Michigan AD Warde Manuel exclusive interview: Addressing Mel Pearson, football controversies

This is Part 2 of the Free Press' exclusive interview with Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel. Here, he addresses how he handled the eventual firing of hockey coach Mel Pearson, discusses the personnel issues with the football program, and what happened with former basketball player Zavier Simpson and the car registered to his family. This story has been edited for brevity:

'Never like it when we have issues with any of our teams'

Garcia: You mentioned there has been some lowlights and I want to go over some of those headlines just from the past couple of years as well.

Manuel: Yeah, sure.

Garcia: Mel Pearson was not retained as hockey coach after an outside investigation found problems with the program's culture. Juwan Howard was suspended, by you, for five games for smacking Wisconsin assistant. Michigan football was placed on probation for three years by the NCAA for recruiting sanctions. And, Michigan football still under investigation by the NCAA for sign stealing. Now, when you hear those headlines, what do you think?

Manuel: Don’t like it. Never like it when we have issues with any of our teams. But the other thing I think about is we deal with it. We don’t run away from it, we don’t put our head in the sand. We address it, we deal with it and we keep moving forward. But I never, look, I don’t know anyone, and I’d love to be perfect, Tony, I promise you I would love for perfection, but I’m in a business and we’re in a world where we have to deal with people. Young people, 950, they keep rotating, classes graduate, new classes come in. We have issues that we deal with that are very, very public because it’s athletics.

But it’s one of those things that we address, we don’t hide from it and we improve. That’s what we’re trying to do. With all of that you mentioned? Trying to continue to improve to make sure that we move forward in the right way.

Garcia: It seems sometimes on the outside when there is an instance, that you will perhaps give the minimum statement that requires to address it and then not address it any further. Could you see how some may feel that some of these things have been sort of, to use your phrase, "head in the sand"?

PART 1: Michigan AD Warde Manuel exclusive interview: The hardest thing he has done in career

Manuel: No, absolutely not. We don’t talk about, I don’t talk about personnel stuff outside and I don’t talk about how I’m dealing with people except what I need to say. So, these issues for me are just part of what we deal with. But I’m not going to deal with it in public either. Because, A. If it deals with a student athlete it depends what I have to say about it, or if it deals with a staff it depends on what I can say about it. So, just because I don’t make comments and tell everybody every detail doesn’t mean I’m putting my head in the sand. It’s just not the case.

Garcia: Could you explain why you don’t feel the need to explain yourself?

Manuel: Because sometimes I can’t, Tony. Sometimes it’s a personnel issue that I can’t explain, publicly. That I can’t give the details to. Sometimes it’s a FERPA issues with a student-athlete that I can’t explain the details to. Sometimes it’s HIPAA laws, I mean, it depends on what the situation is but I don’t need to have a conversation with a staff or student-athlete and then regurgitate that to the media or everybody outside.

I don’t know about you, but if your editor had a issue with you I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see it on the front page of the Detroit newspapers and social media and everything else. So why am I held to a different standard than what people expect at their own jobs? People have rights in other words and people have a right for me to have private, confidential conversations with them and only have to speak to what I need to speak to publicly, without disclosing everything we discuss.

Unanswered questions: Zavier Simpson's crash, Mel Pearson's dismissal

Garcia: I had a few questions I had not heard answers to, the first, what was the reason former point guard Zavier Simpson was driving a car registered to your family name when he crashed and then misidentified himself to the police around 3 a.m. on January 26, 2020?

Manuel: Because my son lent the car that he had to him. He’s a friend of Zavier’s and that’s why he had the car. Against our conversation with our son as it relates to loaning the car out to anybody. So it was my child with a car in our name, in my wife’s name that we bought for him, and he loaned it out to somebody who he was a friend with. So all the other aspects of that, you would have to ask Zavier. It’s been talked about, whatever it was, but I can tell you why he was in that car, but it wasn’t because we said he could be driving the car. We told our son not to let anybody drive the car.

Garcia: Do you feel it was handled properly afterwards?

Manuel: Oh, it was handled by me with my son. The police and everybody else would have to talk about how they handled it, that’s not my jurisdiction. But I did deal with my son on that issue and I feel it was handled properly with my son, yes.

Garcia: Why did it take three months, after a 68-page WilmerHale report from the investigation into the hockey program, for you to not retain Mel Pearson? Why did it take those three months?

Manuel: Because there was internal discussion going on about the report and about what was going on in the program that we had to review. Again, it wasn’t something that we were not discussing internally and within the university. So, those things don’t automatically, you don’t get a report and just "here’s the decision we’re going to make" the next day. You have conversations, discussions and that’s what happened with that. Some of those take time because of schedules and those kids of things, but three months or two months or eight months, to me it’s an issue of process and going through it.

Garcia: I think the timing is in question because the findings of that report because public earlier that week that you let him go.

Manuel: Understood.

Garcia: The report seemed to express there were concerns over the program.

Manuel: There were concerns, yeah, absolutely, there’s no doubt.

Garcia: So what was the hold up?

Manuel: I just told you what the hold up was, Tony. I don’t understand (why) you don’t understand or maybe people don’t understand that these things take time. Whether it had the appearance that it happened after the article came out, it was in discussion throughout that timeframe. So timing is what it is.

'I see why people would say there's issues ... but issues we've dealt with immediately'

Garcia: Moving back toward the football program, since last January, former offensive coordinator Matt Weiss was fired for computer crimes, staffer Shemmy Schembechler was forced to resign days after he was hired when insensitive social media posts surfaced, linebacker coach Chris Partridge was fired for not abiding by university directive to not discuss an ongoing investigation and since last month former defensive line coach Greg Scruggs and Denard Robinson were arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated. Is there perhaps an issues with the vetting process? Or how would you explain why there have been a number of incidents in one program?

Manuel: Because of decisions that people made themselves and that we dealt with. I mean, the vetting process has adapted and changed, yes, because of some of those things. But in four of them, or two of them I should say out of the five, there weren’t any issues with background or any issues that popped up. We found out about things after somebody was hired, then found out about after an incident and we have corrected that as it relates to the process we go through with the outside firm that the university has to review.

So each situation has popped up because of what other people have done and then we dealt with it, I dealt with it, the university dealt with it, to put things in place to catch that earlier in the process, but we deal with that as those things pop up.

Garcia: Put me in your shoes. I’m finding out about these things through different ways, right? I imagine you’re hearing it much more directly, or in some cases indirectly. What’s going on in your mind when you hear these things I’ve listed? It’s a long list. What do you think when ...

Manuel: I think it was five right?

Garcia: Well right.

Manuel: It depends on what you mean by long list.

Garcia: Well it’s not just football, if I may. There’s been incidents in football, but we haven’t gotten to Juwan (Howard’s), situation yet, then hockey. Do you see why some would call this a systemic problem?

Manuel: I see why people would say there are issues that have happened in this athletic department, but it’s issues that we’ve dealt with immediately. So, it’s easy to pick on athletics and say, "this department has problems." Some of the things you bring up happen throughout this university (and others) and you all don’t know. Because you don’t know a professor, or somebody who works at the hospital. We don’t have an education page and a hospital page where you’re checking every time, every morning as a check of who was arrested and who wasn’t to see if their name’s on it.

I’m not happy with any of the things you brought up, but we also deal with them and we deal with them straight up and get to the bottom of it and make decisions that need to be made. So I’m not happy with things that happen, but I also don’t run from them and we deal with them.

Garcia: And you stand by how you’ve handled them?

Manuel: Yeah, for the most part, yeah. I mean, look —

Garcia: Well what wouldn’t you (stand by)? If it’s for the most part.

Manuel: I’m saying, listen, anything can be torn apart. But it’s, I look at things Tony and I say, "how can I have put something in place so that we were better, so that we didn’t have these issues? What is missing?" Sometimes we have things that are missing and sometimes we don’t. We have talked to people about things. I don’t know about you and you could tell me, since you’re asking me questions I’m going to ask you a question. You ever been in a meeting with your boss, the editor or somebody at the paper that said “don’t commit a crime?" Anybody ever did that in your work, to tell you that?

Garcia: I think it goes with out saying.

Manuel: Absolutely — goes without saying. My point is, these people made decisions, not me encouraging them or leading them to those decisions. All I can do is deal with them when it happens. We have had people make wrong decisions and we deal with them.

Football scandal: 'We didn't compromise our image about who we are'

Garcia: The Michigan football program is on probation right now after your department acknowledged football coaches and staff had impermissible contact with recruits and there’s another investigation, and I know there are things you cannot talk about. Did Michigan compromise its image in this process of winning a national championship?

Manuel: No, we made mistakes. But we didn’t compromise our image about who we are. Tony, I guess I’m going to say to all the things you brought up, and maybe this is how I was raised and I look at life: when you have problems that happen, you deal with them. But that doesn’t necessarily change the people or place to make them bad people, or a bad place. It simply means that in some ways, you’re human. In some ways, we have faults and make mistakes. But we have to deal with them.

And so you know, not knowing where your questions were going good or bad, I will just tell you what I’m proud of in this department and in this university we face things head on. Whether you guys know every detail about every detail about how we’re addressing them; it’s being addressed. So that is where my focus is when things like this occur.

Garcia: I wanted a positive pivot and more questions about the future but we’re running out of time so —

Manuel: I know you’ll throw positive and I know you’ll talk about the issues. So, I’m just gonna say this is what bothers me, the only question that bothers me is any insinuation in that question about my son and Zavier in that car. And here’s the reason why; when I was here in school, I borrowed friends cars. Now, nothing happened. I don’t know about you when you were in school if you ever borrowed a friends car. And I told my son, my wife told our son "don’t give it out to anybody" because why? It’s not insured for other people, other than you and people in this family.

But he did. And something that happened. But these questions, it really bothers me, not because of you Tony, but the insinuation on social media and the negative comments about my wife because her name was on the car — toward Zavier. That my wife gave Zavier the car. That, to me, three years later why is that an issue? But that’s the only question I had issue (with),

Garcia: It was just because I hadn’t heard the answer to it, I was not trying to insinuate anything.

Manuel: No, I know, I got it.

Coming Sunday: The final part of our conversation with Manuel, where the athletic director discusses U-M's unique position within the world of the transfer portal and what the future may hold for him in his position.

Contact Tony Garcia: apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan AD Warde Manuel exclusive interview: Addressing controversies