Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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academics, great coach, great student- athletes and a big national audience." TRANSPARENCY AND UNDERSTANDING The rise in social media, from Face- book to Twitter to Instagram, facili- tated the receptiveness to the new project by Showtime. "The universities now have a better understanding of what social media is all about," Stone said. "Before there was social media, there was, 'Why would they want to let people in on the inside of a football team?' There was so much a sense of secrecy. "With social media, people began to realize you have to open up your doors because everyone's doing it any- way. There are no secrets. "Everybody has a camera on their phones, so any moments that you re- ally want to get there are going to get out there regardless … it's just a mat- ter of course. Most of the 'millennials' that are in college right now are lead- ing their lives in public. "When coaches and universities caught up with the reality that there is no such thing as keeping things closed up … There is actually a great benefit of doing that, in being transparent and letting people know all about your program. They can see how hard ev- eryone is working, the difficulties they go through, the way their characters deal with the stress that goes not only with becoming an elite football team but also an elite academic program." Kelly's enthusiasm about the project made it easier for the administrators at the highest level of the school to sign off on it. Like any partnership, a give and take was required. Showtime made it clear that this would not be strictly an "infomercial" for the school but that real stories, sometimes not always pleasant, needed to be told, and some- times the "F bombs" on the sidelines or other aspects would be caught on camera for posterity. Showtime had the call on the final cut of every show and did not want to have anything contrived. "They were committing that we would tell the story in a way that is satisfactory to both the television viewing audience and also Coach Kelly and the university," Stone sum- marized. "Coach Kelly understands your story is only as good as your struggles. That's what comes with the territory. You don't just get a year where every- thing goes right. That was always part of the story, and he'll tell you the real story is not about how you deal with your successes; it's how you deal with your failures. "One of the things we promised Coach Kelly is that we would show him as a fully rounded, fully devel- oped character. If we show you being very fiery on the sideline, we're also going to show you being very paren- tal. We wouldn't show just one dimen- sion of Coach Kelly." Among the favorite scenes for Stone was Kelly's meeting with junior quar- terback Malik Zaire's mother in the hallway after a devastated Zaire and his family learned he would be out the remainder of the season follow- ing his fractured ankle in game two at Virginia Sept. 12.