What’s Your Major? Some Say ‘Sports’ Should Be an Acceptable Answer.

For decades, a small but passionate group of academics has offered a potential balm for the fraught relationship between athletics and education at major universities: Allow students to major in sports. One such educator is David Hollander, a clinical professor at New York University’s School of Professional Studies. He has spent years espousing the intellectual value of basketball — positionless play, he says, can teach entrepreneurial thinking, and fast breaks can teach interpersonal communication. Mr. Hollander lobbied for the Catholic Church to name a patron saint of basketball (it did) and helped convince the United Nations to declare Dec. 21 World Basketball Day.