Vols' most popular major is undecided

KNOXVILLE – Tennessee athletes who represent the school's three most popular sports — football, men's basketball and women's basketball — study 30 different majors, but the most popular choice among the 138 students was "undecided."

Approximately 19 percent of athletes in those three sports, many of them freshmen, were listed as undecided. Data was compiled by The Tennessean from the official website of the school's athletic department.

Athletes' studies have been a hot topic since a report released by the University of North Carolina last week found that thousands of students had been receiving A's and B's in classes that didn't exist. The report said that 47.6 percent of the students in the fake classes were athletes.

Nearly a quarter of the football team is listed as undecided. An additional 17 percent of football players are listed as pursuing a major in the College of Arts and Sciences with no specific concentration given.

The most popular major among football players is communications with nine. Communications is also the most popular on the women's basketball team and is tied with sports management and psychology as the most popular among men's basketball players.

Ten of the 109 members of the UT football team, including quarterback Josh Dobbs, are majoring in seven different types of engineering.

Among the other most popular majors are sports management, business, psychology and management.

Linebacker Corey Vereen is pursuing a major in computer programming.

"I just always played video games a child," Vereen said. "So when I came here, I thought, 'I could do this for a living.'"

Vereen added that learning to code is a bit of a different beast, though, compared to playing the video games that interested him as a child. After football, he sees himself putting his degree to good use.

"I'd probably like to work with one of the companies like Microsoft, Sony or Insomniac," he said. "Just different programming companies I'd like to work with, then eventually branch off and make my own company."

Reach Matt Slovin on Twitter @MattSlovin.

MOST POPULAR UT ATHLETES' MAJORS

Football, men's basketball and women's basketball players included:

Undecided: 26

*College of Arts and Sciences: 18

Communications: 17

Sports Management: 13

Business: 13

Psychology: 7

Management: 5

Agricultural Leadership: 4

Kinesiology: 3

Sociology: 3

*No specific major within the college given.