ND Fans Want Championships, Not Necessarily High GPAs

(Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

The Staff, Domer Sports Report

Notre Dame Sports
Editorial

Recently, Domer Sports Report posed a poll question. The question was what would you rather see from ND sports programs: An overall team gpa (grade point average) of over 3.0 or a winning, National Championship program, but a gpa of under 3.0?

The results were astounding, given the outward, permeating attitude from within, with the administration, and, maybe, from without, like fans, observers, media and detractors, Notre Dame. A whopping 66 percent responded that they would prefer to have a National Championship program, while 33 percent preferred to have a team gpa of over 3.0.

What does all of this mean? Well, most of it is subjective. It is open for interpretation. Here is how the staff of Domer Sports Report sees it:

Nick Shepkowski:

"To me there its not even a question anymore on if the University of Notre Dame should slightly lower academic standards and not have as "classroom smart" of a football team if they can get that much closer to a national title on the football field. There are certain things that get under my skin as a Notre Dame fan and this one may take the cake on my list. Sure Notre Dame has tougher academic standards than other schools but when it comes to football players, the difference really is minimal.

Notre Dame does not hold its student athletes to as tough as standards to get into the school as they do their everyday students. If you can catch or throw a football well, or even tackle or block well then your chances of getting into Notre Dame go up an incredible amount. Year in and year out there is an extremely large percentage of future football players who are allowed admittance to the University of Notre Dame, only because of their athletic ability.

I would not be bothered if the University was to slightly lower standards and allow more potential players into Notre Dame. The majority of football players already get an exception when it comes to test scores and GPA's, why shouldn't all of them?

The only problem I would potentially have with lowering academic standards is if Notre Dame turned into a "Thug-U" like Miami of Florida did in the 1980's and early 90's. If the coaching staffs got to know the kids they were recruiting it would be simple to eliminate these problems before they were ever admitted to the University of Notre Dame.

Once again, I do not care what the team GPA of the Fighting Irish is. This magical number of 3.0, I would have finished below the mark in my four years of college. Does it mean I'm an idiot? Getting multiple jobs offers in my field before graduation from college would imply otherwise. I don't care about how smart someone is in a classroom, just like in sports there is life beyond that as well.

If a potential athlete seems to have a promising enough future where they would likely be seen as a "productive member of society" and not have a past of battery or abuse or any problems with that, why not admit them to the University? I don't care if someone has an ACT score of 19, does that make them a bad kid? No, what does is how they act as a person. Talking to teachers, principals, coaches, and even
those

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