Should Athletics Honor Academics?

Submitted by GoBlueNorthside on

The athletic department is working on their image and their relationship to the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the university.

One idea might be to honor academic accomplishments on the field along with athletic accomplishments.

Currently each time there is a timeout, the athletic department brings a person onto the field who was successful in the NFL, won a conference championship, or won an olympic medal. These are athletic accomplishments.

Would it help tie together academics with athletics to sometimes also honor those who have achieved academic accomplishments? As an extreme example, if a Michigan alum won a nobel prize, having them come onto the field and honor them.

edit: typo

bo_lives

December 17th, 2014 at 12:52 PM ^

Nobel Prize winners are honored at the games. The thing is, as you mentioned, Michigan does this at every timeout, and you're not exactly going to have enough Nobel winners for that even if you're Harvard or Trinity College. A big issue is recognizability. Consider that being inducted into the National Academy of Sciences is a huuuge deal in the academic world, but the average fan probably doesn't know or care about the NAS. On the other hand, literally everyone knows about the NFL and the Olympics...

I do think this is a great idea though and could potentially even improve the public's poor awareness of academic professionalism.

M Fanfare

December 17th, 2014 at 1:26 PM ^

They should do one for the Gemini 4 crew, both of whom were UM grads. Gemini 4 was the first American spaceflight to accomplish a space walk. Sadly, Ed White was killed in the Apollo 1 fire, but James McDivitt is still around.

jblaze

December 17th, 2014 at 12:55 PM ^

should have came to you for advice.

I'd add that the alumni need not be the level of Nobel Prize winners, but very successful UM grads (e.g. Doctors, high level business people, teachers...).

It would be nice to take your kid to a game and have a UM Grad teacher who won a teacher of the year award honored at the stadium. Something like that is far better than having a mascot or playing Rawk Music.

LSAClassOf2000

December 17th, 2014 at 1:02 PM ^

Actually, this is a really cool idea. It would be nice to honor former players in each sport who have gone onto significant scientific, business and other achievements to better instill that the quality of the athletes and the quality of the students go hand-in-hand and that the department is indeed an extension of the university it represents. 

Lampuki22

December 17th, 2014 at 1:08 PM ^

you can't do both, right.  How many breaks are there per game, 15?  But that wasn't your point was it.  You wanted to talk about getting back to academics vs. emphasis on sports as king.  That's a solid idea, and should be given serious consideration.  Although with Hoke and his AWESOME clock management departing, we probably will use 2-3 fewer timeouts per game than in recent years. Great practices though. 

ak47

December 17th, 2014 at 1:24 PM ^

I mean not if he was still attending classes and getting grades to pass.  I bitched to my friends about having to take a 4th semester of a language that I knew I wasn't fluent in just to get and LSA degree.  

Yeah he looks dumb but just bitching about having to attend classes is not in any way a violation if he is still attending them.

ak47

December 17th, 2014 at 1:21 PM ^

They do sometimes, there was big celebration for the peace corps during the anniversary of its announcement on the Union steps and Michigan peace corps alums were honored on the field as a group.

bnoble

December 17th, 2014 at 1:48 PM ^

...at basketball.  When U-M won $750K in the MAGIC Robotics competition in Fall of 2010, the team was presented with a ceremonial check at halftime during the following winter term.  Solar Car has been on the field at halftime for football games, as well.