A Fatwah On The Fighting Irish (Formerly "Ten Things I Hate About Notre Dame")

How much do I hate the Notre Dame Fighting Irish?

I hate Notre Dame like I abhor eating liver. I hate Notre Dame like I revulsed at Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor." I hate Notre Dame like I shriek at Jessica Simpson's remake of "Take My Breath Away." I hate Notre Dame like Greedo shooting first.

And I hate Notre Dame like Indiana Jones hated the Nazis.

For those who might think that this stand on Notre Dame is just sour grapes for Penn State's loss at South Bend, for the record my disdain for the Fighting Irish dates back further than Sep. 9, 2006.

Am I mad that the Irish topped the Lions? Certainly. But in my view, Notre Dame didn't win so much as Penn State lost. When your team botches a field goal and fumbles twice, you deserve to lose the game, no matter who you are.

So I give credit where it's due. I'm man enough to admit it. Notre Dame played competently enough to snare a victory, while the Lions could not recover from their mistakes.

Doesn't mean I still can't hate those guys. (Go Penn State, as well as Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Stanford, UCLA, Navy, North Carolina, Air Force, Army and USC.)

My detestation of the Fighting Irish exists on two levels: an intellectual one and an emotional one.

First, the intellectual reasons to hate Notre Dame:

- Coach Charlie Weis: I actually admired what he did after being defeated last year by USC. He dragged his son with him to congratulate Pete Carroll on the controversial victory to teach his kid about sportsmanship. Very classy. Evidently he's changed his mind on the subject. With 2:50 left in the 3rd quarter and up on Penn State 27-3, he elects to go for it on fourth down deep in Nittany Lion territory, going ahead 34-3. On their next possession, up 34-3 with 14:30 left in the 4th, the Irish go for it again on fourth down, eventually scoring yet another touchdown to make the score 41-3. Did he really think the Lions' Viagra-deficient offense would run up 24 unanswered points? Running up the score is funny when you're playing against your roommate in Tecmo Bowl, but it's not amusing here. I suppose sportsmanship be damned when the folks in administration want another ring. I will henceforth be referring to Weis as "Jabba."

- Notre Dame's administration: Talk about being either hippocrates or racists. First-year coach Tyrone Willingham guides the Irish to 10-3 in 2002, winning his first eight games after Notre Dame suffered a 5-6 season the year before. He manages to defeat #21 Maryland, Purdue, #7 Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, Pittsburgh, #15 Air Force and #11 Florida State -- all quality teams that season. Willingham wins the George Munger Award for College Coach of the Year and the Home Depot National Coach of the Year Awards. In his first season, Jabba goes 9-3, his most quality win was an upset of then #3 Michigan (a team that was arguably overrated). His other eight wins all came against teams having down years: Pittsburgh, Washington, Purdue, BYU, Tennessee, Navy and Stanford. Who got the contract extension and big bucks?

- "Our university is holier than thou": Though I have no qualms about colleges acting as independents, your own reservation for a BCS bowl bid and NBC television contract are a bit too much. They also turned down a number of non-Bowl Alliance invitations in 1996 after going a mediocre 8-3. And I thought Ivy League schools were pretentious.

And now my emotional reasons for hating Notre Dame:

- Tradition: Knute Rockne is dead. Get over it. It's also 2006, for your information.

- The media: Notre Dame's media relationship can teach Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky a thing or two.

- Bandwagon fans (also referred to as "subway fans"): For a school that only has 118,500 living alumni, there seem to be an awful lot of Notre Dame fans lately (Penn State by comparison boasts 460,000 graduates). On another blog, someone wrote that saying you root for Notre Dame because you're of Irish descent is like rooting for USC because you use Trojan-brand condoms. Well said. (The inserted photo is also courtesy of that blog.)

- Independence: Dissing the Big Ten invite when you play more than a third of the conference each year is lame.

- Religion: Touchdown Jesus (or as Ricky Bobby would refer to as "Baby Jesus") aside, do Notre Dame fans honestly believe that God, in whatever form he or she takes (Allah, Vishnu, etc.), is watching over them when there's all this other suffering in the world? Though I don't doubt there's been some divine intervention or deals with Satan (see national titles for 1947 and 1966), if God really loved the Irish, why go 5-6 in 2001? Two other words: Potato famine.

- That holier-than-thou attitude: As a Yankees fan, I understand and respect that folks hate my team. I hate the Red Sox and they know why and respect it. Notre Dame fans, however, can't get it through their skulls that folks might actually like another college football team other than theirs.

- Those "9-3 Is Not Enough" towels: Unless Charlie Weis wears it as a bib to protest the operating hours of a South Bend all-you-can-eat brunch joint, the towel is yet another example of how pretentious Notre Dame is. Most schools would kill for 9-3. And Charlie, if you can't get your fill of breakfast during that time, try the International House of Pancakes.

That all being said, I can say there are things I like about Notre Dame:

- Fashion: Being a Penn State fan, I do have to admire the gold helmets and plain uniforms. Also, the green jerseys are about as automatic a loss for the Irish as playing Powerball. I mean, have you seen the uniforms for the Oregon Ducks? Wow.

- The archenemy factor: Batman had the Joker and Superman had Lex Luthor. The college football world has Notre Dame (and to a certain extent, the Florida universities).

- U2: Oh, wait. They're actually Irish.