In the whirlwind of perspectives out there on the Free Press allegations, I thought I’d toss in another.  I reached out to former Michigan hockey player, assistant coach, WTKA morning show co-host and lawyer Dave Shand.   As always, given his resume Shand has something interesting to add, never seems to fit snuggly within any particular profile of Michigan fan and he’s not afraid to talk about it. We spoke about the Free Press report which he read in detail this weekend: His initial reaction to Free Press piece: Shand: “There are certain things that really astonished me in the report; things that I don’t think stunned anybody else. I was shocked that Judy Van Horn was doing spot checks.  Judy is very good and very tough.  But when I was there as an assistant coach, it was a given that coaches were not going to go over the NCAA maximum (of supervised hours).  There were no spot checks.  Spots checks mean you don’t trust your own coach!  And that bothers me because I really like what Rich Rodriguez is doing and I really like the direction of the program.” On how the hockey program monitored practice time when he coached: Shand: “I can tell you exactly the way it worked. We had our practices which were mandatory and supervised and…

(HT: UMGoBlog) Related: MVictors interviews with Michael Rosenberg: * Part I: Discussing War as They Knew it * Part II: Rodriguez, the blogosphere and more

Via the U-M Media Relations department, Statement from Athletic Director Bill Martin We are committed to following both the letter and the intent of the NCAA rules and we take any allegations of violations seriously. We believe we have been compliant with NCAA rules but nonetheless we have launched a full investigation of the allegations in today’s newspaper. We have already reached out to both the Big Ten and the NCAA and we will have more to say on this as soon as we have completed our assessment. Related: An Involuntary Round-up on the Free Press report Free Press investigates off-season work-outs

My colleagues in the blogosphere do a much better job of the periodic link-out posts.  Today’s posts and articles reacting to Rosenberg’s piece are really solid.   My initial reaction was more of a stream of consciousness starting from 1am last night and finishing up this morning.  Good to see a range of reaction across the nerdosphere and elsewhere: * mgoblog: props to TomVH for getting a few quotes from parents, here’s the father of Michael Schofield: The worst part of all of this is that the reporters targeted the freshman, with misleading questions they can get them to say anything. I’m a fire chief, and I deal with the media. I don’t let my men deal with the media, because they can get them to say anything. They could make us sound like the worst station out there if they wanted to. Without names, this article means nothing to me. * Maize ‘n’ Brew: Dave presents his own smattering of thoughts, here’s one: 7)  I would like some answers from the coaching staff.  It’s not just that UM passed the rules a little bit – if the article is 100% true – they obliterated them.  That’s the kind of thing that strikes me (a casual fan and observer, nothing more) as being a bit reckless. * The Wolverine Blog: Ace…

More from WTKA today as Le’Ron Stokes (father of Je’Ron) and Alvin Warren (Donovan) dialed in.  Here are links to the podcasts on WTKA: Stokes audio Warren audio

Here’s the piece.  Abstract: Michigan football consistently has violated NCAA rules governing off-season workouts, in-season demands on players and mandatory summer activities under coach Rich Rodriguez, numerous players told the Free Press. We learned that many, probably most, of Michigan fans can tolerate a little losing.  If the allegations are true, I’m sure they won’t be as tolerant toward rules violations.  The issue I see with the report is that the alleged ‘voluntary’ participation may be tough to define and interpret and therefore these allegations will probably be viewed by most fans as a another attempt by the Freep to discredit Rodriguez.  The Freep stresses that the players interviewed said they faced punishment if they didn’t come to workouts; maybe that’s where the NCAA will have grounds to take a look. One other item – the names of all the players interviewed weren’t released but if the NCAA takes a look, I assume they’ll come out.   There are clearly guys who have left the program with agendas, so I think it’s important to sort out who said what.  More later but would love to get your initial reaction in the comments. Ed. 8/30:  A couple more thoughts this morning.  Looking it over, the NCAA might narrow down on the post-game Sunday workouts that the Freep (and ESPN) alleges far exceeded…

A pleasure to join WTKA 1050AM’s Michigan Insider show this early this morning in the 7AM hour.  New host Ira Weintraub invited Brian Cook of mgoblog to run the show from 7-10AM and I joined them in the first hour with Craig Ross of Obscene Diaries and the Ann Arbor Observer joining shortly thereafter. After battling a few technical difficulties in the beginning, we got rolling.  Here’s a segment with me, Cook and at the end, Ross talking quaterbacks, quaterbacks, quarterbacks, Coke, Big House sound and more: [display_podcast] Here’s the rest of the WTKA podcasts from the morning, including later when Jon Chait, editor of the New Republic, Mike Rothstein of AnnArbor.com and the great John U. Bacon joined Cook to round out the day:   Chait Segment Bacon Segment Related: April 2009: The Future of Ann Arbor Journalism (WTKA audio) March 2009: MVictors hits the Big Show (WTKA audio)

HT: mgoblog, Word is out that former FB-turned-DE-turned-transfer Vince Helmuth will indeed land in the MAC, but not at Eastern Michigan as speculated here a couple weeks ago: I hear that [Vince’s brother] Gabe is going to end up at Eastern Michigan to focus on track—perhaps that’s where Vince is headed to join his bro and former Michigan defensive coordinator Ron English. Wrong! Now word is coming out of Oxford (and after a Google search, looks like Mark Snyder of the Freep was on this already, see the notes) that Helmuth will instead land at Bo Schembechler’s alma mater, Miami of Ohio.  Related:  Interview: Vince Helmuth