Maybe Harbaugh was right
Right: Former Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh, seen here in a publicity photo when he played himself in an episode of “Happy Days.”
ABC Entertainment Photo
Jim Harbaugh, a former quarterback at the University of Michigan, took over as Stanford’s head coach when he was hired in December of 2006.
One of the problems Harbaugh faces at Stanford is the higher admissions standards, which reduces the amount of available recruits.
Harbaugh inherited a team that went 1-11 during the 2006 season, and guided the Cardinal to a record of 4-8, 3-6 in Pac-10 conference play, which included a 24-23 win over then-No.2 Southern California at the Coliseum in his first year at the helm.
Harbaugh was quoted as saying this to Glenn Dickey of the San Francisco Examiner, last May, about the academic standards at Stanford compared to those at his alma mater, Michigan:
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.”
ESPN.com’s Pat Forde wrote a column last August in which he said:
All it takes to see that is a scan of the 2007 Michigan media guide. 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.”
This past week, the Ann Arbor News ran a four-part series entitled, “Academics and Athletics,” which examined the delicate balance between the two at the University of Michigan, written by Jim Carty, John Heuser and Nathan Fenno.
The AA News conducted a seven-month investigation that included interviewing 87 people and reviewing more than 3,500 pages of internal documents.
The first part of the series, that was published on Sunday, targeted a certain psychology professor.
From the Ann Arbor News:
John Hagen was, as he has been for decades, close to some of the most recognized athletes at Michigan. University records obtained by The News show that the veteran psychology professor has taught at least 294 independent studies from the fall of 2004 to the fall of 2007, and 85 percent of those courses, 251, were with athletes.
This finding isn’t exactly earth-shattering, considering that The New York Times ran a similar story about Auburn University nearly two years ago.
In an article published on July 14, 2006, Pete Themel and Adam Himmelsbach of The Times wrote that a certain professor in the sociology department at Auburn taught 18 members of the 2004 football team, and they “took a combined 97 hours of the courses during their careers. The offerings, known as directed-reading courses, resemble independent study and include core subjects like statistics, theory and methods, which normally require class instruction.”
The professor in question at Auburn was Thomas Peete, the sociology department’s highest-ranking member, who rewarded athletes with high grades who never had to attend a class.
This all came to light when Professor Gundlach, the director of the Auburn sociology department, was watching an Auburn football game on television in the fall of 2004, and a graphic during the broadcast honored a certain prominent player for his work as a sociology major.
The problem was, Gundlach never heard of him, which led to his own personal investigation as reported in the same N.Y. Times article:
So Professor Gundlach looked at the player’s academic files, which led him to the discovery that many Auburn athletes were receiving high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that required no attendance and little work.”
Eventually, Peete and James Witte, the program coordinator for Adult Education, were forced to resign at Auburn.
At Michigan, some of the findings were:
Three former athletic department employees said Hagen’s independent study courses are sometimes used by academic support staff to boost the grade point averages of athletes in danger of becoming academically ineligible to compete in sports.
At least 48 athletes have taken two or more independent study courses with Hagen; nine of those 48 have taken three or more.
Quarterback Chad Henne, wideout Mario Manningham, hockey player Chad Kolarik and softball ace Jennie Ritter are just a few of the Wolverines who have taken independent studies with Hagen, as have Jake Long and Shawn Crable, two of the captains on last season’s football team.
When asked what they learned in Hagen’s courses, some athletes described being taught how to take notes, use a day planner, make a calendar and manage their time.
Are you kidding me? While taking notes is an important skill to master in college, learning how to use a day planner? Making a calendar? Give me a break! Note: BuckeyeBanter.com tried to contact Henne and Manningham, but could only leave a message asking both, “How many days are there in the month June?”
Professor Matt’s College Tip of the Day: Use a tape or digital voice recorder and park that bad boy on your desk and hit “play” before the start of any lecture. Now before you start daydreaming of warm, spring days and the hotties sunbathing on The Oval, take written notes to go along with lecture you are recording. You don’t have to copy it verbatim, but maybe jot down an outline or the most pertinent information.
While I love to bash Michigan every chance I get, one of the comments I have heard over the years in which Jim Tressel has taken over as head coach and Ohio State dominating the rivalry since 2001, is that while the Buckeyes win on the field, Michigan is superior academically. That doesn’t appear to be the case, either.
According to the same report, the preferred major for Ohio State football players is business, with 10 student-athletes on the 2007 roster studying that discipline.
When I was a freshman at Ohio State, one of the things that struck me in my very first UVC (University College) class was that, “Ohio State has a liberal arts curriculum, so a major isn’t as important because of the broad-based education you will receive at the university.”
While at OSU, I majored in Political Science with the hopes of someday attending law school. Although that hasn’t happened yet, it’s still my plan. But if I had to do it all over again, I would of majored in something more specific.
While the circumstances at both Auburn and Michigan have been documented in the media, if it’s happening there, I’m sure similar situations like these are occurring on other campuses across the country.
In some ways, I feel that the college athlete is being exploited, but at the same time, some of these student-athletes are getting an opportunity that they might not get otherwise if they didn’t excel in a sport.
Below: Ohio State defensive end Vernon Gholston, reminding Michigan quarterback Chad Henne to add this sack to his day planner, last November. File Photo
