“Sport and the University” is the current Theme Semester of the college of “Literature, Science and the Arts” at the University of Michigan. For me, as a German exchange student, this combination seems not really obvious at first sight and I was really surprised that my course on political theory also incorporates this slogan in its program. In my home country, we neither have athlete teams representing our university nor have we stadiums comparable to the Big House or to the whole athletic complex. Once arrived in Ann Arbor, this connection has become clearer and clearer to me. It wasn’t a coincidence that the first thing I saw of the University of Michigan was the Big House and its colossal “M” in which fans and students support their team. And when I have a look around my apartment, I can detect Michigan stuff all over the place: a Michigan flag, cups and a lot of Michigan clothes of my roommates – things that wouldn’t be found in students’ apartments in Germany. But why are these differences so striking and which role plays sports in this context?

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