Is Penders a candidate for vacant Michigan job?
Could lifetime Husky Jim Penders become a Wolverine?
Brandon Justice, senior editor for Maize & Blue Review, a University of Michigan-focused website, tweeted out on Friday that Penders had interviewed with Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel for the currently vacant baseball head coaching job at Michigan.
A source with knowledge of the situation told Hearst Connecticut Media that the information was “not true,” and the tweet was soon taken down by Justice. It appears possible, according to another source, that Penders may have had a phone conversation regarding the job, but to characterize it as an “interview” was an overreach.
Penders just completed his 19th season as UConn’s head coach, leading the Huskies to a programrecord 50 wins this season. UConn won its second straight Big East tournament title, beat Maryland
to win the College Park Regionals and qualified for a super regional for just the second time in school history and first time since 2011. After winning their first super regional game ever, the Huskies dropped the next two games of the best-of-three series with
Stanford to fall one game short of the College World Series.
UConn hasn’t reached the College World Series since 1979.
Penders signed a fiveyear contract extension in June 2018 that expires on May 31, 2023. He is due to be paid $280,000 this year, a small bump from his pay last year and fairly low compared to what schools like Michigan and other Power Five programs can offer.
Manuel was athletic director at UConn from 2012-2016.
Penders, who is UConn’s all-time winningest baseball coach, starred at East Catholic High, then as a catcher at UConn. He graduated from UConn in 1994 and returned to the program as a graduate assistant three years later, eventually taking over as head coach in 2004. His father, Jim, and uncle, Tom, both graduated from UConn and played on the Huskies’ 1965 College World Series team.