The University of Michigan and athletic director Warde Manuel have agreed to a buyout of his remaining contract years, and Manuel will step down at the end of the calendar year, the school announced Monday.
The decision closes a decade-long tenure that produced four national championships — football in 2023, men’s basketball in 2025, and men’s and women’s gymnastics — but also a steady drumbeat of scandal that finally wore through whatever goodwill the trophy case had built.
The move follows a $12 million internal investigation conducted by the Chicago-based law firm Jenner & Block. Michigan commissioned the review after firing football coach Sherrone Moore on Dec. 10, when evidence surfaced of an inappropriate relationship between Moore and his executive assistant, Paige Shiver. Moore was arrested that same day and charged with felony home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering after entering Shiver’s home.
Michigan released an outline of the investigation’s findings Monday but is keeping the full report confidential. The review, which included 350 interviews with coaches, athletes, and staff, did not find that misconduct was widespread across the department. But it identified three areas needing improvement: leadership accountability, organizational structure, and reporting culture.
On Manuel specifically, the review acknowledged his “important leadership strengths, particularly his commitment to student-athletes.” Then came the gut punch: it “identified failures to quickly and effectively act on allegations of wrongdoing by Athletic Department employees.”
Manuel had previously confronted Moore and Shiver about their relationship. Both denied it was inappropriate. Manuel went through their school-issued phones and email accounts and found nothing that would allow him to fire Moore for cause, people familiar with the situation told the Associated Press. The relationship continued. Moore’s behavior reportedly grew more concerning through the season before the department finally acted.
That’s the part that’ll stick. You can win all the titles you want — and Manuel won plenty — but if the barn door’s open and you wait too long to shut it, the horses are already down the road. The film doesn’t lie.
Manuel, 58, played football at Michigan under Bo Schembechler and ran track for the Wolverines. He was hired as AD on Jan. 29, 2016, after running the athletic departments at Buffalo and UConn. He signed a contract extension in 2024 that was set to run through June 2030. He oversaw a department with a $250 million annual budget, 29 teams, more than 950 athletes, and roughly 400 staff.
The championship haul was real. Jim Harbaugh delivered Michigan’s first football national title in decades during the 2023 season, even as the Connor Stalions sign-stealing operation loomed over the program. Dusty May won a basketball national championship this past April, then left for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks — forcing Michigan to replace its football and basketball coaches within months of each other for the second time in three years.
The scandals stacked up just as fast. Harbaugh served two suspensions during the title season. A lawsuit filed earlier this month by former Michigan assistant Chris Partridge alleges that Manuel and former president Santa Ono discovered evidence of the Stalions sign-stealing operation on former assistant Matthew Weiss’s hard drive in January 2023 but never reported it to the NCAA or the board of regents. Shiver has separately sued the university, claiming it violated the Freedom of Information Act and failed to protect her from Moore’s conduct.
Manuel publicly acknowledged last week that his future was uncertain. “It’s not taking away from me doing my job and what I need to do to drive success,” he told The Michigan Insider. “How those conversations come together and when things are going to be announced, I can’t predict that.”
The prediction came Monday. A full search for Michigan’s next athletic director will be conducted.
