Bad sports, good sports: What the heck is going on at Notre Dame?
There is no more storied college football program in the country than Notre Dame. The name conjures up images of the Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus, Rudy, and the Gipper. Despite the fact that the football team itself hasn’t been particularly relevant since the early nineties, the college football world continues to pay an incredible amount of attention to the Fighting Irish. After five miserable years under egomaniac head coach Charlie Weis, new coach Brian Kelly was hired and the fan base was rejuvenated. This week, it became apparent that things have actually gotten worse than they ever were under Weis. Not only has the team performed poorly, but things surrounding the team have also gone terribly wrong. Declan Sullivan, a student who was filming practice for the team, was killed on Wednesday when the hydraulic scissor lift he was perched on was knocked over by gale-force winds.
A head coach is responsible for everything that happens within the football program. I am astonished that Kelly allowed Sullivan to be up on the lift during practice with the winds being so strong. The kid was actually tweeting from high above the practice field, talking about how scared he was. People who are blaming Sullivan for going up there are giving far too much credit to a college student who likely felt extremely fortunate to have the job he had, and did not want to jeopardize his position by refusing to film practice. It was the responsibility of the man in charge of the practice to make sure that everyone involved was safe. The most amazing and revolting part of the whole story is the fact that, after the accident had occurred and Sullivan had been taken away via ambulance, Kelly actually had the team resume practicing. That’s right, he didn’t get into the ambulance with the kid and go with him to the hospital. Instead, he decided it would be a good idea to stay on campus and get a few more minutes of practice in. After all, this wasn’t one of his precious players, right? It was just some film student who wanted to do whatever he could to be associated with the team. Brian Kelly should be fired.
It really is amazing that things have gotten this bad in South Bend. Throughout all of the recent bad years, even with the arrogant Weis at the helm, Notre Dame always retained its image of a program that did things the right way, that graduated its players, and that valued honor and respect more than your average college football team. That is not to suggest they have been successful at their primary purpose, of course. In the last two weeks, Notre Dame has lost to Navy (who this week lost to perennial pushover Duke) and then to Tulsa, a Conference USA team. All of that pales, though, to the events of Wednesday’s practice. Brian Kelly needs to be held responsible for this tragedy.
Bad sports, continued:
2) Continuing the theme of football-related tragedy, a high school football player died in Kansas City on Friday morning, several hours after the end of a game his team won by the astonishing score of 99-72. Nathan Stiles, a two-way player, had collapsed on the sideline after taking a hard hit at the end of an interception runback.
3) A rule difference between the PGA tour and the European tour and the confusion caused by it resulted in a massive penalty for golfer Ryudi Imaja in China on Saturday. Imaja was participating in an exhibition tournament and assumed that the PGA rule that requires the ball to be placed within a club-length of its original position after it has been picked up for cleaning was in effect at this tournament. European rules were in place, though, and those state that the ball had to be placed within a scorecard-length of the initial spot. Imaja’s estimate that he had done it thirteen times during his round led to a 26 stroke penalty, two strokes per incident. Ouch.
4) I am not going to write another long rant about how much I hate restrictor-plate racing in NASCAR, but if you watched Sunday’s race at Talladega, you might understand my negative feelings. What a waste of my time. When drivers can ride around in the back for three hours and still be a factor, and when a driver with a wrecked car can nearly win, something is wrong.
Good sports:
1) Lee Westwood has done something that no other golfer had managed to do for the last five years: he has taken the top spot in the rankings away from Tiger Woods. Tiger’s streak ended at 281 consecutive weeks at number one.
2) Boy, the Cowboys suck. I am loving every minute of it. On Sunday, after they were blown out by the not-very-good Jacksonville Jaguars, owner Jerry Jones apologized to the fans for the embarrassment that this season has become. The best part of it is that many of the so-called experts picked the Cowboys to go to the Super Bowl this year, which would have made them the first team to ever play a Super Bowl in its home stadium. The Cowboys have as much chance of playing in the Super Bowl this year as I do.
3) I have been trying to avoid filling up my columns with Brett Favre mentions, but how great is it that he is finally paying the price for sticking around too long? Sure, I like that his name is being dragged through the mud for his alleged misdeeds while with the Jets a couple of years back. Even better, though, is the fact that he is having a terrible year and the Vikings are 2-5.
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Allan, good post … as always, really.
Re: the fatal accident at Notre Dame, this is NOT, in any WAY meant to excuse the coach … but the decision on using that lift, under those conditions, should not have been in his hands … if that is, indeed, shown to be the case.
I work at a small community college in West Texas, and while we lack much of what you would find at the great school up north, I still have some appreciation for the use of mechanical equipment and vehicles on a school campus. The decision on whether or not a piece of equipment is – or is not – allowed to operate, under whatever conditions, should be made by a school’s Physical Plant, not an athletic program.
@Jeff, while I agree with your statement on who should make the decision, the head football coach on any major college program really runs the show and gets whatever, whenever he wants. Unfortunately this time it cost a young man his life.
Jeff – I definitely second what Walt said. The head coach at every program I know is involved in every detail, when it comes to what happens at practices and at the games. Kelly made the decision to have practice outdoors and was certainly aware that Sullivan was up on the lift filming. He never should have allowed that. And he never should have continued practice after the accident.