Illinois just guaranteed athletic director Josh Whitman more than $31 million over the next decade, while the University of Michigan sat on a $12 million investigation into its own scandal-plagued athletics department — and working families writing tuition checks are footing the bill for both.
These are public universities, funded by taxpayers and students, building bureaucracies that serve administrators first. The Illinois board of trustees approved Whitman's deal on Thursday, giving the fifth-longest tenured AD in the power conferences a salary starting at $2.15 million — a raise of more than 40% — with $100,000 annual bumps, $500,000 retention bonuses, and up to $500,000 more in performance incentives each year, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The contract could stretch to 2039 if football and men's basketball hit certain marks.
Meanwhile, in Ann Arbor, Michigan's athletic department has been burning cash on the back end. The university commissioned an independent investigation by Chicago law firm Jenner & Block into the department's culture after a string of scandals that would have sunk a private-sector executive. The price tag: nearly $12 million, according to ESPN.
And what did $12 million buy? Regent Paul Brown told MLive there was "no major smoking gun" — just "a death by a thousand cuts" and "a lack of following best practices" that created the conditions for what he called a "disaster." That disaster includes former head coach Sherrone Moore being fired in December 2025 for an inappropriate relationship with a staff member, then driving to her residence to confront her, leading to his arrest and a plea deal on misdemeanor charges. Before that, there was the sign-stealing scandal involving Connor Stalions, NCAA violations under Jim Harbaugh, and former offensive coordinator Matt Weiss facing federal felony charges for aggravated identity theft and unauthorized access to computers. Weiss has pleaded not guilty.
Through it all, AD Warde Manuel — who makes nearly $2.4 million annually on a contract through 2030 — has not been directly implicated. Interim president Domenico Grasso reaffirmed his support Thursday, calling Manuel "one of the best athletic directors" in the country, according to MLive. Manuel told reporters he has no plans to leave.
As for that $12 million report, the university initially said results would remain "confidential." Brown now says "some level" of findings will be released once regents receive a written version. Grasso was less committal: "That's under consideration. We're still thinking about it," MLive reported.
The Chicago Sun-Times framed Whitman's extension as a reward for "standout seasons." ESPN and MLive framed Manuel's situation as a question of his future. What neither frame captures is the structural racket: public universities paying athletic directors like Fortune 500 CEOs while students take out loans, and spending eight-figure sums on investigations that produce euphemisms about "best practices" instead of accountability.
One AD gets a 40% raise. The other keeps his $2.4 million job after presiding over a department that required a $12 million cleanup. The working families paying tuition and taxes are supposed to accept both outcomes without complaint. The only question is how long they'll keep paying.
