U-M president Ono: A winning football team lifts donations, admissions scramble

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — When the football program has a historic year, the admissions office has a frenzied one. Or in the case of the University of Michigan, make that extra-frenzied.

U-M already turns away 76% of prospective freshmen, and with its unbeaten team playing Saturday in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, the number will be going up. But university president Santa Ono, 2½ months into the job, will tell you that's a good thing.

He can also tell you how it feels to be passed to the top of a stadium, what he particularly admires about quarterback J.J. McCarthy, where he perfected cold-calling alumni for donations, and why he hasn't learned to hate Ohio State University since he's been in Ann Arbor.

Oh, heck, let's end the suspense and start with OSU. Ono, 59, served as president of the University of Cincinnati from 2012-16, "and I've always despised Ohio State," he said Friday. "I didn't have to learn."

As for the admissions scramble, he said, "It's pretty well documented that there's a big spike in applications for an institution" when it's, say, butting heads with Texas Christian for the right to play for the national championship in Los Angeles Jan. 9.

True, he conceded, that's not the best news for applicants. But anyone sharp enough to have a realistic shot at Michigan will probably wind up with multiple good options, and it's a wolverine-eat-wolverine world.

"We exist in a competitive environment," Ono said, "and we do want to have the best and the brightest." Or, if you want to sing it out, the leaders and best.

Ono was taking a brief break in a restaurant at the sold-out Westin Kierland Resort & Spa, the official lodging of the alumni association tour group. With a donor lunch approaching, he was ignoring most of a sparse plate from the breakfast buffet.

His schedule for the day also included an event for prospective students who'd come from "all over the world to watch the game," a pep rally, and dinner with some people in position to be kind to the university.

He was having a grand time, and had been since he flew in with his family Thursday from a California vacation.

"There's a place at the mall across the street that makes liquid nitrogen ice cream. You should try it," he said.

A sea of maize and blue

Ono was wearing a navy suit with an open-collared shirt. The dress code for most everyone else included at least one Block M.

Sweaters, sweatpants, sweatshirts, golf shirts, T-shirts, socks, all in maize or blue. One pair of gaudy shorts, checked in both. At least one onesie.

Amid elevated glass cases in the lobby holding Gila monsters and a Western diamondback rattlesnake, Fran Goran, of Bloomfield Hills, was wearing a blue alumni fleece over a blue mail-order T-shirt from Michigan's appearance in the 2021 Orange Bowl. Her husband, Michael, had gone with a blue tee and a maize hoodie.

They met on a classic blind date when she was a freshman in 1968: "The Sand Pebbles" at the State Theatre, then Drake's for cinnamon buns.

Awash in fellow alumni, dazzled by Ono and alumni association CEO Corie Pauling, "I can't sleep," said Fran, 73. "It's overwhelming."

Tell me about it, Jean Suzuki said. She's a 44-year-old consultant from Chicago on vacation with her husband and two kids — and she went to Illinois.

"It's hard to watch," she said.

Hands on the president

Ono, conversely, was soaking everything in.

He's considerably more outgoing and hands-on than his predecessor, Mark Schlissel, which sometimes means hands on him.

At Cincinnati and at his last post, the University of British Columbia, he agreed to let students pass him overhead at a football game. The kids at Cincinnati pitted him against their costumed Bearcat mascot, who won.

"It's an experience," he said. "All these hands on your backside. My shirt wasn't torn, but it was untucked."

His experience with McCarthy was more orderly.

As noted in a terrific Free Press profile this week, McCarthy has been beyond generous with teammates and charities. Only a sophomore, he has established a foundation to funnel money to children's hospitals.

The day after Michigan pummeled Ohio State in November, Ono was eating a burrito at the Briarwood Mall Chipotle. McCarthy walked past with his girlfriend, incognito, in a plain white hoodie drawn tight.

"I heard her say, 'You should say hi,' " Ono said, and almost apologetically, McCarthy did.

"He embodies humility," Ono said. "He makes me incredibly proud."

And, realistically, he makes the university money.

As an undergrad at the University of Chicago, Ono worked in a campus phone room dialing for donations. Ignoring the preset script, he once winnowed 2,000 early-1980s dollars from someone who had never given before.

"If there's positive news from the university," he determined, "people will give more often, and they'll give more."

A 13-0 football season has been as positive as it gets. Donations are up, Ono said, and applications will be, and even before the first whistle blows Saturday, that's a win-win.

Neal Rubin is a devoted alumnus of the University of Northern Colorado, and is always polite to the students in the phone room even when he's not feeling generous. Reach him at @NARubin@freepress.com, or via Twitter at @nealrubin_fp.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: U-M president Ono: A winning football team lifts donations, applicants