The Fightin' Irish

Manners have their place. The football field is not one of them. For too long is seems that ND has been Monkified on the football field. Neutered, declawed, deboned, denied, defeated. Thinking back, the Fightin' Irish haven't played with emotion and true grit as a team for years. Oh sure there have been a couple of games, but in many ways the team's play typified the effete lace curtain standard set by the old regime. Ever notice that niceness and politeness often give way to complacency and losing... almost becoming an excuse unto themselves because those other guys "didn't play by the rules?"

The reality is that the rules are defined by the field of play on that day. If the refs are allowing holding, you hold. If the refs are allowing physical play, you rise to the occasion and hit them in the mouth. Those who hide behind the rules are doomed to failure.

"Go out there and hit 'em, crack 'em, crack 'em, smack 'em! Fight to live. Fight to win, win, win, win!" - Knute Rockne

Every game has rules, but once you get on the field, the rules bend and sometimes break under the stress of competition. If you're going to win you have to press your man and many times the rules to the breaking point. That's life. Like Rockne said, you you have to fight to live and fight to win. One of the things I give Charlie the most credit for is for not complaining about the Bush Push. USC did what they had to do and won. Those aren't the rules, but they were on that day.

And when the players do get into a fight here or there, talk a little trash or celebrate too much, Irish fans have to know, that's okay. It's part of the game. ND fans are full of micro policy police worried that every brush with the edge will tarnish ND's reputation. Like the playground mother who won't let boys be boys because they worry how it will make them look... that we'll be like everyone else. Well, if that's fighting for victory, so be it.

When ND won in '88, it wasn't always pretty. But guys like Stams and Pritchert would do whatever it took on the field to fight and win.



Now, of course there are boundaries and hopefully we won't look as stupid as Boston College tearing up the turf or MSU/USC planting flags. But I write this because Charlie's expecting a more vocal, more physical and more emotion filled football team this year... the Irish HAVE to play that way if they're going to win and we saw some evidence of that at the Blue and Gold game. But I expect fans to use some perspective when things don't look quite how they would have acted. We're going to look cocky sometimes and nasty at others. Football is a violent sport and not always fair. If the Irish are going to win, they're going to have to do it being the Fightin' Irish.

"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds could have done them better, but the man who is actually in the arena, who's face is marred by dust and sweat and blood." - Teddy Roosevelt