Michigan's not so great athletic director history
Has Michigan had the worst athletic directors of any college in America over the past 25 years? It sure seems like it. Tom Goss hired Ellerbe and destroyed Michigan's finances. Sailboat Bill Martin hired RR. Brandon hired Brady Hoke and put a giant macaroni noodle in front of the big house. Warde didnt get a buyout for Beilein, didnt pay his assistant coaches, and only gave him a 500000 raise.
I'm sure Jim Hackett could squeeze in a basketball hire between his Ford responsibilities.
I don't know. The football coach he hired is about to go down in flames.
What? Please go away!
Why? Because I speak the truth and you can't handle it?
What truth are you speaking? I can handle anything you could possibly throw out, dude. But you're not speaking "the truth" you're speaking speculatively -- despite what you think, there is a difference. You're entitled to your opinion, but never mistake if for that and only that.
Ten of years of posting history indicates that Evenyou is slash-essing and poking a bit at Maizen. Either that or he's developed a taste for crystal meth.
Can it be both?
He's reverse jinxing. I respect the move but the jinx knows a man's heart. All the same I hope it works, EYB!
Talk to me after 11/30
You know you can't post stuff like this right now. They could be on a 3 game losing streak and it would be 50/50 that the board would freak out.
Um what?
The soon to be hired basketball coach will last longer than Harbaugh...
Place your bets.
"MGoBlog's not so great board post history"
Exhibit A: This OP
Sailboat Bill did give us Beilein. That probably fell in his lap, looking back.
As badly as he botched the search for Lloyd Carr's successor, hiring Beilein was a legit accomplishment for which Bill Martin deserves a lot of credit. It was hardly a foregone conclusion that Beilein would come to Michigan. He also got Beilein to pay his own WVU buyout, if I remember correctly.
Tim McCormick floated the name. Martin gets credit for making the deal. But it wasn't his idea.
Martin did a ton of great stuff but fucked up one thing (convincing Lloyd to stay one more year more than RR, that looked like a great idea at the time)
Why was convincing Lloyd to stay one more year a bad thing? Wouldn't we want him to stay for Henne, Hart and Long's senior years? But I agree with you, hiring RR was universally viewed as a major success at the time - he was the hottest coach in the country and it was viewed as bringing Michigan football into the 21st century. It just didn't work.
And this is a bad thread. I'm not saying all those guys were great (Brandon clearly wasn't) but saying they were all failures by listing on mistake, then every AD every is awful.
Disclosure: I love Lloyd unapologetically. However, it seemed to me like he was clearly slowing down (his last couple classes were not great) and he didn't have an answer for the spread and wasn't willing to abandon his old hands to go find one. Then Bo died and that took a lot out of him emotionally. I just think he was emotionally done in December of '06, he knew it, and Martin convinced him to stick around for '07. And then '07 went the way '07 did, partly because of that.
Also, hiring RR looked like a good idea at the time.
Can't agree more. Bill Martin had seemingly screwed up the hiring process, but pulled this rabbit out of his hat. People were ecstatic. One need look no further than Brian's own "Profiles in Heroism" on RR:
After flailing about for a solid month, they locked down an A-list candidate. There are no complaints from this sector. There is an apology pending.
Rodriguez is everything a Michigan fan could want in a hire; to get him after the month-long disappointment train that was the coaching search is manna from heaven.
Are we going to revisit this when he introduces Donovan?
Did UConn win a national championship in basketball during Warde's tenure?
I can't recall.
if the next coach wins a national championship with all of Beilein's players like Ollie did, no one will give Warde any credit. Good thing Warde recruited that bum Kemba Walker
We don't have a good track record besides Hackett for a year that's for sure. I don't think it's fair to call Warde bad before this hire is made though.
Warde kept Bakich from getting poached and now Michigan baseball might actually be able to compete as a northern school on a national level.
He also hired Mel for hockey which IS possible to fuck up even if it looks like a no brainer.
Let him fucking hire someone before crucifying the guy. 1201 got this board going crazy and it’s ridiculous
Don't scapegoat Warde for a bad hire before the hire has been made? What kind of batshit crazy idea is that?
I think it’s called being proactive.
The hate for Warde is ridiculous here. I think the bad experiences with previous ADs have really soured opinions on any AD of Michigan. Warde has been doing fine. He's not outstanding, but he hasn't been bad either. Mostly they're just decisions that make sense. My opinion of him will lower if this basketball hire is underwhelming, but he has to be given the opportunity to do it before he's crucified for his actions.
Also, while I appreciate Hackett for getting Harbaugh to Michigan, he was only here for one year. If he was here longer and have had to make tougher decisions, I'm sure he would make some questionable decisions as well.
Agreed... Warde for any perceived faults, isn't Goss or Brandon. For that, even if it means I'm settling, I'm grateful.
To be fair, the RR didn't look bad when it happened. Obviously it didn't turn out well :/
Great point. I don't get why this point is overlooked. RR was a great hire with a great track record at the time of the hiring. Hindsight is always 20:20. Also if we get Les Miles would we be better off?
Better off than 3-9, 5-7, and 7-6?
Yes.
Those teams got worse as the seasons dragged on, Denard being the only real bright spot.
Good grief. Here come the NimRod apologists
Obviously it didn't work, but AT THE TIME IF THE HIRE it looked like a great move. He WAS a young up and coming coach that was offered the Alabama position.
Sure he didn't work out here and had issues at Arizona, but AT THE TIME it looked fantastic.
At the time, my ex-wife looked like a solid on our wedding day. It was all downhill from there.
And just like RichRod, your ex-wife not working out probably wasn’t entirely her fault.
This is exactly the point. Just look at the lunacy of the board right now, and Manuel hasn't even announced a hire. And when he does, he'll immediately be judged for it, even if we won't really be in a position to assess the hire until at least a few years have passed.
The same people who are now saying things like "Beilein fell into Martin's lap" might also be conveniently forgetting that the Beilein hire, when it was made, seemed like a giant shrug, hiring an above-average coach who once Pittsnogled his way to the Elite 8 years before. Big deal. But here we are.
I suppose it's part of the game, but how about we see how thing plays out before we grab our pitchforks?
Oh cleaver nick name. You're funny.
It looked pretty bad real fast though during that first offseason.
He gave us Denard.
You mean ARM PUNT
Brian loved the RR hire bc it was finally ushering in a new era in modern football lol...
Check out USC. Their AD is dog shit.
And he stole my hat.
What is a good AD?
Dave Brandon probably screwed it up by making the AD a celebrity position.
Some guy named Don Canham was pretty good at the AD thing.
In the case of Michigan, the athletic department (1) will always be a high-prestige program that will attract top-tier talent (short of somebody in the department doing something historically stupid on the order of Penn State and Sandusky), and (2) prints a whole lot of $$$ in their sleep.
Given that, a good AD is a bit like being a New England Patriots Offensive Lineman --- don't get noticed for screwing up (make bad hires) while enabling your skill position players (the coaches & players) the opportunity to shine and do their best.
From my POV, U-M ADs have generally done that over the years. Goss (bad hires, goofball ideas like the Halo) and Brandon ("celebrity AD" as you said) the 2 exceptions.
Considering Beilein bolted over a month after the season, and seemingly within a matter of a few days of negotiations, I'm sure that did not qualify as a "reasonable advance notice". So how much does he owe?
"Only a $500,000 raise"
The nerve - who could even live on that?