Last 
summer, 
Beilein 
was 
reportedly in talks to become the 
coach of the Detroit Pistons, but 
decided to remain at Michigan. 
In July, he signed a contract 
extension through 2023, with a 
rollover clause that would keep 
him in Ann Arbor as long as both 
sides desired.
However, this time around, the 
Cavaliers were too enticing to pass 
up. According to Wojnarowski, 
Beliein had become frustrated 
with 
the 
world 
of 
college 
basketball recruiting and the 
nature of top teams losing their 
players year after year. Beilein 
was also an appealing choice to 
NBA teams for the work he did 
rebuilding the Wolverines into a 

top national contender after years 
mired in mediocrity.
“We could not be more thrilled 
to name John Beilein as the new 
coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” 
Gilbert said in a statement. “First, 
John is a great human being. He 
cares deeply about his players 
and others who work for him and 
around him. He defines the words 
class, integrity and character. He 
is a tireless worker who obsesses 
about finding better ways and 
the inches that will help his team 
and the organization grow. John 
is a brilliant basketball mind and 
last but not least, John Beilein 
is a winner. I also want to thank 
Koby and his hardworking staff 
for turning over every rock while 
relentlessly searching for our new 
head coach since the minute this 
past season ended. It is no surprise 
that Koby and his team landed 
on John Beilein as great cultures 

attract others 
who hold the 
same values as the foundation for 
everything they do. I can’t wait 
for next season to begin.”
Staying in Cleveland will also 
allow Beilein to stay relatively 
close to home, as well as just a few 
hours drive to his son Patrick, who 
is now the coach of Niagara.
In a statement released Monday 
afternoon, athletic director Warde 
Manuel thanked Beilein for his time 
at the University and said that he 
would commence a national search 
for the next coach. Michigan hired 
the search firm Turnkey Search — 
the same firm it used to hire Manuel 
in 2016 — according to the Detroit 
Free Press. 
“I was saddened when John told 
me this morning of his decision to 
leave Michigan for a head coaching 
position in the NBA. However, I am 
incredibly thankful for his 12 years 
of service to this university,” said 

Manuel. “Above and beyond being 
our all-time winningest coach, 
John is a tremendous role model 
for the game of college basketball. 
He is an outstanding educator, 

community member and a man of 
great integrity, and he and Kathleen 
will be missed. My priority now is 
to commence a full national search 
for our next basketball coach.”

SPORTS 11

Thursday, May 16, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

As Beilein leaves, an unmistakable legacy is left in his wake

The last time the Michigan had to 
replace its head coach, the program 
was unrecognizable to those familiar 
with the current Wolverines.
Michigan in 2007 had barely 
scraped relevance since the breakup 
of the Fab Five in 1993. It hadn’t 
made the NCAA Tournament since 
1998 — an appearance later vacated 
by NCAA sanctions. It lived under 
the shadow of the football team and 
a group of recruits who had since 
been banned from the program.
CJ Lee, a Michigan guard from 
2006-09 and current director of 
program 
personnel, 
was 
there 
when then-coach Tommy Amaker 
was fired. Even with Amaker’s 
uninspiring record, his firing still 
incited some disappointment. After 
all, he had helped drag the program 
out of its sanction-induced low point 
in the early 2000s.
Lee, though, knew the Wolverines 
were getting someone good in 
John Beilein. Lee went to high 
school in western New York, where 
Beilein recruited some of his AAU 
teammates and had seen Beilein’s 
success at West Virginia. The Beilein 
he knew of back then was a coach 
who ran a unique offense and a 1-3-1 
zone, a coach with a good reputation 
but questions about whether he 
could stick at a high-major program 
like Michigan.
Twelve years later, when Beilein 

left the Wolverines to take the helm of 
the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday 
morning, he was a coach who still 
ran a unique offense, albeit one of a 
different vein, but had ditched the 
zone — and ditched control over 
his defense, hiring assistants with 
greater expertise in the area. He 
was a coach whose reputation had 
exploded, who hadn’t just succeeded 
at a high-major program but taken 
it from no-man’s-land to consistent 
contender. He was a coach who had 
become, in some ways, impossible to 
replace — the unenviable task that 
now falls on the shoulders of athletic 
director Warde Manuel.
“The first couple years, people 
were kinda wondering, does (Beilein) 
have what it takes?” Lee told The 
Daily. “And it just shows that his 
ability to morph, his ability to adapt, 
his ability to change, his ability to 
figure out that place and figure out 
his way of doing things here — it was 
incredible. And it worked.”
Beilein got Michigan back to the 
NCAA Tournament in his second 
year, and the Wolverines have made 
it in eight of the past nine years — 
with five Sweet Sixteens and two 
appearances in the national title 
game. His performance surpassed 
even 
what 
could 
have 
been 
considered the best-case scenario.
“It goes without saying, he 
brought Michigan basketball back to 
prominence,” Lee said. “I would say 
he restored the image in the hearts 
and minds of a lot of people, probably 
in the court of public opinion. 
Certainly, coach Amaker did a great 

job in his time, coming out of the 
sanctions, and then coach Beilein 
took it to a level where you’re back in 
the Final Four.”
Zack Novak, a Michigan guard 
from 2008-12, joined the program 
in Beilein’s early days. Back then, 
the team was filled with Amaker 
holdovers, and Beilein was tasked 
with not only developing his young 
players, but getting buy-in from his 
older ones — a test he passed with 
flying colors. Then, he began to build 
the foundation of the Wolverines’ 
new 
identity. 
Novak 
saw 
the 
beginning of that foundation, with 
Michigan’s 
NCAA 
Tournament 
appearance in 2009. By the time he 
left in 2012 — with a Big Ten regular-
season title and a No. 4 seed in the 
tournament — he saw a program that 
finally stood on solid ground.
“From day one, when coach 
starting recruiting me, the first 
step was, get back to the NCAA 
Tournament,” Novak told The Daily 
on April 13. “But he was very firm 
that Michigan should be a premier 
program and we needed to build the 
foundation to get back to where it 
should be. And so, I think from day 
one, he had a vision and he had his 
guys that bought into the vision.
“And I think you gotta give credit 
to a lot of the guys who came from 
coach Amaker, who rolled over. Kind 
of a difficult situation, right? Two 
very different styles of playing. And 
those guys easily could have been 
cancers on the team and not bought 
into the vision, and instead they did 
the opposite. 
And 
really 

set the foundation for what was to 
come. Now, with that being said, 
I’m not gonna lie to you and say that 
I thought we’d be in two national 
title games in the next 10 years. I 
think it’s gone a bit beyond what the 
original vision was.”
From 
there, 
Beilein 
built 
Michigan into what it is now, all with 
the perception that he runs a clean 
program. Beilein is one of the few 
high-major coaches who is widely 
believed not to cheat. He instilled his 
values in every player, from Lee and 
Novak until now. Former Michigan 
sports information director Bruce 
Madej 
remembered 
Beilein 
as 
someone who always talked about 
family and community. Even as 
Beilein began to crave the greater 
challenge that the NBA would 
bring, that community was what the 
Wolverines were to him.
In a way, the NBA is a culmination 
for Beilein. This is someone who has 
never held a permanent position as 
an assistant coach, instead climbing 
the ladder from high school JV to 
community college to Division II to 
mid-major to Michigan. Professional 
basketball was the one step he had 
never taken.
“What has happened to John 
Beilein in his life and in his coaching 
career has been miraculous, it’s 
really been magical,” said Jeff 
Neubauer, the current Fordham 
coach and a former Beilein assistant 
at Richmond and West Virginia 
from 1996-2005. “... Who he has 
been throughout his life is to take on 
a massive challenge — most of them 

were places where people didn’t 
think he could succeed. So he’s gone 
to different schools throughout his 
career and done amazing things 
over and over. So my speculation 
would be that this is his opportunity 
to take on another huge challenge, 
climb another mountain.”
Now, Beilein is firmly entrenched 
as a Michigan legend. No matter who 
you talk to, former players, assistants 
and people around the program have 
nary a bad word to say about him — 
as a person or a coach.
And regardless of what the 
future holds, Beilein will always 
be remembered as the coach who 
brought Michigan back to soaring 
heights, the coach who firmly 
implanted a new culture and the 
coach who did things the right way 
— in every sense of the word.
“I tell people all the time when 
they ask me about playing for, 
working for coach Beilein, is that as 
good of a basketball coach as he is, 
he’s a better person,” Lee said. “And 
I think that, over the last 12 years, 
the fan base and college basketball 
in general has got to witness an 
incredible, incredible human being 
who happens to be a basketball 
coach on the sidelines, in Ann Arbor.
“And I really hope that they 
cherish that. I hope they recognize 
how special that is to have the 
human being, the coach, the man, 
the success. How rare that is, for it all 
to come together like that. So I just 
hope that people are appreciative 
and he is honored for his time, 
because he did a tremendous job.”

ARIA GERSON &
 THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editors

BEILEIN
From Page 1A

ERIN KIRKLAND/Daily
Former Michigan coach John Beilein said that he is leaving Michigan on Monday.

