WTKA Roundtable 6/10/2021: A Sign of Appreciation
Things discussed:
- New allegations from Matt Schembechler that significantly reframe the story reported in the WilmerHale Report.
- Doesn’t change what’s in the report, and doesn’t change the fact that as Michigan fans we want to see Michigan continue to deal with sexual assault cases that continued at the university long after Anderson. Things in the provost’s personnel report didn’t trigger anything for years.
- Seth: disappointed with Harbaugh’s response.
- NIL: NCAA has been kiting, nobody will be ready by July, and that’s the point: the states who recently passed laws to go into effect immediately are just doing a recruiting. Gonna be the Wild West for a time.
- Expanding the playoffs: it’s going to happen, just got to hash out the number. 12 sounds reasonable. Please put them on campuses.
- Juwan Howard’s name in NBA jobs: he’s going to coach his sons, but we get that the NBA is the pinnacle. Interesting that Howard said “that’s in the past” when someone mentioned it to him. It won’t be about the money if/when it happens; it’ll be about “How good am I?”
- Point guard recruiting: we like Seth, since he could play two years at least and could play the two when Eli moves on. Bradley is a much better floor general—Sam says Bradley might stick around for a couple of years but we don’t buy he’s going to stay when he gets a lottery ranking. McDaniel is small, but if it’s getting to the point where Michigan needs to finish the class, okay, pull a Zavier Simpson.
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You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.
Segment two is available here. You can also watch the video here:
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Trimble is the guy we want; if we have to settle for Bradley, okay.
It sure does seem like Brian had a lot to say about how both MSU and Penn State needed to handle their issues regarding sexual assault and highlight mistake after mistake they made. But when it comes to Michigan, mums the word and he suddenly doesn't have anything to say. I guess that's what happens when you view your rivals as morally inferior, just to find out the team you support is no different.
This might be the dumbest thing I’ll read this month.
Brian owns this place. His contributors are discussing it openly. If he wanted to silence Bo’s critics here, he has totalitarian authority to do so.
I didn't imply Brian was silencing discussion of it on his blog. Just pointing out the hypocrisy of how the different events were covered. Brian being a blogger didn't seem to prevent him from hammering MSU for issues with their handling of Nassar. I just wonder if this current situation were to occur at a rival school, would Brian really approach it by saying I'm a blogger and refrain from saying much because it's outside my wheelhouse? The past doesn't suggest he would.
It's a good lesson to learn that all of these institutions reside in glass houses, and it's probably not wise to throw stones when it's happening to someone else.
Why is the NBA the pinnacle for Howard?
Is it a better game? No.
Is there more security? No.
Is the money that much better? No, we could pay him a ton to stay.
Is the NBA more prestigious? No.
What am I missing here? There have been more college coaching legends than NBA by a long shot.
It is however the pinnacle of Basketball competition. We lost Beilein to the same pull. Luckily lightning doesn't strike twice...right...please Zeus?
For the players, sure. NBA coaching is considered highly-paid babysitting (ask Beilein now that he’s learned his thugson — er, lesson) and if your top talent doesn’t like you, you’re expendable. Phil Jackson is the most celebrated coach of my generation and yet everyone who actually paid attention knew he couldn’t win championships without his walking cheat codes. No one cares who the HC of the NBA champs are these days.
The key difference between Beilein and Howard is the latter knows what an NBA coach would be getting into.
It's fine if people *enjoy* the college game better, but the skill level of the pro game is objectively better and a full two tiers above the college game. The prestige thing is arguable and the job security is definitely more perilous in the NBA, but for someone like Juwan who has thrived at all levels of competition he knows for a fact that the highest level of competition is in the NBA and I can understand why he'd want to take a crack.
Obviously no one here wants that and there are many good reasons for him to stay and be a legend here, but it's not like it's a slam dunk no brainer decision for him.
Also, It's always about the money.
Howard is one of the handful of people where the money an sich really doesn't matter. There aren't a whole lot of college coaches who have career earnings near his. Money as a sign of respect or some such is another matter.
I prefer the college game over NBA and it's not even close. But I believe the NBA gets the crown for most prestigious. There are hundreds of college jobs only 30 NBA coaching jobs. I'd give NBA the edge for prestige within the US and international I don't think it's close.
Without looking it up, name the coaches for LBJ's titles winning teams.
I'll spot you Spoelstra, just to prove I can name 1 & that there's 1 NBA coach I believe makes a difference in his team's performance.
The rest?
Point guard recruiting: we like Seth, since he could play two years at least and could play the two when Eli moves on.
Didn't know Seth was a baller. And how does he have any eligibility left? Did he sign up for some grad classes?
I did the same thing at first.
Fisher and Trimble have such similar games people are going to have a very hard time knowing which is which.
I have to ask, did Ace approve?
EDIT: I guess not
I’m crushed about Matt Schembechler’s statement but I also believe it. All of it. Let’s blot out the man’s name, celebrate the players, and put in independent controls so this never ever happens again.
Matt Schembechler is not a credible source.
I believe the others that have come forward and the law firm report. I went to school with Matt and know a bit about his relationship with his family and his background in general. If his brother Geoff or Schemy come out and corroborate his story I'll believe him - please look into his past actions before taking what he says at face value.
I don't know anything about any of it. This is the first time I've heard the name Matt Schembechler. But, when asked why Bo didn't stop it I thought Matt's answer was interesting...basically it gave Bo dirt on Anderson and leverage to treat players and injuries as Bo saw fit. Don't hold players out for injuries that I need to play. I know it was a different era and all, but that tells you a lot about if player safety or wins were more important to Bo, if true.
Couldn't Schembechler have gotten Anderson removed and replaced with a acquiescent doctor who didn't have the baggage that Anderson had?
Maybe Anderson had dirt on Schembechler that precluded Schembechler from nuking him.
I understand Matt has a bias against Bo, but I don’t think we need to wait for Geoff or Schemy to stand and be counted. Because of the dozens if not hundreds of athletes who already have done just that.
Anderson participated in mass football physicals at Tappan every year for 9th grade football. I remember a couple guys from my class right after the physical complaining about the extended play he gave their junk. If he was brazen enough to do it in a gym full of kids, coaches, and other drs, he was brazen enough to do it to Bo’s kid in private
I always wondered what was up with Matt, always seemed strange that someone with such a 'great' dad would lead such a turbulent life. But it also makes perfect sense that if he was molested at 10 years old, told his parents and his dad said shut the fuck up that he would go on to be the "black sheep" of the family.
It's now brutally clear that this was a knowing cover-up of crimes that were, in their day, understood to be awful. There's no more dancing around that fact, and Bo's statue should come down, if not be torn. Etcetera.
But Bo was a bully, in a sport known for bullies. Matt reported in the 90s that Bo used to beat him. Today's wonderful tearaway quote involves the fact that the day that he and his mother confronted Bo about Anderson was 'the first time he hit me with a closed fist.'
Bo was a bully, a known bully, in a sport known for bullies. Some of us have been saying that here for a decade and more, and no one has been interested.
There is a story of serial rape here, as with Nassar. But there is another parallel story about this taking place in a sport and sports environment where bullying was and remains rampant. People not only knew about Anderson, they knew about Bo. And that fact may be a little harder--if possibly as important--to deal with. An ugly undercurrent of something that is as American as apple pie. Rape is, after all, not just a sex crime, but a crime of violence that is an abuse of both physical and symbolic power.
That's why the John U Bacons and other boosters, living off of and on the edge of the phenomenon, will never quite rise above the level of the shill. Of course ambivalence, including on the part of our hosts here, is going to be part of the mix.
None of that is actually true, much less "brutally clear." And Anderson's position was much wider than just AD doctor. If UHS didn't do anything, how is it even primarily a sports story to begin with? It was a bad failure of University practice and procedure and training, in multiple departments.
I'm not sure this is worth responding to. "None of this" is an awfully broad--if imprecise--brush to employ. And I think we all know why this is a sports story, because it primarily involves UM sports, whether Anderson operated in other environments or not; you comment here is little more than obfuscatory nonsense. And I took pains to explain why Bo's bullying--and punching his son/abusing his wife when he was told of his OWN SON'S RAPE--has nothing whatever to do with the UHS. Bo was, by the way, at different points not just the football coach, but occupied various administrative positions. And he was widely understood to be a bullying, tantrum-throwing creep. Something I happen to know bc a family member worked with him, and complained about it all the time.
I think smart phones, the internet, social media, and the platform and speed that it gives people to get out information that would otherwise be difficult to challenge authorities is evening the playing field and balance of power.
Bo is not here to defend himself. It seems like this guy had an animus for Bo his entire life. Not saying he's not telling the truth, but we shouldn't accept everything he's saying as the gospel truth, either. The only other two people who have any real knowledge of this relationship, Bo and Millie, are both dead.
This is the kind of absolute garbage that PSU and MSU fans regurgitated endlessly during their own crisis. It's shameful.
As if getting up in public and saying that you were raped is the kind of exercise that sons like to perform in regard to their fathers. As if we weren't already drowning in evidence of Anderson's crimes.
It takes a special kind of See No Evil monkey to perform the role you're performing here. But apparently they fill trees right across the midwest.
"It seems like this guy had an animus for Bo his entire life".
I'm assuming that having your dad physically beat you when you approach him about getting sexually abused tends to ruin the father-son relationship.
You can (and probably should) to some extent discount what was said this morning. But it's clear that there was a sexual predator running around UM's athletic facilities, and Bo didn't stop him. If Bo didn't know this, didn't understand it, then that speaks badly of Bo.
As I said in yesterday's thread, for most people this was a tough situation to deal with, because it was hard then to get people in authority to take accusations like this seriously. Bo was one of the people in authority, not one of the "most people." He was part of a wider culture that enabled these perverts. His failure at the very least to chase Anderson from A2 should be held against him without reservation.
I think making it a referendum on Matt Schembechler just creates an avenue for argument when there isn't one. It's interesting to me that Matt's been around the program again since Harbaugh came back. Matt's animus for Bo is well known and documented, and he's not a hard person to besmirch in general, but it's all directed at Bo, and has never extended to the university or the football program. I doubt Harbaugh would have invited him back in the "family" if they thought Matt was the creature he was made out to be when the program was denying the Bully Bo article. And if bias is a completely discounting factor for information, then there's no information.
There were two other survivors at the press conference today who told vivid stories, and if the WilmerHale report's account of those stories wasn't enough to convince you Bo knew enough about Anderson to share a small measure responsibility for what came after, seeing their faces maybe drove it home more. We can all see Gilvanni Johnson's and Dan Kwiatkowski's faces here.
So we're all on the same page.
From the moment this came out I think we all realized there's no way Bo, with his attention to detail, would have missed what was going on. I am very afraid we're all going to descend into different camps talking about different things. I could see it at the presser today when the 97.1 reporters kept trying to draw Jim Harbaugh into it.
Anderson sexually abused hundreds. He destroyed peoples' lives. Bo may not have appreciated the depth or scope, but he was told about it, and was in a position to put a stop to it, and if that doesn't change how we all think about him, we're just immune to changing how we think.
but it's all directed at Bo, and has never extended to the university or the football program.
Matt filed suit against both Bo and the U-M Athletic Department for breach of contract.
Ultimately, it doesn't hide the fact that Schembechler was entirely derelict in his duties to his players, and we don't need Matthew Schembechler's allegations to know that.
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