David, I read your post on athletes in higher ed with interest. The note about being a Kentucky fan was funny; it points out the one-upmanship often associated with these sorts of stories, and fans of other schools.

I think it’d be worth it to point out an intramural fight in my own backyard, though. Stanford Coach and U-M legend Jim Harbaugh called out Michigan’s athletes’ athletics several weeks ago, insisting students are “adulated” in their studies. This caused the ‘old ball coach’ Lloyd Carr to fire back some uncharacteristically harsh words. My classmate (well, we graduate in the same year) Mike Hart, Michigan’s Heisman candidate running back, was particularly brash. He went so far as to call Harbaugh not a “Michigan Man.” To be a Michigan Man was a big part of the late Bo Schembechler’s canon, so this dispute has gone national.

Yesterday, ESPN’s Pat Forde stuck up for Harbaugh, with a look at my school’s academics for athletes. The perpetually awesome MGoBlog counter-posts (warning, some, uh, heated language).

Spurrier’s students couldn’t get accepted. When student athletes do make it into a school–in Michigan’s case, a top public institution in the country–what exactly should their academic expectations be? What say you, David, and the other PBC contributors?

(P.S. David, you’re a Wildcats Football fan, and still say the SEC is the only conference where football is played? Say we write to encourage our respective athletic directors to schedule a Wildcats-Wolverines

matchup in Ann Arbor?)