Pleasing the crowd
By JOE HETTLER
Assistant Sports Editor
With spring practice nearly complete, another football season looms on the horizon for the Notre Dame football team. As the season begins, the expectations of the Notre Dame football team will be where they always have been — very high.
Fans expect the Irish to not only win, but win convincingly.
Notre Dame is supposed to be successful, while playing one of the toughest schedules in the country. The Irish must win on the gridiron even though many top high school football players across the nation cannot meet the difficult academic standards the administration sets for acceptance.
Notre Dame understands these public perceptions and has repeatedly strived for them throughout its history.
"We're going to do it the Notre Dame way," Notre Dame Athletic Director Kevin White said. "We're going to do it from an academic performance standpoint, we're going to do it from a position that's the top of a sub-sector. We're going to make sure our student athletes graduate. We're going to make sure we attract the right kind of folks that are a great representative of this institution, and we're going to run a clean program, and we're going to win on Saturday as well."
Easier said than done.
According to Lou Nanni, Notre Dame vice president of public affairs and communication, Notre Dame must attempt to please several different groups of fans.
"I almost never talk about the public," Nanni said. "We talk about several different publics. For example, how alumni might perceive Notre Dame football might be very different than our aspirational peer universities perceive Notre Dame football, or how ESPN viewers perceive Notre Dame football."
Nanni also believes the expectations set on Notre Dame by the different groups of people are very clear-cut.
"They expect us to win, to win big and to compete, if not win, national championships on a regular basis," Nanni said. "At the same time, they expect us to do it in a Notre Dame way. That represents the values, the integrity, and the strong appreciation for excellence in academics and in world character across the board. They expect us to run an excellent football program across the board, on and off the field."
Situations such as the alleged rape of a student manager by four football players or the George O'Leary debacle put an incredible amount of pressure on Notre Dame to make sure public perception is not damaged.
"Whenever a crisis emerges, what you do is you handle it in a straightforward manner in which you hope to reflect both integrity and humility," Nanni said.
The public also expects Notre Dame to not only compete, but win against teams such as Florida State and Nebraska, despite the Irish not being able to recruit some of the country's top players because of their academic standards. Notre Dame has turned away numerous outstanding football players because of poor academics, including the likes of NFL players Randy Moss, David Terrell and T.J. Duckett.
Despite losing these pro-caliber players, White insists Notre Dame can win regardless of how high the academics standards are set.
"We've [won with difficult academics standards] throughout our history," White said. "I don't have any reason to think why we can't ... We've created a great point of difference here. There are some programs that have done it and we're certainly one of them. And we've done it in perhaps the most visible sport, football as well as the other sports ... we've got a chance to do it in all 26 sports, including football."
With the Irish football team struggling for much of the last decade, playing a schedule with teams like Nebraska, USC‚ and Michigan every year does not make winning any easier either. The Irish are only 19-16 in the past three seasons, including two losing campaigns.
The Irish have scheduled BYU, Florida State, Washington State, Washington and Michigan for the next several seasons as well as annual foes Purdue, Michigan State and USC. These teams are consistently ranked in the top 25.
"My take is who would you prefer to play, good teams, or teams who are perceived to play the best," head coach Tyrone Willingham said. "I would prefer to play good teams. You have great respect for them, and usually good teams and good competition brings out the best in all of us."
As Notre Dame enters the 2002 football season, it will once again face the extreme expectations of the public. However, according to White, Notre Dame is the type of University that can handle the pressure from its fans and foes alike.
"We've chosen to take a path that few are, that few have also chosen and wewant it all," White said. "We want the whole enchilada. And we're not willing to ratchet down those expectations as relates to any of those realities."
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, April 23, 2002
