Here Come the Irish

Interview

In the November 22 interview with University of Notre Dame’s football coach, Brian Kelly, and UND.com, Coach Kelly discusses his thoughts on the team before heading into the final game against the Stanford University Cardinals. He discusses how much he has had to adjust after losing key players to injuries and illnesses and how they measure up to the Cardinals. I particularly like this interview because it shows to me that Brian Kelly has faith in his team. He was asked about how he has had to rely on freshman because of these injuries and he says how tremendously talented the freshman class is and he has a lot of faith in his players. This is what coaching football, along with any sport for that matter, should be about.

Interview- http://www.und.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/112211aaj.html

Required Study Hours

Many friends that I have that live in my dorm play Division I athletics for the University of Delaware. Depending on the coaches and what team they are on they have specified hours they have to complete for studying per week. While not all schools implement this rule, I believe that it is a smart idea. Having specified study hours helps each athlete with their time management. Also by having time to study for the many courses they take each semester helps to keep their GPA’s up. Some find study hours inconvenient because they have to take the time to travel to the room that its in. An incentive in order to get out of these study hours is to have a 3.0 GPA. Because of study hours that many NCAA school implement many athletes and also the schools benefit from the higher grades. 

Source- Amanda Terzian, Golf player for the University of Delaware

Academic Journal

Title IX is a document that is based off of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that was written in order to end discrimination based on race and helped start the women’s rights movement. Title IX was drafted initially to promote equality in the workplace but is best known for its impact on high school and collegiate athletics. In summary, Title IX basically says that both men’s and women’s sports must be equal in roster size, amount of scholarships given, budgets on recruiting and many other expenses. I believe that Title IX was necessary for implementation because it seems to me as if men’s sports get more attention than women’s and they deserve equality. For example, the men’s basketball tournament deemed “March Madness” is the most hyped up thing in college sports besides the BCS national championship. ESPN and other sports networks dedicate a whole month to watching the games in the tournament. The women’s basketball tournament, while it is played on TV, is not as hyped up as the men’s and does not make as much revenue as the men’s basketball tournament. It is important that both teams are equal.

Buzuvis, Erin E. “Sidelined: Title IX retaliation cases and women’s leadership in college athletics.” Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy. 17.1 (Jan. 2010): p1.

Conferences within the NCAA

In the NCAA , Division I-A football is one of the most spectated sports in the nation. Division I-A football is division into many conferences such as the South-Eastern Conference (SEC), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), The Big Ten, and the Big East to name a few. Each year teams battle it out to win the coveted BCS nation championship and in the past eleven years, including this year where two SEC teams are playing each other, teams from the SEC have won the title seven times. What is it about the South-Eastern Conference that makes them return to the championship game consistently? Some people say that football in the south is almost like a religion. Schools in the south pride themselves on having the best football team around and maybe it is this motivation that keeps them going. While it is not only the SEC and other southern schools that are performing well they seem to always be the ones to show up big in the season winning the big game. 

Recently I was looking at Fairmont State University’s website to check out the cheerleading team that my friend cheers on since I had seen a YouTube video of their team competing. I had noticed that on the list of sports the word cheerleading was nowhere to be found. What I saw instead was the acrobatics and tumbling team. When I clicked it an article stated how Fairmont State University as well as Baylor, Maryland, Azusa Pacific, Oregon, and Quinnipiac had changed the name of the sport known as competitive cheer on their campuses. They founded the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association that began in 2011. They proposed to the NCAA that acrobatics and tumbling emerge as a sport and be respected among other athletic teams. Their mission states “The mission of the NCATA is to bring the sport of Acrobatics and Tumbling to NCAA emerging sport status and towards a fully sanctioned NCAA championship sport.”

I cheered all throughout middle school and high school and nothing mad me angrier than when people would talk down on the cheerleaders as if we did nothing and as if we were nothing. We worked just as hard as the football players and other sports teams at what we did. Many see cheerleading as nothing but a bunch of girls with pom-poms standing and yelling on the sidelines at football games but it is much more than that. I feel as if this is the point that the NCATA is trying to get across as they try to gain more respect for cheerleading as a sport.

http://thencata.org/?page_id=1309

Penn State Scandal (Recent New Article)

This past month it came to the attention of our nation, and also the world, that Jerry Sandusky, former assistant coach at the Pennsylvania State University, was arrested and charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period. He retired as a coach in 1999 and devoted his full energy to he charity for at-risk children, The Second Mile, that he founded in 1977. This charity has been said to be a catalyst for Sandusky’s sexual abuse. Afyer retiring he also volunteered at Central Mountain High School where he was also seen assaulting boys.

Along with Sandusky’s indictment, head coach Joe Paterno was fired, a decision that appalled students and fans nation wide. They began to question whether or not Paterno’s firing was justifiable. JoePa, as many call him, is a legend at Penn State an has contributed tons of money and endowments to that school. So my question is was firing him justifiable? Of course it was! He knew about some of the things that Sandusky had done an failed to report it to he police and should be held responsible for failing to report a crime. It does not matter how well known and respected a coach may be, what he did was morally and legally wrong. The fact that so many students and other people believed that he should not have been fired is appalling to me.

- all information was found on Sports Illustrated’s website on an online news article titled “This is Penn State.”

Epstein, David. “This is Penn State.” Sports Illustrated. November 21, 2011

Physical Book

The book Grotto Stories: from the Heart of Notre Damecompiled by Mary Pat Dowling, people share their experiences of what the Grotto at Notre Dame means to them and how it has helped them in their lives. One particular passage that I liked was a short and simple poem by Patrick J. Kennedy, Notre Dame alum class of 1967. It stated:

“Freshman, senior, friend, alum
We come
With prayer for healthy and for sick
Lofting up on candle flame
From smoky wick
Silent tones amid the stones
Out Lady listens, comforts, comes.”

I liked this passage a lot because it simply explains the meaning of the Grotto and how no matter who you are if you come there and pray Mary (Our Lady) will be able to help you. The Grotto is a strong tradition for many and to them going there is like an escape from reality. They know Mary is listening and it is comforting to them. In an other passage Connie rich says that she goes to the Grotto, whether in her prayers or in real life, to find peace, love, and clarity in her life. As I have said before, going to the Grotto to pray is a continuing tradition for many including myself when I visit the campus at Notre Dame. There is something about the spirit and presence of God and Mary that you feel that is embracing and comforting when you light a candle and pray at the Grotto.

Dowling, Mary Pat. Grotto Stories: From the Heart of Notre Dame. MarySunshine Books: 1996.

*No page numbers were given on the pages

BCS vs. Playoffs

Last night I sat in my dorm room awaiting to hear what teams would be playing for the Bowl Championship Series, also known as the BCS, championship game. Every person in the country knew LSU who was undefeated would be in it but the real question was would they be playing the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide or the #3 Oklahoma State Cowboys? Both teams ended with the same 11-1 record but it was the University of Alabama who came out on top and will be playing the Louisiana State University Tigers for the title. This raised a couple of questions: Is the BCS system flawed? Why doesn’t the Division 1A have a playoff system like Division 1AA (ex. U of Delaware)?

The BCS bowl system is set up so that the champions of certain conferences play in specific bowl games. I believe this system is highly flawed because lower ranked teams will get into the better bowl game over higher ranked teams. This year teams such as #7 Boise State will not be playing in any of the 5 major BCS bowl games while lower ranked teams such as #23 West Virginia is playing #15 Clemson in the Orange Bowl. I don’t understand how such lower ranked teams get to play in the better bowl games just because they happen to be in a certain conference. This is why I believe there should be a playoff system. It works flawlessly in Division 1AA, which is the division the University of Delaware is in, so why not implement it in Division 1A? That way those teams who have worked hard all season to get where they are get what they deserve.

Why Should We Pay Student Athletes? (Article on Opposition)

In a recent news article titled “Pay for Play” in the November 7th issue of Sports Illustrated Magazine, author George Dohrmann discusses the reasons why collegiate athletes should get paid to play sports and how to go about doing it. In this article he asks, “Is there a viable way to compensate all Division 1 athletes? And if so, how much money could they receive in addition to their scholarships?” NCAA sports is a big business that’s gains a lot of revenue through television and merchandising and many players are wanting a cut of this revenue. For example, the NCAA “March Madness” men’s basketball tournament brings in 7$771 million dollars annually and many players feel as if they deserve a share.

But aren’t the scholarships enough? Many if not most Division 1 college athletes have full scholarships and receive some kind of other compensation like free on-campus housing. It baffles me to think that after all they receive already for being tremendous athletes they are still trying to gain more money out of it. To me playing on a team should be an honor and something that they want to do for the spirit of the game not in order to just make money.