Search4Meaning

November 12th, 2010 at 8:28 PM ^

As Michigan with Brandon at the helm, we should have a very capable replacement soon.

Judy, good luck to you and your family in South Carolina.  Thanks for your 9 years of service and all that you have done for us.

pullin4blue

November 12th, 2010 at 8:34 PM ^

It sounds like a mutually advantageous time for a split between she and the University of Michigan. I wish her well.

I do not know if she had anything directly to do with the failure of CARA reports being filed, but I think that DB will leave no stone unturned in trying to root out anyone who has not been supportive of the program either by declaration or by deed. 

While Bill Martin was still AD, I had a friend who he was talking to. He said that the people from the NCAA knew exactly what to ask for, what day, what event, etc. He said the only way to know things that the NCAA was directly asking for was by having someone inside the University feeding them the information. He was very frustrated that he couldn't find out who it was. DB seems unlikely to tolerate anyone who is not "all-in" for Michigan.

MGoShoe

November 12th, 2010 at 8:35 PM ^

...Jamie Morris may have been the person who broke this earlier this afternoon (around 4:30):

JMorris23 Judy Van Horn compliance head @ UM leaving effective Jan 7. Taking job @ south carolina

Jamie appears to have an interest in who's in and who's out in the AD.

James Burrill Angell

November 13th, 2010 at 10:49 AM ^

Whether its taking another job or retiring there DB is definitely getting rid of the old guard. Whats the roll call now?

Marty Bodnar, Judy Van Horn, Jamie Morris, Brad Labadie, Ron Warhurst, Lloyd. I also noticed that Bruce Madej has some new title that looks oddly like a retirement job. Makes you wonder (a) who's next? (b) who is replacing these people?

gobluesasquatch

November 13th, 2010 at 12:16 PM ^

Just to make a correction on this one, that decision was Ron's call, and not Brandon's. He's been coaching at Michigan for over thirty years, is in his sixties, has a younger boy ... just decided he wanted a change. He's now coaching professional and non-professional runners. 

I can't speak about the others, but that was not a move to get rid of the old guard. Besides, Carr never seemed interested in an athletic department job anyhow. 

MGoShoe

November 13th, 2010 at 3:10 PM ^

...about Van Horn in this morning's pre-game chat with Bruce Madej and replied to me privately.  Van Horn's departure was not engineered by anyone at Michigan. She took the South Carolina job on her own and there's currently a candidate search underway. Makes sense since there was no announcement about a successor in Brandon's abbreviated comment about her move.

madtadder

November 12th, 2010 at 8:35 PM ^

Definitely feel for Judy. From the email exchanges between her and Scott Draper and Brad Labadie, most were of the "JESUS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHERE ARE THOSE DAMN CARA FORMS!?" variety. Sucks she had such shitty people dropping the ball and making her look bad (or worse, I suppose some blame does go to her for not taking it over their heads).

Maize and Blue…

November 12th, 2010 at 9:00 PM ^

Those emails were what once a month.  If you don't get what you want and you know it is a violation wouldn't you want to get off your lazy a** and confront the issue face to face or take it to a higher power?  Maybe you should include the HC of the football team in a BCC or CC of the emails so he knows what is going on.  Pure incompetence in my eyes.  Two down one to go.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

November 12th, 2010 at 11:23 PM ^

I highly doubt that once-a-month emails were the only requests for them that she ever made.  Don't forget that compliance people do everything by email, or at least back up all their face-to-face conversations by email, so there's a paper trail.  If she'd never sent them how do you prove to the NCAA you ever asked for them?

Clarence Beeks

November 12th, 2010 at 8:36 PM ^

I don't get this move for USC.  They have serious compliance issues stemming from the whole hotel scandal this summer and they go out and get someone who received a letter of reprimand for a compliance issue?  I love the state of South Carolina as much as anyone else who lives here, but, uhhh, sometimes the folks who run the school down in Columbia ain't too bright...

Note: my comment has nothing to do with the individual in question, or what she was reprimanded for, but rather it goes to a general point about apperances.

Yostal

November 12th, 2010 at 9:10 PM ^

I also know she just won her professional organization's highest honor and is generally thought of by her peers (in reading the ESPN the Magazine article ($)) as highly skilled, but caught in a bad situation.  Her going to South Carolina, ironically, might be to help them look like they're making a clean start with someone who has been through this.  CARA forms are not the same as expense reports and the like.

LB

November 12th, 2010 at 9:00 PM ^

I have friends who think Michigan Football is only about wins and losses too. We never stop being Michigan, some years we win more games than others. How far back do we go for "not part of a winning generation?" Were Tom Brady, Jake Long, or perhaps Lamarr Woodley not ready?

I salute what I think you were trying to say, but don't lose sight of the big picture.

vegasjeff

November 12th, 2010 at 9:17 PM ^

For me "the big picture" comes down to just a few things. Are the athletic programs winning and clean? Mens hoops,  hockey and baseball? And, most important, is the football team winning conference titles or competing for conference titles? Equally important, is the football team winning our fair share of games against Ohio State?

UMICH1606

November 12th, 2010 at 8:49 PM ^

Well that leaves only 1 guy left who needs to be encouraged to look for another line of work. Whether Dave Brandon is ultimately a fan of Rich Rodriguez or not, there are a handful of people who should not be around anymore regardles who ends up coaching this football team into the future. Tipping the FREEP, and or NCAA off about these missing forms? Really? How hard would it really have been to copy Rich Rodriguez in one of the dozens of emails about people asking for job descriptions of the QC staff, or the CARA forms that needed to be turned in. It was either serious stupidity or serious neglect, and I am glad that they have been asked to start sending out their resumes.

bronxblue

November 12th, 2010 at 8:51 PM ^

Wish Judy the best - it did seem like she was caught up a bit in the chaos that was the AD's department for a couple of years.  What I will say is that the tone of the Freep article continued the gross mischaracterization of the situation that has been a hallmark of their coverage. 

Section 1

November 12th, 2010 at 9:21 PM ^

1.     This is not a demotion for Judy.  I'll bet the pay is good, and it is not any kind of a step down for her.  That's good.  She will continue to move up the ranks in intercollegiate athletics.

2.     The Free Press loves this story, for whatever, because it gives them a chance to toot their own horn (sorry) about what a grand cleanup they initiated.  That's nonsense.  There is no good purpose that has been served to the University of Michigan by the Free Press.  Not now, not ever.

3.     Michigan's Athletic Department and Compliance remains, in general and with a few very notable exceptions, "royalty" in the world of intercollegiate athletics.  How do I know?  Without sharing too much that was private, I'd like everybody at MGoBlog to know that in the wake of Michigan's filing its written response to the NCAA Notice of Allegations, in private correspondence, I congratulated Michigan's outside counsel, Gene Marsh of the Lightfoot firm in Birmingham, Alabama, on his and his firm's brilliant work.  I thought, and still think, that hiring Lightfoot was pure excellence on the part of Bill Martin.  The part of Gene Marsh's response to me, that I am more than happy to share with all of you and which I am sure that Gene would not mind, is that he wrote to me, "You should be very proud of your alma mater."

 

http://www.lightfootlaw.com/alabama-lawyer/attorney.cfm?ID=75

HermosaBlue

November 13th, 2010 at 3:33 PM ^

Technically, yes.

Still, when a middle manager fails repeatedly over several months to comply with a non-optional request that is critical to your own job performance, would you not escalate the matter to said middle manager's boss?

In that situation, it really becomes a question of who's ass is in a sling - mine or the asshole who's not complying with a request that's not optional?  After a month of that bullshit I would've had Rodriguez on the horn and skewered Draper & Labadie.

Fuck collegial.  Those assholes endangered the program and should've been hung out to dry after a couple of weeks of non-compliance with Compliance's requests for job descriptions and CARA forms.

I think Judy's only failing here was not being aggressive enough in doing her job, but, in all candor, it's a *big* failing, and it's on her for letting Draper & Labadie get away with it and not telling RR or Bill Martin that this was getting to be a serious problem.

uphillfrombighouse

November 12th, 2010 at 9:37 PM ^

than just email.  Mr. Brandon knew who was being forthright with him. Pullin4blue... just the tip of the iceberg.  Mr. Brandon knows who was making the calls on his black berry from inside. Now it is all behind us.  Now we can all move forward. 

Undefeated dre…

November 12th, 2010 at 10:42 PM ^

Good article from ESPN the Magazine a few months back (http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/insider/news/story?id=5455740; paywalled, sorry). Here's the lede:

 

The irony is lost.

Nobody acknowledges it as the woman bounds onto the stage, an ovation at her back, to receive her industry's highest honor. It's a late-June morning, in a half-full Anaheim hotel ballroom. This is the presentation of the Frank Kara Leadership Award at the National Association for Athletics Compliance convention, bestowed annually on the member who best demonstrates "leadership" and "vision." The winner is Michigan's Judy Van Horn.

Behind the podium, Van Horn -- early 50s, with fashionable purple glasses, a broad smile and shiny hair the color of wheat -- raises the diamond-shape trophy. But only for a moment, as if an award she's waited her entire 21-year career to receive suddenly felt empty. A month earlier Michigan released an internal investigation of its football program. It revealed four major violations, including illegally long practices and impermissible staffer-player contact. The university doled out seven letters of reprimand, including ones to head coach Rich Rodriguez and Van Horn, the Wolverines' compliance officer, for failing to "adequately monitor" the football program. For Van Horn, that meant failing to do her job.

Now, on this day, she's being recognized for doing it better than anyone else. As she leans into the mic, her voice cracks, as if she were about to talk about how tough the tarring of her previously unblemished reputation has been. But she doesn't. Instead she says, "At the end of the day, when I look at this award, I think, This isn't about me. It's about our profession. I love this profession. I love the people in it. I know it's challenging, and there are times we wonder why we do it, because it's thankless." Then she pauses.

Those in the audience nod their heads.

I wish Judy well and know she did her best. And I'm putting my trust in Brandon, who I think is better suited to run the AD than Bill Martin was (Martin was/is a great businessman, but not a great AD).

BlueinLansing

November 12th, 2010 at 10:36 PM ^

associate athletic director for compliance and senior women’s administrator at UM.

 

  to senior associate athletic director/senior woman administrator.

 

I see an extra Senior in there than before, this is a promotion if you will.

BlueGoM

November 12th, 2010 at 11:37 PM ^

How many people have been forced out because of this whole fiasco?

I know the one guy who apparently lied to the NCAA was let go  (grad assistant?), but I wonder how many others have been let go?

03 Blue 07

November 13th, 2010 at 12:30 AM ^

Brad Labadie, who was the guy who wouldn't do what he was supposed to for the woman who just announced she's moving on, resigned in August. When I read the whole document dump, my impression was he was, by far, the biggest problem; Brian scorched him in his article where he analyzed the document dump, which included all the emails from compliance asking the guy to do his job, which he only ended up doing once the Freep came to M and said the article was coming out. I mean, there is one email where she's like, "uhh, the NCAA audit people are here, and asking where your CARA forms are, and where your descriptions of what the grad assistants do, and you still haven't gotten me them; they're in my office!" and he still didn't get them done properly for another. . .5 months, if I recall. She'd been hounding him forever. Compliance people are essentially the bane of the Athletic Departments' existence. I read that ESPN article as well; it was illuminating. They're essentially like auditors- everyone views them as a pain in the ass, and they don't seem to have enough "pull," generally, in athletic departments. From the emails and the stuff we turned over to the NCAA, it seemed that was the case at M as well. At one point, Labadie's boss, who's an Assistant AD (his name escapes me) weighed in on behalf of Labadie to basically tell Judy to stop bugging him, sort of "big timing" the compliance department, as I read it. . .

bjk

November 13th, 2010 at 3:03 AM ^

Brian's story on the document dump, and I distinctly remember his portrayal of the barrel that Brad Labadie's non-responsiveness put her over. Who knows what's going on behind the scenes -- maybe treating the saints and sinners all the same is the way to clear the decks without giving haters such as the F**** more ammunition for their permanent campaign of defamation.

w2j2

November 13th, 2010 at 6:50 AM ^

IMHO, Judy Van Horn is taking the fall for the compliance department. 

While she did nothing wrong in this fiaso, she WAS captain of the ship.

The last guy who needs to go is Scott Draper, who was Brad Labadie's boss, and who let Labadie get away with not doing his job.  A lot of this is on Draper.  Those 2 guys are the real culprits in this whole mess.  IMHO