As you’ve probably read elsewhere, newly hired Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly used the Cincinnati annual end-of-season banquet night last to announce his exit to his former Bearcats players, an awkward exercise that left some of the scholars in attendance questioning their career-minded mentor’s credibility. The Enquirer’s Paul Daughterty pays homage to Kelly’s tenure in Cincy (“a guy who went to high school games in a helicopter and never met a personality he couldn™t woo….the perfect fit for UC, a living antidote for our town™s insecurity”) while bemoaning how easy this was to predict (“I don™t know what possesses some people to constantly seek the rainbow™s end, even as they stand bestride their pot of gold. I just know it™s in a college coach™s DNA”)
When you are deeply in love, nothing else matters. Maybe the Irish agreed to soften academic standards for five or 10 players a year. They wouldn™t do it several years ago for Urban Meyer; they didn™t agree to it for Bob Stoops, just a few weeks ago. Maybe they have for Kelly.
Even if they haven™t, Kelly™s self-confidence wouldn™t allow something like that to shake him.
You could suggest he™d have a better team here next year than he did this year. You could say that Notre Dame is the college equivalent of the Dallas Cowboys, a pretty box that once contained diamonds. You could offer that quality-of-life issues make staying here overwhelmingly obvious.
There is no easy way to do this. It™s like calling off a wedding. If the NCAA would stop worrying about college coeds cheering recruits at high school games long enough to tackle real issues, the annual coach-school song and dance wouldn™t have to happen. A coach and his players could finish out a great season in peace.
Then, if the coach leaves before his contract™s up, he sits a year. Just like a kid who transfers.
Based on the Bearcat players comments, I guess we don’t have to wonder how Kelly would handle any of his former players wanting to follow him to South Bend. This is a coach who, upon taking the Cincinnati gig, vetoed the transfer of his best DE who wanted to follow Kellys predecessor and finish his career closer to home. The kids mom was sick and the family was having hard times financially. As a result of BK’s actions, the kid had to pay his own way for a year while sitting out his transfer year.
Totally classless move by a guy whose arrogance makes Charlie Weis look like the Dalai Lama.
On another note, who knew that the coaching road to South Bend went through Allendale, Michigan? Last time I had the privilege of stepping foot on GVSUs campus, Bob Pollard was repeatedly threatening to kick Russell Simins ass. Not sure if Sean Lennon would have had the touring drummer for Cibo Mattos back in that fight or not?
i heard steve selvidge and robbie grant were throwing hot dog bits at simmins during a show on that tour. great story, can’t remember all the details but I think it involved juilian lennon and the whole i’m wearing my dad’s fancy coat action as well.