Warde comments on critics
Warde says he is making decisions (or non decisions) based on what he think is best for the school and not based on the fanbase/critics. Right or wrong, the criticism is clearly reaching his ears and he's not happy about it.
Hard to disagree with Brian's take on Warde given the track record over the last few years but glad he quickly hired May. I thought it would be interesting for the board to hear his side of things.
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EDIT: Wendy5K said it quite well regarding some of the attack here. I quote: "They veer into personal attacks, sound truly hateful, and many are attacks on his weight. It's one thing to say you didn't like how he handled the Mel Pearson situation, and give rational reasons why. But constantly digging at him and his appearance and making him seem like an ineffectual oaf is beneath us."
Please refrain from such ad hominems. This is a warning.
Carol Hutchins says Hi
Well that's one way to view it, I suppose. I think it's a very warped - I can't hear you - type of view. But it is a view.
Football, baseball, there was at least one more (men's tennis I think). Football, I get Harbaugh was probably leaving, but you have to at least try and keep him. I'm not saying you have to do everything possible, but you have to do everything that's reasonable. And by all accounts it doesn't seem like he did that.
Plus, it's not a good look for a premier athletic department to lose successful coaches to other schools/teams. I'd say three times in eight years is definitely a trend, and probably not a coincidence either, since in all three instances it didn't seem like he put in much effort to keep them.
Well no one ever mentions tennis (or whichever sport it is so that tells you how much anyone cares about that).
So if the three are Harbaugh, Beilein, Bakich, I just fundamentally disagree that JH and JB are guys who left for other teams, or that it’s embarrassing. If your concern is that our college program is less prestigious than the pros, well, sorry. It is. That’s why JH coming in the first place was a big shock to many. (Preemptively let me add, I know Warde was not involved in that.)
Harbaugh wasn't 'probably leaving.'
He was interviewing with NFL franchises in the off-season, for multiple seasons.
He has repeatedly said that his time in the NFL was 'the best time of his life.'
He has repeatedly said there is no greater pinnacle than winning a Super Bowl.
Blame Warde for whatever you want, I don't think he's without flaws. For the love of God give up the 'Warde should've done more to try to retain Harbaugh.' Jack Harbaugh could've been the AD at Michigan and Jim still would've gone to the NFL. He wants to win a Super Bowl, and that's ok.
Per his friend Todd Anson, Jim's relationship with Warde was always strained, at best, and that was a big reason why he continually looked to the pros. While he may have had the itch to leave anyway, working with Warde apparently made that itch worse. With Jim unlikely to ever speak on the record about this, Anson's probably as close as we can get to the source.
It's not hard to believe that Jim wasn't too pleased with Warde suspending him in September over a charge that Jim that disputed. Probably wasn't thrilled to have us cave to the Big Ten, either. At that point, who could blame him for wanting to leave?
Anson has maintained that Jim would still be here if Hackett had stayed around, fwiw.
Except Harbaugh had a strained relationship with his last boss too. Maybe it's him, not Manuel.
and everywhere he has gone. It's a feature with Harbaugh
Per his friend Todd Anson, who hates Warde because Warde wouldn't give his "non-profit" NIL collective permission to use U of M IP to raise money...
Everything bad that happens is 100% Warde's fault, and everything good that happens Warde just got lucky about. Him allowing our old coaches to retire instead of forcing them to stay until they die is the sign of a lazy piece of shit AD.
There is a truth to that. When things are great you can’t do anything wrong. And when things are bad, you can’t do anything right. And we’ve seen that over and over again with how our fans talk about players, coaches and ad.
Gorgeous Al Borges, went from Genius to can’t coach an offense to Fire him now. Well, he got fired and the next season under Doug Nussmeier, Al Borges was a genius again. How fickel fans can be. We went through it with Harbaugh, best coach in cf to fire him to give him the keys to the kingdom again… Funny how that works.
Warde though, I’ve been consistent about him from the outset. Not a huge fan and never was. Too passive with coaches and things that matter. Rather or not things were his fault it does stop at him. Super quick to publicly cut Jim’s salary. Also quick to cut athletic support staff and let coaches roll without an effort to keep them. Some could argue old coaches retiring or the other reply to that could be, coaches in position to retire and don’t want to put up with BS as well. More than one way on this street. Was slow to offer Jim a relevant contract based on the successes of three seasons. I mean, legit 2.5 weeks passed before he made the real offer to be the highest paid coach in cf, and meet other contract demands when anyone that really wanted that would have had that contract approved by Ono and regents Jan 10th and in Harbaugh’s hands Jan 10th when the plane landed! And when it’s clear Harbaugh wanted a shot at the Lombardi Trophy, sure, but that doesn’t give any excuse to not trying to make the real effort.
B1G baseball isn't a priority for a lot of schools. Why would he invest in money when they had trouble attracting fans? Michigan can barely bring in people and can't sell out the stadium. Also, Bakich went for a much better job than Michigan. I would argue that Baseball is like the 7th in the pecking order in Michigan sports.
Also, Bakich has never won B1G despite having better resources than B1G schools. He was the highest paid coach in the B1G.
I would not put it on Warde for losing Bakich. Average Michigan fans doesn't give a shit about baseball and wouldn't know it.
Bakich won the Big Ten twice. Does it really matter if you devote some more money to baseball to keep it competitive like when Hutch had Michigan softball rolling? It is more infuriating when they have a huge budget surplus every year and they nickel and dime everything that they don't need to.
March 27th, 2024 at 11:16 AM ^
Michigan has never won conference under Bakich. He won two B1G tourney which is different than the regular season. Bakich's best finish was 3rd place.
Rich Maloney won the B1G 3 times and 2 B1G tourney titles.
Uh, get your facts right on Bakich winning the Big 10 (Won 2022 BIG Tournament), especially if you're going to ignore he took us to the CWS finals (first BIG team since 2013 to make the CWS).
If one of the big arguments supporting Warde is that he does well with the non-revenue sports, then losing Bakich--who was making UM a destination for baseball players--is a clear counterexample.
March 27th, 2024 at 11:17 AM ^
Bakich has never won the B1G. His highest finish was 3rd place. B1G Tourney are different than the regular season.
Winning the Big Ten tournament counts as winning the Big Ten. He never won the Big Ten regular season title.
B1G baseball isn't a priority for a lot of schools. Why would he invest in money when they had trouble attracting fans? Michigan can barely bring in people and can't sell out the stadium.
Then why bother keeping the sport? We're one of the top athletic departments (resources, prestige, you name it), in the most affluent conference in the country, and yet $500k a year is too big of an investment for the success of the program? What are we even doing here then?
BTW, I don't think there's any way that baseball is 7th in the pecking order. I'd say 4th or 5th, depending on where you slot softball.
In terms of fan support - baseball is worse than 4th or 5th.
It's definitely behind football, mens BB, hockey, women's BB, and softball.
Not trying to make the team competitive because the fan support isn't there is a real chicken and the egg scenario.
The team was competitive, even went to the college WS - and still drew no fans.
Nobody is ever at a baseball game!! Most of you have never gone. You can walk right up and watch.
If you are going to complain about Baseball at least show me your season tickets.
This might be hard to hear but baseball in the state of Michigan isn’t great
Which means you need to do more to retain your coaching talent, not less...
Do more? Michigan is a mid major school in baseball. You get what you get.
A whole bunch of college baseball fans come crawling out of the woodwork when it's a chance to throw shade at Warde. But we don't talk about it in any other context.
I can sort of sympathize with the idea that you could consider investing in baseball to try to make it a "thing." But at the same time, I can't be mad at Warde (or anyone) for economizing on a minor non-revenue sport in order to invest more resources in the bigger sports. Investments should reinforce success, so failing to retain Bakich in order to increase the football assistant salary pool (I realize that is a gross oversimplification, but it's approximately the vibe) is a good idea.
March 27th, 2024 at 12:03 PM ^
I would agree with you if that were the financial situation we're in, where we have to choose one over the other. But it isn't. Further, it is the job of the AD to engage donors (of which we have many) so that we don't have to choose. Along this same line, it is a lot easier (and cheaper) to retain top talent than it is to recruit top talent
March 27th, 2024 at 10:59 AM ^
I have had baseball season tickets since 2018. I give everybody on this thread a free pass to complain, whether they are there every game or not.
March 27th, 2024 at 12:50 PM ^
That's because it's too cold to go see a game when the regular semester is on, and then most are gone when it's warmer out. If they played in the first two months of fall it'd be big.
The die was cast for Jim leaving when Warde reworked his contract after the Covid season. If Warde didn't know it then, he should have figured it out when Jim gave bonus money back to the school to get the staff made whole from losing money during the Covid season.
But then, maybe Jim's departure was Warde's intent all along?
Ok Warde. If you believed in Jim so much then why cut his salary in half? Either you believe in him or you don’t. Sounds like Warde has more lip for Michigan fans than he does with the NCAA.
Ok Warde. If you believed in Jim so much then why cut his salary in half? Either you believe in him or you don’t.
I don't fault him for that. Harbaugh needed a kick in the pants, or something, to get him out of the funk he had been in since 2017. Dude was a zombie shell of his former self. He needed a reboot. And it wasn't so much that his salary was cut than that compensation was shifted from guaranteed salary to incentives (which he immediately started hitting, btw). If he didn't give away his bonuses in 2021, there wouldn't have been much of a dropoff. But once things turned around, Warde needed to get a new contract done, and he didn't seem to be in any kind of a hurry. And most importantly, Warde needed to defend Harbaugh and the program. Which leads me to...
Sounds like Warde has more lip for Michigan fans than he does with the NCAA.
This exactly. I couldn't sum it up any better...
Yeah, the 2020 Harbaugh pay cut was absolutely worth it. He needed that kick in the pants. Did it piss Jim off? Almost certainly. Is it why he went to the NFL? Honestly I doubt it; I think he wanted another crack at a Super Bowl no matter what, but it's probably fair to say that the pay cut made that decision easier for Jim.
But if you'd told me (and I suspect almost everyone on this board) after the 2020 season that we'd get 3 years with 40 total wins, 3 playoff appearances, 3 B1G titles, 3 wins over OSU, and a Natty in exchange for Harbaugh coaching in the NFL in 2024 - would ANY of us have turned that down? That was a great deal, and above all else it worked.
I'm less convinced that Warde could have "kept" Harbaugh even with a new contract. I'm not sure retiring from Michigan was realistically on the table if the NFL offered a Head Coaching job, especially in this current climate where CFB coaches are scrambling to take seemingly any NFL job they can get, just to get the hell out of college. That said, it's fair to think Warde should have at least made a better or more publicly-visible effort. Warde should have tried harder, but I still suspect we'd have wound up here with Sherrone as our HC in 2024 regardless.
But if you'd told me (and I suspect almost everyone on this board) after the 2020 season that we'd get 3 years with 40 total wins, 3 playoff appearances, 3 B1G titles, 3 wins over OSU, and a Natty in exchange for Harbaugh coaching in the NFL in 2024 - would ANY of us have turned that down?
There were many people on here last season that said they'd be OK if Harbaugh wins a national championship and then jumps to the NFL.
March 27th, 2024 at 10:12 AM ^
There are a lot of people on here now who are completely ok with this outcome.
Because Harbaugh has a weakness.for needing an elder mentor... And he wouldnt move on from Brown , which was.gettkng worse. The cut gave the incentive to do what was needed. it also appeased people like you and the regents who wanted.him fired, which would have been catastrophic, because the regents would have felt pressure and pushed to can him. .Master stroke.
People like me? I never wanted Jim fired speak for yourself
March 27th, 2024 at 12:51 PM ^
My apologies...not people like you, but like many others here.
Pearson scandal: "..."
Harbaugh "scandal": "WE TAKE THESE ALLEGATIONS VERY SERIOUSLY AND WILL FULLY COOPERATE WITH THE B1G AND NCAA"
Throwing this at bottom. Jim left and for 3 years was trying to leave. He wanted back in NFL and finally got the offer. He took.
JB decided he was done with everything that went into college athletics. He then barely lasted at the Cavs. Notice how he was never hired again by anyone in a HC role. He was a shooting coach for crying out loud. He was done.
After listening to May's interview with the FAU media on his reasons for choosing Michigan I don't think Warde had as much to do with May coming to Michigan as originally thought.
Sounds like May lived in Ann Arbor for a year while he coached at Eastern, I believe, and loved it. The Michigan Brand also was mentioned several times too.
I know people are still POed about Bakich, but we do realize that Manuel replaced him with a guy that actually has 2 more Big Ten Championships on his resume than Bakich did right?
I understand Bakich was a great tournament coach.
Since then, Tracy Smith was fired by Arizona State and the team is awful this year. I know it's early in his tenure.
And Harbaugh was fired by the 49ers. Was that a bad hire then? Think, McFly. THINK!
They are usually awful and good luck getting the kids at Michigan. Everyone left so Smith is starting over. He has to to take risks on state of Michigan guys who don’t deserve to be there
Warde is the standard deviation on each side of the curve. Never in the middle. Coach May? Right side - good job. Now try to stay away from that left side, Warde.
Warde didn't address whether he was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, so I know which way I'm leaning.
How are decisions he makes on NIL for the sports programs best for the school? The money wouldn't be coming from the University, it would be coming from outside sources. Even if Michigan used NIL the same way other programs do they would still have to recruit high academic student athletes to pass admissions which has always been the Michigan way.
Because the money comes from outside sources, he cannot make any decisions on NIL.
The collectives can do whatever they want, and Warde has no power to do anything about it.
People love to hate on Warde. Honestly, I think Michigan athletics is in a good place under his watch. I can think of a few past athletic directors I wouldn't say that about.
So he's better than Dave Brandon and Tom Goss. That isn't illustrious company...