Is Notre Dame Just Another Football Factory?

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK

My suspicion is that a good percentage of readers of this column will not be surprised to hear that we get as much mail when we bring up Notre Dame football as when we discuss the slide away from Catholic orthodoxy at the South Bend campus.
For Catholics of a certain age, Notre Dame football is an important part of our heritage in the United States. When I was a boy in New York City, there were Notre Dame fans all over the neighborhood — cops, firemen, factory workers — who had no connection to the university. They were routinely called the “subway alumni” in the New York City newspapers.
There was a reason. There were many Catholic college basketball powers around at the time, but Notre Dame was the only Catholic university that played big-time college football in a highly successful manner. Blue-collar Catholics felt a natural affinity for the “Fighting Irish.” Ralph Guglielmi, Paul Horning, and John Huarte were as well-known names among my friends as Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Well, almost.
So I suspect that there were Catholic ears perking up all over the country when they heard about USA Today’s June 11 story entitled “Notre Dame’s coach said something jarring (and refreshing) about player academics.” Especially if they read the first line of the article by Steven Godfrey and Bud Elliott: “I don’t know that any of our players would get into the school, if they weren’t exceptional athletes, Brian Kelly said.”
Uh-oh. Was another Catholic institution about to be tarnished? Could it be that Notre Dame is no different when it comes to academic standards for its athletes than the famous football powerhouses continually hit by scandals about “student-athletes” who seldom attend class and who are lavished with expensive gifts by alumni “boosters”? Until now, Notre Dame fans had reason to believe that the Fighting Irish were different, that Notre Dame was honest and above board about the academic requirements for its student-athletes.
Here’s what Kelly had to say to a reporter from a South Bend newspaper: “I think we recognize that all of my football players are at risk. All of them, really. I don’t know that any of our players would get into the school by themselves right now, with the academic standards the way they are.”
Kelly pointed to the need to “provide all the resources necessary” to help his football players succeed in “an incredibly competitive academic classroom every day” at Notre Dame. He noted the “rigors” football players go through, everything from “playing on the road, playing night games, and getting home at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Steven Godfrey of USA Today raised the question of whether Kelly is merely trying to get out in front on this issue, fearing more headlines to come over academic suspensions at Notre Dame. There were five players suspended in 2014 for academic infractions and star quarterback Everett Golson was recently dismissed from the school for an entire season for academic “issues.”
Godfrey’s co-writer Bud Elliott added, “Admitting that only one or two of 85 scholarship players would gain admission” to Notre Dame “without the aid of football is refreshingly honest.” Elliott saw something admirable about Kelly’s seeking a way to “graduate students who don’t fit the academic profile” at Notre Dame, and that Kelly “didn’t advocate dumbing down or abridging the educational process.”
Which is the key: Kelly is admitting his football players could never gain admission to Notre Dame if they were not football players, but he is not calling for phony courses to be set up for them or academic “advisers” who will do their assignments for them — practices that we have learned take place at several of the football programs that compete with Notre Dame on the field.
But what about the practice of admitting football players with high school grades and scores on standardized tests markedly lower than applicants for admission who are turned down by Notre Dame? Notre Dame is now one of the most selective universities in the country. I personally know of more than one student in the top ten of their graduating classes and with very high SAT scores who were turned down by Notre Dame. Is it fair that football players are given preference over them?
I would argue that case can be made. Notre Dame would not be able to compete with the major football programs if the school did not do that. I can’t give you a metaphysically sound explanation of why there is an inverse relationship between athletic prowess and SAT scores, but everyone who follows college sports knows it is true. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that any student who spends long hours with his studies cannot also devote long hours to developing his athletic skills.
Perhaps it is something else. But electrical engineering majors seldom perform well on the gridiron.
It should also be noted that Notre Dame is not the only college with high academic standards that admits athletes with a different standard than the rest of the student body. It is widely known that Harvard’s and Yale’s football and hockey players, while bright, do not come to the school with the same academic accomplishments as the rest of the student body.
One other thing: Athletes are not the only members of the entering freshman class at prestigious universities given preference over applicants with higher high school grades and standardized test scores. Members of the college debate team, the school orchestra, and the children of celebrities and politicians get similar treatment.
(Chelsea Clinton got her undergraduate degree from Stanford, and a master’s degree from Oxford and Columbia. I may be wrong, but my guess is that there were students with better academic records turned down by those schools in the years that she applied for admission.)
The bottom line: I say Notre Dame deserves no criticism for admitting athletes with lower scores than non-athletes, as long as the athletes have a realistic chance to succeed academically once they are admitted, if they give an honest effort to their studies. And the school and the athletic program deserve praise for actively pursuing a way to help the school’s athletes do that, to help them survive in the classroom once they have gained admission. So no scandal at Notre Dame — at least in regard to the USA Today story quoting Coach Kelly.

+ + +

Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.