Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY LOU SOMOGYI M any times during football re- cruiting, a Notre Dame pros- pect has talked about playing both football and basketball at the school. That is pure fantasy, especially in to- day's specialized world of sports. Bas- ketball practice begins in early October, and by the time a football player would join at the start of the conference season, he's too far behind. Oh, and there is the matter of football weight training from January until the start of spring practice, and maintaining a healthy grade-point average. Now as for playing football and base- ball … that's been a little more doable. Sophomore wide receiver Torii Hunter Jr. is the most recent to test those waters at Notre Dame. This spring, Hunter is on Irish head coach Mik Aoki's Fighting Irish team that has become one of the top surprises in college baseball while seeking is first NCAA Tournament berth since 2006. Hunter was unable to play baseball as a high school senior because of a broken femur suffered in practices for the 2013 U.S. Army All-American Bowl. That led to a medical redshirt season in football and baseball. The son of current Detroit Tigers out- fielder and 19-year Major League Base- ball star Torii Hunter — who has won nine Gold Gloves and two Silver Slug- ger Awards, and is a five-team All-Star (most recently in 2013) — the younger Hunter planned to play both sports at Notre Dame. He has appeared in only three games during the baseball team's 26-12 start this season and had only one official at- bat. Last season in football, he caught seven passes for 65 yards and a touch- down. Football head coach Brian Kelly has three stipulations for his players who want to compete in a second sport: Good academic standing, not interfer- ing with football commitments and a legitimate chance to help the other sport. "Coach Aoki and I have the utmost confidence in Torii to be able to handle his duties in the classroom in addition to his responsibilities to both teams," Kelly told UND.com. Notre Dame's most recent two-sport star was senior Pat Connaughton. The right-handed pitcher was selected in the fourth round of the 2014 MLB Draft by Baltimore. For Mike Brey's Elite Eight team this year, he was the third-leading scorer (12.5 points per game), top re- bounder (7.4 boards per contest), top three-point shooter (converting 93 at a 42.3-percent clip) and top shot blocker (36). The Fighting Irish have a long history with football/baseball stalwarts, start- ing with quarterback/infielder Angus McDonald from Texas in the 19th cen- tury (he would later become president of Southern Pacific Railroad), and the legendary George Gipp's first love was baseball. The 1920s included Johnny Mohardt, and then Andy Pilney in the 1930s, and quarterbacks Angelo Bertelli, John Lu- jack and George Ratterman in the 1940s, with Bertelli and Lujack both winning Heismans. Bertelli earned monograms in three sports while Lujack and Ratter- man did so in four. Joe Theismann (1968-70) played base-