Rich Eisen opened The Rich Eisen Show on Thursday gutted.
The Michigan alum spent several minutes working through what he was feeling about Sherrone Moore’s firing and the circumstances that followed. He cycled through disgust, depression, despair, and eventually landed somewhere between grief and acceptance that this was real and happening to the program he loves.
“I am gutted. I am shocked. I’m dismayed. I’m depressed. I’m disgusted. Every single emotion that you’d think I’d have, I got,” Eisen said at the top of his show.
Eisen started by making it clear he didn’t see any of this coming from Moore, who had always been nothing but great to him and his family. He talked about Moore’s wife and three daughters, and the woman involved in the situation, and how all of their lives have been upended by choices that weren’t theirs to make. He mentioned the young lady specifically and whatever regrets she might be living with now.
The hardest part for Eisen seemed to be reconciling what Moore was supposed to represent with what actually happened. Michigan fired Moore for cause after obtaining evidence of an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Later that day, Moore was detained by authorities and reportedly broke into the employee’s home in Pittsfield Township, grabbed a knife, and threatened to harm her and himself. And while Eisen didn’t have those details when he recorded his show, he knew enough to understand that something had spiraled completely out of control.
“I don’t know what was going on with Sherrone Moore in his mind that was going on after,” Eisen said. “Clearly, he had received the news, and he brought it back home that he was no longer the head coach of the University of Michigan football program, and the reason why, and everything that spiraled out of control.”
The host of The Rich Eisen Show kept returning to the people whose lives had just been upended. Moore’s wife and three daughters had nothing to do with this but will spend years dealing with the fallout. The woman involved is now at the center of a story she probably never wanted to be part of. Moore himself is sitting in a jail cell after allegedly breaking into someone’s home with a knife. The weight of all that made Eisen question whether he even had the right to talk about football at all.
“This is not the way it is, although it is. This is not the way it’s supposed to been even though it is currently being,” Eisen continued. “And I’m saying this again with a heavy heart and completely conflicted because when it all comes down to it, me sitting here wondering about the timing about the football program when there are people staring into the abyss about how their lives have been completely upended by the choices that have been made completely out of their control and that inlcudes a wife apparently and three daughters apparently and whatever’s glowing on between the temples of Sherrone Moore.”
By the time Eisen finished, he hadn’t arrived at any conclusions or offered any grand insights about what comes next. He didn’t try to manufacture clarity where none existed or pretend he had a better handle on the situation than anyone else watching it unfold.
“I have no idea what the future holds,” Eisen concluded. “Whatever I can do to help, I’m there. But in terms of wondering what’s happening right now, I’m with you. I don’t know. All I know is it’s a nightmare of a situation for a lot of people involved and more than just football.”
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.