Dan Murphy and Pete Thamel November 16, 2023, 8:00am ET5 minutes read
Harbaugh: Michigan must be “America’s Team.”
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh calls his Wolverines “America’s Team” and suggests his team will overcome its critics.
The extent of head coach Jim Harbaugh’s involvement in No. 3 Michigan’s remaining regular-season games will be decided Friday in an unprecedented midseason court battle in Ann Arbor.
Harbaugh said he plans to be in the relatively small courtroom at the Washtenaw County Courthouse at 9 a.m. Friday when a judge hears his request to lift the remainder of a three-game suspension imposed by the Big Ten last week. He, along with attorneys representing Michigan and the Big Ten, will stand before Judge Timothy Connors and six rows of spectators to discuss whether the coach should be allowed to stand on the sidelines for the Wolverines’ two remaining regular-season games against Maryland and No. 2 Ohio State.
Harbaugh said Monday he would like to speak at the hearing but didn’t know if that would be possible. Attorneys for Michigan did not return calls seeking comment about the hearing. According to Donald Shelton, who served as Washtenaw County’s chief judge before retiring to teach at UM-Dearborn Law School, witnesses can be called to the stand at injunction hearings, but more often they are supportive rely on the arguments of the lawyers.
“If there is a dispute about the facts of the case, which I doubt, the judge may require witnesses or documents,” Shelton said. “The conference then has the same opportunity to present arguments or evidence.”
The judge’s decision will depend on his interpretation of the Big Ten’s authority to punish the coach through its sportsmanship policy rather than on disputed facts and how the conference rulebook intersects with the NCAA’s enforcement process.
Legal experts say Connors has wide discretion over how Friday’s hearing will proceed and when he will make a decision.
In order for Harbaugh to coach again during the regular season, his lawyers must convince Judge Connors that: 1) they have a reasonable chance of proving at trial that the Big Ten is violating its own rules by imposing a penalty now; and 2) Harbaugh’s absence from the team the next two Saturdays could cause irreparable harm to him, the football program and the university.
Based on what both sides have said in court filings and a flurry of heated letters to each other over the past week, their arguments will likely focus on two specific parts of the Big Ten rules.
The first is Rule 32, which states that if the NCAA initiates an investigation into a Big Ten school, the conference may decide to impose additional sanctions after the NCAA takes action. In this case, the conference learned of the cheating allegations against Michigan after the NCAA opened an investigation in October. Michigan’s lawyers claim in court documents that the Big Ten and commissioner Tony Petitti “discontinued proceedings” to punish Harbaugh because of pressure from other coaches and athletic directors around the league.
Jim Harbaugh prepares to battle the Big Ten on court in hopes of getting back to the sidelines.Joseph Maiorana/USA TODAY Sports
Petitti wrote in a letter explaining the suspension last week that Rule 32 does not preclude him from using another part of the Big Ten rulebook – the Sportsmanship Policy – to impose penalties if he believes that the integrity of competition was compromised.
Petitti wrote that the evidence he saw from NCAA investigators and other conference participants gave him enough information to conclude that the personal investigative effort orchestrated by former employee Connor Stalions had compromised the integrity of competition at Michigan’s games . He said it was up to his discretion whether he wanted to use the sportsmanship policy or the “slower Rule 32 procedures.”
“This language couldn’t be clearer,” Petitti said. “If the objectionable conduct affects issues of sportsmanship, including the integrity of the competition, the commissioner is authorized to use the procedures and authorities prescribed in the Sportsmanship Policy, even though such objectionable conduct may also involve a violation of NCAA or conference rules. “
Michigan’s lawyers also argued in their request for a preliminary injunction that Big Ten sports policy does not give the league the authority to specifically punish Harbaugh. The policy says the Big Ten commissioner can hold accountable either someone “found to have committed an offensive act” or the institution responsible for that person.
“Coach Harbaugh is neither of those things,” his lawyers wrote in their legal filings last week.
Petitti said in his Friday letter that the conference had no evidence that Harbaugh was aware of the improper conduct. Instead, in issuing his sanction, he sought to draw a distinction between punishing the institution by removing its head coach from the sideline and specifically punishing Harbaugh. He opined that it was an appropriate punishment that would not harm the players by depriving them of their ability to participate in games, and also noted that “the head coach embodies the university in terms of its football program.”
“This is not a sanction from Coach Harbaugh,” Petitti wrote.
Judge Connors will be asked to analyze the semantics of the rule interpretations presented by both sides on Friday. There is no deadline for a decision, but it is unlikely he would decide directly from the bench during Friday’s hearing.