The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1539777
20 THE WOLVERINE ❱ OCTOBER 2025 mistaken. These kids did what they did on that field of play and won that na- tional championship 100 percent fair and square, no doubt about it." The Wolverine: Michigan features a starting quarterback who figures to make more than Tom Brady earned in his first NFL contract. Talk about how dramatically things have changed. Manuel: "It's the world we live in. It's changed, and it's grown. We've spent a lot of time over the past four, five, six decades, saying that a scholarship is not a payment. I disagree. When I played, I received a scholarship to come to the University of Michigan that my parents couldn't afford. I was paid through a scholarship to participate in athletics, and that was part of the deal. 'We'll pay your scholarship if you play football, if you do track or any other sport at the University of Michigan.' "Now we're doing a scholarship plus we're doing revenue sharing, to provide student-athletes a portion of the rev- enue that they're working hard to drive. I don't lament it. I don't lean back and say this is the wrong thing to do. This is the right thing to do. It's something that we embrace here, and a lot of people have embraced elsewhere. It's time. And it was probably time well ahead of this that we did it. "There's no looking back. There's no lamenting. There's no not trying to move forward with the changes. Any of that is holding onto something that meant something at the time, but now the times have changed. We can't con- tinue to just keep talking about the old days, and what happened, and the way things were. "Life changes. People change. Things change. I don't see many of my friends — and I often say this to them — talk- ing about typewriters. We went from typewriters to computers. I don't see my friends who talk about the old days using typewriters. "Some of the same people talking to me about the old days have brand-new iPhones, and Google phones and all kinds of other technology. I don't see them talking about that. I see people having brand-new TVs. Nobody is talk- ing about, 'I want a TV with an antenna, and you turn a knob.' "I understand it, and I understand people looking back and saying this is the way we used to do it. But let's not la- ment and be stuck and be mad that these student-athletes are finally starting to be paid some of the revenue that they've helped to drive. "It's as simple as I can say it. We need to move forward, and we need to em- brace it. We need to realize where we are and be fine with it." T h e Wo lve r i n e : W h a t a re yo u r thoughts on how this football staff has recruited and navigated the por- tal, and the potential for the next few seasons? Manuel: "I think they're doing an excellent job of recruiting high school talent and with what we're doing and have done in the portal. They've brought in some tremendous young men, and young women, in the cases of our female sports. They're embracing the challenge and the change. I've encouraged them, and across the board, our coaches are still looking at high school talent as well. I applaud them for that. "There are many across the country who are just like, 'I'll wait and see what's in the portal.' We also need to develop young people. I have watched transfers come in here and do a lot of great things, but I've also seen that a lot of our best athletes have been those who have stayed and been a part of our system. They're doing significant things on the field of play to help us win. "If you continue to do both, that's Manuel said he has been impressed with Sherrone Moore's (left) growth as a head coach and his ability to handle not only the football side of it but all those things outside of the X's and O's of the sport, the practices and the games. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL