Friday, July 14, 2006

The Media is so Unfair to Notre Dame

How rude of Gene Wojciechowski
to make sweet, sweet love to the Irish for 1,256 words for ESPN.com and he didn't even have the decency to mention that Charlie Weis is secretly undermining the Iranian nuclear program and working on a medical cure for ennui in his spare time.

7 comments:

Ed said...

Why all this consternation about Notre Dame, Michael? Is another crappy Wolverines team about to make its underwhelming appearance, stage right?

Don't worry - all great programs have their down cycles. Cheers.

Michael said...

Ed, I seem to recall you making the point that the media is unfair to Notre Dame. That article was for you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

And by the way, a crappy Wolverine team still goes to a bowl game. Shall we discuss where crappy ND teams end up?

Ed said...

Um, crappy ND teams usually go to bowl games. Sometimes they go 5-6. Point?

Actually, crappy ND teams end up firing their crappy head coaches, and having crappy commentators like (drumroll please) Gene Wojciechowski lament the event as a sign of the loss of Notre Dame's moral standing in the universe.

Wish ESPN still had that article in its archives. You would enjoy it.

But who am I kidding? Numerous articles about ND's moral debasement, hypocrisy, and football factory status in December 2004 vs. countless articles about how great a boxer Tommy Z is today. Of course, ESPN loves Notre Dame!

Michael said...

1. Crappy Notre Dame teams don't go to bowls. Crappy Michigan teams do. That's my point. ND fans mock "LLLoyd Carr" for three-loss seasons, but ND hasn't done anything better since 1993, coincidentally the last year that the Irish won a bowl game. Our mediocrity is your apex, apparently.

2. I'm still waiting for the avalanche of links to establish that the media has it out for Notre Dame. If they did, then why would they publish so many puff pieces? Do you think it's possible that Notre Dame gets more coverage than anyone else, so when they're up, they get more love and when they're down, they get more blame? Do you think that all the negative coverage of the Knicks these days is because the media hates the Knicks or because they're obsessed with the Knicks and overcover them whether they;re good or bad?

2.

Ed said...

Notre Dame's apex is 11 national championships. That would be 10.5 more than Michigan has had in the last 50 years, in case you want to drop that joke about your mediocrity being our apex.

Your comparison between coverage of the Knicks and Notre Dame is flat-out pathetic. It's not a question of the media panning Notre Dame's football team when its bad; it's a question of it questioning its integrity as an institution when it attempted in 12/04 to stop being bad. Do you detect any sort of difference there?

Here are your links:

http://proxy.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=1935406

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?page=argument/1202

http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=grant/041201

http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/041201

http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=whitlock/051101

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?p=387467

There are so many more....

Ed said...

These articles are worthy of a very long, cold shower - no disagreement.

More is at work here, im my opinion, than simple veneration for Notre Dame. Willingham did not get nearly the praise after his first season that Weis is currently getting, regardless of a former player's glowing book.

(incidentally, do you know what that the former player wrote on ESPN.com after Willingham was fired? Pure venom, my friend. And did any of his Notre Dame-loving colleagues demure? Not one. But I'm just paranoid.)

I think there is a real excitement about Charlie Weis in college football circles. I don't see any other reason why someone like Kirk Herbstreit would suddenly become such a sychophant. Same goes for Skip Bayless. Weis is the hot new genius commodity that can resurrect a moribund program.

Now does his presence at Notre Dame, in particular, escalate the attention? Absolutely. But I've never argued that the media stiffs the football team or tries to puts its accomplishments in a shadowy light. My argument is that the attitude towards the institution of higher learning is one of extreme skepticism where it really isn't warranted and extreme censure
when events require a more balanced perspective.

The rush to condemn the firing of Willingham was utterly uncalled for, and would have you guys livid if it happened in Ann Arbor. I know it would.

Ed said...

Fox,
There's too much stuff in your post for me to do justice to in this forum, so I'm just going to ask this....

Can one credibly write an article that suggests perhaps Willingham wasn't fired because of race? that maybe Notre Dame didn't show that it was indifferent to character and integrity by firing Willingham, but instead desired a coach who upheld high standards for both academics the gridiron? that the only real basis for the supposed "5-year rule" granted to previous Notre Dame coaches is the myth perpetuated by other sports writers? that even if Notre Dame erred in firing Willingham, that act does not cancel out years of graduating players at an extremely high rate or avoiding academic impropriety?

Because if I can credibly write any or all of these things, why wasn't this article written at espn.com, cnnsi.com? If the media loves Notre Dame or, at the very least, is neutral towards the institution, why wasn't there a counterpoint to all of the rhetoric of ND as "football factory" (Forde), ND as moral equivalent to Miami "pell grant" University of the 1980s (Grant), ND as losing a bit of its soul (Wojo)?

Because there wasn't. I think you all are putting your head in the sand, if you think that Notre Dame didn't get heat in Decemeber 2004, not simply because of a media obsession (a la the Knicks), but because of a host of factors about ND that include:

a) it having staked itself to certain academic ideals;
b) it having chosen to maintain its independence in the face of other institutions allying themselves to conferences;
c) it being located in the "white midwest;"
d) it being a very wealthy institution;

Etc. Now, when an incident occurs that could be deemed controversial, and an entire block of writers choose to tackle that controversy by tossing around rhetoric that touch upon some, or all, of the above in the meanest way possible. Without a tightly-reasoned argument to back that up. Without a counter offered by another writer. Then I have to call it bias.

I'm sorry. I know you all disagree. That makes horse-racing, I suppose.

peacedog,
Don't spend too much time gnashing your teeth over all those 6-5 Notre Dame teams that went to bowl games they didn't deserve. It only happened once (in 1995), with a 6-4-1 Irish team. A profound injustice, I know - like a 4-loss FSU team going to the Orange Bowl.

Oh, and if Michael can take a 13-year slice of history to show Michigan's eminence, I'm free to take 50. Thanks.

Michael,
Sorry for the Michigan crap. I have very little against the Wolverines actually and become a fan once a year when they play The Ohio State. Hope your Alma Mater does well this year. I'll be at the Michigan-ND game. Should be good.