When Santa Ono’s phone pinged on Jan. 16 with intel that Jim Harbaugh would return to coach Michigan in 2023 and not bolt for the NFL, he did what any true blue Wolverines fan would do.
Ono grabbed his phone, opened X and started typing. But Ono isn’t just any Michigan fan — he’s the university president — and his text had come from a pretty good source: Harbaugh himself. Ono hit post.
“I’m not your typical university president; I get excited and I really care about our teams,” Ono told ESPN. “So in this backdrop, I tweeted it out when [Harbaugh] texts me, ‘I’m staying.’ All I did was to say I’m excited that he’s staying and I told Warde.
Ono’s Harbaugh announcement and the addendum that he had communicated the news to athletic director Warde Manuel — not the other way around — set off alarms about the Harbaugh-Manuel relationship, which had reportedly frayed. Ono, not Manuel, had been the public face of the Harbaugh-NFL saga, first expressing the desire for Harbaugh to stay at U-M, then ultimately confirming the coach’s return
