[NU Sports] God wears purple

[Beamsley, Jeff]

Dennis,

I, for one, welcome your participation on this board.

I don't often agree with you, so you give me a reason to participate.

Where we differ is your feeling that the university administration is
holding back the football program by insisting that the high academic
admissions standards which result in high graduation rates apply to
everyone including athletes.  Your feeling is that lower admissions
standards for football recruits would allow us to recruit more athletic
players that you feel we have to have to be competitive.

My feeling is that the football program should serve the institution and
not the other way 'round.  I also feel that being smart and being a good
football player are not mutually exclusive.  So having high academic
standards and graduating all our football kids with meaningful degrees
becomes our recruiting advantage.  

Most years we are only recruiting 10-15 players. Our first priority is
to recruit the best smartest football players who want to play close to
home.  Fitz has done a GREAT job there.  Our next priority is to recruit
nationally for particular positions that we aren't going to be able to
fill from the "driving distance" market.  GB was the first to prove that
NU could recruit nationally.  Fitz has taken that to the next level by
competing effectively for smart football players with Stanford, Duke,
Vandy, etc.

Finally, my sense is that reason that Fitz is here and didn't make the
move to ND is because he believes that NU has a unique advantage that he
can exploit to build football teams who will win in the BT and can
compete for national championships.  He is looking for kids with
character as well as talent.  Kids who are willing to work hard and buy
into his vision of how to play the game.  He will succeed because he
views our academic standards, high graduation rates, and meaningful
degrees as his secret weapon - and he knows he can use it to create
winning football teams.

Jeff  




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From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of Dennis W. Brandt
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 5:50 AM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] God wears purple

<Dennis,

<Before this game you wrote that NU would get blown out by Auburn and
that NU fans were delusional to thinnk otherwise. Please take <your crap
elsewhere. You sir have indeed grown accustomed to losing. The rest of
us prefer to Expect Vistory and not presuppose NU <will lose.

I will keep my "crap" right here, thank you very much.  If you want to
think with your heart, fine.  I'll continue to use my head.  NU is not a
talent-laden football teams and, according to some here, never should
be. 
The football team is going to have to prove on the field - and do so
consistently - that victory is something fans can expect when we play
the traditional powerhouse teams - or Syracuse, for that matter.  Yes,
the game was closer than I anticipated, but the loss column still got
one larger yesterday.

Nonetheless, you should retrieve the August predictions tossed about on
this board.  I was the one who felt the Cats would win 10 games while
others equivocated between 7 or 8 max all the way down to 3 or 4.
Everyone knew Ohio State would win at least 10 games, but no one knew
how many games NU might win.  That is NOT Expect Victory.  That is
hoping for it.  The bowl game yesterday was much closer than I expected
- indeed, we should have won it.  You weren't cheering any louder than I
was or swearing any more profusely when we blew a game in which all the
breaks went our way at the end, and we still couldn't win.  I'll
guarantee you Pat Fitzgerald is not satisfied with this "moral victory."

Nice to get my daily "crap" out of the way early. 

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