Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1496419
BLUEGOLDONLINE.com MAY 2023 7 FAN FORUM THE ETERNAL MISSION I am writing in response to John Mc- Grath's scathing letter in your April 2023 issue of Blue & Gold Illustrated. For the record, Fr. Sorin's first and fore- most vision of the Notre Dame's mis- sion was one of academic excellence. It wasn't until much later that the football program became a great publicity driver for the University. That said, while the athletics depart- ment has grown through the decades and left its mark the vision of Notre Dame continues to challenge its stu- dents at a higher academic level as it always should. I am reminded of all the amazing people who have worked at Notre Dame and made it the Uni- versity it is today. I'm also constantly reminded of the responsibilities that face the student-athletes, especially in the football program and proud of how these young men meet these challenges year after year, both in the classroom and on the field. So, when all is said and done the truth is perfection simply doesn't ex- ist, people change each and every year and building a champion certainly here at Notre Dame takes a LOT more work behind the scenes than much of the Irish alumni and fan base realize. Simply put Notre Dame is NOT like any other academic institution! Only the best, brightest and hardest working people who accept the greatest chal- lenges come here to grow and make an impact in life! And all who understand this realize there is ALSO NO perfec- tion, NO guarantees, NO assurances, just hard work. For John and the rest of frustrated Irish Nation, we all know times are dif- ferent, ideas and leadership being led by new and different minds as the years progress. Yet the truth lies in the fact that we all can't depend on the same successful people to ALWAYS be there through the decades and MUST accept that Notre Dame, much like in life itself, continues to evolve and the best avenue of recourse is to provide positive sup- port for those who have taken on the responsibility of leading this University both in its administration, academia and student athletics. From my own experiences here at Notre Dame over the last 25 years I see the eter- nal mission of Notre Dame is FAR more important than one's individual pride. I fully believe Fr. Sorin would agree. Eric Swope BE HEARD! Send your letters to: Letters, Blue & Gold Illustrated, P. O. Box 1007, Notre Dame, IN 46556 or e-mail to: sdowney@comanpub.com Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick teamed up with university president John I. Jenkins to write an op-ed in The New York Times March 23. The highly respected duo in the sphere of collegiate administration listed a number of reasons why "college athletics is in crisis," in their own words. Fighting Irish fans reacted to what they had to say on our message board at BlueadnGold.com. Here is a sampling of some of the opinions in response: Diehard_Irish: Swarbrick and Jenkins are spot on. arrowfan624: They both realize there's a good chance the NLRB and/or SCOTUS will classify athletes as employees in the next few years, which is going to kill off 80 percent of athletic departments. I wish they were more explicit, but in asking for Congress to help, they really want the NCAA to get an antitrust exemption. Fitz23: Athletes are not like all students, they just aren't. It's a hopeful take, but it's not the reality of today. Uteck42: Wow. How can these two very intelligent people be so stupid. The football program charges ridiculously high ticket prices and will soon generate $70 million a year for television rights. If Notre Dame wants to be Williams College or Bowdoin go ahead. But enough of this hypocritical suck and blowing. Java65: In short, all the other universities need change because we at ND do not want to spend money on the football program. Everybody else is wrong, we are right. It's just an attempt for them to justify why we will not do what is necessary to win in today's game. They are more than fine raking in 10s of millions off the program and want to invest very little back into it. CharlestonIrish25: I can appreciate that they're really commenting on the headwinds represented by classifying athletes as employees, I'm just not sure how any of this results in a positive for ND. Their suggestions result in something like one of the following, from my view: • Nothing happens to change pay-for-play enticements, but an anti-trust exemption is granted and athletes aren't branded as employees; wild west recruiting continues, eventually market corrects, ND does little to adjust to the new normal (why would they, they're literally sticking with "a degree is more valuable" logic here) and settles into a ceiling of a mediocre program. • Athletes become employees paid a fair market value, ND refuses to incur millions in payroll, specifically for an organization of ~100 new employees, CFB moves on mostly without them (call this the "like minded institutions" model, where Swarbrick previously suggested that a group of universities will play big-boy football while ND heads off with the Stanfords, Dukes and Rices of the world). • The NFL creates a minor league (haha), and drives all the top talent away from college; CFB as a major entity dies on the vine. FROM THE WEBSITE .com .com Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick (left) and university president Fr. John I. Jenkins (right) penned an op-ed in The New York Times about why "college athletics is in crisis." PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER