Niyo: Alienation of alums led to Brandon's fall
Ann Arbor — The T-shirts are but a collector's item now, like so many political campaign buttons. But the students were lining up for the freebies just the same Friday afternoon.
Dave Brandon was already ousted as Michigan's athletic director, his resignation letter signed by university president Mark Schlissel on Thursday and officially announced at a press conference Friday.
That move, which included a tidy $3 million buyout of Brandon's contract, likely headed off what would've been another embarrassing display this weekend at Michigan Stadium.
The football team, stumbling through a disappointing season with a 3-5 record and a beleaguered head coach, is hosting Indiana today. But a planned, student-organized protest — dubbed "White Out, Dave Out" — was threatening to overshadow the traditional homecoming festivities. More than 2,000 T-shirts were to be distributed Friday afternoon, each emblazoned with the Wolverines' iconic "The Team, The Team, The Team" catchphrase as well as a newer, harsher rallying cry: #FireDaveBrandon.
Power to the people, I guess.
Money talks, and the continued failings of the university's prized cash cow — the football program — certainly played an integral role in Brandon's ouster. So, too, did the sentiments of influential donors, perhaps even including billionaire Stephen Ross, a previously-outspoken Brandon backer who told the Wall Street Journal this week he wouldn't stand in the way of any decision on the AD's job status.
But it took outraged fans — mostly students — no-showing for football games or chanting for Brandon's dismissal when they came, it took them rallying on the Diag and then marching on the president's house on campus, to fuel what ultimately led to this fire. Or resignation, such that it is.
Schlissel was quick to deny any political influence with Tuesday's elections looming.
"All I can say with 100 percent certainty and honestly, is politics has absolutely nothing to do with the way an athletic department is run within a university," said Schlissel, the former provost at Brown University. "Not in my book, anyway."
But last month's Board of Regents meeting was noteworthy just the same, as the Democratic majority, which had already publicly chided Brandon — after vetoing his plans to hold fireworks shows at two U-M football games — made its feelings clear. If that meant using the student body as cover, so be it.
Brandon had alienated so many of his customers, including the next crop of Michigan alumni, with his heavy-handed approach to sales and marketing, with his jacked-up ticket prices, and with his occasional trampling of traditions, his defenders weren't going to win this fight.
The student government last month delivered a report describing a "broken trust" with the athletic department. The U-M Alumni Association followed this week with a similar rebuke. A petition calling for Brandon's firing gathered signatures by the thousands.
"Fans, alums, supporters of the university, people who care about college athletics, believe — and in many respects, I think, correctly — there has been this disruption, to put it mildly, of their concept of what college football means," said regent Mark Bernstein, one of six Democrats on the eight-member board said at the Oct. 16 meeting in Flint. "Whether it be the traditions, the rituals, the gameday experience, the cost, fireworks, you name it — there have been both big and small things that have worked to erode that relationship that many people really, really treasure."
He's right, of course, though the commercials soliciting donations drowning out the Michigan Marching Band at football games — and many other perceived offenses, from "Legends" jerseys to "loyalty" programs — are no doubt symptomatic of a larger problem with college athletics these days.
Still, the condescending attitude that, at times, seemed to be a hallmark of Brandon's tenure — detailed most recently by MGoBlog.com in its reporting of alleged email exchanges between the AD and U-M supporters — did him no favors in the end.
Bernstein referred to last month's mishandling of the Shane Morris concussion — and the ensuing public-relations fiasco — as a "spark in a very, very dry forest." And with the "reservoir of goodwill" drained, he added, "now when you turn for the fire extinguisher, you can't find it."
Brandon, the former Domino's Pizza CEO, had spared no expense in creating an athletic department in his own image the last four years. He talked of trying to "create the future" and preached "If it ain't broke, break it." But on Friday, Schlissel had little choice but to pull the alarm and break the glass, expensive as it may be.
Michigan paid Rich Rodriguez $2.5 million to pack his bags four years ago, when Brandon felt compelled to pull the plug on that experiment. Now the university has agreed to pay $3 million to buy out the remainder of Brandon's contract, which was revised and extended in 2012. And it'll cost Michigan another $3 million to get rid of Brady Hoke before the end of 2014. (That buyout fee drops to $2 million after Jan. 1.)
That's a pittance compared to the athletic department's annual budget, of course. And as Schlissel, who understands biochemistry far better than he does booster clubs, has quickly discovered, that's the price of doing business at a school like Michigan. Football is more than just a pastime here, it's a bellweather, as unsettling as that may be.
That's "something that, intellectually, I knew on the way in the door," Schlissel acknowledged. "But, boy, did I sense the passion of all the fans, the alumni, the supporters of all our athletics programs in general, and football in particular."
He also noted, a bit sarcastically, that "we're sitting here wringing our hands that maybe there will be 95,000 instead of 110,000 watching a football game."
Maybe so, but whatever the official tally ends up, Friday's announcement gave the masses one less thing to complain about. And while that hardly fixes what's broken here, I trust the timing is no coincidence.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
twitter.com/JohnNiyo
