Today's article describes a situation even less shocking, if possible, than yesterday's. It seems that Michigan has a General Studies program that allows students to take courses in a wide variety of disciplines and that many athletes are a part of the program. It also seems that some professors aren't thrilled by having to teach athletes, who generally aren't as skilled as the average Michigan student. Furthermore, it seems that some Michigan athletes don't graduate--though the article doesn't mention that its examples of non-graduates had a tendency to leave school to earn lots of money at the pro level in their sport. Neither do they mention any examples of students that graduated with their degree and couldn't find a job anywhere; in fact, one prominent example of a kinesiology student, Chris Floyd, is now pursuing his master's degree from Wayne State. Bill Frieder, Michigan's old b-ball coach before Steve Fisher, told The Ann Arbor News that he respected the administration's willingness to take special-admissions athletes and help them to achieve academic success.
This is why I said in my last post on this subject that this is not only NOT a scandal, it's an anti-scandal: most schools leave athletes out in the cold, like Huggins when he was at Cincy and Florida State under Bowden. Michigan does their best to give their student-athletes a chance to succeed. A lot of them have graduated from poor high schools, a lot of them are extremely poor themselves, and for the vast majority, a Michigan college degree is the only way out. Michigan has given an extraordinary amount of attention to building these young men into successful people, in whatever profession they choose, be it pro sports or something else.
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