# Should universities offer a major in a specific sport? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 22, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358 "2008-03-22T18:30:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/1 "2008-03-22T18:30:00Z")
If it is bowl season or tournament time, the articles will appear about the poor graduation rates of student-athletes. So, why shouldn’t a university offer a major in basketball or football? You wouldn’t be surprised to see most members of the university symphony majoring in music or the cast of a play with a drama major. Yet, many of these liberal arts majors will find themselves unemployable in their field unless they turn to teaching. A football player at a major NCAA football school will spend the vast majority of his time concentrating on football and trying to make it to the NFL. Why is this different from a violinist with aspirations of joining the New York Philharmonic? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/2 "2008-03-22T19:28:25Z")
They offer sports science, though, don’t they? I know that’s what aspiring sportsmen in the UK tend to take at degree level. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/3 "2008-03-22T20:17:21Z")
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] They offer sports science, though, don’t they? I know that’s what aspiring sportsmen in the UK tend to take at degree level. [/QUOTE] Yeah. The vast majority of NCAA Divison I & II colleges offer majors like; physical education, athletic training, or sports management. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/4 "2008-03-22T20:27:40Z")
[QUOTE=dalej42] A football player at a major NCAA football school will spend the vast majority of his time concentrating on football and trying to make it to the NFL. Why is this different from a violinist with aspirations of joining the New York Philharmonic? [/QUOTE] You are giving a poor example, there are hundreds of performing groups/studios that would employ a violinist. Compare that to the rosters of players in the NFL or NBA. Granted there are lower tier professional sports that would soak up some of those players as well. Also remember that many music majors actually have to learn to play several instruments not just the one they prefer. Music ed majors have to learn quite a few to the point of being able to teach others. If you wanted to create a cross sport major requiring someone to excel in 4-5 sports as well as understand the history, mechanics, and rules of all those games…sure…why not. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/5 "2008-03-22T21:05:01Z")
I still don’t think it would help simply because those who are ready leave when they are ready, whether that takes four years or one. It wouldn’t help graduation rates one bit, wouldn’t offer anything that isn’t already being offered, and, while it might satisfy those who cry about their diploma being devalued by having the same one as an athlete, it doesn’t change the fact that (and I am making a statistic up here because I can’t find a youtube of the commercial) something like 90% of NCAA athletes don’t go pro. A degree in wrestling or gymnastics or cross-country would be worthless. That’s why sports are EXTRAcurriculars. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/6 "2008-03-22T21:08:05Z")
Personally, I’d like to see sports treated with far, far less respect at universities. It’s ridiculous that football coaches get paid more than physics professors. ---
**Author:** ![Charger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/7 "2008-03-22T21:22:12Z")
What I like about this idea is that there would eventually be universities that become THE school for football/hockey/baseball/basketball/etc majors and other schools would have to eventually drop the whole sports program because the students with those career interests would go to one of the specialized sports schools (Football U, Basketball U, Croquet U, etc.). Then the schools which lost their sports programs would have to face the problem of finding something on which to spend all of that money. Football fields everywhere would be have to be turned into parking ramps, research labs, and classroom and office buildings. Utter chaos. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/8 "2008-03-22T21:31:53Z")
Athletes graduate at a higher rate than non-athletes. The OP is a massive jumble of urban legends. > [@dalej42](#): > > Yet, many of these liberal arts majors will find themselves unemployable in their field unless they turn to teaching. Huh? [http://www2.ncaa.org/portal/media\_and\_events/press\_room/2006/november/20061109\_d1\_gsr\_rls.html](http://www2.ncaa.org/portal/media_and_events/press_room/2006/november/20061109_d1_gsr_rls.html) > [@](#): > > INDIANAPOLIS—A common misperception is that student-athletes perform poorly in the classroom. The evidence is quite the contrary. > > NCAA student-athletes are completing their bachelor’s degrees at rates higher than the American college student population at large. > > According to the most recent data collected by the NCAA using the federal calculation for graduation rates, 63 percent of NCAA Division I student-athletes who started college in 1999 graduated within six years. College students nationally graduated at a 61-percent rate in the same time period. Both rates increased one percentage point from last year. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/9 "2008-03-23T02:34:46Z")
[http://stanford.scout.com/2/355659.html](http://stanford.scout.com/2/355659.html) Heres a cite with charts for graduation rates at many schools and in different sports. It highlights tha differences between blacks and whites at various schools. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-offer-a-major-in-a-specific-sport/442358/10 "2008-03-23T13:07:09Z")
Dont the Aussies have some sort of sporting academy or something? the products of this academy are apparently the reason that they’ve dicked us at cricket so many times. Mind you in recent years an amateur,under fifteen team of ex offenders from the U.S. would be very much in with a sporting chance of beating us.