A bit of M campus history relevant to the M-OSU gap
"It was a tumultuous time — not an easy time." Subtle but very important quote from Lloyd that jumped off the page to me in the Freep story today on Roberson's passing.
It's probably mostly lost to history at this point, but for all of our hand-wringing about the gap between Ohio State and Michigan (and what to do about it), IMO it is very important to understand the backdrop in which that gap began to widen. And Lloyd hints at it here: the era of James Duderstadt as President of the University of Michigan (1988-1996) was an incredibly divisive period internally, pitting certain senior elements of the University's administration squarely (overtly, even) against the priorities of the Athletic Department.
Think I'm exaggerating? As Michigan's President Emeritus and while continuing to serve as a Professor of Engineering, Duderstadt took the time to write and have the University of Michigan Press publish this gem in 2009:
The Synopsis:
After decades of domination on campus, college sports' supremacy has begun to weaken. "Enough, already!" detractors cry. College is about learning, not chasing a ball around to the whir of TV cameras. In "Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University," James Duderstadt agrees, taking the view that the increased commercialization of intercollegiate athletics endangers our universities and their primary goal, academics. Calling it a "corrosive example of entertainment culture" during an interview with ESPN's Bob Ley, Duderstadt suggested that college basketball, for example, "imposes on the university an alien set of values, a culture that really is not conducive to the educational mission of university."
Duderstadt is part of a growing controversy. Recently, as reported in The New York Times, an alliance between university professors and college boards of trustees formed in reaction to the growth of college sports; it's the first organization with enough clout to challenge the culture of big-time university athletics.
So what, you ask? As Lloyd implied in his quote, Duderstadt and his folk put up roadblock after landmine for the Athletic Department. From the later days of the great Canham, to Bo's short stint as AD, through Weidenbach's tenure and then for most of Roberson's time, Duderstadt was an active impediment. And he was not acting alone. But it was really in the Weidenbach/Roberson days that Duderstadt pressed hard against the Athletic Department's influence and power. I saw some of this, as I was on campus at the time and had some access in and around the people involved.
Did Duderstadt, et.al. kick the feet out from under the Athletic Department in one fell swoop? Nope. Instead, the anti-athletics group fostered a culture of headwinds that Roberson (and many others) had to contend against. And like lakefront erosion, the full impact took a lot of time to manifest. It's plain for all to see today.
Contrast that with Gordon Gee cutely remarking "[Fire Jim Tressel!?!] I hope he doesn't fire me!!" The comment was roundly mocked at the time, and yet history has shown it to be a very telling peek behind the curtains in Columbus. Ohio State has had its collective sights set on winning in sports, full stop. (And they've done it exceedingly well.) The University of Michigan community has done nothing collectively on that matter in a long, long time. Extraordinarily influential people within UofM's administration actively worked against our own Athletic Department (and likely still do, though I'm not close enough anymore to see it).
There is no doubt that individual coaching hires (excellent for OSU in Tressel and Meyer; poor to terrible at Michigan following the era in which Gary Moeller attempted to carry on Bo's baton) have had an enormous impact on the two schools' respective football programs and their sustained, divergent trajectories. However, it is my view (as a passionate observer) that the two schools' institutional commitments around athletics have been very, very different, and the materiality of that difference has been a central factor over the last two decades.
I'm not taking a position as simple as "OSU cheats" or "OSU plays school." One or both may be true, to some degree or another. What I am saying is that UofM as an institution for a long period of time was unable to pull its oars in remotely the same direction. Duderstadt's reign at the tail end of the Bo era was a really critical element in that discord. Many people saw bits and pieces of it -- I'm no Lloyd apologist, but I think he quote is intended to speak directly to this. And it ultimately cost our football program (the success of which was predicated on sustaining certain competitive advantages built by Bo, rather than "cheating" on the margins as some Johnny-come-latelies have) dearly.
TL;DR: we shot ourselves in the foot for a long, long time, and cultural headwinds are not easy to fix
January 14th, 2020 at 6:54 PM ^
Had a TA in ‘92 who HATED the football team. To be fair she hated Duderstadt too.
January 14th, 2020 at 9:51 PM ^
How do you reconcile your thesis with the fact that we were 10-2-1 between 1988 and 2000?
January 14th, 2020 at 10:40 PM ^
The impact of the anti-ADers chipped away at the foundation, rather than going for a roundhouse to the jaw. There was a natural lag between cause and effect.
To be more clear, I think the coaching differential is a bigger deal, but I think the cultural differential is also a big deal.
January 15th, 2020 at 12:29 AM ^
There may not be a coaching differential. Look at the rosters. The teams with the best players generally win.
January 15th, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
It's somewhat circular though. Teams win because they have better players, and teams have better players because they win.
January 17th, 2020 at 5:22 PM ^
You're not wrong, but John Cooper had some pretty loaded teams during his time at OSU.
I can remember at least two times during that stretch when M was the clear underdog going in and wound up owning OSU.
During that era I and every other fan knew that as long as our guys could get on the field with OSU they had a good shot at the win. I haven't had that feeling in a long time.
January 16th, 2020 at 2:38 PM ^
I guess I would say that we built up significant athletic momentum from the Bo and Mo eras. It was enough momentum for Lloyd Carr to dominate a good recruiter but crappy coach in John Cooper. And Carr had been around the program as an assistant for years so he understood how Michigan worked and how to keep things going even with opposing external forces. But, the momentum tailed off in the early 2000's, Jim Tressel was hired and OSU became a united front while we yakety saxed two coaching hires in a row. And the rest is history. That's my theory, anyway.
January 15th, 2020 at 8:37 AM ^
I still think the biggest reason for the M-OSU gap is the fact that Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus are in Ohio. They built a scarlet/grey wall around those metropolitan areas and we've suffered as a result. RichRod screwed up by not protecting MI's best players from MSU and OSU, but even he knew we had a severe talent shortage compared to other states.
Most of our most iconic plays in the last 30 years have come players that were either from Detroit or Ohio. Grbac-to-Howard (both Ohio). Wheatley (Detroit) going bonkers in the Rose Bowl. Woodson (Ohio). Braylonfest (Detroit). The fact that we've had the recruiting success we've had under Harbaugh and his staff is pretty amazing when you consider the lack of home state talent available.
January 15th, 2020 at 8:46 PM ^
"RichRod screwed up by not protecting MI's best players from MSU and OSU ..."
A myth that will persist until the end of time, apparently ...
January 15th, 2020 at 9:11 PM ^
Rich Rod screwed up in general? It didn't seem like he knew how to recruit within the Big 10 environment given the number of scholarships offered to guys that couldn't get in or stay in or continue to want in.
January 15th, 2020 at 8:54 AM ^
IDK man, if the difficult period was from 88-96 how was he able to win a NC title in 97, sign the #1 recruiting class in 99 and the #3 class in 01? Sounds like he overcame it just fine.
January 15th, 2020 at 10:35 AM ^
LSU lost to Troy two years ago and today they are national champs. Let’s stop with the excuses and just get the job done for once.
January 15th, 2020 at 3:25 PM ^
Excellent post, and excellent points.
The late 1980s and early 1990s were just about the last gasp of the academics who wanted to get college sports under control. There were very strong voices back then who saw that college sports were slipping from the control of the university presidents and wanted to pull it back. That was also the era of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
You never hear the calls to reign in college sports any more; control has pretty much completely slipped from the hands of University Presidents--certainly at P5 schools, and at many other Division I schools as well. I suspect that most of this is because even large public Universities now run on donations, and the people who donate money to big universities aren't generally the sort of people who hate college sports.
As an aside, Michigan State President John DiBiaggio was in that group of Presidents trying to reign in his athletic department. He opposed the appointment of football coach George Perles as athletic director in 1990, but the Board of Trustees under the control even back then of Joel Ferguson forced Perles on an unwilling President. DiBiaggio soon left MSU for Tufts University.
People like Ferguson are setting the direction of college sports at many universities, and people like Duderstadt and DiBiaggio who don't like it have gone elsewhere. For better or worse--and I think both--it's interesting to see how different the culture is at places like Michigan compared to 30 years ago.
January 16th, 2020 at 8:20 AM ^
I would argue that, when the athletic interests become stronger than the academic interests at a major university, it will always be for the worse.
This is not to say that the athletics aspects should be neglected by any means - just the perspective is needed (especially considering what the function of a higher education institution is meant to be).
January 16th, 2020 at 9:53 AM ^
You beat me to pointing out the conflict that occurred between Perles and DiBiaggio. At that time, many UM fans recognized that athletic departments shouldn't be able to dictate terms to their parent universities.
January 15th, 2020 at 8:29 PM ^
I don't contest the fact that Duderstadt and others at UM were hostile to big-time college athletics, but that wasn't a new thing in UM history. It was clear when I was at UM in the early '70s that many UM faculty, TAs, and staff were either indifferent to or actively dismissive of collegiate athletics. There were plenty of UM people on the academic side who had no use for Schembechler in particular, regarding him as a Neanderthal yahoo.
I would have to see concrete examples of just exactly how they harmed Michigan athletics, particularly football, to lay blame solely at his feet.
• What decisions did Duderstadt make that materially and negatively affected UM sports? Merely being opposed to big-time sports isn't enough, IMHO.
• Did Duderstadt institute new and more rigorous admissions standards?
• Did Duderstadt actively oppose expenditures for hiring good coaches and building updated facilities?
• Did Duderstadt otherwise sabotage the efforts of UM coaches or players?
None this is intended to contradict the reaction of people I knew who had contact with Duderstadt who intensely disliked him.
January 15th, 2020 at 9:05 PM ^
Lloyd Carr Retirement/Transition - I am not sure where this fits but the transition plan around the retirement of Lloyd Carr was awful. Someone should have a made sure there was enough money around to make sure that the next HC was already on the staff or tagged on a golf course during the previous summer.
Bill Martin and Mary Sue Coleman were not prepared to find the next HC. Botching the WVU buyout (didn't have the authority) was one of the greatest goofs on record (as measured by dollar value and level of foreseeability.)
The Brandon fiasco has been well vetted.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the athletic department has been a priority (although Bill Martin did a nice job on facilities.)
January 15th, 2020 at 10:19 PM ^
I completely agree with your premise. I think it's obvious. At OSU literally nothing matters more than football. That is not hyperbole. If someone like the university president or a random trustee thinks something like academics or honesty / integrity / not harboring wife-beaters and lying about it SHOULD be more important, they don't act on that impulse because they know the masses would throw them out on their butts if they tried. At UM academics rule the day, and athletics will always be a lesser consideration. As both an alum and a sports fan, I think it really should be that way, although I don't blame people who disagree, and more importantly, I wish there weren't so many schools that put sports above all else.
All that said, I think your post should offer some specifics instead of generalities about Duderstadt's actions. I don't doubt he prioritized academics. But what specific headwinds did he create? What obstacles did he put in the athletic department's way? How did he erode the foundation of athletic success?
January 16th, 2020 at 7:58 AM ^
Interesting discussion, and thank you for starting it, tspoon.
While we all know it's not just an either/or--support athletics or oppose--there are many positions in between, in the end, I'm glad Michigan is not and has not been near the pole of supporting athletics no matter what. Whether it be sexual assaults or "we ain't here to play school," I'm glad Michigan has higher standards than a lot of other places. We don't need the president of the university acting like a cheerleader (running out on the field with the team like Ken Starr at Baylor and creating a sense that the athletic department is untouchable). Michigan is first and foremost an institution of higher learning. Everything else should flow from that.
January 16th, 2020 at 8:29 AM ^
The problem that has developed over the last few decades is that people are coming to schools with sports as their main (sometimes only) reason for being there. There needs to be a better alternative for those kids who have no real interest in the academic aspect and simply take classes (theoretically) just to check off the NCAA requirements.
January 16th, 2020 at 12:48 PM ^
If you're alleging that Jim Duderstadt is continuing to work against the athletic department, I don't think that is true. He has his space at the U to do some of the things he cares about deeply, and he continues to write provocative pieces that may challenge some of the status quo in higher ed. But I have seen no evidence that he has serious or high-level influence on campus policy or priorities as it relates to athletics.
January 16th, 2020 at 1:59 PM ^
OSU has men running their university.
Michigan not so much.
January 16th, 2020 at 2:22 PM ^
in terms of football ... sure
in terms of academics, all other sports, and pretty much everything that isn't football, Michigan far exceeds theeeee Online State University.
January 17th, 2020 at 9:58 AM ^
Is this a football blog ?
Focus ladies.
January 16th, 2020 at 3:17 PM ^
I'm sure that line about "men" seemed clever when you wrote it beefever, and profound when you hit send.
It was neither...
theee Online State U on the other hand?!
Gold, Jerry - GOLD!!!
January 17th, 2020 at 9:44 AM ^
You can read more about the interplay between Michigan faculty and athletics in the subtext (and sometimes super text) of John U. Bacon’s Endzone.
As I understand it, tho’ if this battle was fought in a decades-long cold war at Michigan, it was decided within the course months at Ohio State — when the faculty forced the football program to turn down an invitation to the 1962(?) Rose Bowl, iirc:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FjdAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BFkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=832%2C4312787
The way I heard it, Woody Hayes delivered an ultimatum to the university after that: Decide whether you’re serious about athletics — and if you aren’t, I’m leaving.
The university administration made its decision, and faculty never has never had a say in an important decision regarding Buckeye football again.
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