The History of College Athletics | University of Michigan EDUC 212

EDUC 212-001, 3 Credits 
Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Schorling Auditorium Room 1202, School of Education
**Note: This course is an elective for all U-M undergrad students. Check with your advisor with questions, or ping me Greg Dooley dools[@]umich.edu

Course Overview

In June 2022, traditional football powers USC and UCLA announced their intention to leave the Pac-12 conference and join the Big Ten, a move based solely on the financial security brought by the B1G $7B+ television contract.  A year later the Pac-12, a conference formed in 1915, was in ruins in a matter of days after five more teams exited the league.  As we head into 2025 the future of college athletics, its conferences and its athletes are in flux.  The demand, dollars and popularity of the sport could be at its height, but the consequences to its foundation have been severe and full repercussions yet to be determined.

The popularity of college athletics, particularly football, is driving all these large contracts and massive shifts in the landscape.  We’ve become so accustomed to watching nationally televised/streamed college games played before packed crowds on college campuses, we rarely stop to wonder how this institution came to be.  What now seems natural was actually anything but.   The marriage between televised sports and major universities seems an odd one. No other nation takes college athletics, clearly a lower quality compared to professional sports, seriously. Why do we care so much about this?

To answer this question we cover several key stages of growth in athletics and the powerful events and fascinating personalities that shaped the game.  In particular, we will examine the evolution of athletics, particularly football, at the University of Michigan and learn how U-M has continued to do more to determine the direction of college sports than any other university to the present day – for better or worse, depending on your view. 

At this moment we are at a critical juncture in the sport: with major conference realignment, massive TV contracts, escalating coaching pay, stunning administrative scandals/lawsuits, cries of inequity across other sports and gender lines, and the ability of college athletes to earn financial compensation through NIL and revenue sharing.  We will discuss these issues and draw historic ties along the way.  History, it is said, doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.

At the end of this course students will understand how the institution of college athletics became so, what that has meant and continues to mean today, and learn historical context as we wade through these turbulent times in college athletics.

This class is part of the Education for Empowerment minor program offered by the School of Education, specifically the ‘Coaching & Leadership’ pathway.  It requires 15 credits total (4 classes + an internship + 1 credit capstone).  Interested?  Contact marsal.minor@umich.edu – any undergrad can declare after completing any (1) qualifying course.  Here’s an endorsement from former U-M Coach John Beilein.