[NU Sports] Jim O'Donnell Article in the Sun-Times

[mlinhardt at netzero.com]

Wow.

I really like the last paragraph where we are underachievers.  Hmmm.  New starting QBs, WRs, RBs, etc..  Throw in defensive backfield injuries and we are still outpacing MSU, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois all of which had the same or bigger aspirations at the beginning of the season.  Only Iowa and Wisconsin have "surprised" and there is a chance Iowa will only finish 1 game ahead of us or tied with us in conference.

Fitz shows the fire when discussing Harbaugh and hypes up Northwestern both academically, character, and post-1994 success.  This counters the negative recruiting from others talking about the dark ages or Harbaugh bashing the schedule.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Jonathan Hodges <jonathanwhodges at gmail.com>
To: NU Sports Listserv <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
Subject: [NU Sports] Jim O'Donnell Article in the Sun-Times
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:13:12 -0600

Although The Sun Times put NU on its cover last week for the Iowa upset, the
NU-bashing has seemingly restarted (remember Marriotti and Telander?):

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/colleges/1880140,CST-SPT-nu12.article

It's clear that O'Donnell has a beef with the NU athletic department media
relations (the gameday spread in the press box isn't good enough?), and I
don't doubt that there is room for Northwestern to improve, but he takes
some undeserved shots in the article.

Fitz does not deserve any criticism from his comments.  His team won a big
game and deserves to be hyped.  He's also trying to keep an upper hand in
the recruiting game and is standing on solid ground when stating that NU has
been consistently better than Stanford and Notre Dame in recent years (who
happen to be two prime recruiting rivals).  Yes, he spews a lot of
coachspeak, but that's his job and he's come a long way from his first year
in 2006.

Finally, as discussed here ad nauseam, a new stadium alone wouldn't
instantly solve NU's attendance woes (see my previous email detailing how it
hasn't worked for Stanford).  I think he threw that in there to keep the
article as negative as possible.

I usually enjoy his writing but this article is both unjustified and one
that shouldn't be published leading up to an in-state rivalry game that
would actually warrant coverage.  (And yes, I know we're actually helping
the newspaper's cause by reading and responding, but feel it deserves a
response).

I did already email Jim and would imagine others would like to share their
opinions as well.

Jonathan
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