Back in 2007, a certain someone said, “Michigan is a good school and I got a good education there, but the athletic department has ways to get borderline guys in and, when they’re in, they steer them to courses in sports communications. They’re adulated when they’re playing, but when they get out, the people who adulated them won’t hire them.” That certain someone, of course, is current U. of Michigan head football coach, Jim Harbaugh. A lot has clearly changed in 10 years, but I was wondering if anything has changed about UofM’s treatment of their “student athletes.” A few years ago, when Brady Hoke was still in Ann Arbor, I pulled data from UofM’s media guide and other public sources and found a sad lack of diversity in the majors declared for the majority of the team (if they had declared any major at all). Now that a new sheriff is in town, I decided that it would be a good time to see if anything has changed, using MSU’s roster as a comparison point.
I have been working on a new database of my own that contains entries for every Big Ten recruit in the Rival database back to 2007 and one piece of data that I am entering is the declared major for each recruit. Since I love pie, I thought that I would share a visual representation of what I have found. First of all, here is the pie chart for MSU, based on the recruited players in 2013-2016 recruiting classes who are still on the team. I did not yet check to see if any of the 2017 class players have declared majors, so I just ignored that group for now. Also, please note that the data I will present only includes players in the original recruiting class based on the Rivals data, so walk-ons and transfers are not included (I only plan to add walk-ons to my database If they do something notable, like make the NFL or All-Big Ten team.)
To me, this is truly impressive. For the 51 players in the list, there are 26 unique majors with no more than 5 players in the same major (advertising and communications being the most popular). Clearly, the MSU football players are enrolling in a wide variety of majors. This is something that we can all be proud of.
Now, for comparison, let’s look at the pie chart for UofM’s current roster (the 2013-2016 class):
Wow. Just wow. 92% of the current UofM roster are some form of undeclared (54 / 59). Only 5 players have declared a major and only 3 of those players are among the 8 that are currently 5th year seniors. Now, to be fair, UofM seems to (intentionally?) be delaying the release of the updated information for 2017. So, the Wolverine fans who say the information is outdated do have a point. But, this still means that over half of the players in the 2013 class had yet to declare a major at the beginning of their 4th year at the University. The University of Michigan website clearly states that “students normally declare a major during the second term of the sophomore year.” So, naturally, this seems “abnormal.”
OK, so how about this: Let’s make sure that we give UofM the benefit of the doubt and perhaps look at recent graduates and NFL draftees. To this end, here is the pie chart for UofM players from the 2011-2013 recruiting classes. This should cover the bulk of the players the graduated over the last two years under the watch of UofM’s chief of athletic academic integrity, Coach Jim Harbaugh.
This chart is a little better, I suppose, as 15 unique majors can be found, but a full 52% of the team falls into one of two “majors:” LSA: General Studies and Kinesiology: Sports Management. These two majors have a rather dubious history. In particular, the general studies degree is quite literally a “choose your own adventure” degree that (per the UofM website) “allows students to combine and explore multiple subjects. Students who choose to pursue a B.G.S. work closely with their Newnan Advising Center advisor to create a course plan that feeds their curiosity while meeting the College of LSA’s graduation requirements.” Sounds rigorous, completely legit, and not at all like the type of program that the athletic department could manipulate, now doesn’t it? As a former Stanford Coach once said, “In my opinion, that major does not give you the skill set to compete [in the working world].” I can only hope that one skill they focus on is how to fill out paperwork to apply for unemployment benefits.
All kidding aside, If nothing else, it is certainly notable that going back to 2007, over 50% of all UofM players who declared a major declared it as General Studies. Not bad for a program that just last year accounted for only 62 graduates out of a total of 7074 (per a report on the UofM office of the registrar website), which for us that are good at math equates to 0.88%. Huh.
Anyway, just to be fair, I thought that I would plot the data for MSU recruits over the same time period, and that pie chart is shown here:
Interestingly, this chart shows less diversity than the 2017 roster with only 17 majors listed. While no major accounts for more than 20% of the players, four majors do dominate the chart: advertising, sociology, criminal justice, and human capital and society. But, simply looking back on the chart from the current squad shows that there is not a clear trend in enrollment with the possible exception of advertising, but that also happens to be one of the most popular majors on campus, with over 1,400 students.
I don’t know about you, but the conclusion seems pretty clear. MSU seems to have a roster of true student athletes that major in subjects that are reasonably representative of the student body. Meanwhile, down the road, UofM seems to continue to shuttle its players into a very small number of small and selected “majors,” at least one of which is practically a mockery of higher education. Why does this matter? Is matters because UofM also has a rich history of using their academic reputation as a recruiting tool. But, the reality is clearly different, and so far, there are no signs that Coach Harbaugh is doing anything to change this. Hypocrisy, thy name is Wolverine.
I have been working on a new database of my own that contains entries for every Big Ten recruit in the Rival database back to 2007 and one piece of data that I am entering is the declared major for each recruit. Since I love pie, I thought that I would share a visual representation of what I have found. First of all, here is the pie chart for MSU, based on the recruited players in 2013-2016 recruiting classes who are still on the team. I did not yet check to see if any of the 2017 class players have declared majors, so I just ignored that group for now. Also, please note that the data I will present only includes players in the original recruiting class based on the Rivals data, so walk-ons and transfers are not included (I only plan to add walk-ons to my database If they do something notable, like make the NFL or All-Big Ten team.)
To me, this is truly impressive. For the 51 players in the list, there are 26 unique majors with no more than 5 players in the same major (advertising and communications being the most popular). Clearly, the MSU football players are enrolling in a wide variety of majors. This is something that we can all be proud of.
Now, for comparison, let’s look at the pie chart for UofM’s current roster (the 2013-2016 class):
Wow. Just wow. 92% of the current UofM roster are some form of undeclared (54 / 59). Only 5 players have declared a major and only 3 of those players are among the 8 that are currently 5th year seniors. Now, to be fair, UofM seems to (intentionally?) be delaying the release of the updated information for 2017. So, the Wolverine fans who say the information is outdated do have a point. But, this still means that over half of the players in the 2013 class had yet to declare a major at the beginning of their 4th year at the University. The University of Michigan website clearly states that “students normally declare a major during the second term of the sophomore year.” So, naturally, this seems “abnormal.”
OK, so how about this: Let’s make sure that we give UofM the benefit of the doubt and perhaps look at recent graduates and NFL draftees. To this end, here is the pie chart for UofM players from the 2011-2013 recruiting classes. This should cover the bulk of the players the graduated over the last two years under the watch of UofM’s chief of athletic academic integrity, Coach Jim Harbaugh.
This chart is a little better, I suppose, as 15 unique majors can be found, but a full 52% of the team falls into one of two “majors:” LSA: General Studies and Kinesiology: Sports Management. These two majors have a rather dubious history. In particular, the general studies degree is quite literally a “choose your own adventure” degree that (per the UofM website) “allows students to combine and explore multiple subjects. Students who choose to pursue a B.G.S. work closely with their Newnan Advising Center advisor to create a course plan that feeds their curiosity while meeting the College of LSA’s graduation requirements.” Sounds rigorous, completely legit, and not at all like the type of program that the athletic department could manipulate, now doesn’t it? As a former Stanford Coach once said, “In my opinion, that major does not give you the skill set to compete [in the working world].” I can only hope that one skill they focus on is how to fill out paperwork to apply for unemployment benefits.
All kidding aside, If nothing else, it is certainly notable that going back to 2007, over 50% of all UofM players who declared a major declared it as General Studies. Not bad for a program that just last year accounted for only 62 graduates out of a total of 7074 (per a report on the UofM office of the registrar website), which for us that are good at math equates to 0.88%. Huh.
Anyway, just to be fair, I thought that I would plot the data for MSU recruits over the same time period, and that pie chart is shown here:
Interestingly, this chart shows less diversity than the 2017 roster with only 17 majors listed. While no major accounts for more than 20% of the players, four majors do dominate the chart: advertising, sociology, criminal justice, and human capital and society. But, simply looking back on the chart from the current squad shows that there is not a clear trend in enrollment with the possible exception of advertising, but that also happens to be one of the most popular majors on campus, with over 1,400 students.
I don’t know about you, but the conclusion seems pretty clear. MSU seems to have a roster of true student athletes that major in subjects that are reasonably representative of the student body. Meanwhile, down the road, UofM seems to continue to shuttle its players into a very small number of small and selected “majors,” at least one of which is practically a mockery of higher education. Why does this matter? Is matters because UofM also has a rich history of using their academic reputation as a recruiting tool. But, the reality is clearly different, and so far, there are no signs that Coach Harbaugh is doing anything to change this. Hypocrisy, thy name is Wolverine.
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