WSJ: Michigan Missed Warning Signs Around Football Coach’s Affair, Investigation Finds

quote:

---

When Michigan fired Sherrone Moore as head football coach in in December 2025, the university portrayed it as a swift response to the coach’s inappropriate relationship with a staff member. But new findings show that the school’s athletic director and other officials had received repeated reports about Moore’s behavior.

The incident spurred Michigan to ask law firm Jenner & Block to investigate the culture inside an athletic department that had been embroiled in a string of scandals. The firm concluded that the school’s response was insufficient and that it wasn’t clear who was handling allegations of wrongdoing.

The university hasn’t made the firm’s findings public. A university spokesman said on Tuesday that the school promptly fired Moore upon learning of the relationship, but declined to comment further because it was the subject of ongoing litigation.

One major warning sign appeared before Moore even took the sideline for his first game as head coach. Two days before the 2024 season kickoff, athletic director Warde Manuel raised concerns with Moore about the coach’s close relationship with his executive assistant, Paige Shiver, according to the law firm’s findings.

“I told him I didn’t remember if we had already discussed, but that she couldn’t accompany him on trips,” Manuel wrote in a previously unreported note on Aug. 29, 2024, handwritten on Michigan letterhead.

A year later, Manuel fired Moore for the relationship, which violated university policy. The same day, Moore was arrested after confronting Shiver at her apartment while wielding a butter knife.

Told of the findings, an attorney for Shiver called on Michigan to release the full report. An attorney for Moore declined to comment on “selective excerpts or summaries of an unpublished report.” The university spokesman said that keeping the investigation documents confidential preserves the integrity of the process and protects the privacy of participants.

---

quote:

---

In January 2022, Moore and Shiver’s physical relationship began on a recruiting trip in Colorado, according to the firm’s findings.

That summer, Shiver had an abortion and told Moore that she went to a hospital to be treated for postpartum depression, according to the firm’s findings. She texted Moore about Michigan’s head coach at the time, Jim Harbaugh. “Mr. Harbaugh helped me get into the head person here,” she texted Moore. “Don’t worry he doesn’t know everything and won’t[,] just knows I’m not well.”

Harbaugh couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

---

quote:

---

The law firm noted that allegations about the relationship surfaced repeatedly beginning that year: an allegation of Shiver acting inappropriately in Moore’s office; a hotline complaint received by Manuel; and a report to university officials about Moore’s emotional state by Shiver’s father.

---

quote:

---

The university was also aware of Moore’s online interactions with a donor’s wife who posted provocative photos on her Instagram account, the firm found.

---