Another year, another racial brouhaha at my alma mater. On Tuesday, former Notre Dame player and Heisman winner Paul Hornung gave a radio interview in which he offered this analysis of our string of losing seasons: “We can’t stay as strict as we are as far as the academic structure is concerned because we’ve got to get the black athlete. We must get the black athlete if we’re going to compete.” What an ass. The university was understandably annoyed and commentators were offended. I especially liked this scathing response: “Never mind that about half of Notre Dame’s current roster is black. Never mind that Notre Dame football doesn’t lack black athletes, just great athletes. That’s irrelevant. Of significantly greater relevance is Hornung’s assumption that academic standards must be lowered to give the darkies, er … I mean the colored, er … I mean the black athletes a chance. After all, the white athletes clearly have no problem meeting these standards — the evidence being the brilliant sociological elucidation offered by Professor Hornung.” Right on. After initially defending his boneheaded remarks, Hornung today apologized.

He reminds me of the chubby kid on the tour my Mom and I took for prospective students back in 1994. Most of us wanted to hear about student life and classes, but that idiot only wanted to know if we’d get to go inside the stadium. Finally the tour guide snapped. “Look,” he said, “if all you’re interested in is football, don’t apply. Notre Dame is a tough school and there are only six home games a year. A Notre Dame degree is about more than being just a fan.” We nearly applauded.

ND wins, and more importantly, we actually managed to score some touchdowns! Whew.

• Notre Dame defeated Stanford 31-7 for their fifth straight victory of the season. All my girls were at the game. Man, that would’ve been fun. Go Irish!
• The Sydney Roosters won the Rugby League Final over the New Zealand Warriors 30-8. I watched the second half and it was awesome. Good on ’em.
• I ran the 5K in 41:50, lopping a full four minutes off my previous time. I know that’s a horrendously slow pace for some of you runner types, but I’m just so happy that I was able to keep moving for that long without keeling over. In fact, I felt really, really great tonight. My lower back strain is getting better, and I didn’t have to stop and stretch it til I hit the two-mile mark. Then I stretched it once more before the final sprint. I won’t be running any marathons anytime soon, but I think I’ve gotten over my hatred of the sport. I can do this!

For any Aussies reading along, have a great Labour Day tomorrow. Unfortunately a day off work doesn’t mean much to us self-employed types.

Snookums went to university at sixteen. His college, Wesley College, would set up its own in-house bar during special events. St. Paul’s College, next door, had its own permanent licensed pub. Students would go on pub crawls through Sydney that would visit thirty and forty establishments. Upperclassmen would host cocktail hour in their rooms. And guess what? Everyone survives. People still form meaningful relationships. People do other things besides drink.

What’s the point of this? Notre Dame has banned dorm dances. Doesn’t sound like such a big thing, but it’s yet another tradition that’s been stripped away in recent years under the guise of “moving focus away from drinking”. Ten years ago, Domers would’ve never dreamed that camping out for football tickets would be banned, or that Sophomore Sibs weekend would be cancelled, or that dances would have to move off-campus. My dorm’s signature event, Queen Week, will probably be cancelled, since it exists in support of our annual fall informal. No more Lewis Crush, no more Alumni Wake, no more Pop Farley.

This is a sad day for Notre Dame. I think Brigita put it best: Rudy wept. I only hope the students manage to mount some resistance to this policy. If there’s any cause they’d rally around, this is it.

Notre Dame blew out their first round opponent… but now we face top-ranked Duke. Hopefully St. Paddy’s day will give us some Irish luck!

A few more quick links about the football player story:

• He claims he didn’t do it, but he accepted the punishment because “life’s too short to spend time fighting.” Yeah, riiiiight. He also claims that her accusation might have been racially motivated. “I was a young, black freshman four years ago, accused of a horrible act by a white woman.” I’m not gonna dignify that with a response.
• An editorial urging the team to “Win one for Kori!”
• A letter to the editor urging the school to uphold the ban. “I hope and pray that the administration of Notre Dame values their principles, their promises and their integrity more than they value a football game.”
• Another letter from an important-sounding alumnus.
• An article that says as of Thursday, West Virginia was still planning in bringing him to campus. It also includes the full text of his statement about the whole thing. [Edited 14/04/2025: Article is dead and not archived.]
• The next day, WV changed their mind. Apparently Notre Dame faxed them a letter saying if he stepped foot on campus he’d be arrested. [Edited 14/04/2025: Article is dead and not archived.]

So overall I’m really happy with the way my school handled this. They dragged their feet a bit, but eventually common sense prevailed.