Michigan announced Friday that it has fired men’s hockey coach Mel Pearson after an investigation found a toxic culture within the program.
“It has been determined that Mel Pearson will not return as our ice hockey coach,” director of athletics Warde Manuel said in a statement. “This decision has been weighed heavily and for some time. We welcomed an independent third-party review into the climate and culture of our program before furthering our assessment in lockstep with campus leadership.”
The Athletic’s Katie Strang reported earlier this week that Wolverines hockey players took an anonymous survey last June that outlined Pearson’s actions as coach. Players said he encouraged them to give false information on COVID-19 contact-tracing forms, misled recruits regarding scholarship money and called a player a “Jew.”
