Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE L ou Holtz wasn't surprised when the rulings finally began to trickle out from Notre Dame's "academic gate" investigation, which resulted in four Irish players being suspended for the remainder of the 2014 football sea- son. Holtz didn't pause or blink at the re- cent suspension news because it mirrors the same situation the legendary Irish coach faced 25 years ago, just seven months after leading Notre Dame to the 1988 national championship. Literally minutes before team pho- tos, and just hours before the start of training camp in August 1989, Holtz was blind sided with the news that tail- back Tony Brooks, his leading rusher from the title team, and Michael Stone- breaker, an All-American linebacker, would both be suspended for the entire 1989 season. Holtz said Brooks received his sus- pension after being caught driving on campus illegally because of numer- ous outstanding parking tickets, while Stonebreaker received his suspension because of an offseason car crash in which he had alcohol on his breath but no arrests or citations were issued. Fair or not, both players were done for the year before training camp even opened. And while Holtz still wonders if his players' "crimes" actually merited the punishments, he wasn't overly shocked when he heard the suspension news … then or now. "That's just the way Notre Dame is, and you accept it," Holtz said. "You go there, you understand that's the way Notre Dame operates." Fast forward a quarter century and Irish head coach Brian Kelly is deal- ing with the same challenges Holtz endured. Just days before his season opener against Rice, Kelly was in- formed that five of his players would be indefinitely held out of all football activities during an university investi- gation into unspecified "academic dis- honesty." Putting The Student Ahead Of The Athlete Lou Holtz and Brian Kelly both have come to under- stand and accept Notre Dame's way of dealing with accountability. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND