Was on Keith Arnold's ND blog catching up on the Irish as I follow ND a little bit.
I know people love to hate ND and I'm fine with that as I'm sure there is plenty of reasons to hate the Irish, but as one of the few people who think these kids could actually get HUGE benefit from college educations, I do think it's cool that ND does try in some ways to continue the practice of having actual student-athletes. There are still halfway decent admissions requirements (not the same as for non-athletes, but still ...) and kids still have to adhere to some form of student conduct (see: the suspensions of Golson, Ishaq and the kids who cheated, Greg Bryant, Jerian Grant ...), etc.
Then there is this article, where a bunch of the players were encouraged to study abroad this summer. I think that's really cool and I don't even think it's a negative from a football point of view. Really cool story and I wish more programs like the Cuse would encourage kids to actually take advantage of some of the academic options at their disposal in the four or five years they are on campus. I highly doubt it will catch on, but it's nice to see that at least one school (and if there are others outside of ND, that's great) is willing to let kids escape what has to be an incredibly monotonous cycle of football-only activities for at least a little bit during the summer.
Then there's this article. Somebody gifted the university $35M for a coaching endowment? Seriously. I get that this goes on everywhere and I get that no school wants to end up with a bunch of bumbling idiots running their program, but come on people. Maybe it's too narrow to think this way but as a person with a son who has Down syndrome and other family members dealing with dementia/Alzheimer's, brain cancer and Parkinson's, it's sickening to think that there are morons out there who are throwing $35M away to make sure a total blowhard like Brian Kelly gets to live in the lap of luxury. Annoying.
I know people love to hate ND and I'm fine with that as I'm sure there is plenty of reasons to hate the Irish, but as one of the few people who think these kids could actually get HUGE benefit from college educations, I do think it's cool that ND does try in some ways to continue the practice of having actual student-athletes. There are still halfway decent admissions requirements (not the same as for non-athletes, but still ...) and kids still have to adhere to some form of student conduct (see: the suspensions of Golson, Ishaq and the kids who cheated, Greg Bryant, Jerian Grant ...), etc.
Then there is this article, where a bunch of the players were encouraged to study abroad this summer. I think that's really cool and I don't even think it's a negative from a football point of view. Really cool story and I wish more programs like the Cuse would encourage kids to actually take advantage of some of the academic options at their disposal in the four or five years they are on campus. I highly doubt it will catch on, but it's nice to see that at least one school (and if there are others outside of ND, that's great) is willing to let kids escape what has to be an incredibly monotonous cycle of football-only activities for at least a little bit during the summer.
Then there's this article. Somebody gifted the university $35M for a coaching endowment? Seriously. I get that this goes on everywhere and I get that no school wants to end up with a bunch of bumbling idiots running their program, but come on people. Maybe it's too narrow to think this way but as a person with a son who has Down syndrome and other family members dealing with dementia/Alzheimer's, brain cancer and Parkinson's, it's sickening to think that there are morons out there who are throwing $35M away to make sure a total blowhard like Brian Kelly gets to live in the lap of luxury. Annoying.
