Elliott Mealer's tweet: non-athletes are "muggles"
Well, this is awfully bad:
The muggles that attend the University of Michigan should pick who the next AD is. Found out earlier this year that they're experts in it.
— Elliott Mealer (@el_mealer) October 31, 2014
Let's hope the new AD can move things forward in a way that doesn't perpetuate these divisions within the University.
October 31st, 2014 at 1:33 PM ^
Don't drink, watch Harry Potter and tweet...
October 31st, 2014 at 2:45 PM ^
This is where you need it:
Don't drink, watch Harry Potter, and tweet
OR
Don't drink. Instead, watch Harry Potter and tweet
Which is it?!
JK DON'T CARRY BYE BYE PIZZA BOY!
October 31st, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 4:02 PM ^
Helpful to know Elliot Mealer isn't a Death Eater (I think).
Forget who but a UM beat writer tweeted earlier that this attitude from (some) student-athletes was part of the culture that needs to change and wouldn't with Brandon around.
October 31st, 2014 at 4:23 PM ^
This is news to me.
October 31st, 2014 at 6:33 PM ^
Yeah, it was news to me two summers ago when I hung out at Charley's with a friend who was friends of a particular lesser-known varsity sport. It's been a running thing for at least a couple years now.
October 31st, 2014 at 6:41 PM ^
Everyone treats football players and atheletes at Michigan like they are big shots so they start getting the idea they are. No wonder they treat the rest of us like little shots, I mean "muggles".
I have a friend on the diving team who calls non varsity atheletes muggles too. They just think they're better than other students because they get worshiped all the time.
October 31st, 2014 at 7:34 PM ^
I think that's the main point: It's not just football players. In fact, it might be less football players than non-revenue players, because football players get to reap the benefits of the "muggles'" support, where as field hockey or water polo or baseball largely don't play in front of packed crowds.
October 31st, 2014 at 1:34 PM ^
I guess playing offensive line qualifies him as well? I understand the athletes are frustrated that they suck and that there is a ton of distraction out there but lets be real. dont bite the hand that feads you.
October 31st, 2014 at 1:41 PM ^
because those fans pay the salaries of college athletes
October 31st, 2014 at 1:55 PM ^
Fans pay State of Michigan income/sales tax, of which a portion goes to pay for the subsidies that go to universities like Michigan that in turn help pay for the scholarships that athletes like Mealer get as compensation for playing football at said university. They also buy tickets that go to help pay for scholarships as well. So in a way fans do "pay" him.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:03 PM ^
(85 scholarships x ~$12,000 tuition/year) / ($75/ticket average * 7 home games) = 1943 people per game to pay for scholarships. so he can piss off quite a few people before scholarships would be affected.
i'm just saying.. calling all fans "the hand that feeds you" is a bit... (insert offensive term here).
if it's dave brandon or hoke or any real paid employee whose pay is uniquely supported by the millions of dollars generated by fans, then sure.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 2:53 PM ^
me too
October 31st, 2014 at 3:49 PM ^
Buy my takeaway after thinking about it is that in the fog of war, friendly fire will surely occur.
The administration should be the focus of criticism.
The reality is that the players are part of an ~$85 million dollar annual cash stream. The operating costs are around $25 million, leaving a $50 million profit.
IM(S)E, fans paying an effective price of ~$125 per ticket have every right to complain vociferously if they are dissatisfied to the people and institutions that have turned college football into a runaway cash flow machine.
Just like with college tuition, the product (getting a college degree or watching Michigan football) is valuable, and over the years, academic and athletic administrators have defacto decided to extract that value from the willing attendees/season ticket holders, with increases far in excess of inflation.
Gone are the days where the return on investment of getting vs not getting a college education made the decision a slam-dunk just about anywhere. Also gone are the days of the "student-athlete" centric major college football program.
The blame for that lies with the generation of college administrators that have traded a decreasingly pure "student/athlete" centric experience for a runaway cashflow stream.
Weelllll, big money comes with demands. The fans are subjected to the ~$125/ticket prices, and the college football athletes at Michigan are seeing only a fraction of the $85 million revenue that is generated by the team which they play for.
Before lobbing verbal grenades at what should be allies, both sides should recognize the underlying condition.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
so much wrong with that calculation
1. all scholarships are charged at out of state rates
2. revenue sports pay for scholarships of non-revenue athletes
3. doesn't even consider concessions, TV rights, apparel
but good job adding pointless numbers and calculations to your post to make it sound like you have more credibility
October 31st, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
imma reach back to like 1995 and ask you to take a chill pill.
i am not pretending the numbers came from anywhere other than directly from my ass.
i just think "don't bite the hand that feeds you" is a rather silly thing for a fan to say to a former college athlete.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
your tuition numbers are also from the 90s.
i just can't think of any reason why you would make up numbers, other than to add a veneer of authority to your opinion.
however, i agree that the phrase "don't bite the hand that feeds you" isn't appropriate for this situation. the "us vs them" mentality is cancerous to our school. brandon and hoke are directly responsible for that mentality.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:49 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 2:50 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 3:02 PM ^
did a little research - i think you are right. don't know where i got that idea.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 2:24 PM ^
out of athletic department revenues, which come from 3 major sources:
1. football/hoops ticket sales
2. tv revenues
3. donations (including the PSD).
Michigan income/sales tax, a small portion of which does eventually make its way to UM, is not used to pay for athletic scholarships.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:33 PM ^
The Athletic Department reimburses the University for Aid-in-Kind. So NO, you don't pay for Mealer in any way, shape, or form. Nice try though.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:09 PM ^
haha really? You think the football program and the scholarships fund themselves? Fans and Doners (Super Fans) fund and support the program and the student athletes. Without them, our athletes wouldnt suit up.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:29 PM ^
#Doners
October 31st, 2014 at 5:33 PM ^
Pretty sure the Fighting Irish aren't paying squat for Michigan scholarships.
November 5th, 2014 at 9:22 AM ^
This looks so good
October 31st, 2014 at 2:51 PM ^
dude. i'm just sayin. mealer has a right to be annoyed with the general fan. his only crime is putting it on twitter, which is always a bad idea.
at least he didn't ask people to find a new team to cheer for.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
Looks like he deleted it...
October 31st, 2014 at 3:03 PM ^
Actually, football can easily pay its own scholarship bill, as can basketball and hockey. It's the others that need help.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:53 PM ^
but it would be for a program like Albion.
But almost everyone who could play under a scholarship at a major college (like Michigan) chooses that over the more pure amatuer version at a DIII college (like Albion).
October 31st, 2014 at 1:47 PM ^
They feed Hoke and Brandon. Mealer's scholarship wasn't worth anymore than ___insert non-revenue sport____ scholarships that have nominal fan bases.
If people don't want to be treated like customers they should stop acting like them.
October 31st, 2014 at 4:00 PM ^
Call it $125 per game cash-payer then. Because, literally, that's what they are.
When that amount becomes significant, it is-by definition--significant. And it became significant a long time ago.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
Eh, TBH, I don't think Brandon deserves the vitriol. To me, he was a bad AD because he was too pro-athletes and too anti-fans, which isn't reprehensible but I think the balance he struck was too extreme in one direction. He was probably well liked by the athletes.
IMO, I think we are going to see some backlash from the players against the fans in the future. There's probably growing resentment among current players toward fans, who have beeing booing the players and now have axed the AD, which may be seen as players as another selfish move by entitled fans demanding more for themselves at the expense of the players. Things may get worse before they get better...
October 31st, 2014 at 2:56 PM ^
upvoted because it's likely true, not because I'm happy about it...
October 31st, 2014 at 2:48 PM ^
You're going to berate a guy that played his ass off for the University and stuck through a coaching change, loss of a father, loss of a girlfriend and extreme adversity for his brother because he's frustrated that the fanbase thinks it knows better than the people in charge? Cumong man. The athletes have had nothing but positives to say about Brandon. You may not like all the things that he's done, but the athletes have a lot better judgement than you on what constitutes a good AD.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^
disagree that athletes have a lot better judgement about what constitutes a good AD. The athletic department should be accountable to all stakeholders involved-players, fans, alums, faculty, etc. Just because you play a sport doesn't mean you know more about running an athletic program-there's a lot more that goes into it than just playing sports.
October 31st, 2014 at 3:41 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 4:02 PM ^
you would think so. As long as the AD makes the right coaching hires, doesn't blatantly fuck up [see student ticket prices; concussion gate; sky writing, etc] and remains more of a behind the scenes leader a school like UM should do well. While I acknowledge that making the right coaching hire isn't easy, it's also not something that happens every year, at least normally..
October 31st, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
I think people are overreacting to the use of the term "muggles" here. While it was create as a derogative term in HP, it's since been used as a non-derogative slang word to represent anyone who isn't a part of a particular group. I geocache with my kids. "Muggle" is often used on the geocaching app to describe anyone not actively geocaching (i.e. "When searching for this cache, be mindful of any nearby muggles eating at the restaurant").
October 31st, 2014 at 1:37 PM ^
We became what Texas was under Mack -- a country club where players were constantly told they were the greatest regardless of on-field performance, and being told that no non-athletes have the right to judge. Appalling.
October 31st, 2014 at 1:37 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 3:43 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 1:37 PM ^
I'm pretty confident that athletes have probably felt separate from other university students before Brandon was here and it will continue afterwards. Dude made a kind of lame joke. I'm moving on.
October 31st, 2014 at 1:37 PM ^
This is a pretty common sentiment among Michigan athletes.
October 31st, 2014 at 2:05 PM ^
Michigan fans have little understanding of what it is to be a Michigan athlete. Michigan revenue athletes may never understand what it is like to be a Michigan fan.
The worlds are too different to ever perfectly merge, but just because you don't have a common experience doesn't mean that there can't be mutual respect - it's only incompetent coaching and leadership from the AD's office that has made the two groups apparent antagonists. Because shit: don't we both just want the team to win and be something that the university can be proud of?
October 31st, 2014 at 1:37 PM ^
Eh, I'd say no need to overreact to every little comment, especially one that's relatively innocuous and comes from a guy who deserves a little slack.
He did remind me that Family Guy episode in which Peter becomes beautiful and starts calling non-beautiful people "normies." So I appreciate that.