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No matter how you spin the last few years surrounding Warde Manuel's leadership of the athletic department at the University of Michigan, it had always felt like there was one obvious outcome to how things would end between the two parties, you just weren't ever quite sure when it would happen.
Fair or unfair, Manuel's long-time stay as athletic director in Ann Arbor will be coming to a close at the end of the calendar year, as the university announced the two will be parting ways, with U-M to conduct a national search to find a replacement, presumably to take over January 1 when the position officially becomes vacant.
Taking a look at the situation from a 1,000-foot lens, one might ask how U-M could part ways with an athletic director who has oversaw numerous Big Ten championships, and national championships, during his tenure?
Winning is the byproduct of a successful athletic department, and no one is going to be able to take that away from Manuel or the athletic department.
However, the journey truly defines the final destination and, boy, that journey certainly has a story to tell the last few years.
It was filled with roadblocks and pitfalls, mostly self-inflicted and often out of Manuel's hands, but when you're the face of something, you have to answer for every little thing that happens around you. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and U-M has had a healthy serving of each of those three things in recent years.
At the end of the day, a leader is supposed to keep his backyard clean and the skeletons that burst out of the proverbial closet into the waiting arms of the NCAA and their multiple investigations into the football program should be considered cadavers in the grand scheme of things.
Someone has to answer for the lack of control and organizational blunders, whether that was navigating COVID-era recruiting violations, sign stealing allegations and inappropriate relationships surrounding your head football coach and a female staffer, the bill always comes due eventually.
And, on Monday, it was time to pay the piper.
Although those who are familiar with the findings of the Jenner & Block investigation continue to stress that there was not a "smoking gun" that forced Manuel to fall on the sword, the findings concluded that there was a snowball effect of errors, growing in size as the blunders from within the athletic department grew.
That alone is enough of a black eye and an indictment on the department as a whole, signaling that changes need to be made.
On the flip side, there is a contingent of those who believe that Manuel was always going to be the fall guy for the negative headlines and scandals.
After all, those involved in said scandals are long gone from the university, who else was going to get the blame for it? None other than the leader, of course.
"They called for a witch hunt but haven't found the witch," a source told Michigan On SI in late June.
That, of course, is only one side and doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of the majority.
For a university and athletic department who are desperate to separate itself from the past and turn a new page, but also embrace the good that happened in the last five years, you can't move forward while still clinging on to the present.
And, ultimately, that means moving on without mainstays in the department, too.
That's why the investigation findings bring U-M to an inflection point. It can take these lessons learned and implement what it has set out to do in the outline of the investigation released on Monday.
Or, as they say about history, you can be doomed to repeat it.
But, at what cost?
One of the more polarizing figures amongst the U-M faithful, trying to debate Manuel's merits are as fruitful as trying to convince that one boisterous uncle that his political opinions shared at the Thanksgiving dinner table are too extreme, you'd have better luck arguing with a brick wall.
For those who have paid attention to the rumor mill, Manuel's job status and departure from U-M have been a constant source of discussion for multiple years now.
First, he was set to depart two years ago. Then, it was last year.
It's been building to an inevitable crescendo that could only end one way and one way only: Manuel and U-M are moving on, and there's no looking back as the final chapter is written and a new tomorrow is dawning on the U-M athletic department.
Today's best reads
- Warde Manuel to Step Down as Michigan's Athletic Director
- Warde Manuel is Confident But Uncertain: 'I Don't Know What The Future Holds' at Michigan
- What Warde Manuel's Departure Means for Michigan Football and Basketball
- Report Casts a Dark Cloud on Warde Manuel's Future at the University of Michigan
- Warde Manuel Insists His Job Is Safe Ahead of Michigan's Board Meeting
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/michigan as COLUMN: Michigan, Warde Manuel Split Reaches the Inevitable Crescendo.
