The Michigan baseball team’s associate head coach Ben Greenspan has accepted the head coaching position at Northwestern, the Wildcats announced Friday. Greenspan spent only one year with the Wolverines on Tracy Smith’s staff before his departure.
Rumors swirled about Greenspan’s potential mutual interest with Northwestern in July following a ‘leadership change’ which saw the Wildcats fire head coach Jim Foster after one year on the job. A Northwestern human resources investigation into Foster’s program found that he “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior” as head coach, according to reporting by ESPN and The Chicago Tribune.
One month later, and the rumors of Greenspan’s departure have come to fruition as he moves on from his familiar post alongside Smith and takes the helm of the Wildcats amid a messy offseason.
Smith and Greenspan spent a combined 12 years together, as Greenspan assisted Smith for six seasons at Arizona State, and six prior seasons at Indiana as well. Greenspan held responsibilities as the recruiting coordinator in his time at Arizona State, and put together four top-10 classes in his time there.
Greenspan’s departure projects to be a big loss for the young Michigan program attempting to rebuild under Smith. As a renowned recruiter and seasoned veteran as an assistant, his time under Smith was bound to be short.
Moving up to the head coaching position and across the conference will now pit the two long-time colleagues against each other often, and leave the Wolverines with a large hole to fill in their staff as fall training begins.