Banange, Tugende Uganda! (My friends, we are going to Uganda!)

Play Like a Champion Today® will be taking its work across the globe tomorrow as PLACT staff travels with Notre Dame students amd ND Athletics staff to Uganda for a two week trip to explore the role of youth sport in human development. Check out our recent interview about the trip with WSBT South Bend here. We are very excited by this endeavor, and we cannot wait to get our boots on the ground, and use this experience as both a learning and teaching experience. We certainly hope to impart our message of sport as a tool for raising good, healthy children, and we know we will learn a lot from the Ugandan educators, government officials, and religious leaders with whom we will be working.

 The University of Notre Dame is a wonderful place that seeks not simply to be a place of strong intellectual thought but to couple that intellect with a giving heart. PLACT is of the same philosophy, and we hope that we will do a great amount of good with this effort, as well as learn how we can best advance the common good of the children of Uganda with our work. We are thankful for this unique opportunity, and we invite you to follow our trip on our blog in the next two weeks!

Are Traditional Values too Rigid?

June 23, 2012 marks the 40^th anniversary of the passage of Title IX into federal law, mandating the inclusion and equal funding of females in school-based athletics. This is the first in a 6-part, weekly series of blogs exploring females in sports in America.

Last Thursday, two excellent high school baseball teams were scheduled to compete for the end of the season championship in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association in Phoenix. To be a part of such a clash of titans is what so many young people work for. Win or lose, the thrill of championship competition is something that can’t be matched elsewhere.

But the scheduled game between Our Lady of Sorrows and Mesa Preparatory Academy never happened. There was no rain delay, there were no suspended players, and there was no reschedule. Our Lady of Sorrows forfeited the game, because one of Mesa Prep’s players is a girl, and OLS has a policy forbidding co-educational sports.

Every private institution is entitled to create its own policies, and exercise internal control, and OLS did not complain or try to prevent Paige Sultzbach, Mesa Prep’s female player, from playing. In fact, Paige had graciously sat out two prior meetings to appease OLS’s policy. But OLS humbly lost a chance to compete for the title, and Mesa Prep technically “won” the ACAA championship.

No laws were broken, and no one’s rights were infringed, but doesn’t something just seem a little wrong here? Is this what sport is about? Paige obviously demonstrates a level of skill to beat out other male counterparts for a spot on a high-level team. Furthermore, baseball is a sport where a female’s natural build would make her neither more susceptible to injury nor superior to her male counterparts. So why did OLS forfeit, and not give their players, and Mesa Prep’s, the right to compete in one of life’s purest arenas—sport?

It would be wrong to condemn OLS for making this decision that in some way lines up with their value structure. This country is celebrated for our freedom of association and religion. But must their policy be so rigid? Women have come so far in our culture over the last century, but there is still so much beautiful potential for growth. It is so important for us, friends of sport, to think about the potential that sport still has to grow. OLS’s insistence on not making an exception in this case seems to be counter-productive to the progress we have made in our country.

Let’s imagine a sports world where men and women compete side by side, if they choose to. Part of the beauty of sport its objectivity and its merit-based achievement. If girls and women are skilled and have the courage compete in leagues where females typically do not, then let’s celebrate that courage, rather than shy away from the challenge! In this year when we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX, let us not see its achievement as the pinnacle of progress, but as an opportunity for more progress towards equal opportunity for all!

Running the Tough Routes

Two weeks ago, former Notre Dame wide receiver Michael Floyd was drafted by the Arizona Cardianls with the 13th overall pick in the NFL Draft. It was undoubtedly a tremendous night for the Irish legend, and one that, a year prior, seemed anything but certain.

After an alcohol-related run-in with the law in the spring of 2011, Floyd was suspended from the Irish football team. His future as a student and an athlete at Notre Dame was largely in doubt. Although he had already declared that he would return for his senior season, it would have been understandable if he had entered the NFL’s supplemental draft to avoid a humbling path towards righting his wrongs. But Michael took that path. 

He had let his teammates down, and he realized that. He had a daunting task ahead of him to earn back the trust of so many people in his life. But one day at a time, Michael did that. He changed the friends he hung out with and he participated in alcohol education classes.  He moved back into Dillon Hall, a dorm on Notre Dame’s campus. He spoke at the Play Like a Champion Today® Leadership Conference and participated in the Athletic Department’s Youth Sports ministry. He maintained his physical focus and by the time his senior year began, Coach Brian Kelly and University officials recognized that Michael had made positive changes in his life, and reinstated him to the school and the team.

Floyd went on to break every major receiving record in Notre Dame football history.

Thanks to football, and the staff in the Notre Dame Athletic department, Floyd’s legacy at Notre Dame will be for his prowess on the gridiron, instead of the potential he let slip away. Floyd’s story is a tale of how sports can be a means of transformation and of reconciliation. Being a part of a team, no doubt, gave Michael the support and accountability he needed in what was certainly a rough period in his life. And the discipline of football provided the focus needed to make a change in his behavior.

Frequently in our society, we take away our youth’s right to participate in sport as a punishment for bad behavior. Sometimes the behavior is chronic, and rewards (like playing on a team) should be taken away, but too often we fail to recognize the positive role that sport can play in changing a young person’s behavior. The structure, discipline and humility gained from sport are unique in the way they mature young people, and removing them from a sport environment may only make social behaviors worse.

After seeing the humbling events in Floyd’s life, we can now respect him for not only his dominance at his position, but his commitment to personal betterment and his respect for his team and school. It was not an easy path, and his journey is not complete, but just as we’ve watched on the field, Michael is not afraid to take the tough routes.

A Teachable Moment

Two Notre Dame Football players were arrested early Thursday morning stemming from a run in with local law enforcement in South Bend, IN. The two young men, quarterback Tommy Rees and Linebacker Carlo Calabrese, were at a party celebrating the end of the school year and had been drinking. Both players ran from the party when police arrived, and were eventually caught. Calabrese, who is 21 years old, was released on bond the night of the arrest, and Rees, 19, was charged with 4 misdemeanors, including consumption by a minor and resisting arrest.

Tommy and Carlo messed up. Even though under-age drinking is commonplace at colleges and universities around the country, Tommy should not have been drinking. Neither of them should have run away. It was a mistake...period. But because of the dynastic nature of the program they play for, the whole country was watching as the news of the incident came out.

Being a Notre Dame Football player is a blessing and a curse. Players get to play in fabulous facilities, in front of sold out crowds, and get a top rate education while they are at it, but they sacrifice a certain level of privacy. If you wear the blue and gold, everyone knows who you are, and because of the history of the university, people have high expectations of your behavior. Not only is there a level of expectation by “outsiders” who look on seemingly waiting for scandals to break, but there is a great responsibility to teammates, coaches and the fine university that is represented every day…not just on Saturday afternoons. Is this level of scrutiny fair? Probably not. Is it part of the job description that comes with signing a four year letter of intent to play for the University of Notre Dame? Absolutely. In our ever-increasingly social and technological world, the spotlight shines brighter, and the expectations on and off the field grow higher. And when things are good, they are great. But when they are bad, they are horrid. Public adoration and scrutiny come only in excess when you play for the Irish.

But something we forget is that, despite the fame, these players are still very much kids. They appear on ESPN, they have thousands of followers on Twitter, and have legions of fans, but they are still growing in the same way that all other college students are. They pull all-nighters in finals week. They break up with their girlfriends. They take courses that challenge their world views. They doubt their own abilities. They search for ways to use their gifts in our world of need. They make mistakes. Although the public media builds them to be titans among men, they are on the same journey of discovery as everyone else. This isn’t to say that their behavior is acceptable. Even if they weren’t Notre Dame student-athletes, their actions still would have brought embarrassment to the team, the university and the entire university community at large. It only confirms their adolescence and budding cognitive development.

As we confront this issue of these young men wrapped up in a bad situation, let us step back from the temptation to build them into something more than they are. Tommy and Carlo made bad decisions. Instead of moving quickly to condemnation, let us support them and the administration, as they try to move from a bad situation, into what will hopefully be a teachable moment that will help them GROW not only as athletes, but as young men.

One Tough Buc

Not many young men who play football at Rutgers University expect to play at the professional level. They attend a good school in a major conference, but as with most schools, an overwhelming majority of its football graduates end up going onto careers outside of major professional sports. Eric LeGrand always believed he would someday be signed by an NFL team. Wednesday, his beliefs turned into reality.

 

During a game against Army in 2011, Eric LeGrand made a tackle on a special teams play that knocked him to the ground, unable to move. He was rushed to a hospital, and the diagnosis was that he was paralyzed from the neck down. His football career was over.

 

To imagine the pain that LeGrand suffered as a result of the injury he endured is enough to make any viewer cringe. But to fathom the mental and emotional pain that came from coping with an immediate and severe life change is something that not even the most empathetic among us can grasp.

 

Yet through the pain, Eric LeGrand has kept his spirits high, and has inspired millions of people with his huge heart and enormous smile. His tenacity is only outdone by his pure joy.  His physical therapy has progressed, he now has feeling in his legs, and doctors believe that he will someday walk again under his own power.

 

Eric’s dream of being an NFL star may have faded after his accident, but his former coach at Rutgers, Greg Schiano, never let his own dream of calling him his player again die.

 

And if you know Greg Schiano, you know he always gets what he wants.

 

Schiano became the head coach of the Tampa Bay Bucaneers this year, and on Wednesday made that dream a reality, signing Eric to an NFL Player contract with the Bucs. Although LeGrand will likely never play a down of football in Tampa, Eric will use his newly found gift for speaking to serve as a Bucaneers sportscaster.

 

Eric LeGrand could have let his injury get the best of him. He could have allowed his broken dreams consume him, and dwell in self pity the rest of his life.  Instead, Eric turned every challenge he has faced upside-down and has not let the pain get the best of him. Where he finds despair, he brings hope. Where he sees a dead end, he creates an opportunity. And where people saw in him only a weakness, he has found in himself a fountain of strength. In other words, he is one tough Buc.

Junior Seau dies at age 43

Our thoughts and prayers go out to former the family and friends USC Trojan and NFL All-Pro Linebacker Junior Seau, who died today. He had a strong commitment to the game of football, and his home town of San Diego.

Seau was as decorated professionally as a player can be, garnering the most Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections by a linebacker, missing out only on an elusive Super Bowl Ring. His work establishing the Junior Seau Foundation, which supports child abuse prevention, drug and alcohol education, recreational opportunities, and efforts to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents, has affected thousands of young people in its 20 years of existence. We are saddened by this loss, and today we pray for the communities of San Diego, USC, and Seau's family.

Joe Kernan: Safe at Home

This past weekend, during the festivities surrounding the Blue-Gold Game (Notre Dame’s Spring Football Scrimmage), Joe Kernan was honored by the Notre Dame Monogram Club with its Moose Krause Distinguished Service Award. The award is given to a member (Kernan played catcher for the Irish in the 1960s) who exemplifies the Notre Dame ideals in his or her commitment to youth and community.

It wasn’t the first time Kernan was honored on Blue-Gold weekend. At the 1973 game, 20,000 fans rose to their feet in Notre Dame Stadium to welcome him onto the field. Had he made it to the majors? Was he a newly famous celebrity? No. It was just Joe—happy to be home in the place he loved.

Kernan’s plane had been shot down almost a year before on May 7, 1972 in the Vietnam War, and he had spent 11 months as a prisoner of war at the infamous Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi. The prison was known as a place of torture, interrogation, and filth.  As disturbing as enduring time in a dilapidated cell would be, unaware of when he would be released, Joe never lost what people know him best for—his spirit. Jokingly, immediately upon his return home Joe asked a newspaper reporter “Who won the Super Bowl?”

Joe’s life of service didn’t stop after his military career. After serving in South Bend’s city controller’s office in the early 1980s, Kernan was elected mayor of his beloved city in 1987. He served his city until 1996, when Frank O’Bannon selected Joe to be his running mate in his successful election for Indiana Governor. Although he never had any ambition to pursue his state’s highest position, the tragic passing of Governor O’Bannon led to Kernan’s ascent to the Governor’s office, where he finished the term before returning to his beloved city of South Bend, Indiana.

Kernan’s determined spirit never relented in his career. He brought jobs back to the South Bend economy that had struggled since the 1960s. He strengthened the relationship between the University of Notre Dame and his city that is still bearing fruits today. As he led the state’s department of commerce, thousands of jobs were created in the state. His work in the state capitol engineered the expansion of the Indiana Education system, improving all levels of education: early-education programming up through the state’s college system.

Along with his esteemed political career, Kernan may be remembered most for securing minor league baseball’s future in South Bend. The team was a landmark acquisition for the city in the mid 1980s, but by 2005, there was pressure on the team’s ownership to move the much-loved team. Amidst the turmoil, Kernan spearheaded a group that purchased the team with the firm intent to keep the Silver Hawks in South Bend. Joe kept that pledge until just last year when Kernan’s group sold the team to Andrew Berlin a baseball lover in his own right with ties firmly in the Midwest. Because Mr. Berlin too plans to keep the Silver Hawks local, Joe could pass the organization forward knowing he’d fulfilled his commitment to the team and the city.

So thanks to Joe Kernan’s heart for all things South Bend, and all things baseball, we have the opportunity to enjoy evenings at Coveleski Stadium for years to come. It is a

legacy that epitomizes Kernan’s ethos. If you go to a Silver Hawks game today, you’ll continue to be struck by the beauty of the facilities at the Cove, humbled by hospitality of the staff, impressed by the level of play and warmed by the community the team inspires.

Among all the splendor you will see, one thing you might not notice at a Silver Hawks game is the same thing that gets overlooked at a lot of baseball games—the catcher. Even though he’s involved in every play, he rarely gets recognized. He stays at the plate, guides the squad, and protects the team’s assets. And that’s Joe: happy to be at Home Base.

Injuries

Social Foundations of Coaching student, Jordan Stumph Blogs...

Injury is a negative in any person’s life.  For athletes, especially, injuries are extremely devastating. Injury strips an athlete of a constant and a love in their life.  Without sport, some athletes have a hard time coping with things because they cannot participate in something that they have been doing everyday since they were kids.  What makes things worse is when someone gets hurt right before an important time in the season.  This is what happened to me when I was in high school.  In one of my last meets of the season I tore my ACL while shot putting.  It was a freak accident, but it happened and there was nothing I could do about it.  For a short while I was demoralized.  I was going to have to miss the conference, regional, and state meets in my senior year.  In retrospect, my mindset at the beginning of this period in my life was horrible, but I think it was a pretty natural response to such a disappointment. 

Although I felt lousy and helpless, I did have one thing on my side: my coach.  Fortunately for me, Coach Jordan knew exactly what I was going through because he had torn his ACL when he was younger.  My coach gave me the support I needed to stay positive and helped me find other ways to assist my team.  So, I ended up helping to coach some of the younger throwers for the last few weeks of the season.  If it had not been for Coach Jordan, I might have just wallowed in sorrow for a couple weeks, but he made me feel like a needed and useful member of the team.

The season ended and my summer before coming to Notre Dame consisted of getting ready for school and doing a lot of physical therapy on my knee.  Before I became injured, I had been thinking about trying to walk onto the track and field team to throw.  However, I thought that at my torn ACL would close that door and I did not even bother trying to contact the coach.  When Coach Jordan heard this, he gave me a call and told me to email the ND Throws coach because he had already written an email to send him about me.  Luckily I heeded his advice, and within a matter of a couple months I became a member of the Notre Dame Track and Field team.  If Coach Jordan had not believed in me, I do not think I would have believed in myself.  Earlier this year, when I placed fifth in the Big East in the weight throw, he called me to tell me how proud and excited he was for me. This is a great example of a coach who cares about his athletes’ personal lives, sets high (but achievable) goals for them, and sticks with them through thick and thin.  If I ever become a coach, I want to exemplify these same characteristics so that I can make an impact on the lives of my athletes, just like Coach Jordan made an impact on mine.

Reaching the Summitt

To win an Olympic Medal is, for most people, a lifetime achievement. Most people pour so much into their efforts to make it to the top that once they reach that stage, the rest of their professional career is an afterthought. Most people settle with that crowning achievement.

Pat Summitt is not most people.

Her Olympic Silver medal as a player in Montreal in 1976 was outdone by her Gold Medal as a coach in Los Angeles in 1984. And she was just getting started. Summitt went on to become the winningest coach in the history of NCAA basketball, winning 1098 games, including a women’s record 8 national titles. And she did it all without ever saying goodbye to the program that she (essentially) created—the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers Basketball.

A coaching career that has spanned 5 decades, and touched the lives of hundreds of athletes, thousands of fans, and millions of admirers came to an end this week. Coach Summitt stepped aside from her role as head coach of the university she loves, submitting to the struggles that came with dealing with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. She will be dearly missed from a sports landscape that she is largely responsible for shaping.

Pat Summitt has played a pivotal role in the development of Women’s Basketball. She has led with a firm grace that has guided so many young women through the most formative years of their lives. She championed the expansion of the coverage of the sport in national media, including the creation of a professional league for women. She is a committed mother and is an example of a person who devotes equal energy to personal and professional endeavors. Even as die-hard Irish fans, we at Play Like a Champion Today® must credit her with paving the way for Muffett McGraw and the success of the Notre Dame Women’s Basketball Program.

Today, Summitt added yet another medal to her collection. This morning, she joined an elite list of Americans, including Notre Dame’s President Emeritus Theodore Hesburgh, as the latest recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom: the highest civilian awarded to a person for his or her contribution to American society. Her role in the development of young women, as well as the development of women’s sport is undeniable, and we salute her for all she has done.

Even though this accolade surely will not mark the end of her continued positive influence on young women, it is fair to say that she has left the coaching profession where she has been for many years—at the Summitt.

Jackie Robinson: American Hero

Sixty seven years ago today, several black athletes were invited to Fenway Park to “try out” for the Boston Red Sox. While they were on the field, they were harassed by the limited team management that chose to attend, and no players were selected for the team. The humiliated players left the park dejected after the farce, designed to appease a local politician. But just two years later, one of those players, a young WWII veteran from Georgia made history by suiting up as the first player to break the color barrier in the high-level professional sports. His name was Jackie Robinson.

America has always prided itself of being a place of equal opportunity. Our country may not be able to guarantee quality outcomes for all, but as a nation, we strive to give every person a fair chance at success. This was not the case for Jackie Robinson. Even when he made it to the major league level, he had to fight the aggression of hostile fans, teams, and teammates who did not want to see a black man succeed. Even though he achieved immediate and sustained success, Jackie Robinson, and other minority players had to continuously struggle against a culture that was largely intolerant of people of color.

Our children’s athletic heroes come in all shapes, sizes, and colors these days. Players are granted equal access to professional leagues and an athlete’s success is determined by the quality of his or her play, not by race, ethnicity, or other discriminating characteristics. More important than professional leagues though, our schools and community sports leagues now enjoy openness to all people, and thanks to Jackie Robinson, issues of racial discrimination are frowned upon as the exception instead of proliferated as the rule.

As we celebrate the 65^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s courage, let us also celebrate the role that sport had to play in this historic act of integration! Although unpopular at the time, sport achieved in 1947 what politics did not achieve until 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. As an ideal, sport has always been an arena in which we can meet others and compete in an objective environment that is inclusive, fun, and harmonious. Thanks to Jackie, we have turned that ideal into reality.