The start of the new school year inevitably brings with it the start to several collegiate sports-among them are football, field hockey, soccer and volleyball.

As the year starts, it is high time for the NCAA and NCAA-sanctioned colleges and universities to allow their student-athletes to major in the sport they participate in.

The average collegiate football game lasted three hours and 21 minutes in 2005. That means an average football player played around three hours of football a week. However, that number doesn't take into account pregame warm ups, travel time to away games, on-field practice and film study. Add all those together and you're looking at least 10 hours of work a week.

All of those hours are spent by student-athletes in preparation for what players consider the most fun-the games, however, every hour spent dedicating time to a sport is an hour that cannot be used to study or attend class.

Unlike other students who can pick up clubs or intramural sports and drop them if things get too hectic, a student-athlete has to continue participating, or else put their scholarship in jeopardy.

Universities give full scholarships to athletes, require them to put in long hours in that sport and then tell them on top of all of that, they have to keep up a steady course load and major in a different subject.

If that occurred in any other field, it would seem absurd.

Imagine if Miami University offered a full scholarship to a science prodigy, forced the person to spend 16 hours a week on scientific research and then told him or her to pick a different field to major in.

Sure, science may be considered a much more useful profession, but when was the last time a university made money selling replica microscopes?

The field in which a student majors in is supposed to be the field to which the student devotes the majority of his or her time. If the student devotes most of his or her time to a sport, why should a university step in and say you cannot major in this subject?

The student-athletes should still have to fulfill other university requirements-the Miami Plan for example-but they deserve to be able to major in the sport they play. Miami already offers courses in coaching and athletic training; why not make those classes mandatory for a sports degree?

The percentage of collegiate athletes who ultimately go on to have a professional career is very small-there is no denying that. However, the number of business students who become CEOs of a major company is also very small, as is the number of accounting students who become CFOs.

Students change majors all the time trying to find the one that fits them the best, or the one that will make them the happiest. Just because a major may seem trivial or unusable in the real world is not a good reason to ban that major.

Student-athletes put in many hours of practice and preparation into their sport in addition to the other classes they have. It's about time the NCAA allows its student-athletes to become students of athletics.