cabiness42

Is it not possible that the Ferguson police department has a history of poor race relations yet in this specific case Wilson was justified in shooting Brown? The former being true does not prevent the latter from being true.

Well, the combined value of the living quarters of the 85 richest (non-freshmen) students did probably exceed the value of the athletic academic support center.

Well, if $500K homes two blocks from campus owned by their parents count as dedicated facilities, then yes.

I know who were the best students in the math department (not me) and what they got paid for tutoring rich kids. I know who were not the best students in the math department (me) and what we got paid for tutoring athletes. I'm not saying that the resources available to the players weren't great, and probably better than at most schools, but the rich kids at ND had every bit the resources and sometimes more.

There aren't really any resources the players get that other students can't get. Of course for other students it costs money and takes effort to find them, but the resources are still available. In fact, some of the "best" tutors available at ND ended up making boatloads tutoring rich kids and the athletes ended up with leftovers.

I have no issues with the ice bucket challenge, nor do I have an issue with donating to ALS research, but I do want to go off topic for just a moment to plug the fact that over 10 times as many people die from prostate/breast cancer as ALS.

So do all the Ivy League schools, but that's not really an apples to apples comparison when you add athletics into the mix.

ND's academic rankings are consistently ahead of all Big Ten schools except Northwestern and occasionally Michigan, especially when the rankings focus on undergraduate education. Also generally better than USC. I think it's the combination of features. ND is not the only Top 25 academic institution ND is not the only school with multiple national championships ND is not the only school that holds athletes to high academic standards. ND is the only school that has consistently done all three, although Stanford clearly does the first and third things and is not far away from winning championships.

General requirements for all students (including athletes): 1 course in University Seminar 1 course in Writing and Rhetoric 2 courses in mathematics 2 courses in science 1 course in history* 1 course in social science* 2 courses in philosophy* 2 courses in theology* 1 course in fine arts* or literature* 2 courses in physical education or ROTC *A University seminar will fulfill one University requirement in one of these disciplines. Now, the only exception that varsity athletes get is that their sport fulfills their physical education requirement for them. However, there are no courses in any of the above fields that are "dumbed down" versions just for athletes. All classes that athletes take are open to all students. Of the general requirements, these have to be completed in the first year: 1 University Seminar 1 Writing and Rhetoric course 2 semesters of mathematics 2 semesters of a science or foreign language 2 courses in physical education or ROTC 1 additional University Requirement Again, no exceptions for athletes other than phys ed.

OK fine, you can say that all you want. Find me some schools where the coursework requirements for football players come close to that of ND. If "it's really, really not," then that should be very simple for you to do. It's very easy for you to make any sort of claim you want if you don't back it up.

Doesn't bother me either if people are against ND, but when people falsely accuse someone I know of rape, then yeah, that bothers me. Maybe I just need to start sending screenshots to his attorney.

As much as I defend ND, I am not at all a fan of Kelly. The problem is that if you don't have personal knowledge of the university, you don't understand the difference between the university and the football program. The university, with little factual doubt, demands more academically of football players (and all athletes) than any FBS school except Northwestern and possibly Stanford. The university also holds football program itself accountable in ways that doesn't happen at other big time programs. At most SEC, ACC, and Big 12 schools, the football/basketball programs run pretty much unchecked. There is at least some accountability in the Big 10 and Pac 12, because most of those schools do have academic reputations, but even there (again except for NW and Stan) the athletic programs still have a lot more leeway than at ND. I never wanted Kelly hired in the first place. He always seemed shady to me. Of course, I wanted Skip Holtz and he couldn't even manage to keep a job at South Florida, so I admit I didn't have the right alternative to Kelly. The problem is that Kelly can't actually be tied to all of these problems. I truly believe that he was not involved in or even aware of all of these academic fraud problems, but I also believe that he has created a culture where this sort of thing seems to happen. Unfortunately it's going to be hard to fire him based on that. Also, he gets to skate on the videographer accident because his boss was present at practice that day and supported the decision to run practice as usual. If anything, that has to get pinned on the AD (who I actually like much more than Kelly). So the university is most definitely "special" among FBS institutions in how its athletic programs relate to the university as a whole, but the football program itself has become a lot less "special" under Kelly.

By anyone you actually mean me. Apparently anybody else can go there and it's fine.

This kind of bulls*** isn't even journalism. Journalism would actually involve comparing the classes that players have to take to graduate from Notre Dame and Purdue. This is mudslinging that could be accomplished by anybody with an inferiority complex and an internet connection. OK, well it isn't hard to see that ND is dealing with this problem in a far different manner than North Carolina. Whoo! Proving a point with 100 year old reference! While we're at it, let's all s*** all over the 2014 White Sox because of what happened in 1919. http://deadspin.com/5897809/this-is-what-h...-assaulting-you More fantastic journalism there. Let's not get the player's side of the story. Let's just assume that the big black man is automatically guilty of raping the frail white woman just because she said so. Other stories covered when Prince Shembo when he addressed the issue, but not deadspin: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-sat...907--ncaaf.html http://thebiglead.com/2014/02/22/prince-sh...-investigation/ http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/notre-dame-li...t-investigation http://espn.go.com/nfl/draft2014/story/_/i...zy-seeberg-case http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Prince...-case-4471.html Deadspin was founded by a UI grad who seems to have some sort of jealous hatred for Notre Dame. There must be something in the water in Champaign. And while we're at it, where is Tom Seeberg's lawsuit against Prince Shembo and against ND? If there were any evidence at all to support his claims, he'd have filed a lawsuit a long time ago.

I realize that there are seven players who are at risk for the Rule 5 draft if not placed on the 40, but how many of the seven, if any, are really at risk of getting plucked? I know the Sox managed to stash a catcher on the roster for a year, but that's a lot harder to do at other positions.

Well, one of them is named Blount. What did they expect?

Can't we just rename them the Washington Fighting Irish and be done with it?

Which contender isn't hanging up on Hahn as soon as he mentions Konerko?

Right. Especially in the AL, when you are not double switching a lot, your 4th OF shouldn't be getting a lot of PAs. You need a guy on the roster who is good defensively at all three OF positions, can be used as a pinch runner, and is cheap. If that guy happens to be able to hit, that's just a bonus. I'm not paying DeAza $3M more than Danks to be the 4th OF just because DeAza's OPS will be 100 points higher.

Everybody knows you don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

An alternative to the "guaranteed to cancel at least one season" salary cap is to move to 100% sharing of local TV revenue. Salary cap and salary floor won't work as long as the Yankees are getting billions more in TV revenue than the Astros.

What if Dunn got traded to Kansas City and then hit the clinching HR in the World Series? Would greg's head explode?

Don Pardo at 2:15

That's about the only valid point you've made. A big part of why we are where we are is because the city has chosen to have a police force that does not resemble the community. If a black cop shot and killed the kid, the family is still going to be very upset but there are no protests, rioting, or national news story. Still, any problems with the police force previously don't get to override the facts that the "eyewitness accounts" that generated the bigger mess don't in any way match up with the facts from the autopsy.

That would be a nice point except for the reality that Wilson's story seems to line up fairly well with the autopsy and ballistics.