugh.  He didn't have to do anything unethical like hamper investigations, but he should have been front and center calling them out and backing the coach.  Instead, he just let Harbaugh take all of the heat directly and didn't deflect anything away. 

He is a weak leader at best.  Also, letting Bakich go without at least matching Clemson was a poor decision that let all know he doesn't care about the team being at the top.  It just seems like we have a guy who takes the easy way out all of the time.

Well, it seems that Harbaugh chose to negotiate through his attorney as opposed to having direct discussions with Manuel, Ono, or the Regents.

He was entitled to make that choice.

I don't see where one can infer a lack of effort or good faith on anyone's part to sign Harbaugh to an extension. Sometimes people just have to agree to disagree if there are problematic provisions that are proposed.

In this case, it just seems that Harbaugh really wanted to go back to the NFl ... as he seemingly did last year, as well

 And that's ok. He made his choice. Fans here may not like it, but then blame the man who made the choice if one feels the need to vent anger.

Warde should have been gone long ago. I think it's too late, to be honest.

Clearly Manuel had zero idea how to connect with or relate to Coach.

I view Coach as a Football savant, a gifted QB/athlete who eventually expanded and elevated his thinking to be able to organize and motivate all the components comprising an undefeated National Championship team. Coach is unique, a rara avis.

Manuel grew into a bureaucrat. He and Coach are too different to "connect".

Edit/add: it would have been a complete waste of time for Manuel and Coach to sit down to negotiate a potential contract. Coach wanted out, for various reasons; Manuel simply needed to know if there was going to be a new contract, for how long, and for how much.

Regardless of how things turn out with Juwan, it sure seems like Warde’s days are numbered. 

Basketball showed a lot of improvement today. They shut down the threat of their opponent hanging 100 points a lot earlier than last time out. Juwon just needs more time to adjust after losing Minter.

(/s tag in case it wasn't obvious)

In many ways, basketball is much worse off than football when it comes to the effects of NIL and needing to deal with both the portal and early NBA. Obviously, Juwan can't handle it, but who could? Warde might be a couple of steps ahead in this regard - it may not be worth changing the guard right now. It's not a very good sport right now, period.

One o f the primary functions of a senior executive is to identify, hire, cultivate, and probably most importantly, retain talent. 

If the information in these articles is accurate, combined with what we know about Warde's historical handling of several situations with coaches. A very strong argument can be made that Warde is simply out of his depth in this role. This is manifest by the odd and just flat out weird lack of engagement at critical moments.

He's not a particularly impressive administrator or communicator and appears to have genuine deficits in his relationships with the coaches he's responsible for. In most organizations, would his issues rise to the level of incompetence with justification for firing? Yes. 

Jim Harbaugh made a choice to leave Michigan. That’s on him. I’ve already forgotten him.

Michigan doesn’t fire coaches mid-season, so people like you get to whine about it until the end and clog up the board with your miserable posts. Good for you. 

Warde is a buffoon. We can just stop talking about it. 

Warde:  "I promise you I am doing everything I can to get this man signed to a contract!"

Also Warde:  Yeah, not sure of the specifics, we were mainly dealing with his attorneys.

If you work with a person and you really, really want him to continue working for your company-you tell him that, often.  You check in with him regularly, ask him what's standing in the way of the new contract, and do your very best to resolve those issues. 

Especially if it's a really high profile job that brings massive benefits to your company that are probably way out of proportion to the actual importance of that job.  And the guy we are talking about is arguably one of the top 5-10 people in the world that can do this high profile and highly specialized job.

Even if you don't like that person, you do this-because having him work for your company is SO important that it MUST get done.  And if you are smart, you know that his accomplishments will reflect well on you.  You never have to have him over for dinner.  You never have to go on vacation with him.  All you have to do is act professional, say hi when you see him around the building, and bask in the reflected glory of what he does.  

Warde apparently was not capable of any of that.  His solution to every issue seems to be "Give it time, and maybe it will work out."  The one thing Valenti and Rico have said about Michigan football in the past few months I agree with is:  "How does Warde Manuel still have a job?"

Here's my worthless two cents:

I'm really getting tired of Warde Manuel posts. Jim's gone, Sherrone is in charge, and Warde isn't getting fired. I'm not saying he's right or wrong, but that's the way it is.

It's time to move on and support our new coach.

There's a pretty good chance the basketball team wins less games than the football team this year and that is not a good thing.  

I like Hackett but he had the easiest job in the world - convince an unemployed Jim Harbaugh to take a ton of money to come back and coach his alma mater.  He might have been a good long-term AD but who knows - maybe he and Harbaugh fight over time like Warde and Harbaugh have.  

Warde does need to blow up Howard's staff or get rid of him, but it also makes sense an AD is not going to dunk on his coach mid-season.

Jim Harbaugh is the reason Jim Harbaugh is gone. 

I believe Jim knew he was passing the torch mid December...LA was clearly playing ball & he was never returning. 

I chose to focus on those who stay...Moore/Warde

Both of these pieces of info are not great looks to counter the prevailing notion that Warde is incompetent. Dude is flat out delusional if he doesn't think anything is wrong with the trainwreck basketball program with little reason for future optimism right now.

How the fuck is he still our AD? Doesn’t see a problem with our basketball team being last in the Big Ten? Isn’t our team only favored in two more games this year? Never talked to Harbaugh? Warde is like a masterclass in incompetence.

Warde is a lazy and arrogant AD.  I almost feel he wanted Harbaugh gone.  He's ok with the mess of a basketball program and went the easiest of routes with a new softball coach.  Michigan is lucky that Hackett was brought in to hire Harbaugh.  Imagine if Warde handled the hire.  OMG.