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Notre Dame Mourns Death of Student Videographer Declan Sullivan, Tries to Play Tulsa
Leprechaun Express: Notre Dame Football Intel Update Oct. 30, 2010
With heavy hearts after a horrific tragedy, Notre Dame prepares for Tulsa to visit Notre Dame Stadium.
Junior film and television major Declan Sullivan crashed to his death from a fifty-foot high videotaping platform during Wednesday football practice, when massive winds toppled his hydraulic scissor-lift tower while Sullivan was videotaping.
Notre Dame students and others packed Notre Dame's Basilica of the Sacred Heart to capacity for a Mass of Remembrance Thursday night, as many more filled the chilled night air outside. Sullivan's Mass of Christian Burial will be Monday back in his hometown in northern Illinois.
Notre Dame officials indicated that they considered canceling the game but decided to go ahead with it. The Notre Dame team will be wearing special decals on their helmets honoring their fallen classmate.
In 2001, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Notre Dame and Purdue postponed their game until early December. In the next game up on the schedule after, Notre Dame played Michigan State.
That game was played in a seemingly focused but heavy-hearted manner. Prior to the game, the Notre Dame Stadium crowd sang all the verses of America the Beautiful, and NBC cameras picked up individual spectators openly weeping.
After the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963, there was an NFL game coming up soon after. As the story goes, the players did not feel like playing, but were suited up in their locker rooms beforehand, only to see the murdered president's younger brother Bobby come in. Bobby reportedly thanked them for playing, and promised them that he thought Jack would have wanted the game to go on. At least one of the players would report, years later, how all of them felt terrible, but they played and got through the game.
It is difficult to recall another similar instance at Notre Dame, where someone was killed at a football-related event or activity. But the program has not been a stranger to tragedy. As recalled by Brian Kelly, even this past year, Notre Dame had to recover from the death of top recruit Matt James.
George Gipp was killed by strep throat and pneumonia in 1920, before the advent of antibiotics, weeks after his final game, but perhaps contracting the infection during the game or soon after. Knute Rockne would wait eight years to ask a team to win one for the Gipper.
Rockne himself was killed in a tragic air crash near Bazaar, Kansas, in 1931, shocking the nation and prompting Notre Dame to have its football team travel by train for decades, perhaps not flying until the jet age.
The death of student videographer Declan Sullivan is being investigated by the university and state regulators, as well as being followed closely by concerned alumni, the news media and others.
One area of inquiry undoubtedly will be, not just the facts of the accident, but the risk management systems in place, and checks and balances, especially with at least two seasoned attorneys serving as athletic administrators.
The athletic director is not Notre Dame's legal counsel, but one would expect that one career trait of an attorney is to anticipate worst-case scenarios and guard against them. Another is to approach issues like risk management to understand ranges of possibilities, safeguards, checks and balances, and frameworks of organizational structures and policies to protect human life and avoid risk.
Another problem, however, might be in the aftermath.
In addition to an assistant athletic director being an attorney, the athletic director himself is an Indiana lawyer, and made his living at it. But, as mentioned above, he was not hired to be Notre Dame's legal counsel.
And times of disaster are exactly the circumstances when actual legal counsel, whether in-house counsel, or a law firm, might step in and caution a non-attorney like an athletic director to avoid making statements, and definitely not try to act like a free-lance publicist putting spin on a matter.
In this case, the situation is even worse emotionally, because the athletic director is also a witness of sorts, and essentially saw the young man die in front of him.
There is an old saying, "A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client."
Notre Dame undoubtedly, or perhaps hopefully, will hire special outside entities and experts tasked with providing investigative and legal support in the matter, as well as, perhaps, specialists in grief counseling and the like.
Notre Dame - Tulsa Game
Meanwhile, prior to the accident, Tulsa had, understandably, regarded the game as an opportunity for what at least one Tulsa player said would be the biggest win in program history if they could pull it off.
Tulsa has one of the top-10 offenses in the nation, albeit more balanced between the pass and the run than the Navy team that rolled up over 300 yards on the ground against the Notre Dame defense.
While Tulsa has not played a schedule quite as difficult as Notre Dame's, they have a winning record, and also have been solid on the defensive side of the ball.
Expect a moderately intense, focused game by both teams.
One impact of playing the game, perhaps inappropriately too soon after the terrible tragedy, is that the crowd will understandably be serious-minded. There had been some up-tick in crowd involvement this year, especially against Pitt, but with Notre Dame playing so close to the awful event, we probably will have to wait until the Utah visit to see the crowd anything but respectfully serious-minded.
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:: Notre Dame 2010 schedule/statistical summary - NCAA database
:: Notre Dame Football official site - UND.com
:: Notre Dame vs. Tulsa Game Notes [Extended PDF]
:: Notre Dame vs. Tulsa Game Week - UND.com
:: Notre Dame vs. Tulsa Game Day - ND.edu
:: Notre Dame Returns Home for First-Ever Meeting With Tulsa: Fighting Irish and Golden Hurricane will kick off on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC - UND.com
:: Tulsa 2010 schedule/statistical summary - NCAA database
:: Tulsa Football official site
Keywords: Declan Sullivan, Notre Dame Football, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Notre Dame Depth Chart, Notre Dame Offense, Notre Dame Defense, Notre Dame Special Teams, Brian Kelly, University of Notre Dame
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