I'm a big NYC homer with all my sports teams. Mets, Knicks, Giants and Rangers cover the four professional sports. I came up as a St. Johns fan for college basketball, and in response to their irrelevance I've given up college bball for the most part.
But college fball, there was never a natural selection. And I think due to the national platform, and style of play I adopted a team far from home, Notre Dame.
I sort of came up with them during Lou Holtz post-National Championship-but-still-good era. Rick Mirer, Jerome Bettis, and Reggie Brooks as the full-house backfield were my first peoples. Derrick Mayes came a little later as a WR I was fond of. And while we weren't Florida St., Miami, Ohio St., or Oklahoma, I was satisfied with an annual top-15 or so team. Teams that maybe, if we could land a stud or two as a recruit, might have enough to go all the way.
And if not a stud or two, then a great coach. Cause with college sports, a great coach can seemingly trump everything. In college you can still control the players like slaves, and if you have a great system and the right style, you can establish a reign of terror. And also land that stud or two. So when Notre Dame hired Tyrone Willingham, a negro coach, and he started like gangbusters, I thought this would be the answer to all my dreams.
See my NYC territorialism had always left me feeling a little guilty when I had to declare Notre Dame as my team. And this was compounded by the stark racism with regards to the hiring of coaches in college fball, and specifically, Notre Dame's clearly complicit status in that regard. Tyrone Willingham was the first negro head coach for Notre Dame in any sport. And he started 8-0. Got an SI "Return to Glory" cover. And won coach of the year awards. This was no affirmative action hire. We had a great coach for Notre Dame, and he was black, I could be doubly proud.
But then it all went south. And Willingham wasn't showing the "great coach" stature. He was ok. But he was fired after going 21-15 overall, and while some cried racism, I thought, no, we're just looking for a higher standard.
Then came Charlie Weis, Notre Dame alum, imported from the championship Patriots. Also a former coordinator with the Giants and Parcells. I approved. This was championship pedigree. And he started like gangbusters as well. And he was doing it with Willingham's inferior talent. This was "The System" we needed. He came in and in one year made Brady Quinn a Heisman contender. Brady Quinn didn't seem super special before, so this seemed like something we could look forward to. Tom Brady QBs year-in and year-out. Top shelf offense. And perennial Top 10 status.
But alas, that appears not to be the case. And after re-signing Weis to a mega-deal, yet faced with a performance at least as miserable as Willingham's, they also have added racist implications if they continue to let Weis hold the fort down.
But I actually agree with sticking it out at this point, they might as well live with Weis and being racist and see how it plays. Hopefully they can turn it around. But it's fairly hard to argue with anyone who wants to laugh at a Notre Dame fan and call them delusional for thinking that way.
And thus endeth the setup for this hilarious video about delusional Notre Dame fans:
See, I have to disagree with the fact that Ty was fired for losing or getting blown out. He was fired fo inconsistency. ND was simply losing games it had no business losing. Ty's MO at Stanford followed him to ND ( and continues at Wash ): his teams start out seasons & games great but fall apart at the end. We did it vs BC, BYU, etc...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the same thing is happening this year out at UCLA. UCLA is upsetting USC one year, then getting blown out by Utah & our god awful ND team this year. 7-8 wins won't be enough to save his job this year because the folks at UCLA are tired of the ups and downs.
The only thing Weis proved the last two years was that he can take a group of experienced players and beat most of the college programs out there. This years team wasn't expected to do much simply because we had no players left. We've had 20 players make their first start at some point this year.
You lost a lot of points, TAN.
ReplyDeleteYou might have been excused if you were an alum, but Notre Dame? That's the worst team a black man can back.
St. John's basketball?
ReplyDeleteNotre Dame football?
The train is so far off the tracks . . . you get what you deserve.