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Any collegiate athletic director is bound to run into problems.
But perhaps none have navigated as many scandals during their tenure as Michigan’s Wade Manuel, who has led the Wolverines since 2016.
The former Michigan football player and track and field athlete began his professional career in Ann Arbor, then served as athletic director at Buffalo and UConn before returning to his alma mater.
Manuel’s tenure at Michigan has included national championships in women’s gymnastics in 2021, football in 2023, and several individual sports including tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, and track and field.
On Wednesday, Michigan announced the firing of head football coach Sherrone Moore for having an improper relationship with a staff member. While some fans have called for Manuel, 57, to follow Moore out the door, he signed a contract extension last year to stay with the school through June 30, 2030.
Moore’s firing is only the latest in a string of scandals that have occurred with Manuel at the helm of the Michigan athletic department.
2018: Robert Anderson Investigation Begins
Manuel received a letter from a former wrestler about the abuse he experienced from the late university doctor Robert Anderson, who worked at Michigan for 37 years until 2003 despite multiple people in the athletic department knowing about the allegations over the years. In 2022, the school reached a $490 million settlement with 1,050 people, mostly men, who claimed Anderson abused them.
2022: Juwan Howard Hits Wisconsin Assistant Coach
The former Fab Five member was suspended after he hit another coach across the head in the handshake line after a game. Howard missed the remaining five games of the regular season, and two of his players were also suspended one game each.
In 2024, Howard also got into an altercation with a longtime basketball strength coach who was having a disagreement with his son, guard Jace Howard, and the strength coach resigned later in the school year.
2022: Hockey Coach Misconduct Investigation and Firing
The hockey coach was ousted after a number of issues in the program came to light, including a survey in which players said Pearson told them to lie for COVID-19 tracking systems and misled them about scholarship money. An investigation ordered by the university found a culture under Pearson that mistreated female staffers and retaliated against a player who tried to make improvements.
2023: Matt Weiss Computer Hacking Scandal
Michigan fired its co-offensive coordinator in early 2023 for “a report of computer access crimes” at the football facility during a university police investigation. Federal prosecutors indicted Weiss in March of 2025 claiming he hacked into medical systems to get information about women, many of them female athletes, that he then used to access their personal accounts and intimate photos and videos.
2023: COVID-19 Recruiting Violations
The football program came under scrutiny for having impermissible contact with recruits during the COVID-19 dead period. Michigan self-imposed a three-game suspension on head coach Jim Harbaugh to start the 2023 regular season. The NCAA announced its official findings and punishments in 2024, which banned the coach from collegiate coaching for four years, although Harbaugh had already departed for the Chargers.
2023: Sign Stealing Scandal
The NCAA and Big Ten launched investigations into allegations of sign stealing. The case centered around Connor Stalions, an assistant who was photographed on an opponents’ sideline wearing their team’s gear. Harbaugh was suspended for the final three games of the 2023 regular season by the Big Ten, and added a 10-year ban set to begin after his 4-year ban issued under the sign-stealing scandal concludes. The school also imposed a two-game suspension against Moore in the 2025 season. NCAA penalties from the scandal will cost Michigan more than $30 million, Manuel said last month.
2025: Sherrone Moore’s Improper Relationship and Firing
Michigan fired the head football coach Wednesday, after which he was detained by police. On Friday, prosecutors said that after his firing, Moore had gone to the home of the woman he had been dating and threatened to kill himself, and they charged him with three counts of home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering.
Other Controversies
A number of other minor scandals have happened under Manuel’s tenure. A football coach was fired for allegedly discussing an NCAA investigation. Two football coaches who parted ways with the program shortly after separate drunk driving incidents. A football staffer was fired shortly after a video surfaced of him being accused of planning to meet up with a 13-year-old girl. And a football staffer—the son of former longtime coach Bo Schembechler—resigned after it was revealed he had liked transphobic, conspiracy theorist, and racially insensitive social media posts.
The scandals have not only featured coaches and staffers. In 2016, a football player got in a fight and pleaded guilty to charges, and in 2020, a basketball player crashed Manuel’s wife’s car after loaning it from the athletic director’s son. Another football player pleaded guilty to charges in 2022 after police found him with an unregistered gun.
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