Beilein: "I know that what I should have done is retire at Michigan at that time and then re-evaluated."
“I know that what I should have done is retire at Michigan at that time (after the 2018-19 season) and then re-evaluated. With another group going pro and all the rule changes coming, NIL and the (transfer) portal, all that on the way, the timing was right to retire, then maybe look at being an assistant in the pros, and then entertain the idea of being (an NBA head coach). But I convinced myself and everybody else that I could (rebuild an NBA team) and the truth was, I couldn’t.”
Literally words from John Beilein himself (one month ago in an interview in The Athletic). Yet people keep listing losing Beilein as a failure of the AD.
In other interviews he's called leaving Michigan a "mistake" and he's repeatedly said that leaving had nothing to do with Michigan.
Yet there is this narrative, that Warde Manuel lost Beilein. As if he could've prevented the roster turnover and stopped guys from going pro, made coaches around the country stop cheating, halted NIL and the portal, and prevented NBA teams from coming after Beilein.
Bakich? 100% on Warde...but there is no way you can put Beilein on anyone at Michigan.
...just a reminder because just today 3 different posters have used Beilein as a reason to fire Warde (there are plenty...this isn't one of them, stop spreading lies).
January 13th, 2023 at 7:54 AM ^
Find a new hobby. Lol your donations.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:24 PM ^
Mgrowold, you're a great poster. You're one of the guys I whose opinion I count important and look for. But, man, you're honestly UNDERMINING the case against Warde with stuff like this.
You've never forgiven Warde for not making a public stink about the refs after the 2016 OSU game, even though there's really nothing to be gained from it. You've blamed him for Michigan not moving the Michigan State home game to alternate years (until it quietly happened, maybe Warde did that right?). You were absolutely enraged at Warde for Michigan playing the noon game at the B1G basketball tournament in 2017, except that the team was offered a different tip and the team wanted to play at noon--and wound up winning the whole thing. Your rhetoric suggests that you just hate Warde, and now that there are real signs that he's not cutting it, the rhetoric from Warde-haters makes it sound like this is just another complaint.
And that really undersells the actual issues. Real ones. I've turned on him, and you know how I've been on the issue. But I've turned on him because his handling of the Mel Pearson situation was a disaster (before and after it was publicly known) and there are significant suggestions that he's not taking a good approach to retaining Harbaugh, his #1 job as AD, and possibly NIL issues as well. Stuff that is apparent and can be verified or refuted.
I mean, it's a message board, nobody cares what we think (including Warde, who ignored calls from guys like me to fire Harbaugh in 2020), so it's not that it matters... but, honestly here, I enjoy our interactions and I enjoy your contributions, and your level of hatred for Warde bothers me because you're better than this.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:44 PM ^
Well said - I’ve honestly not come to as strong a conclusion as you even, but I do think the Pearson situation was piss-poor, but putting all these other issues like Mgrowold and other posters have solely on Warde done doesn’t feel right either.
January 13th, 2023 at 12:58 AM ^
He does seem to have quite a bit of Warde hate. Hopefully he knows the guy personally because I’m not sure how you can muster up that much negativity for the guy. He’s not a great AD but damn.
January 13th, 2023 at 1:01 AM ^
Stop sermonizing he’s allowed his opinion and doesn’t take 10,000 words every post to make his point. Cough, cough.
oh, and he happens to be correct
January 13th, 2023 at 8:21 AM ^
he's incapable of saying "good morning" in less than two paragraphs.
January 13th, 2023 at 7:53 AM ^
I don't get this soapbox moment, SRJK. Why criticize Mgro for not agreeing with the reasons he loathes Warde? He's entitled to his justifications, just as you are yours, but why air grievances over his take because you think yours are the right ones?
You can claim that he's held to a higher standard, or whatever, but this just seems pedantic.
January 13th, 2023 at 8:23 AM ^
he gets one MgoPoint for each character in his comment.
January 13th, 2023 at 10:07 AM ^
I do agree that his credibility takes a hit when everything seems like a rant and he's lumping in things as demerits against Manual when some of those things had nothing to do with him (Beilein and Bakich are cases in point).
That said, I also have to wonder how much he was hamstrung by Schlissel on things like NIL. He barely tolerated college athletics and probably wanted nothing to do with NIL. The fact that we had anything under Schlissel's administration was probably a miracle.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:50 PM ^
I hope I have as much enthusiasm as you do when I’m your age. No sarcasm.
January 13th, 2023 at 5:13 AM ^
i admire a commitment to the bit and all that, but this is getting weird.
January 13th, 2023 at 7:52 AM ^
I’m not sure you’re ok
January 13th, 2023 at 9:59 AM ^
I've soured on Warde M. a lot over this year to where I am overall with you in your opinion, but re:Beilein, I agree with the OP that this isn't on Warde M. This was pre-NIL and Beilein wanted to coach at the one level he hadn't succeeded at before it was too late and c'est la vie. It definitely felt like a slug to the stomach at the time, but he probably felt he'd done everything he could do at Michigan and didn't feel like fighting off AAU bagmen.
There are PLENTY of things that I think one can and should criticize Manuel for, but I think we do ourselves a disservice when we pile on with unjustified stuff in our haste to do so.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:39 PM ^
I'm not a big supporter of Warde Manuel, but I hate to imagine how bad the situation would be if Dave Brandon were still the AD.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:24 PM ^
No sane person would disagree with that, but that bar is so ridiculously low that it's not a reason for praise or optimism.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:25 PM ^
That's a pretty low bar.
A pop flinging monkey could have come in after Brandon and done a serviceable job.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:30 PM ^
Well at least Brandon was not a poop flinging monkey. That would get even more smelly and messy.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:44 PM ^
Doh.
Faygo FTW then.
I'm definitely from Michigan
January 13th, 2023 at 12:29 AM ^
You forget how smug and obnoxious Brandon was. From sitting in Hokes defense meetings, to getting spurned by ND.
January 13th, 2023 at 6:35 PM ^
I'm totally with Swarbrick on this one. Brandon is a class 'A' asshole and Swarbrick giving him that letter right before kickoff was a powermove that Brandon had coming to him.
I know there's a huge "to hell with ND" contingent on this board but totally on Team Swarbrick for that one -- I would have done the same thing to fuck Brandon.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:39 PM ^
While I agree with you on Beilein, no, the loss of Bakich is NOT 100% on Warde.
Bakich is now with a southern school where a spring baseball schedule is conducive to long-term success. As good as we were for a couple seasons, much of the reason was Chris Fetter---when he left for a Major League position in Detroit, so also did our likely only path to continuing that success nationally.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:44 PM ^
Everyone who complains about losing Bakich has never even gone to a Michigan baseball game. It’s a non revenue sport in the North that has 11.5 scholarships to split between like 40 players. It’s literally irrelevant! Most kids are lucky if they get 20%
January 12th, 2023 at 10:24 PM ^
This couldn't be more true. I follow M baseball on all the social media platforms and they don't have much of a following. Nor do they get people to go to games before May. People are excited when we make the playoffs and that's about it. Northern baseball is a shadow of southern and western baseball. Occasionally a Big Ten team hits it, like we did or Maryland last year, but the greener pastures are actually greener, and they're in the south, like Clemson. Everything baseball is better there.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:43 PM ^
I think it’s less that Beilein left and more that Warde gave the impression of being blindsided, and didn’t really seem to have a plan to find his replacement. He was fortunate to have Juwan fall into his lap.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:21 PM ^
Was he?
January 13th, 2023 at 12:11 AM ^
I mean it’s not like there was a pile of obviously better candidates to pick from at the time.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:45 PM ^
I don't know much about Warde Manual or the inner dealings of the AD. But I do feel comfortable saying that Coach Beilein left for his own idiosyncratic reasons. As bright and insightful as Brian is, I think he at times misses the fact that people sometimes make decisions for their own specific reasons.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:57 PM ^
He just wanted to work with Thugs I mean Slugs
January 12th, 2023 at 10:02 PM ^
Oh man, things did not go well there in Cleveland. But Coach Beilein didn't know it was going to be like that!
January 12th, 2023 at 10:34 PM ^
I mean calling your players thugs wouldn’t go well in any sport arena
January 12th, 2023 at 10:44 PM ^
Sure, but he misspoke. Barkley, Shaq, and others defended him.
January 13th, 2023 at 6:43 AM ^
Well if he didn’t know he was an awful fit for the NBA his self reflection needed to improve. A lot of people saw that coming from the space station
January 12th, 2023 at 10:04 PM ^
“Idiosyncratic reasons” that amounted to basically hating where the college game was going. That disillusionment didn’t happen overnight.
Warde is the AD! It’s his job to make sure his key employees aren’t miserable. He can’t change the whole world of college BB but he can help his coach find support. He can get him in touch with the right people to convince him the grass won’t be greener in Cleveland.
Even if it wasn’t possible to keep Beilein, Warde should have been able to anticipate it and not been in panic react mode.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:11 PM ^
Being ready for Beilein to leave is one thing. I'll punt on that. I'm not trying to defend Warde on all counts.
But I just don't see how he could have made up for the fact that college basketball was becoming more and more about what Beilein hated the most: having to maintain a roster in an environment that's flooded with cheating. There's not much that any AD can do about that.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:27 PM ^
Being ready for Beilein to leave is one thing. I'll punt on that.
Any mature, high-performing organization should have a standing succession plan for all of its key personnel. That's like executive leadership 101.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:52 PM ^
When you have issues with the three most important positions in your organization, that says something about your leadership.
1. Beilein - blindsided by his leaving
2. Harbaugh - is an explanation really needed?
3. Pearson - not understanding that was obviously going to be a shitshow.
When your new boss gets to witness both how you handled Harbaugh and Pearson, you should probably be looking for a new job. As a general rule, you want to solve problems for your boss, not create them.
Too many things have gone wrong for Ward to get the benefit of the doubt.
January 13th, 2023 at 1:08 AM ^
Buffalo, UConn, UM - which of these things are different?
He wasn’t ready then, he’s confirming that now.
Peter principle personified.
January 13th, 2023 at 8:26 AM ^
kinda like
Ball State, San Diego State, Michigan
January 13th, 2023 at 5:17 AM ^
wait, beilein’s disillusionment and hatred of the direction of the college game is…manuel’s fault? y’all are giving warde manuel way way way too much credit.
beilein was and is an uncommonly clear-thinking, level-headed adult. it wasn’t up to warde manuel to find someone that could tell beilein what life in the nba would be like.
January 13th, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
Insofar as Manuel, in his role as a director of a huge and influential athletic department, could have provided resources, support, pressure on the NCAA, whatever he could to mitigate the issues causing Beilein to go from “mild disillusionment” to “I quit”, yes, it’s his fault.
Now maybe this wouldn’t have been enough. One AD can’t control the NCAA or make AAU go away or whatever. But it’s not clear he tried to do anything at all - or was even aware that there was a problem.
And he was Beilein’s boss. Should Beilein have been smart enough to know on his own that Cleveland was a bad move? Sure, but that’s not an excuse for Warde to ignore the problem and say “screw it, he’s a big boy and can make his own decisions”. By Beilein’s own admission, he made a bad choice partly out of emotion. Warde’s role should have been to provide the mentoring and objective feedback to help Beilein make a better decision (and incidentally would have made Warde aware that he needed a succession plan ready to go).
January 13th, 2023 at 10:54 AM ^
Insofar as Manuel, in his role as a director of a huge and influential athletic department, could have provided resources, support, pressure on the NCAA, whatever he could to mitigate the issues causing Beilein to go from “mild disillusionment” to “I quit”, yes, it’s his fault.
okay, i'll play. what *specific actions* should manuel have taken. show your work. "provided resources?" what resources would those be? "pressure the ncaa?" in what way? the things that beilein didn't like - recruiting, transfers, one-and-done and AAU stuff - are far more commonplace now than they were when he left. do you honestly think that the vague, undefined "pressure" you wanted warde manuel to take would have stemmed the tide in any way? you can't honestly think that.
Warde’s role should have been to provide the mentoring and objective feedback to help Beilein make a better decision (and incidentally would have made Warde aware that he needed a succession plan ready to go).
this notion that john beilein - john beilein! - needed "mentoring" before making a job change (his eighth!) is frankly ludicrous. it assumes that warde manuel, in his third year in his position, could have either talked beilein out of it, or found some sort of magic argument that beilein hadn't considered.
i'll grant that warde manuel has made some mistakes during his tenure. john beilein leaving for the NBA is not one of them.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:45 PM ^
Interesting quote, and I still think Warde should be held accountable for Beilein leaving. Sorry, he is an executive who took a big boy job that pays $1.1m per year. His job is largely to manage relationships and retain talent at key positions. He was caught off guard by Beilein leaving. He bears responsibility for that because his salary says so. That’s the nature of jobs like that - no excuses.
Also do you really think Beilein was going to throw Warde under the bus in an interview? Really? He’s not that kind of guy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak negatively about anyone in an interview. I do think he may have privately resented Warde stepping on his toes over the Spike Albrecht transfer and forcing him to apologize, but that’s speculation.
Name one great accomplishment of Warde’s in his tenure here. I’ll wait.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:51 PM ^
Manuel could possibly have been better prepared for Beilein leaving. But how could he have kept him? Everything that Beilein has ever described as a motivation for leaving was largely beyond Manuel's control. It wasn't about money.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:50 PM ^
I'm sure it wasn't about money. But I wonder what kind of professional relationship the two of them had. If you really love working for your boss, it makes it a lot harder to leave.
Since 2019 we've had our winningest basketball coach (Beilein) leave, our phenomenal baseball coach (Bakich) leave, our titanic legend of a softball coach (Hutch) decide to retire, and our football coach, coming off a CFP appearance, was on the verge of accepting the Viking job if offered. That's a lot of turnover of elite coaches in a relatively short time.
Do I think Warde is the primary reason any of them left (or was about to, in Harbaugh's case)? No. But could another AD have forged a better working relationship with them, and maybe then had an easier time persuading them to stick around another year or more? It's possible.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:52 PM ^
I mean… that’s pretty vague. Yes, it’s possible, but at the same time other than some random Todd Anson innuendos there doesn’t seem to be anybody that’s come out and said they don’t like Warde or have a bad professional relationship with him. People are jumping all over Warde because our football coach is pulling the same shit he did last year after promising not to do so - this is the only thing we know on the record. It feels weird being a “Warde defender”, because I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the guy - but ultimately, the disrespect by some posters to a UM alum and letterman seems pretty uncalled for
January 13th, 2023 at 7:56 AM ^
In general, most people looking for another job don’t publicly trash their boss. The flip-side of the question of no one saying they have a bad relationship with Warde is how many people are saying that they have a good relationship with Warde?
When you have multiple instances of high profile, successful coaches leaving or threatening to leave because they are unhappy, at some point, you have to look at the common denominator.
January 13th, 2023 at 5:22 AM ^
Since 2019 we’ve had…our titanic legend of a softball coach (Hutch) decide to retire…
lol. you cannot be bringing up hutch retiring as a warde manuel joint. how about red’s retirement, too? i mean, he was only in his 70s.
January 13th, 2023 at 9:23 AM ^
I’m indifferent on Warde but he DID retain KBA
January 12th, 2023 at 9:52 PM ^
What? You want us to take human nature and personal choice and nuance into account when we make sweeping judgment.
Radical!
January 12th, 2023 at 9:55 PM ^
I have no insight here other than I highly doubt that even if Warde did lose Belein that Belein would ever throw anyone under the bus. That guy is as classy as it comes, a high character coach, and did so much for Michigan basketball.
There seems to be a pattern to all this that is either highly coincidental or highly suspect in terms of the involvement of Warde in these events. I just don't want to lose Harbaugh at this point if he really wants to stay and I just hope he's not being slighted behind the scenes.