Here's a model:

The Athletic Department embraces and extends the legacies of American football, ever mindful of the necessity to invigorate contemporary offensive and defensive philosophies. Students forge their own athletic style, consolidate a range of technical skills and enjoy extensive gameday opportunities. From playing as a freshman in the first Spring Game to a Big Ten battle in the Big House, developing new plays in the Oosterbaan Fieldhouse or working in the community, football students develop discipline, independent thinking, creative problem-solving, leadership and team skills, technological competencies and an appreciation for athletic, intellectual and social diversity. The fundamentals and finer points of football technique, performance and playcalling are stressed; all practical learning is underpinned by compulsory academic courses both within and beyond our discipline.

Football can also be studied as part of a dual-degree program. Many of our football majors graduate with a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree concurrently with their BAt.

If you don't think that sounds like a legitimate degree program...I suggest you take it up with the Department of Dance. Because that's a very light edit of the BFA in Dance description from their site and I don't see people clutching their pearls over those graduates.

Whatever the case, football players are supposedly compensated for their sacrifices with an educational service that others go six digits in debt to obtain.  Most of what Brian is saying is a bit wrapped up in the "college football amateurism is a myth" argument (and he is correct in that).

That means that the academics that the athletes pursue reinforces the value of a Michigan education and therefore must be both offered and provided with great consideration.  Its worth noting that UNC's scandal, which Schlissel mentioned, was only about 50% athletes.

IMO, you can either acknowledge the hypocrisy of big-money college athletics, provide compensation, and make enrollment encouraged but not necessary, or you can hold the enrolled athletes to the same standard as other students.  Anything inbetween and you are going to run into pretty big problems.

Put briefly, any problem one has with Schlissel's statements should be directed at the current nature of revenue-generating college athletics, not at Schlissel's statements themselves.

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satisfying athletes academically, it's whether universities are responding to the realities of academic life in the world of athletes who are called upon to represent their schools in ways few other students are called to represent. Extracurricular activities are outside of what you do when what you do is a fulltime student activitiy, like playing sports for a major universitty on scholarship.

The fact is that this system is totally skewed toward schools justifying their practices for public acceptance and NCAA approval. Not that this kind of workload doesn't exist for medical students and others put into the grind of earning professional status through education and on the job training. 

Schools pay the way of athletes to become better athletes in their sports and represent the university in a positive way by doing so, with the hope that during their time in school they graduate and get a degree. But who is kidding whom, the priority for the athlete is being a contributing performer in whatever sports program they've been recruited to represent. . 

As fans, we want all Michigan players to succeed and get an education. We know the value of a Michigan degree. But the school has a different obligation. It is not fan driven. Whatever our interests are, we are only part of the outside equation, the part that helps drive business interests, the bottom line and creates the need to recruit better athletes because we all want the best for our school. If that demand for the best exceeds academic requirements, then you have to change the standards for the requirements you set for graduation. 

It's ridiculous for us to complain about the failure of the NCAA to enforce academic standards that are the province of the very schools they govern and the schools themselves have the capability of deciding their own standard instead of following the crowd. The NCAA is comprised of member schools which voluntarily submit to the standards they believe are worth enforcing. The NCAA is simply an adjunct agency which enforces rules universities and their represnetatives set for themselves and agree to adhere to. It's the police force for their community. But they act like it's an agency outside their control when they are the heart of it. 

So, why not establish rules for athletes whom you require to work fulltime as athletes and parttime as students that make sense,  instead of trying to fit them in fulltime student requyirements that make no sense  because of time commitments. It isn't fair and totally ridiculous. And yet. university presidents keep pretending that the idea of student athletes is a definition that fits no matter what the academic circumstance. 

To that end, the university president needs to rethink the whole student athlete concept and what it means to their school instead of making the same observation that anyone could make in their position and wondering how that fits in the university system that they have accepted as a part of life. 

I graduated with a Communications degree from Michigan, the same degree a lot of football players get. I did a lot with my education and had a great career in advertising. Who's to judge whether my education and what came from it was any less than someone else's from Michigan? 

I agree with the essence of Brian's post, but to me the logical extension of it is to end sports in colleges altogether- they really don't mix well. Sports are just too physically draining and universities are about improving the mind. If you are too tired to study then maybe you shouldn't be a student?

Europe doesn't link college and sports for the most part- players play on teams, get paid, have a career, and can do what they love. taxpayers and other students tuitions are not used to subsidize something that does not improve society and is basically entertainment (most sports programs at universities run in the red). 

JK.  Awesome piece; well done.

I agree that theoretically, it might be feasible to create an athletics major- in fact, they did. it's called Kinesiology. I believe they also offer sports medicine and training, and sports marketing. They also have athletic administration (my sister  alledgedly earned the 1st PhD in athletic Admin from MIchigan). I don't see how a major in a particular sport would be necessary, unless coaching would require it, or if the NFL/NBA or other pro leagues began demanding it.

And that really leads to the bigger point that Brian misses, and other have only touched on tangentially: majors and degrees are created b/c there is a demand from industry/business. No one invents a major and then the jobs are created to then provide all these Widget-majors a job. It's actually just the opposite. The perfect example is modern manufacturing/engineering technitions. 30+ years ago there were engineers (project managers, designers, etc) and then the operators/mechanics/technitions that were replaced by robots (think auto industry, if you wish). Well, sure that removed jobs of the 4-6 people who installed a windshild on to a car and sealed it on the production line. But the robotics also CREATED jobs for people who have more technical training in how the mechanical and electrical and controll systems of the ROBOTS operate. There is a NEED now in industry for people who can program, trouble shoot and maintain the robotics (their hydrolics, pneumatics, electrical and controll systems). As a result, colleges are developing 2 and 4 year degrees, not really in engineering,  not technitions either, but reather somewhere in between. The industry changed creating a gap in the talent pool and academia reacted to the demand for some type of new skill set that businesses needed to have in people.

If no one outside of the NCAA is demanding a set of skills that a graduate of said program would be garunteed to have upon completion, then there is no point in colleges creating that degree.

You lost me at calling Jason Gay "some yob at the WSJ."  You can disagree with the article but I find Gay and the WSJ some of the finest journalism outside of MGoBlog.

Personally I agree with the sentiment expressed in the WSJ article and I am extremely pleased with President Schlissel so far.  Without over-analyzing or reading too much into his remarks, as is wont to do around here, he is right that we are an academic institution first and athletics are for entertainment.  It's what separates us from the Ohio States of the world.  That is not to say that we can't be competitive on the football field.  Stanford and Notre Dame come to mind.  We are, after all, Leaders and Best, and I am confident we will keep an appropriate balance.

With athletes in class was they were always there (unless away for a contest) always prepared and always paid attention which is a lot more than I can say about myself.  They are among the hardest workers at Michigan.  What would the sorts of degrees be for say a cross country runner or water polo....swimmer?  Is there a School of Athletic Studies that covers all the sports and could athletes study a sport outside their own?  Good idea by Brian I am just thinking about the possible implementation of this.

Maybe the comments were snooty...or maybe the whole thing was an olive branch intended for Harbaugh.  Sort of like saying, "hey, no reason to worry about those comments from 2007, I actually put the same foot in my mouth.  Haha - you know something, we'd probably get along great!"  Given what's been reported on his relationship with the front office in San Fran, Harbaugh might be open to jumping to a situation where he'd feel accepted by the higher ups.

Very well put. Sports are an entertainment industry and have demand for positions beyond just players. How many end up in broadcasting, coaching, management, administration, scouting, or other positions if they don't make it in the league? Why would any university want to diminish its capacity to teach these students?

It's probably not an apt comparison but the sciences can attract millions or billions in research dollars which enhances the profile of the university and is used to teach students but sports attracting dollars and advertising the university are looked at still, over 100 years into organized college sports, as "that other thing." Such an attitude ignores the reality that sports are a HUGE industry that requires many sets of skills and the university is doing a disservice to its students and its future if it lays down and doesn't adapt to the demands of preparing them for this or any other pursuit a student may have.

"Music people get to go music and then get a liberal arts degree around it."

Ugh. This is not even close to reality.

This is certainly a very well written piece of persuasive writing. 

However, once I finished I asked myself what is the goal? What is the problem that is being solved and would this proposal solve it?

If the goal is to increase graduation rates of football players this proposal would definintely solve it because it would give them credit for work they are already doing. But would it lead to better educated football players? I actually think it would do the opposite.

If there were a football degree then as with the music degree football players would be accepted into the department granting that degree which would most certainly be the Athletic Department. I cannot imagine another department would be willing to grant a football degree. So, all football players would now get this football degree which would eliminate the possibility that the exceptional few take advantage of by getting a real degree from Michigan. I do not see what the value of the football degree would be. What job opportunities would it create that simply playing football doesn't already create? No greater educational value is gained from playing or learning about football by awarding class credits for doing so.

If the goal is to end the hypocrisy then it would do that. But it would do it by finally severing the connection between the football players and the academic life of the university--reducing rather than increasing the options afforded the the football players.  

Granting a BA in Football might allow fans to feel better about college football by elminating the student athlete hypocrisy and increasing graduation rates. But it would do little to fix the injustice of football players that create huge value for their universities and often end up with little in return.

Rather than give academic credit for something that is pretty much bullshit as an academic pursuit, why don't we just drastically reduce the number of hours these kids can spend on football?  

Regent? Hell no...PRESIDENT Brian Cook and AD Brian Cook all rolled into one loveable furball.  Best post i've read on the main page of this here blog that wasn't actually disecting game action.  Bravo, sir, and all the internets are yours!!!!!

After reading through the comments, I cannot for the life of me figure out why there is so much positive reception to a post that is premised on a horribly inaccurate comparison.

Rumor has it that 700 SAT scores at Brown will get you on the wait list, maybe a 1 in 20 chance of admission, but 700 SAT scores and can play a sport will guarantee admission. Now Johns H

ran track at a Div III school, right about the time RRod was going through practicegate. My kid laughed at the Freep assertions that the football team practiced "too much." He said "that's a hellofa lot less than we spend at track practice." and again, that was Div III track.

Great post Brian! You'll probably catch some slack for it, but I would love to see more posts like this - vaguely related to football/personal philosophy stuff.

But either way, thank you for sharing.

I think sometimes we get spoiled by all of the sources you put up and reference. We have to remember that this is a blog, and not every post needs to be backed up and presented in MLA format. Sometimes it's cool and necessary just to tell it like you see it.