Michigan Daily got spanked, changes Juwan firing headline

Rule #1 of Posting Anything Online--anything:

If you just say something vanilla and obvious and what everyone else is saying... no one will read your post.

The future is for the bold! (And crypto investors!)

I feel like acknowledging the failure of his tenure as a head coach falls pretty low on the "shameful" and "disrespectful" scales. Maybe they could have workshopped "Fab Failure" a little more because it sounds like they settled on the first headline that made it on the board.

How did they get spanked, and who took them to the woodshed?

He did win the B1G outright (2021) and get to both the sweet sixteen(2022) and elite eight(2021), so, not a complete failure. The "great" Tom Izzo couldn't even accomplish all of that in the last 6 seasons.

I am definitely not a "things were better back when" person, but this is pretty disrespectful. There has to be an adult somewhere in the room making sure the writers and editors are being professional in their writing about a former student, athlete, and employee of the school and not just trying to push out a click-bate worthy headline. If they want to point out all of the ways in which the team and coach didn't achieve results, fine. Do it in a news reporting manner, not a tabloid headline manner. 

That they chose to rescind the headline indicates a better decision could have been made in the first place. 

Sounds like the Ny post. 

Shameful?  That is a bit over the top.

I'm fine with the original headline and they should have left it.

Just making sure that everyone notices the headline is actually “fab 5 FAILURE”…

In case that influences anyone’s internet opinion.

I'm 100% fine with it -- especially given what we have heard regarding the disastrous culture he created.

Where's Lou Holtz?

Just me, but I really don't see an issue with it. Could it have been a little nicer? Probably, but his tenure here was a failure. Truth hurts. If the Daily takes that fact and makes it into a witty catchphrase, then that's their choice to make, as long as they are willing to live with the consequences. If people want to stop reading the Daily over it, then that is their choice as well. 

This was not a headline saying that Howard should never be allowed to set foot on campus, the Fab Five should be erased from the history books, that Howard has ugly parents, etc. The headline called Howard's tenure here what it is. A failure. He's still a legandary figure at Michigan as a former player, and he always will be. But his coaching career here was nowhere near up to snuff. 

You don't like it? Don't go 8-24. That result is really freaking hard to ignore. 

Its just hard for me to envision being this offended over this kind of a headline. Then again, we live in an era where everyone is offended by everything so maybe I should accept it as par for the course. 

Shameful? Disrespectful? No.

Correct? Absolutely!

Above the fold headlines on TMD from some notable dismissals:

Ellerbe's Out

Amaker Axed

Dave Brandon Resigns

Rich Rod Out

Brady Hoke Fired

I think the expectation and standard would be "Juwan Howard Fired" or if they want a little more color, "Juwan is Gone."

Labeling him a failure in the headline is undeniably harsh (even if "harsh but fair") and going for Fab Failure (or Fab 5 Failure, depending on your reading of it) is, as others noted, quite tabloid-ish. TMD is not a tabloid.

It was quite literally the worst basketball season in most of our lifetimes.  If that isn't "failure", I don't know what is.  Especially given the roster Juwan started with.

Tacky.

Uh, where's the lie?

Soft. Nothing wrong with the headline.

I'm pretty shocked this is an issue.  Really?

I would have changed the headline to "Fab Five Fail" --- it keeps the FFF alliteration and also keeps all the words 1 syllable, it flows better. 

But other than that: well, Juwan was a Fab Five member and U-M basketball cratered record-wise over the course of his tenure.  Plus he had a couple high-profile issues w/ other coaches, where his behavior could have been better.  Those are just facts - he DID fail at this job.

Besides: failure is an event, it's not a person.  Failing at things happens.  I've failed at jobs too, and at jobs where I didn't have the cushion of a 7-figure annual salary and a nice exit package.  That didn't make ME a failure, it just meant I wasn't successful at one particular thing.

It’s a little harsh, but I’m surprised anyone would be so riled about it that they’d complain.  

I like the "yeah he sucked, but he worked his ass off for the university" type response. I mean yeah I'd hope that's what 3 million dollars a year buys you.

It’s a stupid headline that never should have seen the light of day. Yes, the past couple of seasons have been a lot less than we the fans wished. But, this wasn’t a coach that did anything that shamed the university (even the “slap” was something a lot of us would have considered in the moment and some of us would have done just as he did). Also, the past couple of seasons can’t be laid completely at his feet. If Michigan gets Shannon, and then love from the portal then these past two seasons would have looked a lot different. 
 

The hire didn’t work out long term, for either Howard or Michigan, but there’s absolutely no reason to denigrate the guy on his way out.
 

They swung for the fences and hit a ground-rule double IMO. Beilein left for the same reason why Howard was fired: These dudes leave (NBA or transfer) so dang quick these days. We can do a postmortem on why these guys transferred out or left just to be a G-League role player, but Beilein and Howard had a similar issue when it comes to player retention. The difference is that JB knew how to recruit developmental guys and actually develop them.