Keith Molin, a retired senior associate athletic director at U-M, said the job has become part executive, part politician. Everything you do is done in full public view, you have very little privacy, you have very little time to deliberate options, and every decision you make is subject to review by people who may, or may not, understand your efforts. The financial responsibilities of the job are immense. Ticket prices have risen, but not nearly enough to offset other expenses, such as rising coaches salaries. More athletes are from single-parent families.
Some athletes are parents themselves by the time they arrive on campus.
And arrests and court appearances by athletes have increased, as have the number of players on scholarship. And the biggest difference is expectations that the AD can wave some kind of magic wand and clean up things that have everything to do with the way society and lifestyles have changed. The problem isn't a local problem. It's a national problem. It's also a political tussle.