Notre Dame Burning

Notre Dame Burning

I know that sounds offensive, but I don’t mean that in a physical sense. But in a figurative sense, that is what is going on.

Today is Monday as we are heading into Thanksgiving, and I get to blog about the state of affairs of Notre Dame and their recent loss.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this was a TERRIBLE loss. When I blogged about ND a couple of weeks ago, I said they needed to win 6 games just to qualify for a bowl. They had Navy, Syracuse and Southern Cal left on the schedule. I really thought there was a chance that Navy could beat them, but it was still close to call. As it turns out, Notre Dame won a close game, and reached the 6-win mark to qualify for a bowl. So it seemed easy to guess that they will beat Syracuse and get 7 wins, right?

Wrong. To lose to Syracuse is bad enough, but to lose in your HOUSE to a 2-8 team is far past bad. This is an abomination. And their next game is against Southern Cal, who needs to run up the score to help themselves to a BCS Bowl, if possible.

The future is not very good for Notre Dame.

And so we ask ourselves, why? Why has the glory days of Notre Dame gone astray? Some say the head coach should be fired…I place no blame on him.

None at all. If you want to blame somebody, and if you are a Notre Dame fan, try looking in the mirror for once.

This is what happens when rich alumni who are stubborn about the world around them are allowed to lead a program. Blind people leading the blind, and they all fall in the ditch.

So why is Notre Dame going through so many problems? Why can’t they return to the “glory” days of Lou Holtz? It’s obvious Notre Dame wants those days back, they idolized that man in stone (odd, for a religious school to create such a figure…)

But personally I think the university is reaping exactly what it has sown. I do not blame the players, they were merely pawns. I do not blame the students, for they were spectators. I blame the university, from top to bottom, for letting money run the program where there should have been a religious-lead university.

Notre Dame’s last great year was 1993, when Lou Holtz led the Irish to an 11-1 record and beating Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl 24-21. You can go back to 1988 when they were perfect and won the National Championship if you want a better day. But just using 1993, that means it has been what, 15 YEARS since Notre Dame has tasted the deep sips of success? What has happened?

There are a lot of reasons, but here are two: media and selfish alumni. The media has played a HUGE role in the falling of Notre Dame, because with ESPN coming on the scene, more television coverage was being given to other Division I schools. Notre Dame was shown on NBC so we were force-fed this team, whether we liked them or not. But once more teams started getting on television, the recruitment of high school players began to change.

Fast forward to now. On any college football Saturday, I can see, with basic cable, about 20 different football games. From the SEC on CBS, to Big 10 games on ESPN, local teams like ECU on local channels, and other games on ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN classic, Fox Sports and the VS Channel. There are tons of games on, and for each game, there is a chance to promote that school and team. Notre Dame does not own the only game in town anymore.

And because of this, recruits have more choices. You don’t HAVE to go to Notre Dame, you can go to Utah, Boise State, Florida State, Arkansas, South Florida, TCU, Ball State, Central Michigan, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, ECU or any other school you want now. The playing field is getting leveled, and we also see this with the troubles of Michigan and UCLA. Teams like Notre Dame don’t OWN high schools players anymore, they have to EARN them like everybody else.

But the other big reason is money and pride, which always clouds the judgment of sports. It is a very sad fact that rich alumni with no real heart run most of the college football programs. A hateful man that does nothing for his community can have a major influence on the his school simply because he has money. For lust of pride a rich alum will pour money into a university so he or she can have a strong voice in how the program is run, even if they never took a snap in their lives, or even know HOW to play football.

This is the problem with college football, but this seems to be proven with Notre Dame. When Notre Dame got rid of Bob Davie, they were looking for another coach, and originally courted George O’Leary. Oh that would have just been TOO easy, a coach with an IRISH last name…how original.

But there were some credential issues with O’Leary, so they had to drop him and the university was now looking pretty embarrassed. How can the GREAT Notre Dame NOT have a coach. So they had to save face, and how do we do that in America? We hire an African American coach.

But Tyrone Willingham was a very good hire, because he believed not just in winning, but education. It was important to graduate players, not just use them to satisfy rich alum. So Willingham was hired, and for a moment Notre Dame seemed to have made a solid remark to the nation that truly, a man can be hired by merit, not by the color of his skin.

But that didn’t quite work so well.

Rumors started running that many of the alumni of Notre Dame never wanted Tyrone Willingham, and there was pressure to get rid of him. Notre Dame wasn’t winning National Championships either, but then again, that had not happened since 1988. But Notre Dame had one rule they seemed to always follow. They NEVER fired any football coach, and always let them finish their contract. Surely they would allow Tyrone Willingham to do the same, right?

Wrong. For the first time in this “school of higher learning”, Notre Dame fired their head football coach, from the pressure of the rich alumni. It would seem that the true belly of the school seemed to have emerged, in that unfortunately, race is still a factor in how a man is respected.

I remember the shockwaves of that day and how even the head of the university was quoted as saying how embarrassing this was to the university, not that they fired Willingham, but the actual undertone of WHY he was fired. It seemed clear that in a sport that seemed equal, the head coaching positions of such schools like Notre Dame were not reserved for people of other races UNLESS it was an emergency.

So, the Irish fired Willingham and decided to pick up Weis, from the New England Patriots. Surely a coach from a Superbowl team will take Notre Dame in “a new direction”. But the direction was no different than what they had before, and Charlie Weis could not do any better than Willingham. But yet, Notre Dame GAVE him an extension on his contract for doing NOTHING better than Willingham.

Proving that indeed, the rewards and respect of men are still based on the color of your skin…and I know I say this after our country has just made an exceptional mark in our country’s history…but I would wager it was not good news to those Notre Dame alum.

So Weis gets rewarded for mediocrity, while Willingham gets fired. But the winning is still the same. So now we come to the next to the last game of the year for Notre Dame, but also knowing they will be in a bowl. They must face a very hungry USC team that could easily put 50 points on them…and will probably feel they have to just to make conversation in the BCS Bowls.

I am not a Notre Dame fan, but I am not hating on the fans, students and players of the university. I truly feel that the failure of this school is directly tied to the school’s extreme lack of humanity, and how they seem to let money speak rather than wisdom. I thought this was a school of higher learning and of spirituality? Can’t they see the fruits of their labor was nothing but thorns, instead of grapes?

And why does Lou Holtz slurp this school when he owes no favors to them? I cannot respect a man that brown-noses one of his former jobs as if they are still paying him. I can see if he spent his entire career there, but he did not, only 10 years. Why would a man lie on national television that Notre Dame was going to go 12-0 and win the national championship? Is he a coward, afraid to say what he should, or was he looking forward to that Michigan/Notre Dame game when they would make an idol of him?

Where is the success of Notre Dame? Why has this team, which once was one of the greatest, fallen to a common oddity? Maybe it’s because they no longer focus on winning, rather diplomacy. That’s the problem with rich folks, they don’t know how to make wise decisions, and instead think that because they have money they have the right to get what they want…and I guess they are right.

This is what you paid for Notre Dame…so reap what you have sown. But you also learned something else…money can’t buy National Championships…they have to be earned.

And until the university gets that understood, Notre Dame will continue to be an average team. Of course, they might start scheduling weaker teams to boost their record, but true fans of football will know that they are bogus. So go ahead ND, call your rich folks and ask them who they want you to hire, since you can’t make those decisions yourself. Walk with the blind, and let them lead you… just be careful of that next step.