Bill Martin Legacy
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Last week, Bill Martin announced he would step down as Michigan’s athletic director, effective right before next fall’s first football game.
I was a little surprised Martin announced his retirement in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the football season. But, as surprises go, it wasn’t much of one. Martin has already put in a decade as the Wolverines’ athletic director, which is about average by contemporary standards. And he’s accomplished more during that time than anyone could have reasonably expected -- perhaps including himself.
The big surprises happened years ago.
The first occurred when former U of M President Lee Bollinger tapped his old friend to fill in for a few months while the school searched for a full time replacement. Martin – an avid sailor who never played or coached any school sports -- did the job so well that Michigan’s coaches asked Bollinger to keep him. And it was perhaps a bigger surprise that Martin, who had already made millions building First Martin Corporation into the largest property owner in the city, took the job – for a dollar a year.
He had no idea what he was getting into.
For almost a century, Michigan had arguably the most innovative, successful and stable athletic department in the country. Michigan needed only five A-Ds for its first 90 years – and five more just to get through the 1990s.
When Martin took over in 1999, the department labored under a $3.9 million dollar deficit and the specter of an investigation by both the NCAA and the FBI into illegal payments made to basketball players – which proved to be true.
Martin should have asked for more than a buck.
The first order of business was to clear Michigan’s name. Martin did that by cooperating with the NCAA – even though they always make you regret it.
He then created a huge budget surplus, revamped the aging facilities, and hired coaches. He did great work on the first two tasks, and a pretty good job on the third.
He hired a few duds, most notably basketball coaches Cheryl Burnett and Tommy Amaker. But when he hired them, there was good reason to believe both would succeed. They just didn’t, so Martin let them go and replaced them with much better coaches.
Martin’s search for a new football coach, however, was undoubtedly the low point of his tenure. Lloyd Carr had already told Martin he would not be coaching much longer, but Martin seemed to be genuinely caught off-guard by Carr’s retirement after the 2007 Ohio State game.
Les Miles, a former Michigan player and assistant coach who was in the process of leading Louisiana State University to a national title, wanted the Michigan job – but Michigan did not even return his calls. Instead, Michigan offered the job to Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano – who publicly turned Michigan down. Martin then reassured people that he had a list of twenty candidates, which is the kind of list you put together a year before you actually need to pick one.
Martin and U of M President Mary Sue Coleman had to scramble. They got lucky when Rich Rodriguez became interested only after his West Virginia team got knocked out of the national title chase by lowly Pitt. But the damage had been done to the Michigan football family, which remains fractured.
It will be up to the next AD to bring the family back together. The question is: should Michigan hire someone with an athletic background, or a business one? The race is on.
But whomever they pick, the next AD will no doubt make some mistakes and some enemies. Martin did both, and some might have been avoidable. But Michigan will be lucky if its next athletic director improves the department as much as Bill Martin did.
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John: Bien Dicho! Your praise and criticisms were aptly put. "And that's the way it is...or was"!
Go Blue!
Dr. Ed Kornblue
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John:
I am hopeful that Ms. Coleman will utilize the advance notice of Mr. Martin’s retirement more efficiently than was done replacing Coach Carr. It appears to me given the background and successful career Mr. Martin has had it makes sense to have him play an integral role on the search committee…Perhaps as the Chairperson.
In regards to whether the best choice for the job should be a business person with a proven track record in managing budgets, personnel, marketing and understanding the impact your decisions will have on a balance sheet verse an All-Star performing athlete, I would opt for the business person. Ask the Lions how things worked out with a proven athlete making major decisions that have long term impact on the organization.
UM athletics is big business and the title of AD at a program this large in reality should be called the CEO of Athletics. No more than I feel our elected officials are qualified to run banks, automobile companies or healthcare, do I feel a proven athlete is necessarily qualified to replace Mr. Martin. You can be sure that the most challenging aspects of his job are the things no one knows he even deals with and certainly never appear in a box score. The reason no one is aware of the difficult tasks is because he managed them in a timely manner before they became a problem. A successful AD should manage the business of athletics which includes the responsibility of hiring qualified coaches to oversee the athletics.
Whomever the Trustees hire as the next CEO of Athletics I encourage them to incorporate incentives based upon graduation rates and cumulative GPA’s for all student-athletes. Plus, insist that the contract for all coaches include a severe penalty clause for leaving before their contract is fulfilled, given the coach expects to be paid in full if the University asks him to leave before the contract expires. On top of that, hopefully the next person will not only have the business acumen of Mr. Martin, but also possess the entrepreneurial spirit, courage and visionary talents of Mr. Yost.
There is the answer to your question! The perfect replacement would possess the qualifications of Mr. Fielding Yost…A student, a player, a coach, a businessman, an attorney and, of course, an experienced CEO of Athletics.
Be well!
Jim
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"The question is: should Michigan hire someone with an athletic background, or a business one?"
A tough question and since this isn't a perfect world, Michigan will be darn lucky to find both attributes in the same person.
Regardless of who becomes the next AD, I would like to see that person reach out to students more and mend fences with alum. I don't think solid leadership only comes with a business person or not from a sports-minded person.
While Martin did admirable work with the budget and facilities (though to this layperson, why football got a second practice facility before BB got their first is beyond me), Martin was just too darn aloof to be the AD of the leaders and best. For example, just who in their right mind doesn't support their team at the Rose Bowl; sailing was more important?
Furthermore, someone with real leadership skills wouldn't have conducted the football coaching search that way. Let's say the rumors are true about Carr influencing the decision not to make offer or interview Miles. Martin could have personally mitigated a lot of the division we see in the Michigan family now by simply returning one of Miles' calls and being straight with him. The whole situation was embarrassing and 100% preventable.
Nice article and go blue!
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He may have upgraded the facilities, but nearly every initial coaching hire except baseball, was flawed. Perhaps time will treat his legacy kindly, but I'll recall his pettiness regarding Dave Shand above everything else.
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