Reflecting on Coach Howard’s Hire
I’ve had this thought for a while now, but Saturday’s post game celebration solidified it for me. Juwan Howard’s hiring was a massively positive inflection point for the athletic department and the university as a whole. His father-like presence and emphasis on a winning family environment, as well as his effusive praise of every sport (revenue or not) has completely changed the game. In the past, it felt like other coaches congratulated others within the athletic department out of obligation. But when Coach Howard does it, you know it comes from a place of sincerity. It’s obvious he’s just as excited for other’s successes just as much, if not more so, than his own. His love for this university was evident at his hiring press conference, and continues to be shown in every interaction he has with other coaches, athletes, and students alike. It’s also amazing how much the other athletic programs and the athletes involved have adapted this credo as well. I believe we are just beginning to see the fruits that will come from this. The future is bright, folks! Go Blue! Beat the Hawkeyes!
November 30th, 2021 at 3:00 PM ^
He will never find what he has at Michigan at any other school, or being a pro coach. He is a legend-in-the-making if he wants it
November 30th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
Why are we discussing basketball? Aren't we a football school now?
November 30th, 2021 at 3:04 PM ^
I don't disagree with you OP on your assessment of Howard but to be fair, Jimmy was and is, exactly the same.
The big difference between the two (until this past Saturday) was one had accomplished something here and the other had not.
But their love of Michigan is the same.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:10 PM ^
to be fair, one even grew up a michigan fan.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:14 PM ^
I 100% agree. But I think Coach Howard’s presence has just amplified what Coach Harbaugh brought to the table. The main example of that being Cade praising JJ’s great throw on Saturday. I know Michigan wasn’t a 2 QB system prior to this year, but I doubt that interaction would’ve happened in previous seasons.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
what, you don't think milton was very supportive of cade?
/s
December 1st, 2021 at 5:53 AM ^
Which Milton? Bradley? Berle? Friedman?
November 30th, 2021 at 3:33 PM ^
I don't doubt that Jim loves Michigan, but the public profile Juwan has presented, showing up at all kinds of M sporting events, has been unique.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:01 PM ^
When Harbaugh was first hired, he was all over campus too. He became more private around the time that his honeymoon period wore off.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:56 PM ^
Yes, but Jim has a way of ruffling feathers than Juwan does not. Both appear to be genuine guys but I suspect it is far easier from the outside to dislike Harbaugh.
They both have outstanding traits but one of Juwan's real strengths (at least at this stage) is that he clearly protects his guys without offending others (Turgeon excluded).
November 30th, 2021 at 4:22 PM ^
I think another big difference is their more recent fame and success. Juwan is a few years younger than Jim, and was a lot more famous for a lot longer - I think?
Jim finished 3rd in the Heisman in 1987. He had a long NFL career, but wasn't a superstar. For people of a certain age, he's been a lot more famous for being a weird football coach than he is for being a super athlete.
Juwan was part of the most famous recruiting class in college basketball. He played professionally until 8 years ago, winning a championship with the super-famous Heat.
Jim knows everyone in football, but is famous for ruffling feathers - see the text he got from John Madden. Juwan got congratulated for getting the job by LeBron, and has Jalen & CWebb shouting him out on TV regularly (CWebb in previous years at least). Jim's a 6'1" F150 driver. Juwan is 6'11" and throws a yellow Ferrari in his parking spot.
I think it may just be an age/timeline thing as much as anything.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:33 PM ^
Good point - the other, to me, is that Coach Howard easily connects with people and is able to speak in an engaging manner while this comes a little less smoothly for Coach Harbaugh. that aside, I recall back when Hollis, Izzo, and Dantonio had their little triad going, I actually envied the bond between the three and how that affected spartys fanbase and campus. Now I see how our coaches support each other and realize we have it way better. And to extend into other sports, UM is truly in an amazing place right now.
Go Blue! Beat Iowa!
November 30th, 2021 at 3:07 PM ^
Seeing Juwan and Jim together after the game was so touching. In an era when mercenaries rule, these are two true Michigan Men in every sense of the term. Couldn't be happier with either hire right now.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:07 PM ^
Coach Howard’s hiring should also solidify for everyone that Warde Manuel has been an incredible Athletic Director. He didn’t “play it safe” or go with the “consensus” after losing the best basketball coach in school history to the NBA. He went out and found his guy; a man that loves the University of Michigan and someone who has the bonafides of a successful basketball coach. Then, on top of that, he held firm in his belief that Coach Harbaugh was the man to get the job done with Michigan football. Through all the media frenzy and turn by the fanbase (many of us included), Manuel stayed the course and created a new blueprint for how to “re-hire” coaches who may not be meeting every lofty expectation, but who are nonetheless doing a good job at producing winning football teams. Warde Manuel has designed two new avenues for AD’s to hire coaches. Other schools have already copied his hiring of Coach Howard, and other schools are starting to follow his path on renegotiating a more school-friendly deal with a football coach. That man deserves his due.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:12 PM ^
given the timing of JB's departure, there weren't many choices out there. to me it was a no brainer to get howard, given the other choices. in fact, i was originally very surprised at how little money howard was offered. he was the one holding all the cards at the time.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:24 PM ^
I’m not sure about that. While Juwan was well-regarded by NBA insiders, he’d never held a head coaching job and had not been offered one by anyone else yet (although a couple of teams had inquired about him). The timing also wasn’t that urgent, being in May. This wasn’t like Goss trying to find someone in October after he fired Fish. If we didn’t land him, we had time to find someone else. I think his first deal was fair enough to both parties.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:44 PM ^
the dust had already settled from all of the coaching changes that year. it seemed to me that if howard didn't accept the job, we were going to be stuck with ed cooley from providence. or take a chance on yaklich or lavall jordan. howard is easily the best choice out of that crew.
November 30th, 2021 at 5:17 PM ^
Mike Valenti says ‘Hi!’
November 30th, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
Both guys are perfect for the job. When they hired Harbaugh i was ecstatic but his record up until this season was difficult to justify keeping him. Deep down imm happy he saved his job even when i was calling for him to be fired. Howard won me over from his first season. Great guy, Excellent recruiter. Great coach. He will succeed this season! BEAT UNC!!
November 30th, 2021 at 3:16 PM ^
You couldn't justify keeping him by his record??
If we're looking at his record alone he has always done a damn fine job.
This is the problem I've had all along -- no one could REALLY ever justify getting rid of him..anytime I ever saw that online I would make people answer "Then who?!", and I almost never got an answer, but if I did it was usually Matt fucking Campbell for some reason (lololol). Getting rid of Jim was never the right answer. Glad Warde stuck to his guns.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
There seems to be a portion of the fanbase that has amnesia about 2008-14 and believes that Jim replaced Lloyd.
Harbaugh came here at a tough time. Not only were we down, but OSU and MSU were peaking. One won the national title in 2014 and the other made the playoff in 2015. He had to rebuild the program while competing with both of them in his own division, not to mention PSU. I think people will appreciate this more as time passes.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
if they didn't appreciate it then, they never will.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:17 PM ^
The record was only "difficult to justify keeping him" if you're an emotional kneejerk reaction fan with a shallow analysis. Sorry, but if you tried to use 2020 COVID season to predict anything about the future, you're a moron and deserve to be called out as such. "BuT tHe ReSuLtS" and "LoOk aT HiS rEcOrD iN a SmALL sAmPLe oF BiG gAmEs" are hot takes for imbeciles that allow themselves to be influenced by the Pete Finebaums of the world, who by the way have an axe to grind that actually has nothing to do with the results on the field and everything to do with their dislike of the man.
Did you see Aidan Hutchinson and Coach Harbaugh screaming in each others' faces? Have you thought about the reasons why Aidan Hutchinson decided to return to school this season?
If the best player in college football believes in him, then I believe in him too. Always have. Anybody who doesn't see it that way needs to get their brain checked, and stop running their mouths on message boards for a while. You morons almost cost us this, almost destroyed everything that the program has been building. If you had your way we'd be stuck with "Soup" Campbell right now.
EDIT: And by the way, you loud mouthed under informed morons have completely ruined this blog and message board for the past few years. It feels so good to say to every single one of you dumb shitposters that you need to STFU for a while. Fuck your negativity which by the way can be read by every prospective Michigan recruit in the country, fuck your "hot seat" talks. Take a fucking seat and run your goddamn useless, destructive mouths less, because you've without a doubt cost us recruits and you damn near cost us the win last Saturday.
I am SO FUCKING GLAD that Warde Manuel had the good sense to ignore you fucking crybabies to whatever extent possible, and not turn us into Nebraska post Bo Pelini. I mean goddamn, who do you fucking morons think was going to take the job after Harbaugh gets fired for multiple 10 win seasons, a statistical freak 1 in 10,000 loss to MSU, and a few losses to OSU's 5* laden juggernaut? Do you fucking idiots have any reasoning ability at all or do you just love to bitch and moan and destroy things?
EDIT AGAIN: Do you fucking morons remember that Matt Campbell very publicly did not even want the job? A guy who is 7 - 5 in the Big 12 right now does not want a several million dollar raise to come to Michigan. I don't fucking want him either, but have you morons ever asked yourself why he would say very publicly "eh, don't bother, I'm good here." YOU are the reason why. 100% of it. Your dumb fucking hot takes and your dumb fucking hot seat. We wouldn't even be stuck with Matt fucking Campbell if you got your way, because even he has the good sense that millions of dollars more isn't worth the risk to his career that YOU idiots present. Imagine what any conversation with his agent must have been like, lmao. If he has any kind of good agent that is looking at the long term big picture instead of getting $$'s in his eyes, then he was surely told "I think you should pass, you're on a good trajectory and the Michigan job isn't worth the risk to your reputation if you are anything less than perfect."
November 30th, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
I enjoyed this post.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:58 PM ^
Thanks, after all the dumb bullshit I've read on this message board over the past several years, it feels good to get it off my chest.
I thank the MAIZE AND BLUE HEAVENS that we have a Coach as smart, driven, and passionate about developing the LEADERS AND BEST, as Coach Harbaugh. The fucking chicken littles should remind themselves every day that he isn't here because of you, he's here in spite of you. Not for the fucking money. Not for his fucking reputation, which every slandering hot take merchant has done their very best to ruin as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
Here because he loves Michigan, because he loves the Game Of Football (TM), and here because he loves to mold and develop young men. And we are so goddamn, unbelievably lucky to have him.
November 30th, 2021 at 8:44 PM ^
This resonated with me, Carolina Blue
There are so many outlets where shit posters like RX can dump their Huge Opinions, yet they come here instead and turned so many threads into absolute garbage dumps of mopey, insufferable crabbiness sans any insight or alternative plan forward. Watch them start shitting everywhere again if Iowa goes up 7-3 in the first quarter
November 30th, 2021 at 4:03 PM ^
Co-sign. That was enjoyable for someone to post what many of us have been thinking. And it's not that posters expressed an opinion, it was the continuous complaining in threads that had nothing to do with the coaching. Feels like a weight has been lifted.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:21 PM ^
One can only hope that after the elation of the last week, and the swirl of mercenary coaches selling themselves to the highest bidders, we can reflect on how lucky we are to have both JH's leading our two most visible sports. They run great programs, emphasize academic and athletic excellence, and are truly proud to be a part of this University and the community. The future is really bright. Support Michigan and it's teams. Take a pause before banging out another whiny, critical post. If you don't think athletes take notice, think again. Go Blue.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:32 PM ^
this could be a diary.
i completely agree about 2020. did some programs navigate 2020 better than others? obviously, but using it as the reason for anything, be it firing someone or putting them in a preseason top-10 (cough, indiana, cough) was always both silly and extremely shortsighted.
even if harbaugh had done a perfect job last year (and he didn't, clearly) there were any number of players that weren't all that interested in being all-in...and i can't blame any of those players for that. i'm not sure i would've been all that excited to risk my health, either injury- or covid-wise, on a "sort of" season.
credit to him for taking the covid-fractured staff (and locker room) and remaking it back into his image. the chemistry of this team was undeniably different this season, starting in spring practice. he got buy-in from everyone despite the storm clouds outside the building, and that's not an easy thing to do.
it's obvious, but as 2020 gets further and further in the rear-view we're going to look at it as the most aberration-ey season ever. in that light, harbaugh's tenure is going to look like a long stretch of excellence.
November 30th, 2021 at 5:14 PM ^
Yes some 'navigated' it better than us like OSU illegally practicing. I guarantee we took the pandemic more seriously than most universities and had limited, segregated, ineffectual practices with our extremely young, injury and opt-out riddled team. While we shoulda and coulda coached our way to a 3-3 season it was always silly to judge the program based on that season.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:34 PM ^
you really need to work on expressing yourself better.
Stop holding back your feelings or you are going to explode
hope you get better.
December 1st, 2021 at 2:37 AM ^
Yeah, you don't sound like a loud mouthed under informed moron at all. I mean people like Brian and multiple reasonable posters (like the Steven King dude) were down on Harbaugh after last year. Also, the idea that people posting on this blog were somehow going to bring down Harbaugh, as if Warde Manuel is reading 1100 post game threads is asinine. Shit like this: "because you've without a doubt cost us recruits and you damn near cost us the win last Saturday" is completely bullshit. No one on this fucking message board was impacting the way the team played, for better or worse. Show me what recruit some jackass troll has "cost" the program. You can be as happy as you'd like for Harbaugh, and you can tell everyone who thought he'd continued to fail to go fuck themselves, but this is about the dumbest whinest fucking way to call out crybabys that I've ever seen. You, me, and everyone else here just aren't that important. So go fuck yourself.
December 1st, 2021 at 10:43 AM ^
What a beautiful cathartic post! If you add any more edits to it, please let me know so I can read those as well. This was fantastic!
November 30th, 2021 at 3:13 PM ^
Saw the title, and, because of this fanbase -- assumed you were moving your JH hatred over to, well JH, the basketball one. So, so glad to see that's not the case.
Some people just aren't happy unless they're unhappy.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:18 PM ^
I apologize for the misleading title! Moms can add a positive spin to it if they so choose to.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:23 PM ^
Felt this way since Juwan was hired. He was great as a player and graduated with his academic class and had a very long and successful NBA career. Was and is a great hire.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
I agree, but if we're being realistic all of us know that if Juwan Howard doesn't win enough big games, all the good feelings will dissipate for a not-insignificant part of the fanbase that will be calling for his head on a platter sooner than you might think.
If you doubt this, just go back and review the game threads for Tarleton St., Seton Hall, and Arizona.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:36 PM ^
I, unfortunately, don’t doubt it at all. I just choose not to subscribe to the opinions of those who bemoan any form of success (see: Nick Saban’s recent rant). I will always love this school’s teams and those who work for it, whether they beat their opponents by 1 or 100.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:37 PM ^
or...if you really REALLY hate yourself, read the board following the loss to NJIT, or the week before the "white collar" game against illinois. fire beilein.
i'd go beyond that, actually - don't ever read the game threads, for literally any game UP TO AND INCLUDING SATURDAY. you don't have to dig deep to find unhappy, miserable assholes.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:28 PM ^
Love JH as a coach, I also love JH as a coach. We are truly lucky to have two talented coaches who love our school like we do. I would not trade them for anyone else.
November 30th, 2021 at 3:36 PM ^
We a football school!
November 30th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
Amazing how we hired 2 guys who love this university as strongly as they do. I know we have debated the merits of the term Michigan Man in the past but they are the shining examples of why many desired this trait (though it shouldn't be a qualifier).
I still think Coach Howard will eventually leave for the NBA, but I think he believes he has a mission to accomplish with Michigan before he even begins to think about it. Harbaugh is getting some renewed NFL interest based on what I've been reading on Twitter (as a Bears fan I've heard his name floated quite a bit and apparently he called the Bears his dream job in the past - I would call it a nightmare job personally), but I don't think he's leaving anytime soon either given what he's accomplished this year and what it means for his overall mission at Michigan.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:31 PM ^
What makes Howard great is his awareness to surround himself with top-notch assistants.
November 30th, 2021 at 4:40 PM ^
the embrace between the two was awesome to see!
I know all the coaches in all sports are pretty supportive of one another, so I wasn't surprised to see that embrace - only surprised he was able to locate Harbaugh in that mass of humanity at the end of the game.
What a scene down there!
November 30th, 2021 at 4:59 PM ^
Our stable of coaches across men's and women's sports have been filled with experienced coaches who bleed Maize and Blue who frequently support the other Michigan programs. After a pair of hockey wins in Happy Valley, Mel Pearson stayed behind to watch Michigan football play PSU
Harbaugh loves our university but clearly some personal changes and his newest hungry and younger assistant coaches have made a monumental difference this season otherwise he was in trouble.
Having coaches such as Juwan Howard, Mel Pearson, Carol Hutchins, Bev Plocki, Mike Bottom, et al. really make Ann Arbor a fun place to be and watch sports win or lose.
Congrats too to Kurt Golder ( UM '77 grad and gymnast) retiring after 25 years of coaching the UM Men's Gymnastics team to four NCAA championships (1999, 2010, 2013, 2014) and six Big Ten Conference titles.
Go Blue!
November 30th, 2021 at 5:03 PM ^
FIRE HARBAUGH!!!!!
I'm kidding it just felt funny to type that in lieu of this season :)
November 30th, 2021 at 5:40 PM ^
I remember meeting Juwan Howard like million years ago in an airport when he played for the Bullets. He was a super nice dude then (even as an Uber rich kid, really)— he backed off his security dudes so we could get pictures and stuff with him, so I’m not surprised he’s still great with people. My impression is that nearly every person on campus likes the guy, even people who don’t like sports.
For me, he solidified himself as the right coach last year when he won the conference. Hoke was a super nice dude too, but Howard’s a top talent. I hope he stays for a while, because he has NBA written all over him— he’s that good.
November 30th, 2021 at 6:46 PM ^
Two athletic legends striving to become coaching legends at their alma mater. (Among all the other great coaches in the AD.)
Who's got it better than us?
November 30th, 2021 at 9:30 PM ^
Nooooooooooobody!