[Upchurch/MGoBlog]

Tonight's spring game obviously another primetime event, something new for the school. As you guys continue to do new things, how do you balance that with the tradition and expectations at a school like Michigan?

"Well, I think you try something, you see how it works, you see what it brings, what it brings to the team and the staff and what they're trying to do. I don't know the thinking of Jim as it relates to—we haven't talked about the spring game on Friday, whether that's something that he wants to do consistently or if he's trying something out this year and so we'll be there and see how it goes and see what comes of it and see what the feedback is from it, but it doesn't bother me that it's a nighttime spring game. The tradition's been normally, what, Saturday at 1 o'clock or 12 o'clock or something like that? You know, it's done differently at different places and this is something that he wanted to try and we'll see how it goes."

Speaking of night football, you recently expressed an affinity for football games in the daylight. Do you anticipate that that will influence schedules in future years, and some of your predecessors anticipated influence from the Big Ten wanting Michigan to play more night games—your thoughts in that area, too?

"It could be that we play more night games in the future. We talked about it this year as I was coming in and made the decision that this year we wouldn't have a night game at Michigan Stadium. You know, I was told—because I'm not a Twitterer—that I was getting heat because I said that I didn't like playing games at night, jokingly said that because if people would have heard the other part of what I said I said because I played for Bo, who thought you should always play at 12 or 1 o'clock. In my career as an athletic director and athletic administrator I played a lot of night games. I'm not against them, but in the discussions that I had with many upon walking through the door it was decided that we didn't want to play a night game here this year.

"So whether they'll be played in the future, I'm not against them. I think some of our fans like them, and I think I heard some of our fans that would prefer day games but I know our fans love Michigan football and whether it's played in the day or it's played at night they want to see our team have success.

"Last year we played a significant…I shouldn't say significant. How many night games did we play on the road last year? Three. I know the fans are interested in night games, but that's really taxing, particularly coming back late at night for the team, those kind of things. So we considered a lot before we said we wouldn't have a night game this year, but in the future there could be night games at Michigan Stadium in the future."

There's been a lot of talk two years ago after the Shane Morris concussion incident of increased safety measures and then talk about that here and there since then. Have you gotten a chance to evaluate those and do you have any plans for changes there?

"We're going to constantly evaluate the safety protocol for our student-athletes. It's something that we did obviously with that incident being so nationally prominent [and] that you do, but we're going to constantly look at the protocol. Not only in-game protocol but practice.

"I know coach Harbaugh and the staff and the medical staff are monitoring and talking about impact not only of concussions but injuries during practice. The coaches are constantly aware of how much practice and hitting is going on. They're monitoring that for the good of their team, of the individual student-athlete.

"The protocol is set but we're going to continue monitoring that to make sure it's where it needs to be for the safety of our student-athletes across the board. So yes, I'm confortable with where we are now and I'm comfortable that we will continue to evaluate all measures of safety for all of our student-athletes to make sure that it's the best that it could be."

How and when will you officially launch the Nike apparel, and for you, when you saw the Jumpman logo on football, is that cutting edge in your mind, that deal that was cut?

"Yeah. Officially Nike becomes our apparel supplier August 1st. We're proud of the relationship that we had with Adidas, but on August 1st we will officially again become a Nike apparel school and at that point in time the staff—I haven't had but I will have a breakdown of all the things that are being planned, but on August 1st, at that point in time is when we will celebrate the relationship or right around that date, don't hold me to it. But August 1st is the date we officially become a Nike school again."

[After THE JUMP: Jumpman, Jumpman, Jumpman, them boys up for discussing committable offers and transfer policies]

What did you think of the Jumpman logo? Do you think that's a good thing?

"You know, I think it's cool because the Jumpman brand is really established as an elite brand under Nike, and I think obviously with what Nike and Michael Jordan have done to elevate that, to have our teams and our kids be able to wear Jumpman apparel, it does put us on the cutting edge. It is the elite stuff that Nike develops, and we're going to be proud to wear it."

I'm not sure how closely you followed during football recruiting, but obviously there was a lot of attention on Michigan and Harbaugh because some of the people that were committed didn't make it to signing day for whatever reason. What's your view? Is it once an offer is made, is that something you feel should be honored regardless when signing day comes around or is that a discussion to be had at some point?

"Well, the part of the question is regardless, and I wasn't here and haven't had a discussion with Jim around each of those cases but I agree with the issue and as an athletic director there's been times in my career where it's happened that things pop up that you learn along the way that cause you to reevaluate a decision that you made and have another conversation with a prospect about whether or not this is the best place for them, but I don't know. I'd have to talk to Jim more about each individual case to get his sense of it, but the evaluation process does continue and it has to, for the good of the institution and the young man or young woman who you are recruiting.

"Earlier in the day I was asked a question about one of the things I would change, and I think part of what we're doing and would change in the NCAA is we're offering scholarships earlier and earlier in the process. And these are young people—these are kids—that still need to grow and we're offering—I'm not just talking about football, I'm talking about across the board—we're offering ninth graders, tenth graders. I was asked the one thing I would change and I would change that so that we couldn't offer any students, any prospects, a scholarship until at least their junior year. It wasn't until my senior year that I was offered a scholarship to come here and the scholarship offers I received elsewhere, and I'm not going to make this individual but I don't see why we need to have our coaches running around the country offering a 12-, 13-, 14-year-old kid scholarships. I just think that's way too soon, personally."

Do you guys have enough profile that you can do something that's different than other people?

"You know, that's a good question. We have the profile to be able to say, but when it's not something everybody coalesces around and sees as the right thing to do for the student-athletes the opposite question occurs. What are we doing—you know, by the time that there's wrong with it people say to me, 'Well Warde, what does it hurt?' I just think you don't know enough. You don't have enough information about what this young person is gonna do. I'll give you a perfect example.

"Probably going to bore y'all, but my daughter in seventh grade started on the high school team in tennis. Tremendous tennis player. She probably will kill me for telling this story, but oh well. Tremendous tennis player. Never lost a match in districts in her six years of playing tennis. Going from her freshman to her sophomore year, I walk in on a fairly loud discussion between my wife and my daughter in regards to going to a tennis tournament, a USTA tennis tournament, and my daughter said she didn't want to go to play tennis any more. I said, 'Well, honey, you know, in collegiate athletics this is how the coaches judge you, by who you play and the points that you make and how you do in these games' and she looked at me and she said, 'Dad, then I don't want to play tennis in college.' And it's always stuck with me and resonated with me about the growth of our children.

"And could I make an edict that says that no Michigan coach will offer any kid except a junior and then all our other universities that we compete against are continuing to do it and it puts us in the position that we're not successful, then you guys, to your question earlier, then I'm only here for two to four years and [it's] 'You were great, we appreciate your stance, very positive, probably right but you're not successful so you need to move on.' Right? But it still doesn't make it—it's not harming anybody but damn, it's a little too soon. To me.

"So that would be—I know y'all didn't ask me the question. I don't even remember what the question was that precipitated that answer [/room laughs] but now you know a little bit about my daughter and why I think it's important for us. If I could change anything that would be the one thing I would take a look at at this point in time."

To follow up on that, the NCAA already bans schools from giving out written offers until, what, August of senior year, anyway. How would you overhaul something that's kind of a wink and a nod system? An offer to an 8th grader isn't actually a real thing anyway, so how would you--

"Oh-ho, you think it's not a real thing, you try to take it away." [/room laughs]

It's not real to some folks.

"Because verbal agreements in this legal time are agreements, right? I don't know the answer to your question. I just think to go to the point of coaches changing, kids making changes, those agreements do—they mean something, and the decision and I'm sure—again, I haven't had the conversation—I'm sure it's not an easy decision for any coach. I'm sure Jim didn't make it in a cold, callous manner. All of our coaches get to know these prospects, these young people and their families, and it's not an easy thing when they have to decide either I'm not going to offer you or I'm going to offer you or I've got to pull it away or want to pull it away.

"Those are not easy decisions that our coaches make because they do spend time getting to know them. They have spent a lot of quality time talking to them, the counselors, the parents, the teachers, getting to know them, the coaches. And so recruiting is a very—my word—emotional, engaged process where you're really getting to know people and really committed to them in more than just a verbal agreement or a piece of paper.

"I don't know all the answers to it, but while it's not binding in terms of those agreements early on they are meaningful. T hey mean a lot to the coach who makes the offer and they mean a lot to young people and their families who accept them, so it's not something that you take lightly or I assume any of our coaches take lightly."

ROUNDTABLE

[Ed.A-This isn't the whole roundtable, but it's the part that I thought was newsy enough to transcribe.]

The last few days, John Beilein and the basketball program—how much discussion have you had with Beilein the last couple days, and did you kind of force the switch in terms of opening up the transfer scholarships that he did this morning?

"John and I had a conversation yesterday and we talked about it and talked about his thoughts. I give the credit to John for coming to the decision to, after he thought about it, go back and make the switch to allow them to transfer and have a release with no stipulations, and so it was a great conversation. The release came out—the press release came out this morning, but he had come to the decision last night."

Do you have thoughts on what you want the protocol or best practices to be when guys transfer?

"Well, I think in the case of Spike where the anticipation was that he would have completed his senior year, we were recruiting other young men to come into not only the position but in terms of number of scholarships, I think that's a case where you do need to provide a release without any restrictions. In general, I am very supportive of grad-student transfers not having restrictions.

"Now, we could talk about different examples of the issues that may arise, but in general I think one of our first priorities and my first priority is to help these young people graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree, and I think once you do that and you still have an opportunity to participate in athletics in your sport then you should have the opportunity to move to another institution if you choose to do so.

"Now, I feel strongly that at the University of Michigan I would hope that young people would want to stay here and not leave in their fifth year, but in Spike's case we had already planned on him finishing his senior year and the recruiting process going forward as it normally does in the case of a senior, and we just got ourselves into that situation where no scholarships were available. He had medically retired from playing and then felt better as it went along, the therapy and the physical therapy and all the things that he had done and he wanted to play again. I wish him well. I appreciate all that he brought to the University of Michigan, and as John said he's a great young man. I only met him recently, but by all accounts a great young man who's done a lot here at Michigan and we wish him well."

In the past John has been kind of more outspoken than a lot of coaches in terms of apprehension about those things, and multilayer, not just his program but mid-majors losing that kid who they were pretty reliant on to a high-major program. So when you guys had the discussion, then, you said you're very supportive of grad transfers having every option. He has obvious apprehension, so was there a middle ground or was it an agree-to-disagree situation?

"No, I think it was a great discussion and as I told him we'll have more discussions about it. I think it's an issue—it's not a John Beilein issue. This is an issue in intercollegiate athletics where you just take the example of the sport of men's basketball where 40-50% of men's basketball student-athletes are transferring for various reasons, a very small percentage of those are graduate transfers. But I think in general we have an issue.

"Years ago I chaired an ad hoc committee for the NCAA about the academic eligibility and compliance cabinet where we looked at this very issue of how to impact transfers because of the academic side of it and the negative things we see and the lack of graduation we see more and more when kids transfer, so that was years ago this was an issue. John is not and should not, in my opinion, be the poster child of coaches who feel that transfer issues are an issue, that the investment of time and wanting to keep people on your team is important. And it's not just him that should be the only one out there that says we need to look at this, we need to look at it differently, and so it's a great conversation. It was the first of many discussions I'll have with him and other members of my coaching staff to really figure it out.

"I'm telling you my perspective on grad-student transfers, but if I had all 29 head coaches sitting around a table you would have coaches that agreed with him, coaches on the other side, and you'd have a lot of people in the middle. And I think this discussion is something we should continue to have for the betterment of these young people, not just for what's good for our basketball team or our football team or out softball team, but what's in the best interest of how to do this across all sports and for all of our student-athletes."