Warde Manuel is the 12th athletic director in the 118 years that the University of Michigan has had a formal title for the job. He’s the first that has experience leading an athletic department at a different school. And he’s the second African-American man in that office.
The first two distinctions have been noted several times since news of Manuel’s return to Ann Arbor became public knowledge earlier this week. The last one has garnered very little mention, if any at all. That Manuel’s skin color is no longer something worth talking about is, in itself, something worth talking about.