The Five Most Interesting Things Warde Manuel Said: August 13, 2020

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel spoke with Ed Kengerski after the Big Ten season was cancelled and tried to explain some of the decisions that were made. Manuel spoke for a little over eight minutes and had some pretty strong things to say.

1. We will still have practices and we will still do it safely. We’ll still follow protocols, but we just won’t be able to play this fall.

As a former high school athlete, I can't imagine this. I know playing at Michigan is a much, much bigger deal, and could potentially lead to a life-changing career in the NFL, but practicing without the payoff of playing in a game, at any level, sounds awful. I find myself very curious about how the team will respond to this. Some might be big enough football junkies that any action is good action. Others might really get burned out without an opportunity to play "real" football against someone else. I think a big group will fall somewhere in between — practicing because they pretty much have to, but maybe not going as hard as they would during a normal season. However it all plays out, it just pales in comparison to what should be going on.

2. There’s no message I can give to [the people who think football should be played].

Like everything in our country these days, there are people with very strong opinions on both sides of every single topic. Cancelling football is certainly no different. From a leadership standpoint, school presidents and athletic directors do not want to be responsible for a player getting sick or worse. Depending on who you ask and where you look, it's safe enough out there to play football. Other sources make it sound extremely careless and dangerous. There's no way Manuel can try to convince people how to feel, so say that he doesn't have a message for people is the right approach.

3. Nobody can tell you exactly how or when somebody will contract this virus and nobody can tell you all of the short term or long term effects of getting this virus.

This is what makes the entire pandemic so tough to deal with. There doesn't seem to be a surefire way to prevent it and there doesn't seem to be a definite way of contracting it. Some people have no symptoms and others end up on their death beds. Some people get over it in a hurry and others are laid up for several weeks. Because of all of the differences, it's been really hard to prevent and deal with. That's why football was cancelled.

4. I don’t hold any animosity toward anybody that didn’t decided to not play in the fall. I think they have the right to make the decisions that they find best for themselves and their student athletes.

I actually think Manuel would say something else behind closed doors, but this is what he has to say. It's probably not animosity, but it's something. He's a former athlete, he wants football at Michigan, but he understands the inherent risks. If he were sitting with his buddies talking about the season, I would bet he'd say that U-M should be playing. What's really going to take it to another level is if the ACC, Big 12 and SEC actually play this fall and do so successfully. That's going to make the Big Ten and Pac-12 look really bad and Manuel is going to take the brunt of that.

5. Sports is important to our society but not more important than their education and definitely not more important than their health and safety.

This is what it ultimately comes down to. If a player got sick or died on Manuel's watch, that could be too much to come back from. Everyone is hoping and praying that that doesn't happen if the ACC, Big 12 and SEC play this fall, but it's definitely a possibility, and that's the reality of the virus. Manuel and his constituents realize that and pulled the plug on the season for that very reason.