Sports

With Stanford about to pass Michigan in the Directors' Cup because of Women's Water Polo, it made me think of a topic I frequently think about.  What sports would you like Michigan to add?  As of current Michigan has 26 varsity sports (27 with Women's Lacrosse), all of which participate in the NCAA.  They are:

Men's Sports:

Baseball
Basketball
Cross Country
Football
Gymnastics
Golf
Ice Hockey
Lacrosse
Soccer
Swimming and Diving
Tennis
Track & Field
Wrestling

Women's Sports:

Basketball
Cross Country
Field Hockey
Golf
Gymnastics
Lacrosse (2013–14)
Rowing
Soccer
Softball
Swimming and Diving
Tennis
Track & Field
Volleyball
Water Polo

 

The NCAA sports that are sponsored that Michigan does not have are:

Men's Sports: 

Water Polo

Volleyball

 

Women's Sports:

Bowling

Ice Hockey

CoEd:

Fencing

Skiing

Rifle

 

And a few non-NCAA Sports:

Pistol

Men's Rowing

Rugby

 

 

I am going to ignore the non-NCAA sports, as they do not seem practical and the expense could not potentially help Michigan in the Directors' Cup.  I personally would love Michigan to add all of these sports, partially because Ohio State has nearly all of them, which bothers me greatly. However, realistically all of the sports could be added, but skiing may be dificult.  If I had to choose a few, I would say add Women's Ice Hockey, Men's Volleyball, Bowling, and Fencing.  However, that is just one man's opinion.  So, MGoBloggers, what do you think Michigan should add next?

They are on call now -

I'm trying to track down something of a master list of CFB blogs...does anyone know where this might live? The B1G is obviously an easy target, but what about the other conferences, both BCS and non-BCS.

 

With the Super Bowl coming up, I had a question for the board: what's your favorite sports time of the year?

For me, it's the kickoff of the college football season.  Weather's still beautiful, start of a new year--it's better than Christmas. Oh yeah, and all the girls coming back to Ann Arbor isn't a bad thing, either.

Summer is my least favorite.  I've never been big into watching baseball, and seeing how that's the only thing on all summer, it's a good thing I enjoy being outside.

So what sports time do you look forward to the most all year?

Sorry if already posted - I didn't see it in the archives - but the New York Times had an article about the cutlure of sports at colleges and how it was (potentially) having an adverse effect on the academic performance of the students. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/how-big-time-sports-ate-college-life.html?_r=1&hp

While I understand the consternation held by some of the professors at schools who see academics taking a back seat to athletics, many of the facts and figures they point to are not exclusive to athletics but instead are true for any major campus event.  For example, they talk about the drop in GPA at Oregon when the football team does well, though (a) the number they quote (0.02 for men) seems rather small and (b) the timeframe for the data is rather short (Oregon has only been enjoying its current "elite" run for what, 3-4 years?).  Also, they note that at one school students visiting the library and reading articles drops during sporting events, but they don't provide figures about similar usage around big school events like campus "holidays" (Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, etc.) and non-athletic events to see if that drop is a more general trend.  And to point to China as an example of "laser focus" on academics is a little silly - the academic composition in other countries is vastly different than in the US, but many of those schools have myriad of other problems that US educators would also cringe at.

Regardless, a good read. 

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore...yes I am. Why? Because I love college sports. Sorry for the late night rant about problems that can't be solved, mainly because those making the money don't see it as a problem. After watching TV and not going 5 min without being encouraged to call my local cable subscriber to get the Longhorn Network I go to ESPN.com and find an article based on a study ESPN has commissioned evaluating their impact on college sports (http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7149965/espn-middle-college-realignment) It's clear the goal of this was to exonerate ESPN and yet by the time I was done reading, I was even more pissed off at them. So I thought, I'll go to the college football main page to actually read about the game I love. Of the 11 standard headlines on the page, 2 actually dealt with playing games. The other nine were all about money, and bigger scoreboards (ND), players in trouble, re-alignment, etc. It's the middle of the season!!! I wish the powers that be, the media, and every other greedy jerk would leave the game we all love alone so we could all...you know...enjoy the game. Rant over. Get off my lawn. Thank you.