The Sporting Goods | Why we love-hate Notre Dame

Notre Dame halfback Denny Allan carries the ball against Michigan State, September 1969

Photo: Courtesy of Flickr user sabreguy29

Why I hate Notre Dame
If you’re a Notre Dame believer, all is right in the universe at the moment. Unfortunately, the rest of us are stuck listening to the hype about how Notre Dame’s players are true student athletes and theirs is one of the few programs not corrupted by greed and poor sportsmanship. To which I say: Don’t believe it. While Notre Dame is having its best year since its last national championship in 1988, consider the excuses made for all the losing between 1988 and today. Whenever Notre Dame struggles, defenders claim their school faces an inherent competitive disadvantage because its academic standards are so rigorous. Well, Notre Dame does have a very high graduation rate, but it’s not exactly Harvard. The main thing that distinguishes Notre Dame is its independent status, and that status means no sister schools with whom to share revenues and no conference championship game to derail an undefeated season.

If you hate Notre Dame, you hate college football
In 1991, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame du Lac, stormed 30 Rock and blackmailed NBC into giving his football team millions of bucks. A few years later, the Irish replaced players’ uniform numbers with their GPAs and officially added the line “That’s all right, that’s okay / You’ll be working for us one day” to its iconic fight song.

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