The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1508023
OCTOBER 2023 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 23 "We have to continue with the mes- sage that this is a new day. Michigan, in its history, has prided itself on not en- gaging in a way that is paying student- athletes under the table. My message to our fans is, this is not paying student- athletes under the table. This is above the table. "You can engage with our student- athletes to support your companies through social media, through signings, through different things they can do now, like internships, that provide them with great opportunity to make some additional money in support of what they're doing. "We now sell jer- seys for all of our football players. We sell jersey tees for all of our basket- ball players. We were the first univer- sity to engage in that. And we're going to continue to develop and have been having some conversations about some improvements that hopefully we can announce in the coming month or two to our student-athletes. "We will continue to strive to improve and be better and be great at NIL. What we won't do is get into this idea of in- ducements, telling players, 'We'll pay you X. Come to our institution.' "We'll provide support. There is a lot of support for athletes who are re- ceiving great benefit from NIL here at Michigan. I'm glad to see it. And we will continue to strive to provide that opportunity and educate our student- athletes on things that they need to think about as they get into these op- portunities, so they're not taken ad- vantage of." TW: With regard to what you won't do, who can rein this in around the country? WM: "The NCAA is trying to figure that out, internally, what we can do. We've seen President [Charlie] Baker work with the federal legislature, to try to find ways to bring bills that may give some balance to this across the country, instead of individual states all having similar but different rules as it relates to NIL. "I would lean on them, in terms of nationally how to balance this and level the playing field. It's going to have to come from the NCAA or the federal government. Regardless, we're going to continue to operate and be proac- tive with our student-athletes about the benefits of NIL when they're here, and really, NIL for the rest of their lives. "We all have that. I have it, you have it. Our names are ours. I never — even before this thought was out there — thought a student-athlete was beholden to us. Nor did I act that way when I was a student-athlete. "I want them to learn the skills and have the information necessary so they can be successful for the rest of their lives and use their name, image and likeness to be great beyond the four or five years they're here in Michigan ath- letics. "What they make is not the only thing that is important. Our support for our student-athletes is important. It's what they learn here, so they can do it for the rest of their lives. "That's really important to me." TW: Jim Harbaugh says football players should enjoy revenue sharing of some sort. Your thoughts on this? WM: "One of the great benefits, I tell our student-athletes all the time, is their education here. Their degree will carry them a long way. As long as edu- cation is considered a part of the pay- ment to our student-athletes, I'm open to having a discussion of other opportu- nities in other ways. "I'm not one of these people who just puts their head in the sand about this. We need to talk about it." TW: How tough does the transfer portal make it for coaches to fashion teams, year after year? WM: "I'm all for student-athletes having the ability to transfer. But I think we really need to take a hard look at the outcomes of that nationally, with the large number of student-athletes who transfer and don't find a home. "We can say, yeah, it's good for stu- dent-athletes to be able to transfer and move. But we must look at the negative outcomes of some of those decisions and try to establish a policy that is ben- eficial to the student-athlete in their right to go to another institution. "Off the top of my head, 30 or 40 per- cent are not finding a home. That means they're losing a scholarship and an aca- demic opportunity. "The portal is a topic of conversa- tion that needs to continue, and we need to find ways to refine it and make it better, as opposed to s i m p ly say i n g they have a right to transfer. I'm not arguing about their right to transfer. But what is it in our processes and our poli- cies that is allowing 30 to 40 percent of people to fall to the wayside without an academic or athletic home?" TW: Weigh in if you would on the success of new hockey coach Brandon Naurato, and some of the other attention-getters of this past year. WM: "Brandon did an outstanding job last year with all of the transition issues. I look forward to seeing, now that he's settled into the job, how he develops as a head coach. He's selected a great staff. We have great student-athletes in that sport. "The addition of Erin Virtue as our head coach in volleyball is exciting. Bringing back Sean Maymi as the head men's tennis coach is exciting. Wres- tling coach Sean Bormet, [women's gymnastics coach] Bev Plocki … Matt Bowe, our new coach in men's and women's swimming. I could just go on and on about all of our programs and the success that they're driving. "We have some great, great young coaches. We have some very experi- enced and successful head coaches. Their leadership, how they're recruiting student-athletes, and how they take the student and the athlete part seriously [is gratifying]. The future is very bright, from my perspective." ❏ ❱ Manuel "We will continue to strive to improve and be better and be great at NIL. What we won't do is get into this idea of inducements, telling players, 'We'll pay you X. Come to our institution.'"