Trophy life
Never a dull moment around here. After winning the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2024, the No. 1-ranked Wolverines captured the football program’s 12th national championship and first since 1997 with a gritty 34-13 victory in the CFP National Championship Game on Jan. 8. Revisit all the highlights from this thrilling championship season at mgoblue.com. Even before the confetti had settled, several players announced their post-Michigan plans and Coach Jim Harbaugh confirmed he was moving to the NFL. Then, on Jan. 26, Michigan Athletics announced Sherrone Moore had been appointed the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach. Moore is the 21st head football coach in school history; he is the first African American to lead the nation’s winningest program in college football history. (Text and images via Michigan Athletics.)
Eugene Praschan - 2010
Go Blue forever!
Leaders and Best!
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Jerry Manning - 1960
My no doubt minority opinion but one I think needs to be expressed amidst the euphoria over a proud publicly funded academic institution spending about a hundred million dollars for a football coach to win a national football championship trophy, probably the most expensive piece of hardware on display anywhere in the university and an anti tribute to the values of amateur athletics and the position of academia in the Bo Schembechler era of insanity.
What has the University come to when President Ono defends the excesses involved in winning the trophy? that the 55+ boys are worth spending 100 million to turn them into upstanding responsible men? What about the aids, doing most of the teaching for the tenured profs, who get paid next to nothing? What about the 1000s of students and their families who go deeply into debt to get their Michigan degrees?
A deadly illness has overtaken the soul of the University and its dedication to the athletic campus rather the students dedicated to obtaining their academic degrees.
I brought a scientist from the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the early 90s to discuss with University’s Chemistry Dept the possibility of joining a tripartite union with the renowned Max Planck Institute in Germany and the Institute of Chemical Physics in Moscow whose founders had their own Manhattan project to build a nuclear weapon. In private conversations I had with the Chairman of the University’s dept, I found money was the stumbling block.His dept was underfunded for their own research.
That was just ONE dept of the many at the University. An hundred million would go a LONG way to funding a LOT of other programs underfunded today rather than financing degrees in underwater basket weaving for boys learning to become professional football players.
Think about it, please.
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Steven Ald - 1981
Where do you think that $100 million came from? The pockets of Michigan taxpayers? It came from football.
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Jerry Manning - 1960
Sadly the University has become an adjunct to the athletic DEPARTMENT and not the other way around. So my proposal, where the University can be Leader and Best for ALL NCAA-affiliated colleges and universities is to turn the athletic campus into a non-profit responsible for its revenues and programs and facilities and registrants. Give academic students free passes to access facilities and events. Make a clean separation between the academic purpose of the University and the athletic operation. Let the taxpayers decide what they want to fund, if they are the ones now funding programs under the University’s name. Get the University out of the business of being a privileged program for the 20+ football players turning pro in 2O24 and the other athletes in development for the U.S. Olympic teams.
A very simple proposal putting apples with apples and the other fruit in an independent non-profit.
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TS Sebastien - 1993
HAIL Sherrone Moore LEADER and BEST!
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Jerry Manning - 1960
To put things in perspective, President Ono’s published salary for being responsible for bring the public face of the University and for heading the administration of the University was $1,014,000 last year and Harbaugh’s coaching yielded him somewhere in excess of $10 million and he was negotiating for more.
I believe the University underwrites a substantial portion of construction and maintenance for the athletic campus.
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Jerry Manning - 1960)
Some further data to indicate President Ono’s role
And responsibility in managing the University for salary of $1.014 million—
US News and World Report Rankings: 110 grad programs in top 1; #3 in public universities; #23 in national universities
Responsible for annual university income of 8 billion, budget of 176 million, athletic budget 25 million including 10 million for Harbaugh and additional millions for position coaches and staff for football program.
Of approx 55 players, 20 put themselves in NFL draft in 2024. Graduation rate is 45%.
The University’s academic grads, including doctors of all kinds (PhD, medical, dental, psychological), engineers, teachers, artists, actors, authors etc, enrich their communities. The 350 lb line behemoths role on the football team is to destroy their opposition. The skill positions get attention for laser passes or catching them—primarily for the entertainment of the crowds in the Big House or on TV while the players get broken and bruised or brain damaged and this year 20 of them get at least minimum million dollar contracts and average duration of 4.75 years.
From on quadrennial to the next, cities world wide have lately spent billions to host the Olympics and seen the stadia constructed turn to rot, except for athlete housing converted to public housing, once the “Games” are over, the whole thing a bit like the Roman Colliseum without the lions.
The Big House could easily turn to rubble or be mothballed in some future scenario with no visible impact on the quality of life in communities statewide or nationwide while the work of graduate teachers and engineers and doctors and authors and actors and artists continues to enrich the communities they serve. So who deserves the salaries they are paid? The Ono’s or the Harbaughs?
Definitely a topic for discussion at the University and by the paying public and other stakeholders interested in getting the most bang for their buck‼️
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Jerry Manning - 1960
Typo in the rankings of 110 grad programs.should be 10 not 1
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Jerry Manning - 1960
https://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/key-issues/tuition/general-fund-budget-tutorial/
Pie chart of University Budget
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Jerry Manning - 1960
University of Michigan graduation and retention rates
2023 Entering Class
• 3.9-4.0 Average High School GPA
• 31-34 Average ACT
• 1350-1530 Average SAT range
M Athletics
• 415 All-time Big 10 athletic championships
• 900+ Student-athletes
• 29 NCAA Division I teams
~ Academics
• 110 Grad programs in the top 10 – U.S. News &
World Report (2022)
• 97% first-year student retention rate
• 93% of students graduate within six years
• 19 Schools and colleges
• 280+ Degree programs
• 15:1 Student to faculty ratio
$ Affordability
• 2 of 3 first-year students receive financial aid
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Jerry Manning - 1969
I may have misstated graduation rate for football players. For ALL collegiate athletes it set a University record in 2023 of over 90%,
https://mgoblue.com/news/2023/12/6/general-michigan-ties-school-record-graduation-success-rate-in-ncaa-report
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Jerry Manning - 1960
Approx 52,000 students at the U of which 900 are athletes.
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