Folks are now getting upset because people on our restricted football board, Rock’s House, are discussing the possible connections between Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick and the scandal currently overwhelming the United States Gymnastics program and its tolerance of a serial sexual predator in their medical staff.  As the investigation continues and expands, Michigan State University, who employed Nassar, is finding itself a target of further investigation, and people are concerned Notre Dame, thanks to Jack Swarbrick’s history with US Gymnastics, may get dragged into this maelstrom.

This analysis is not sitting well with some folks.  We wouldn’t care about this if Notre Dame football won more games, they say.  There’s no evidence of a connection so we shouldn’t be saying anything, they claim.  We’re feeding the media and getting Notre Dame into trouble, they bleat.

Speaking for myself,my opinion about all this is best summarized by Admiral Painter:

If anyone actually believes Swarbrick’s involvement in all this would be completely unknown yet for some comments on a message board, calling you dumber than a box of hair would be an insult to hair.  The man’s resume is all over the Internet, and chances are it’s already been noticed by people who’s actual job it is to look at these things.  This vortex is only getting larger and more hysterical, and everyone even peripherally involved is going to be swept up into it.  Sooner or later, the actions of US Gymnastics’ General Counsel(s) will be called into question, with people wondering what they knew and when they knew it, and that’s going to happen whether people post or not.

If Notre Dame is smart, they’re getting D’ed up.  If Notre Dame is smart, they’re already asking these questions and finding solid answers, not sitting in a corner with eyes and ears covered and fingers crossed hoping no one notices them.  Waiting until the tsunami hits is not the time to head to high ground, especially if the sirens are already going off.

Trouble is, I have little evidence of their capabilities here.  Forgive me if recent past performance doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies that the Dome is getting out in front of this.  Their handling of matters like Declan Sullivan, Lizzie Seeburg, and the recent academic scandals on the football team, don’t lend confidence that when the real investigators come, they’ll be prepared.

I’m not a fan of Jack Swarbrick, and I’ve never tried to pretend otherwise.  But my fervent hope here is there was no involvement on his part.  Because if he becomes a part of this investigation — and if his name is on those case files the Indianapolis Star is pursuing via FOIA, you can be damn sure he will be — even though he wasn’t an employee at the time, Notre Dame gets involved in the investigation, and who knows what collateral damage will result?

Need an example?  Fine.  Let’s talk about Jack’s Notre Dame biography page.  As chronicled in the synopsis linked above, at one point, that biography lauded his work for US Gymnastics in the list of accomplishments prior to his employment.  But at some point between late 2013 and mid 2015 — which, if you read the Nassar timeline, is when MSU’s president was notified of a sexual assault complaint against him — that information was removed from the biography.

Perhaps not a big deal, bios get updated all the time.  But let me ask this the way an actually empowered investigator will:  What was the decision process leading up to that change?

Was it Swarbrick tasking an intern with changing the biography?  That’s on him and he did it for whatever reasons he did it.

Or was it the result of a discussion between Swarbrick and other people at Notre Dame?  Whether it was just to avoid “bad optics” or whatever, that smells like something a lot more.  And even the smell can cause Notre Dame a lot of headache and heartache.  Just ask Tom Izzo.

Get pissed at the site all you want.  There’s no whole-cloth fabrication here — we’re looking at facts and very very worried about consequences.  Dislike for Swarbrick is completely irrelevant.  Notre Dame is on the tracks and a train is coming.  They either need to know how to stop that train or get the hell off the tracks.

The post Don’t Shoot the Messengers appeared first on NDNation.

Lisa samples the spectrum of alumni careers, from the perhaps typical (medical, legal, financial) to the certainly unusual (clothing, mentoring, writing), finding the common thread of the positives Notre Dame brought into the lives of these men. She digs into the details of what it took to be a Notre Dame football player, operating in the fishbowl of high expectations while representing the school both on the gridiron and off, and how those learned traits paid dividends in their non-athletic lives after the diploma was earned.

If you’re struggling for the perfect Christmas gift for the ND fan on your list, look no further than Lisa’s site and pick up a copy. They’ll see a side of Notre Dame players you don’t hear about a lot, and will benefit from the learning.

The post More Echoes from the End Zone appeared first on NDNation.

The event is coming up, and they’re still looking for donations and folks who’d like to spend an evening listening to ND foodball alum and analyst Allen Pinkett and novelist Nicholas Sparks tell their stories.

The event site is available at this link, and tickets can be purchased for $100 here. If you can’t make the date but would like to donate to this worthy cause, your destination is at this link.

The post Last Chance for a Helping Hand appeared first on NDNation.

In 2001, after picking up his JD and a stint with the NCAA, Flash went to Richmond, IN, to work as CEO for the Wernle Children’s Center. I’ve talked about Wernle on NDN before … a place where troubled kids can go to get their lives back on track and be positioned to contribute positively for society. Since his arrival, Wernle’s profile has (as you’d expect) moved up in the world a bit. In 2014, the Performance-Based Standards Institue recoginzed Wernle as one of the three best facilities in the nation for working with young people. Flash also has been recognized for his efforts, notably Notre Dame’s William D. Reynolds award “in recognition of his work for the betterment of the quality of life for youth”.

Flash’s enthusiasm about his work and his charges is infectious, and every time I talk to him, I want to help more. Looking at the calendar, I’ve seen an opportunity — an opportunity I want to share with the NDN faithful in the hope we can make something happen.

On Thursday, September 21st, Wernle is hosting its annual Catalyst4Change event. The honoree this year is Nicholas Sparks, famous author and Notre Dame alumnus, and the usual retinue of former players and other luminaries will be on hand.

My two-part goal to help make this evening a success: Find some sponsors, and fill a table. But I can’t do that alone.

First, sponsors. The possibilities can be found on the Wernle website event page.  If your company has a charity budget, or even is looking for a chance at some good PR, this is your chance to do some good with it.  Contact Eric Burkhart via the link on the page and he can tell you how to get involved.

Second, tickets.  They officially go on sale August 14th, and the link above will provide those details when they’re available.  So if you’re an NDN reader in Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Toledo, or even South Bend / Chicago, give some thought to supporting a good man and a great cause. While Richmond may not be next door, it’s a reasonable drive for what stands to be an excellent event.

If you can’t attend the dinner and don’t carry enough weight to be a sponsor but want to donate, so much the better. Either way, tell them you’re with the NDNation group. Let’s show Flash and the Wernle folks what the ND family can do.

The post A Flash of Light appeared first on NDNation.

Some years back, I was asked to serve on a committee to organize a charity dinner in Chicago for Lou Holtz, Charlie Weis, and Ara Parseghian.  The thought was outreach via NDN could fill a couple tables, and I was happy to contribute to that effort.

Holtz was the coach during my ND tenure and I’d met him a couple times, and I’d encountered Weis through NDN before.  But I’d never met Ara, and I walked into the dinner that evening hoping I could check that box.

I grew up in a Notre Dame household, and while I was too young to experience the Era of Ara, I heard plenty about it.  The steel-jawed coach who demanded excellence of his players while holding himself to the same standard.  The inspirational leader who made Notre Dame players and fans believe the program could succeed.  The man who truly had made Notre Dame football great again in all its best ways.

But what amazed me most was the reverence his former players had for him.  When I would attend Rockne Dinners and meet them via my uncle and my dad, I never heard a bad word about the man.  They would speak of him in relatively hushed tones, and to a man, felt he had been the biggest inspiration in their lives.

A build-up, perhaps, but that certainly made him someone I wanted to encounter for myself.

As the dinner progressed into the post-program socializing, Ara was holding court at one of the tables.  I found myself reluctant to interrupt his conversations with the guys who had come to the event to see him, and as the minutes passed, my intimidation only grew.

The evening was wrapping up when my buddy who had asked me to join the committee came up to me.  “You meet Ara yet?”  Watching me shake my head, he shook his in response.  “You big wuss.  Come on.”

Ara was wrapping up with two guys when my friend and I approached.  “Coach,” he said, “I want you to meet one of the event organizers, Mike Coffey.  He runs NDNation.com, and he helped us get the word out to the younger crowd.”

The coach immediately turned from his current conversation to look me right in the eye, shake my hand, and thank me for all the work I’d done.  I tried to clarify that said effort was small in comparison to what others had done to make the night happen, but he brushed that off immediately.

What I’d hoped would be a 20-second how-do-you-do turned into a 10-minute conversation.  He had heard about the site, although wasn’t a big ‘net guy himself — “I leave that to the grandkids” — and said some of his players were readers.  He asked how I’d gotten into working on it, and I gave him the 30-second version.

Then he asked me a question I’ll never forget:  “Do you like doing it?”  I responded in the affirmative.  He said, “Good, because that’s the most important thing.  A lot of other people can like or hate it, but if you don’t like doing it, you shouldn’t waste your time on it.”

I asked him how the Foundation was going, we talked about some other ND subjects, and I took my leave while shaking his hand and thanking him for his time.

I know it’ll sound like a cliche, but for those 10 minutes, I felt like I was the only person in his world.  He had genuine interest in me and what I was doing … someone he’d never met before and (unfortunately for me) would never see again.  And he took time to offer me some very valuable advice to boot.  Doing something like that requires a gift, and of all the souls I’ve encountered on my travels, Ara had the most of it to give.

Now I understood the reverence and the respect.  He’d shown the latter to me, and I certainly felt the former for him.

The world is a lesser place without Ara Parseghian, and we are better people who have known him through the example he showed to others.

Rest in peace, Coach.

The post Why We Mourn appeared first on NDNation.

It’s gotten so much harder since we stopped playing the No.1 toughest schedules, with as many as 7 top 25 opponents in a given regular season. It’s harder now that we don’t have to play in major bowls nine straight years, including taking on opponents ranked Nos. 3-1-1-3-4-7-4-8 from 1988-1995, beating five of them. Savvy fans recognize the real challenge is playing the other team sentenced to play in the Music City Bowl, in the afternoon, on a workday.

It’s harder now that we don’t have to play, say, a Top 10 Alabama team and then road games against the defending and eventual National Champs in three consecutive weeks, after playing the Big 10 and PAC 10 champs and after beating a then Top 10 Michigan team in Ann Arbor. No more easy schedules, where, in winning a NC, you have to beat 4 other teams that finished in or about the Top 5. It’s actually more difficult to play this year’s juggernaut of a schedule, with so many teams with losing records. It makes it harder to motivate the lads.

The Gug has made things so much more difficult, especially those big lounge chairs in the giant auditorium. Having an entire football team try to do a Friday walk through in The Pit, or having indoor practices on the slippery tartan surface of the North Dome, was actually easier. Time studies to minimize walking distance have taken their toll. Having a full-time training table and nutritionists in a beautiful collegiate Gothic football building, with its weight room and training facilities that are several times larger than in the past, has increased the burden. Prohibiting us from renting a Ryder truck and instead using our own customized equipment tractor-trailer, including for recruiting, has made things more difficult for staff. Revamping the Student Managers Organization to have football-only managers who know exactly what to do every day has led to inefficiencies. Canceling Mass has led to increased distractions. The new larger stadium locker room, with room for the whole team, such that 20-30 guys don’t have to dress in an old ROTC “rifle range” under the press box and then walk through the crowd to join us and go out he tunnel, really hurts. The new stadium press room/player’s lounge is a burden. The new giant stadium trainers room causes awe. Elimination of the high school-esque locker room in the ACC has hurt recruiting, as have the constant concessions to add Field Turf, matching brand new practice fields, a Jumbotron, jock rock, luxury boxes, Shamrock uniforms, yellow shoes, smoke machines, etc. Having guys like David Robinson, Torii Hunter, and Jon Bon Jovi around has hurt the energy.

We are undermined by the knowledge that we cannot recruit anymore, as evidenced by the No. 1 class after a 3-9 season in 2007. Good thing we got those guys because, prior to their arrival, even Charlie was able to take the recruits that helped get Ty fired and still go toe-to-toe with an all-time great USC team, with two Heisman winners in the backfield at the same time. Can’t compete like 2005 anymore because times have rapidly changed. Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, Navy, et al., started cheating recently. We no longer enjoy the pristine sportsmanship of the 70s and 80s. Parity caused by recruiting limit changes instituted in the 80s and early 90s continues to plague traditional powers, as evidenced by the similar inability of traditional powers such as Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, USC, LSU, Texas and others to compete over the last 10-15 years.

Interesting that those guys under Weis set records for highest team GPA despite the exponential rise in our USN&WR ranking from 18 in 1988 to an amazing three-way tie for 15th now. Oh to have that knuckle-dragging student body of 1988 back, so football players could hang with them academically in the classroom. When we finally achieve our aspiration to have a student body like Stanford’s, we might as well shut it down because you just can’t find players who can coexist with such students and still win. It’s science. It’s harder to recruit now that we can no longer cite 100 percent FB graduation rates like we had in 1988, and with some regularity back then, and instead have to explain why we are on probation for academic fraud, and had to vacate all our wins In the one season that might have lured elite recruits here with proper recruiting.

As we saw from the rogues gallery of guys interviewed in the 30 for 30, we used to play guys like Pritchett, Eilers and Reggie Ho who could barely spell, and now have scholars who would never get caught cheating nine at a time or arrested six at a time.** It’s harder to win now when you can barely get a single QB to stick around and use up his eligibility here. It is not easy producing multiple glossy ads in which numerous players explain why they would rather play elsewhere with their remaining eligibility or get started in the business world. (However, it has created a core competency in font selection and ad layout). And in the old days, reporters supplied the questions. It is harder now to draft our own.

The weather has gotten worse in South Bend, and having twice as many females and infinitely more diversity has turned off recruits, South Bend’s improved night life is a turn off now, you would never find four Midwestern teams in the Top 10 anymore, demographic shifts have caused all the best football players to move from the North to the South, you can’t practice special teams now without hurting QB development….

It’s just not fair anymore and gosh darnit we are doing the best we can!

I pity BK and Jack and can’t see how they could do other than 4-8 and 0-12 versus top 10 teams given all these obstacles.

**[Disclaimer: I have met and still have great respect for our current players. Guys like Jaylon and many, many others would have been a welcome addition to our teams, which were not without their faults. This shot is directed at those who would happily throw my guys under the bus in order to justify their myriad failures]

The post It’s Not 1988 Anymore appeared first on NDNation.

Notre Dame alumnus Vince DeGennaro, class of 2002, currently is providing relief work in that battered country.  In the midst of all the destruction, Vince and his team at Innovating Health International, are treating patients and trying to prevent the spread of cholera. He’s the director for the medical emergency helicopter program, which has been flying in supplies and other relief to the country’s southwest coast.

Vince was interviewed by CNN about the work his group is doing down there (which you can watch here). He’s set up a WonderWe campaign to help raise money for the cause. The link to the campaign is below, and we’re hoping our NDN troops can rally to the cause as they have so many times before.

CLICK HERE FOR THE WonderWE CAMPAIGN

Edit: Dr. DeGennaro did a write-up about the aftermath of the hurricane.  His account can be found here.

The post Hurricane Relief for Haiti appeared first on NDNation.

On April 16th, Ecuador was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale.  As the country reeled in the wake of the disaster, AHD was part of the first response.  Despite its proximity to the quake’s epicenter, Hesburgh Hospital remained unscathed while seven other health care centers in the area were destroyed.  While thanking God for small mercies, helping the populace to deal with 600 dead and over 3,000 injured is AHD’s main concern now, and they (and the Ecuadorian people) could use our help.

In honor of what would have been Fr. Ted’s 99th birthday on May 25th, AHD founder Dr. David Gaus, ND ’84, and his staff ask that you consider donating $99 to ADH to provide the much-needed health care in a country recovering from its worst national disaster in decades.  You can make your donation at the campaign’s website, and the AHD folks thank you for your consideration and generosity.

The post 99 for 99 appeared first on NDNation.

Social justice and care for those in need were always watchwords in Fr. Ted’s life.  In 1997, along with David Gaus, a 1984 ND graduate, he helped establish Andean Health & Development to serve the poorest of the poor in rural Ecuador.  The hospital they opened in Pedro Vicente Maldonado in 2000 was financially self-sustaining within seven years.  The hope is their current project, Hesburgh Hospital in Santo Domingo, can reach the same goal.

Fr. Ted really wanted to see the project expand and succeed.  To mark the one year anniversary of his death, AHD has started a campaign to put Hesburgh Hospital into full operation and financial self-sustainability.  We’re hoping our NDNation community — and, indeed, the ND family at large — can help AHD to reach their goal and solidify Fr. Ted’s legacy.

Details are available at the campaign’s website, and as always, every little bit helps.

The post Hesburgh Hospital appeared first on NDNation.

For the last 20 years, the 9-1-1 Celebrity Golf Tournament has been raising money for a number of charitable foundations, including Athletes & Entertainers for Kids and 9-1-1 for Kids. TB is the national chairman for both charities, and this tournament is their main fundraiser for the year.

The year’s event takes place on Monday, September 21st, at the Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point, CA. Individual playing spots and foursomes are available. However, we non-left-coasters have a chance to participate in the event as well via donations to the charities involved. A donation of $100 will get you an autographed photo of TB. $200 will get you an autographed football, $300 an autographed helmet, and $500 an autographed jersey. Go for that last one fast if you want it — you know Cross will be buying them up.

This PDF has information about participating in the golf outing. Information on the charity is at this link, and donations can be made via this link. When you make your donation, be sure to reference the offer.  Let’s help Tim celebrate his new Hall of Famer status with our support.

The post Help Our HOFer appeared first on NDNation.