endzone

Let's Have An "Endzone" User Q&A Comment Count

Brian

51OXJPqGd-L._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_[1]Now that many of you have had time to read Endzone, I asked John Bacon if he'd answer whatever questions you have about it or the events that transpired therein. And hell, if you've got questions for me about the relatively minor role I play in said book fire away.

Now, Bacon can't answer questions like "whyyyyyyy" or "how did this even I don't even what is going on." Also, some things he left out of the book are things he can't go on the record about—that's why they're not in the book. There were many cuts for reasons other than an inability to confirm or get someone on the record, though, so if there are holes you wonder about there's a decent chance he can fill in the gaps.

We'll collect the questions left in the comments, pick the ones that Bacon can actually answer, and then have them answered. That's the way a Q&A works. You've seen it before. You know the drill. You may even perceive that I'm just typing until the text is of sufficient length to  get past the image. That's the Michigan Difference.

Comments

Zone Left

September 7th, 2015 at 4:34 PM ^

Was there a cost-benefit analysis for any of the marketing ploys during Brandon's tenure? In other words, was there an incremental dollar made from Beyoncé, Eminem, jet pack guy, etc? I understand what they got out of it, but what was the benefit for Michigan? Oh yeah, Pop Evil, Appalachian State.

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Built Ford Tough

September 7th, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^

My questions are similar to the others:

1) What steps are being done to undo the damage done to the AD under Brandon? Are some of the lifers being asked back to the department? Should we be concerned that Brandon lackeys are still scattered throughout the AD?

2) Bill Martin worked to remove ads from Crisler while Brandon worked to put ads everywhere he could. Is Hackett working on reversing this and (most importantly) removing the ads from the Big House concourse?

3) Any word on potentially removing Brandon's sign on Stadium Ave? Many townies hate the thing and removing it would help repair relations with the city.

4) What does Bacon think of the department moving forward? We seemed to have "fixed" football and taken a step back from the worst excesses of Brandon. But what can we expect from the AD moving foward, whether that is under Hackett or another AD?

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calgoblue81

September 7th, 2015 at 4:43 PM ^

First let me say that I thought it was an excellent book - you put the facts out there and let the readers draw the conclusions. Here is my question. You mention numerous times how genuine Brandon's commitment was to the student athletes, but my takeaway is that it was driven more by his view of his own self importance and hubris - that by treating the student athletes as his flock that he watched over it fed his ego. How else can you explain his total disregard and disrespect towards the the letterman and former athletes that wanted to continue their support and involvement with the University and its football program. Once you were no longer a student athlete you no longer mattered - I had trouble reconciling his genuine commitment with the treatment after graduation.

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bcabes

September 7th, 2015 at 4:47 PM ^

I finally pulled the trigger on the book today. I just wanted to point out that if you search on amazon for "brandon's lasting lessons" Amazon reconginzed the phrase and the first result is Bacon's book.

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GoBlueNorthside

September 7th, 2015 at 8:28 PM ^

At the beginning of the book you provide a brief history of the UM football program. There were a number of claims that I have had difficulty corroborating via Google/Wikipedia.

* Michigan had the first athletic director in the country

* Charles Baird was the first to charge a substantial amount of money for football tickets

* Yost was innovative in his use of the forward pass (Wikipedia doesn't mention him at all)

* Michigan was the first to have an IM sport building

* Michigan was the first to use the platoon system

* I'm having trouble remembering the other ones... sorry

The reader is left with the impression that Michigan practically invented (as we know it today) not only college football but college athletics in general.

Do you have some references that you can point to for these claims? Prefereably outside of the Michigan community?

 

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Built Ford Tough

September 7th, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^

Not a football question, but did Bacon get a sense of Hackett's plans for a post-Red Hockey program? Would love to think he would be leading the methodical search to ensure hockey is taken care of (whether that's bringing back Pearson or someone else).

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Eye of the Tiger

September 7th, 2015 at 4:51 PM ^

This is a more general question about the negative trajectory of the program since 2012. At post-loss press conferences, Hoke always talked about how players looked great in practice, basically stating that his staff could not have anticipated their poor performance in games. There has been some speculation on here about ways practices may not have adequately prepared our team--did you observe or hear anything that might speak to that?



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MUUM79

September 8th, 2015 at 6:57 PM ^

I am also interested in Nussmeier's perspective, as he came from a very successful program in Alabama. Did he have an opinion on the differences in the coaching philosophies/techniques of Hoke vs Saban? Or notice a quality difference in the assistant coaches he had working under him while at Michigan?

Did he voice any concern in the atmosphere of the Athletic Department of Michigan vs Alabama. Ie why is Brandon sitting in our film sessions?



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ilah17

September 7th, 2015 at 4:59 PM ^

Mike Debord is portrayed as Brandon's puppet. I used to respect Debord a lot. What role did he play in the deterioration of the dept? If he had stood up to Brandon, would he have listened, or like so many others, would he have been fired? Would also love to know where everyone has gone, like the tennis coach. Thanks! Go Blue!



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jimmyshi03

September 7th, 2015 at 5:01 PM ^

Bacon pointed to a specific moment, the inability to score from the one on the first drive of the second half against Illinois in 2009, as perhaps the moment the tide against Rodriguez turned. Was there a specific moment like that for Hoke and Brandon (such as the OT play calling against PSU)?

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SouthForestAve

September 8th, 2015 at 11:31 PM ^

Looking back, I think the Akron game is where the tide began to turn. The week before we beat Notre Dame at home in prime-time by double digits with College Gameday broadcasting from Ann Arbor. We scored 41 points against a defense with a lot of future NFL players and came out of the game riding high with big expectations for the future. The next week, a terrible Akron team came to town not having won a road game in years and was inches away from giving Michigan the worst loss in program history. Even though we won, the team was never really the same after that. We almost lost to a UConn team that fired their coach the next week and then came the horribly coached Penn State game, and the disasters against MSU and Nebraska.

Prior to 2013, the coaching staff had some horrible gameplans against Notre Dame and Ohio State, didn't seem to make good use of Denard Robinson, didn't recruit a QB ahead of Shane Morris, tried Garnder at receiver even though Bellomy clearly wasn't ready etc. But I still thought we'd be OK. The 5 losses we had in 2012 came against some of the best teams in the country. The Akron game is where you began to see something was very wrong.

 

 

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FlossDiligently

September 7th, 2015 at 5:10 PM ^

In the book it was pretty clear that Brandon's midnight emails were a point of no return for his tenure as AD, but I was left with the impression that they would have put an end to his career under nearly any circumstance (and for good reason, behaving in such a way is unacceptable for anyone in a major leadership position.)

My question is, given that members of the media had knowledge of these emails long before they were made public, and they had a material impact on his fitness as an AD, why weren't they made public sooner? I understand there were certain verificantion challenges, but I can't think of many circumstances where a journalist would intentionally sit on evedence that would result in the dismissal of an executive.

Sadly, I came away feeling like members of the media had evedence that Brandon was unfit to serve as AD, and failed to report this evedence for years, resulting (perhaps unintentionally) in the perpetuation of an administration that caused significant damage to the Michigan athletic department and the University itself. It would be great if you could go into some more detail around the challenges in making those emails public sooner.

 

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Blue_sophie

September 8th, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^

I think back to the gentleman's agreement that journalists had with politicians back in the mid-20th century not to discuss their various indiscretions.

We don't know how many e-mails Bacon—or any other single journalist—received, and we don't know if they "compared notes." A few emails could easily be dismissed as an embarassing fluke; something not even relavent to discuss privately with trusted colleagues. So it makes sense (at least to me) that journalists would only put the e-mails into their proper context when the wheels started to come off the Brandon regieme.

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snarling wolverine

September 7th, 2015 at 5:19 PM ^

Do you believe Brandon did, in fact, influence football coaching decisions?  If so, was it on more of a big-picture level (like regarding offensive philosophy) or more of a micromanaging one (e.g., hiring certain coaches or playing certain players)?

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74 ZRide

September 7th, 2015 at 5:22 PM ^

There is a reference to the Gary Moeller incident in 1995 being recorded on a cell and provided to ESPN. Was this actually the method of the tirade being documented?

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Scizzy

September 7th, 2015 at 5:29 PM ^

I was hoping he might be able to address the inclusion of the Mike Burger anecdote. Reading that, though it did offer an evocative story of Hoke's commitment to his team, made me very uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure most serious Michigan fans quickly guessed the player most likely to be Burger's real identity and that struck me as really unfair to the kid, especially since it might easily be wrong. Did Bacon consider making the story more vague to better prevent readers from jumping to conclusions?

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Real Tackles Wear 77

September 7th, 2015 at 6:02 PM ^

I thought the same thing. Very easy to tell who it was (for an mgoblogger), but I think it was an important anecdote to relate. I think he had to include the piece about the leave of absence if he was going to tell that story at all, because you can't relate all of that and then just end it at that with no discussion of what the consequences/follow ups were for the kid's mental health.

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matthewmurphy

September 7th, 2015 at 5:52 PM ^

What specifically was able to help Will Hagerup? I know you mentioned he got help through the counseling center and sounds like some AD staff. Could you go into more detail about how they helped him? Describe a bit what the counseling center is. Did Brandon want Hoke to sit Gardner for Morris before Minnesota game? You seemed to imply that strongly. It seemed to me with all the hand holding Brandon had with Hoke that he really didn't get a fair shake to lead his teams. Do you think with a leader like Hackett he truly could've succeeded? (I believe after reading your book Hackett was right when he said he wished he could've lead Hoke sooner) Also, do you think Hoke is smarter than many give him credit and kinda played up the lovable dumb teddy bear image that it seemed Brandon tried to create? (It takes some strong leadership to go to Bosch oops I mean Burger the way he did) In that Morris presser Hoke did a good job of making Brandon look pretty bad in all of this too, to me he was no dummy there. Do you think Brandon could benefit from the same counseling Hagerup did? Sounds like he has some major daddy issues and his drug of choice is money, power, fame, cuffs, and houses named after him. Thanks

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FlintFan

September 7th, 2015 at 6:06 PM ^

Brian, the Tielluminati article was referenced in the book.  Were you more aware of what was going on at that point than what you led us to believe you knew then? I guess I'm curious if you were aware of the activities of the lettermen and simply didn't want too much info getting out and spoiling the process.

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rpm881

September 7th, 2015 at 6:08 PM ^

When Hagerup first tested positive for drugs, why wasn't he put on a year suspension like McGary was when tested positive? Then instead of doing the year suspension leave for the NBA.

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KRK

September 7th, 2015 at 6:37 PM ^

I believe Will failed a UM test and Mitch's was a random NCAA drug test. The schools test more and the punishment is usually pretty minor and handled internally. The NCAA's is the draconian version.



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Vote_Crisler_1937

September 7th, 2015 at 6:42 PM ^

I haven't read the book.

Who tested Hagerup vs McGary? From my experience it matters if it's the school, the conference or the NCAA. You can test positive more than once if it's just the school testing you without a season long ban. I think the NCAA has harsher punishments.



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bnoble

September 7th, 2015 at 6:11 PM ^

Now that I'm starting year three as a low-level administrator at Michigan, I've been thinking of this book as a leadership template. After all, when a professor becomes an administrator, no one tells the professor how to do the job---we are just expected to figure it out as we go. (That's not quite true: CRLT does offer some training, but I still felt like I was thrown in the deep end.) But, perhaps unsurprisingly, being a professor has next to nothing to do with being an adminsitrator.

Brian's right, these are Brandon's Lasting Lessons, but in an inverted sense. Dave really did seem to love the university, and he clearly cared about the players and the department, but he just didn't lead it well. I've started to make a list of things to learn from the book, but I'm still only about 2/3ds of the way through, so I suspect there are things that I haven't gotten to yet. But, from your perspective, what are the take-aways for someone new to a leadership role in an academic institution (vs. "the private sector.")

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True Blue in CO

September 7th, 2015 at 6:36 PM ^

There are some good quotes from Jack Harbaugh but wondering if there is any more insight from him on his role in the reach outs from former team members Wanted about 100 more pages to read between the decision to not renew Bray Hoke's contract and the Harbaugh Press Conference.



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Mpfnfu Ford

September 7th, 2015 at 6:55 PM ^

1. Did you find doing the book that you had more or less sympathy for Dave Brandon than before you started doing the project?

Obviously you were always more plugged in than we were so I'm sure a lot of the stories you wrote about you knew before you got them on record, but reading your book I came away with a lot less hatred for ol' DB. He went from being a mustache twirler in my brain to being more of a human, a seriously flawed one obviously, but still a human being. A know-it-all who just didn't know it all.

2. Since your book went to the publisher, have you seen Michigan's Athletic department making steps to rehire some of the important people who helped make it what it was before The Purges started? Is that even feasible for a lot of the people who were let go, or are things still raw with a lot of them?

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Blue_sophie

September 7th, 2015 at 7:00 PM ^

Fantastic book! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insights.

So my question relates more to your writing than the events of the past 5 years, so bear with me if it is long-winded. Overall I found your reflections on architecture to be fascinating and I wanted to hear more. I particularly noticed the relationships you saw between powerful people's houses and the way they structured organizations.

You note that President Bollinger used the same architecture firm (Venturi Scott Brown) to design both his house in New Hampshire and the Halo. Despite the fact that its post-modern style was deeply alienating to the Michigan community, he defended his choice based upon the avant-garde "genius" of the firm.

Likewise, you analyze Brandon's house as both a gallery where Brandon can exhibit his elite connoisseurship and a space where he can exert total control over his environment. This is an apt metaphor for the isolated echo chamber Brandon created within the athletic department, as well as the endless upgrades he planned for the athletic facilities. Do you think Brandon's house and his athletic department were expressions of his personality, or was this more of a literary device that you created for the purposes of the book? 

Also, what parallels (if any) would you draw between these examples and Jim Harbaugh's decision to live on the same street as Bo—literally traveling every day in his footsteps? I am tempted to think his choice of home might predict (or in literary terms, foreshadow) how he runs the team. 

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