Juwan Howard Involved in Nose-to-Nose Confrontation With Strength Coach
There have been plenty of rumors flying around about Michigan Basketball head coach Juwan Howard’s status with the program recently. He’s been recovering from a heart procedure and has been less present on the sidelines during his recovery, but that hasn’t stopped the Wolverine skipper from making headlines. A report came out that Howard got into an altercation of some kind with a Michigan staffer. New details have since come to light.
Juwan Howard Confronts Jon Sanderson
Jeff Goodman reported details of the alleged confrontation via The Field of 68: After Dark:
“Juwan’s son [Jace] who has been out all year – he’s been hurt, he’s been frustrated not being able to get back on the court. He was in the training room and he was walking out and he got into it with the trainer first. Almost to the point of berating the trainer, over the line. The strength coach Jon Sanderson hears it, and he gets pissed off because he hears it. He thought that Jace was going way over the line, that he shouldn’t be doing that, certainly not to a position of authority and someone who’s a trainer.”
Goodman continued:
“Jon Sanderson hears this and says something to the effect of, ‘That’s why the effing culture is what it is around here,’ because he’s going off on someone that is trying to help him. So Juwan hears this, and Juwan gets upset, gets mad. We’ve seen Juwan mad before. He did it with Mark Turgeon a couple years ago on the sideline, he did it certainly with Greg Gard and Joe Krabbenhoft when he slapped or hit or whatever you want to call it with Krabbenhoft during a Wisconsin game.
He went right up to Sanderson, who’s about 6’7″/6’8″ and 270 pounds. He’s an MF’er. He’s a big, strong strength coach – exactly what you would think of if there were a picture of a strength coach on the wall right now. And he went right up to him, and they got, from what my sources tell me […] chest-to-chest, nose-to-nose before they had to be separated.”
Michigan’s Investigation
As The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn detailed, the University of Michigan is reportedly reviewing the alleged confrontation. Juwan Howard remains under a zero-tolerance policy since the Krabbenhoft incident.
Are these the final days of Juwan Howard’s tenure at Michigan? It’s hard to say what the university’s review process will determine regarding the severity of Juwan’s actions. I would think an outright dismissal is unlikely, but a zero-tolerance policy is a zero-tolerance policy.
Michigan Basketball is currently 1-1 in Big Ten play and 5-5 overall. The Wolverines will face Eastern Michigan in a non-conference matchup on December 16.
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