Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel stepping down

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel is stepping down at the end of the calendar year, the school announced. A former defensive tackle for the Wolverines under Bo Schembechler, he’s been Michigan’s athletic director since 2016.

Michigan released the outline of the internal investigation into the Sherrone Moore situation and the athletic department, the school said in a release. A full search for the school’s next athletic director will be conducted.

The investigation did not find that misconduct was widespread throughout the athletics department.

“Neither the investigation nor the culture review found that misconduct was widespread throughout the department,” the findings state. “The culture review found that weaknesses in accountability, organizational structure, oversight, and reporting created conditions in which misconduct was not always addressed consistently, promptly, or in accordance with University expectations.”

With an athletic department featuring 29 sports, he’s overseen national championships in football and men’s basketball. Michigan and Manuel also recently lost men’s basketball head coach Dusty May to the NBA, only months removed from winning a national title.

“This is unacceptable,” Michigan’s interim president Domenico Grasso said in a statement. “We have significant work ahead to restore Michigan Athletics to its standing as a model program not only on the field, but also off the field. Moving forward, we are implementing reforms to improve the areas I mentioned. The recommendations are publicly available on our website, but I want to emphasize a few.”

Michigan has also gone through a signal-stealing scandal involving football staff member Connor Stalions, the federal indictment of former assistant football coach Matt Weiss and head football coach Sherrone Moore’s firing and arrest in December.

“I always aim for steadiness, believe me,” he told reporters at Big Ten spring meetings, per ESPN. “This is not anything that I’ve desired or wanted or hoped for, but I deal with it, and then you know my goal as a leader is to provide the steadiness to the rest of the department, and my staff, and student-athletes, and I think I and we have done that as a department in the organization. I don’t take any of it lightly. It’s not something that I welcome, but we’ve dealt with it.”

In August 2025, the NCAA announced financial penalties against Michigan, expected to exceed $20 million, related to Stalions. Manuel fired Moore in December after the school learned of an inappropriate relationship he had with a football staff member.