The football fortunes of the Fighting Irish have plummeted, like in the days when Gerry Faust coached a barely 500 team, or like in those dark days before Ara Parseghian. Oregon State and Nebraska were strong, nationally-ranked opponents, but Michigan State is not a national power and will not likely finish near the top of the Big Ten, which makes Saturday's outcome all the more embarrassing. Notre Dame received not one vote in this week's AP Poll, and only nine votes in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches' Poll.

Nevertheless, pride can be taken in the percentage of student-athletes who graduate each year, and in the academic standards for which Notre Dame is legendary. If it is still true that all freshmen at Notre Dame, football players included, have to take calculus, for example, then maybe wins and losses on the gridiron aren't such a measure of the students who play the game, and certainly not much of a measure of the University they represent.

If Notre Dame's athletic programs are run cleanly, without any further problems like those that led to the NCAA probation in recent years, and Notre Dame's athletes are truly student-athletes, then the words of the fight song, "What tho the odds be great or small, old Notre Dame will win over all," don't ring hollow at all.

Russ Stone

class of '72

Sept. 25, 2001

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