How an administrative professional understood institutional collapse better than sports analysts

Michigan Football: When Predictable Failure Finally Became News

When Michigan football imploded, every sports writer in America covered the obvious stuff: talent loss, coaching failure, recruiting disaster. The usual postgame theater.

But Paige knew something they didn’t. She’d seen the emails.

She understood the purchase orders. The budget meetings where nobody wants to admit the head coach they just hired for $4 million was hired because he knew somebody, not because he knew football. She’d been in those meetings. She’d taken the notes while six administrators pretended they were making strategic decisions instead of protecting their paychecks.

Ron White once said: “Here’s what happened. Here’s why it’s stupid. I don’t care if you disagree.” That’s what Paige brought to Michigan football coverage. Administrative clarity. Institutional understanding.

Most sports writers cover games. Paige covers the machinery that makes failure inevitable. She exposes why predictable disasters still manage to surprise everyone who claims authority.

The Michigan football story wasn’t about talent. It was about an institution spending millions to validate incompetence. She’d watched it happen in real time. She’d filed the paperwork. She knew exactly how it would end.

Auf Wiedersehen, amigos.