Warde Manuel will step down as athletic director at Michigan at the end of the calendar year, the school announced Monday.
A former defensive tackle at Michigan, Manuel spent four years as UConn’s athletic director from 2012 to 2016 and will leave Ann Arbor with a checkered record. The Wolverines earned national titles in major revenue sports under his tenure, including a championship win over UConn in men’s basketball this past spring, but the football program was embroiled in multiple national scandals surrounding sign-stealing and inappropriate relationships.
Manuel was hired as UConn’s athletic director in February 2012 after a successful stint at Buffalo, entering a crucial period for Huskies athletics – Pitt, West Virginia and Syracuse had all defected to power conferences months earlier, kicking off the downfall of the original Big East Conference. Just two months into his stint as athletic director, Manuel was also tasked with replacing a Huskies icon, as legendary men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun retired after the 2012 season.
Kevin Ollie, a national championship point guard at UConn with two years of experience on Calhoun’s staff, was selected as the next head coach that offseason. On the gridiron, Manuel fired Paul Pasqualoni just four games into the program’s debut American Athletic Conference season in 2013 after embarrassing losses to Towson and Buffalo, replacing him with Notre Dame defensive coordinator Bob Diaco.
Manuel returned to his alma mater as athletic director in January 2016. At the time of his departure, the hires of Ollie and Diaco appeared shrewd, as UConn football was coming off its first bowl game in a half-decade, while men’s basketball won an improbable national title in 2014 and surged to a 14-5 start in 2016 with wins over Michigan, Texas and Ohio State.
However, Diaco was fired the following year after a dismal 3-9 season, and Ollie was let go in 2018 after overseeing consecutive losing campaigns. Manuel overlapped with the women’s basketball program’s unprecedented run of four consecutive national titles, and UConn’s field hockey squad also won consecutive NCAA championships in 2012 and 2013.
Manuel faced scrutiny in Ann Arbor for his decision to retain Jim Harbaugh after going 2-4 during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, but the former Michigan quarterback immediately repaid this faith, at least on the field, as the Wolverines posted a combined 30-3 record over the next three years with three consecutive wins over archrivals Ohio State and a 2024 College Football Playoff title. However, Harbaugh left Michigan after the 2023 season amid a sign-stealing scandal – the NCAA cited “overwhelming evidence of such a scheme in a 2025 report – and his replacement, Sherrone Moore, was fired for cause last year after the university found after the university cited an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.
His hiring in men’s basketball has been a mixed bag. The Juwan Howard era ended in disaster after an 8-24 season in 2024, but his replacement, Dusty May, needed just two years to win a national title in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines also won a national title in gymnastics three years ago, and the women’s basketball program reached its second Elite Eight since 2022 this past spring.
This article originally published at Former UConn athletic director Warde Manuel to step down after decade at Michigan.
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