The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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you've got to go through a building process. Michigan fans can't hope for whoever comes in to automatically take them to a national championship. It takes some time." CULTURAL CHANGES HINTED AT Meanwhile, over time, Schlissel may be looking to curb an athletics culture that, under Brandon, drew the percep- tion of placing a heavy emphasis on making money and producing "the wow factor" around events. At Hackett's introductory press con- ference, Schlissel fielded a direct ques- tion about culture. "That's a difficult question," the president noted. "Football is extremely important to our community. You can tell by … we're sitting here wring- ing our hands that maybe there will be 95,000, instead of 110,000 people, watching a football game. It's really important to a lot of people, in lots of positive ways. "The sport of football, and college athletics in general, is certainly a mat- ter of discussion and debate around the country. I'd like to develop a clearer opinion. I'd like to work with our in- terim and our new athletic director to contribute to the process of evolution of college athletics in a direction that I think is more closely linked to the fact that these are academic institu- tions and students are here for both an education and to pursue the sports they love." He went further in a subsequent in- terview with The Michigan Daily, U- M's student newspaper. His remarks touched on a number of issues, includ- ing student-athletes. "We admit students who aren't as qualified, and it's probably the kids that we admit that can't honestly, even with lots of help, do the amount of work and the quality of work it takes to make progression from year to year," he told the Daily. "These past two years have gotten better, but before that, the graduation rates were terrible, with football some- where in the 50s and 60s when our total six-year rate at the University is somewhere near 90 percent, so that's a challenge." Schlissel also noted: "If I could wave my magic wand and really change U-M president Mark Schlissel said, "I'm not the guy to make a decision about a particu- lar coach. We have an athletic program that I delegate that authority to." PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY