Outrage at Michigan
The head football coach at the University of Michigan is pissed because Jim Harbaugh, the Stanford coach and himself a storied Michigan student athlete, has been saying out loud that, like Stanford, Michigan should take its football players seriously as students.
As evidence that it doesn't, an ESPN columnist mentions the following:
'Only 30 players have listed majors, and 19 of them are pursuing degrees in something called "general studies." That's 20 percent of the team, and 63 percent of the players who have declared a major.
Yet a university spokesman said this week that less than 1 percent of the undergraduate student body is in the general studies degree program. The spokesman said there are fewer than 200 general studies students out of an undergrad population of nearly 25,000.
And that's not all. The other declared degree programs on the football team are: movement science (three players); sports management and communications (two); economics (two); P.E. (one); psychology (one); English (one); and American culture (one). There appears to be one undeclared player enrolled in the business school and another in the college of engineering.
Only one junior has declared a major, according to the guide (in movement science). In 18 years of covering college athletics, I've never seen virtually an entire junior class without a major.'
Taking a page from diploma mill proprietors, Michigan's outraged coach calls Harbaugh's comments "elitist" and "arrogant."
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