Very well written/thought out piece. Imo I have felt for quite some time that NBC plays a much larger role in what happens with the program, and in a way, the writing anticipates/addresses it. ND football is simply unwatchable, and it must be much harder for the network to sell it to the affiliates. That is the bottom line, when the affiliates begin to tell the network that the ND brand is unsellable, then the business plan for ND football is inadequate.
I thought the article was really well written and had some great points but it started losing legitimacy around the BCS part. There is way too much money invested in the bowl system to have the IAs overthrow the system completely. Other than that portion, I think it would be a good start for the next head coach.
I especially like the point he made about Charlie not being hard enough in practice but talking hard to the media. We don't want our boys acting like thugs (aka USC) but we do want them to be some BAMFs out there on the field. Fighting is low class (i.e. USC), but physicality on the field would not only help us in the game but raise the spirits of the student section as well.
Also, complete side note -- grad student section sucks. People leave halfway through the game, it starts out 3/4s filled anyway, and they aren't into the game. Can someone lobby to get me tickets with the seniors next year?!
While I chuckled at that the article, I find its central flaw similar to those government agencies who want to convince me that I'm their "customer" and not a citizen. By reducing ND to some kind of "brand" (like laundry detergent), and then further cheapening it with some half-baked MBA school notion of a business plan you have effectively eviscerated the guts from the Program. Notre Dame is different precisely because it is not a mundane business with emphasis on the bottom line like so many other Programs. Notre Dame is different because it is consistently ethical and essentially "good." That commodity, all to often lost on recent business school graduates who seem ethically challenged, was the ingredient that built a blue collar subway alumni, and made people "bleed" for that School. Think Lehman Brothers had that kind of following? How about Enron? They had great business plans too. To paraphrase Emerson, nothing will give you satisfaction but the triumph of principles.
Notre Dame used to understand that adhering to principles brought you admiration along with wins. Now we have bookeepers passing for ethicists, and the results are telling and dramatic. Lastly, that list of expectations would ensure that any prominent coach would go running for the hills. I prefer Fr. Hesburg's charge to Ara, Digger & Dan Devine before they signed their contracts and went on to remarkable success: "You've got five years. We won't say boo to you if you lose. I think you'll have the tools here to win more than you lose; it seems to work that way, but if you don't, you won't hear from me. You will hear from me if you cheat. If you cheat, you'll be out of here before midnight."
Hesburg or ndoldtown? Whose advice to take? If you want to read about the Notre Dame I know try this old Sports Illustrated article: "Casting A Special Light," January 10, 1983. It's on SI site.
Mespo, I couldn't agree more with the first paragraph. In fact, I think the overuse of the term "brand" is quite the fad these days. How many columns were written after the election decrying the harm to the GOP's brand...
Certainly Notre Dame does have a brand to worry about, but worrying about that brand is precisely how we we fail to support it. As you emphasize, we need to worry about the real substance of the program that underlies that brand.
Now here's where I disagree with you completely: the second paragraph on. You continue to argue that ND has somehow abandoned the values that have long undergirded the program, but you have yet to offer one shred of evidence to support that argument.
ND's football graduation rate is among the top 6 in the nation. Our average GPA is above 3.0. Many of our players are in difficult majors or even double-majoring. We're not committing recruiting violations. We're not cheating on the field. We don't badmouth our opponents to the media. We don't badmouth each other to the media.
I think the values in the program would (and hopefully still do) make Father Hesburg proud.
And I don't see why giving a coach 5 years, 6 years, or whatever is some mystical value that we must uphold. The numbers seem pulled out of thin air to me. For a coach like TyWi who basically halts recruiting altogether, 3 years is not unreasonable. For a coach like Weis who has had a worse 20 game streak then any in ND history, 4 years might be it.
Lucas:
I don't disagree that much of the old Notre Dame remains intact especially the emphasis on students rather than mercenaries representing the Program and the disdain for cheating. I am concerned that Fr. Hesburg's quite proper perspective on winning is being trampled by alumni who want water cooler points as they jaw around some office in Chicago. The School doesn't need the FB Program. The reverse is true. The 5 year rule isn't magical; it is just the "ND way"
and it shouldn't be changed on a whim amid the bustle of an outgoing Administration, without due consideration to its implications.
It reminds me of Kurt Godel’s work which states that in any given system there must be something that is assumed to be true although unprovable. The "ND way" is just such a proposition, and it has served the University well. I see no reason for its unceremonious dumping.
I'm not gonna read it unless guys will be more attracted to me too.
"The School doesn't need the FB Program."
Oh really? Which part of it does it not need? The part that funds all other athletics combined? The part that provides millions of dollars in financial aid? How about the part that put a small midwestern Catholic school on the map when many other schools just like it faded into history?
If you don't have a successful football program, you have none of these things. Your assertion is patently false.
Emperor Dan:
"The School doesn't need the FB Program. Oh really? Which part of it does it not need?... If you don't have a successful football program, you have none of these things. Your assertion is patently false."
***********
Funny, Frs. Hesburg and Joyce were not so insecure about the School you graduated from, refusing to trade gridiron wins for integrity and the true the mission of the University. Seems Harvard does quite well with its funding and that is another small school located in the center of Boston that boasts no great football squad. Northwestern is nobody's idea of a football factory but I'd match the education they provide to the one you received. Maybe you should write less and take the time to re-read (if you ever read it) the mission of your alma mater. It begins:
"The University of Notre Dame is a Catholic academic community of higher learning, animated from its origins by the Congregation of Holy Cross. The University is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake. As a Catholic university one of its distinctive goals is to provide a forum where through free inquiry and open discussion the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity."
Read the rest of it until you are blue in the eyes and you will not find one word about playing football, or millions of dollars, or financial aid, or even other sports teams. Most likely this is because those things are ancillary to the central mission of your school, and thus are not its core values.
In closing, I suggest your assertion is much worse than patently false; it proves beyond doubt you've learned nothing about the Institution you profess to love but remain so ignorant about.
The university absolutely does need the football program IF it desires to continue to enjoy its unique character.
Mespo, you keep bringing up Harvard as some sort of counter-example to the argument that Notre Dame needs its successful football program. But, in my mind, Harvard actually proves our point and disproves your's. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, and so forth... they are all great academic institutions... and not much else.
Notre Dame, on the other hand, is different. We have long understood that greatness does not just exist in academics, it also exists in rough-em-up physical contact sport. The essence of humanity is mind, BODY, and soul.
I, and the numerous other enlightened alumni, are not willing to let that component of Notre Dame wither. Because if it did wither, ND would be just another Harvard. I will not accept that.
Nice that you ellipsis out the part of my quote that makes my point. Way to handle an argument. Is that what you advise CEOs to do?
Harvard without football is Harvard. Notre Dame without Notre Dame is a seminary.
Mission statements are PC bullshit. ND was around long before its mission statement.
Stop wrapping yourself in the cloak of Fr. Hesburgh. You are not him. You do not know what he thinks. Just stop. It's pathetic.
In closing, I suggest you stop insulting me and telling me what I do and do not know. I lived there. I know. And you apparently don't.
Done responding to you. In the words of Dwight Schrute, you are hereby shunned.
*Notre Dame without football
Lucas:
"Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, and so forth... they are all great academic institutions... and not much else."
******************
(note:You may want to reread the above statement taking into account all its import before responding.) And the Louvre is just a museum and not much else. I had no idea ND, chartered as an academic institution, is now a football factory. Wonder if the good fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Cross know that?
Emperor Dan:
You are right about one thing. I am not Fr. Hesburg, but I can read and understand his words and make the reasonable assumption that he is not a total fraud, and thus means what he says. I can also read a mission statement that was disseminated to the world, and that was approved by the administration and the faculty and make the assumption that it contains the guiding principles of that institution. What you crudely dismiss as "PC bullshit" is truly what the University is about, the childish rantings of a putative alumnus and sports fan notwithstanding.
I certainly didn't intend to insult you originally, but pointing out your obvious ignorance (as opposed to stupidity) does not qualify as insult. Your professors did that to your every day while you were a student. Finally, you certainly can deny reality by shunning those with whom you disagree, but you cannot make reality go away.
The fictional, deranged, Dwight Schrute as your mentor -- you must be very young.
By the way, since Weis is now apparently hanging around another year (as ESPN reported and much as I suspected), maybe that letter to the next coach should omit all those "dire" predictions of doom and gloom. It appears the adults are handling the situation, probably to the consternation of many around here.
Mespo, you have mischaracterized my argument vis-a-vis Harvard and so forth. Nobody on this blog has ever said ND should be a "football factory." I really have no idea how you got that notion.
I did as you suggested and reread my statement about Harvard, et al., being great academic institutions and not much else. And I completely stand by that statement. They are wonderful schools at which a person can get a terrific education. As is ND. But ND is and can continue to be more because of its unique Catholic character. The physicality of athletics generally and football specifically are part of that character.
As you know, numerous young Catholic boys all over America grow up watching Notre Dame football. Some dream of playing at ND. Many end up playing gradeschool and highschool football. For most, football is how they learn of the school. Only later do they learn of ND's great academics. For me it was ND's academics that ultimately pushed me to go there.
As I wrote before, ND is a university--a Catholic university--that encourages growth in mind, body, and soul. We cannot forsake those last two components.
Mespo727272 1; EmperorDan 0.
You got schooled son!
Lucas:
I don't think we irreconcilably disagree. I suggest the FB Program is important but not central to the mission of the University. It does distinguish the School from other prestigious academic institutions, but not all. I suppose Stanford, UNC, UVA, and others might claim some measure of distinction as well in other sports or their sports programs overall. You suggest that the FB Program's importance rivals ND's central mission. I say: "not really." You say potato, I say potatoe. It is simply a difference of degree, not substance. I am just trying to maintain the perspective that the dog wags the tail and not the reverse.
I'm down with that
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