All Things Notre Dame - The Clashmore Mike Memorial Thread

[Dr. Strangelove]

I always knew OSU fans were idiots, but it looks like I've overestimated them.

Should anyone at Notre Dame lose their job over the accident which cost a student his life? Yes or no?

[Jamie H]

SEVERLY overestimated.

[SeanB]

Should anyone at Notre Dame lose their job over the accident which cost a student his life? Yes or no?

I guess it's fair to say that I can't, at this point, answer your question with the information I have. Was the young man given the opportunity to say "no" to going up on the scissor lift that day? He seemed, according to a tweet (or whatever it was), to have reservations about the weather. If he spoke up about it and was told he "had" to fulfill his filming obligations, then I would answer "yes", the person who enforced that decision so foolishly should lose their job. Was it Brian Kelly? I have no idea. Was it someone else's decision within the multitude of assistants that most major CFB teams have? Maybe. If it was, they should be held accountable. If that means getting fired, I'd have no problem with it. It has nothing to do with my relative distaste for either ND or osu.

The point I'm trying to make is that the two situations are much different, and shouldn't and can't be compared.

[Jamie H]

It's not even like comparing apples and oranges. It's like comparing apples and lug nuts. It's nothing but a desperate deflection attempt.

[Jeff Buchanan]

DSL, have you read Clash's posts on this matter, the most recent about a week ago? I think they answer your question fairly well.

It was an accident. A young man tragically died. Multiple agencies, both state and local, looked at the circumstances and individuals involved and determined that no one acted negligently. Even the young man's parents were satisfied with every aspect of the investigation. Was there a lack of common sense involved? Yes, and that is what angered Clash the most.

To conflate these two circumstances involving ND and osu is beyond irrational.

[lineygoblue]

Sean and Jeff .. agree. Jamie .. yer my bud, man ... :-)

[Clashmore Mike]

Mike- Much more taking a dig at Los Wolverinos here than a true dig at the Domers, fwiw

First and foremost...let me say that I understand that your point here isn't necessarily ND vs Tressel as much as it is hypocrisy regarding the opinions of ND vs Tressel.

Next, I'd want to be sure and give props for being a true/hardcore Buckeye by coming on this board (when you obviously don't have to) and defending your team (where the fuck is Talent BTW?).

Having laid out those qualifications, I gotta question your analogy here...and I'm breaking everything I hold dear in asking you to address Buchanan's previous. Should I, or my Super, or the Concrete Safety Officer, or the Concrete Super be fired? We all were negligent, though I don't think any of us "grossly".

Another instance, which one individual should have lost their job for the '86 challenger catastrophe?

There are times that the system is at fault and/or the system breaks down because of multiple and concurrent (non-gross) negligent mistakes. Any one of which would not have resulted in tragedy...but cummulatively do.

There was no lack of integrity in what happened at ND in the loss of Sullivan...there was a complete lack of common sense, including on the part of Declan.

Again, I'm about as impressed as I can be that you are here fighting the good fight for the Buckeyes...and I don't think your point is completely without merit (I understand the sentiment to see someone fired for the death of a kid), but negligence, gross or not, is not a lack of integrity.

[Clashmore Mike]

Rocky atoned for his previous sins by being a member of the Steelers.

Heh...that's one way of looking at it I guess...another way...just as valid...is that Rocky carried the blessing of Notre Dame through Pittsburgh to Vietnam and back to Pittsburgh.

[Clashmore Mike]

What a cliff hanger!! :-D

Heh...fair point. A couple things about me. I'll almost always ignore trashing ND on any thread other than this one. I'll almost always confront trashing ND on this thread. It's a long off-season, I know that my opinion on the '11 Irish doesn't mean jack-shit. However, I also know that each and every one of you will read my opinion of the spring game with complete focus as soon as I post it.

It's all good...that's the way things work. Each and every ND fan on IrishIllustrated and/or IrishEyes reads the resident USC fan's off-season report three times straight...just the way things go.

My loyalty to this place is that ya'll keep me from falling into golden-dome la-la land as can happen at a complete rose-colored forum.

[Clashmore Mike]

Just a note to all of you, and liney in particular. Am very happy to have found you guys again. Am very much looking forward to both of our programs rising back up to the elite and playing life/death critical September games again.

Who's going to the night game this season?

[hack]

Next, I'd want to be sure and give props for being a true/hardcore Buckeye by coming on this board (when you obviously don't have to) and defending your team (where the fuck is Talent BTW?).

With every passing day I think he's not here to defend his team but to distract himself from the reality of it by gloating about victories past. Not sure props are in order unless DSL ends the childish comparisons and defends the parts that are defensible.

[Clashmore Mike]

Next, I'd want to be sure and give props for being a true/hardcore Buckeye by coming on this board (when you obviously don't have to) and defending your team (where the fuck is Talent BTW?).

With every passing day I think he's not here to defend his team but to distract himself from the reality of it by gloating about victories past. Not sure props are in order unless DSL ends the childish comparisons and defends the parts that are defensible.

There are a plethora of forums he can do that on...he has chosen to do that here. Trust me...I was at the '95 OSU/ND game, an experience which I found as disgusting and deplorable as any...but I do have the utmost respect for DSL as a legit fan. We'll see.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I expect there to be many, many more victories to gloat about in the future.

Sean and Clash- You guys have both made completely fair points. And in and of itself, I would agree with you that negligence is a lot more innocuous than outright dishonesty which Tressel carried off. There's no maliciousness in negligence.

HOWEVER...

I can't get past the real-world consequences of the two actions. Notre Dame's institutional negligence resulted in the death of a student. Maybe you are right that there's no one person you can fairly blame in the way you can with Tressel. But I again compare the two real-world consequences. Negligence caused a kid's death versus Tressel lying caused...some football games to be won/lost?

[lineygoblue]

I'm glad you made it here too, Clash. I will be looking forward to reading your take on the Irish spring practices this year.

[Jamie H]

If the only rule of law for anything was the real world consequences of the actions, then the NCAA wouldn't even exist, because 99% of NCAA violations are done in the name of "winning some football/basketball" games. If winning or losing is that irrelevant, then why have any rules at all? I mean, it's only a football game. So let everyone just do whatever they want right?

In that same vein, maybe insider trading like Martha Stewart did shouldn't have landed her in jail either. I mean, no one was killed right? Sure, Martha saved herself a bunch of money, and whoever bought her shares took a bit of a bath, but in the end all that really happened in that one rich person ended up a little richer and some other rich person ended up a litter poorer, so who really cares right? It was just an ethical breach on her part, so no big deal?

If someone was indeed culpable for the death of the Irish student, they could go to jail. As in real-world jail not make-believe NCAA violations. The kids death was a real-world tragedy unrelated to any NCAA violations. I doubt the NCAA regulates video-taping in high-wind situations. Someone should have been looking out for the safety of that kid, but has anyone ever heard of this sort of accident happening before? I can honestly say I've never heard of any such accident during a football practice.

Tressel's actions are the opposite. Pretty much irrelevant in the real-world. No laws were broken. No jail time will be served. However, his decisions pretty much made a complete mockery of everything NCAA rules stand for. If you are just going to let coaches lie and cover up player transgressions that violate NCAA rules, then why even HAVE NCAA rules?

Like I said before, we're talking apples and lug nuts here. One situation is a real-world tragedy that from all accounts appears to be caused by a lack of foresight and poor judgement by at least someone on the staff during practice. Mostly the accident was caused because no one had the common sense to feel the intensity of the wind and get the kid off the damn cherry picker.

The other situation has a coach openly flaunting the rules of the NCAA. I mean, you can't be MORE in disregard of the rules than Tressel is in this situation. Here he has a case where he pretty much knows his kids are ineligible and he covers it up to win football games. Did his actions kill a kid? No of course not. But they pretty much made a mockery of NCAA rules.

Tressel is not a criminal. He deserves no jail time. He won't be banned from coaching again. But he DID commit a serious ethical breech that pretty much undermines every NCAA rule on player eligiblity that exists. So as far as the NCAA rules are concerned, yeah, what Tressel did is a lot bigger violation of NCAA rules than having a kid accidently die because no one told him to get down out of a cherry picker in a high wind situation. Honestly, the kid's death pretty much falls outside of the jurisdiction of the NCAA--it would be more of a criminal case I believe.

If I really felt that Kelly had a direct hand in forcing that kid to go up there in a dangerous situation, I would feel differently. But I somehow doubt Kelly was even involved in the exact operation of his video team. If they came to him and said "coach, we can't tape because winds are too high" and he said "I don't give a damn, get up there anyway" then yeah, he is 100% culpable for the kid's death and should probably have criminal charges filed against him. But I have yet to hear anything even close to that reported.