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.