| Tragedy at Practice Puts Notre Dame in Eye of Storm |
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| Paul Smith - View From the Midwest |
| Friday, 05 November 2010 20:50 |
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Michigan City, Ind. -- The Northern Indiana weather forecast couldn't have been clearer last Wednesday -- perfect, temperatures in the upper 50s, a few degrees above normal for this time of year, but with this caveat: Wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour. But on Wednesday, with almost identical conditions, the rookie Irish coach OK'ed an outdoor practice. Notre Dame junior Declan Sullivan, who was living his dream almost in "Rudy" fashion, was a few tenths of a second shy and a couple dozen pounds short of walk-on consideration, but he could make his contribution to Irish football in another capacity: As a student videographer monitoring Kelly's practices. "A very, very important role," Kelly had said in the preseason. But as the shadows deepened and the wind howled, Sullivan ascended the hydraulic scissor lift that had elevated him scores of times without incident. An exceptionally-bright, free-spirited drama major junior from Long Grove, Ill., Sullivan was also a product of his times, communicating with his wide circle of friends via Twitter. But the last two he would ever post would chill an entire campus and community that Wednesday afternoon and days later. "Gusts of wind up to 60 mph," he tweeted. "Well today will be fun at work. I guess I've lived long enough." Who could imagine? Such a young life. Such a vibrant personality? Such a loyal Golden Domer...gone, blown away by Mother Nature's cruelly fickle fates. "Holy (expletive, use your imagination)! Holy (expletive)! This is terrifying!" he wrote. In a micro-instant, he was gone. The 50-foot-high tower crashed to the ground, bending across the practice field fence, landing on the street beyond. His sister, Wyn Sullivan, a Notre Dame freshman, bravely fought back tears and told the media outside the church she had wondered in her couple of months at the university if she'd chosen the right school. But the outpouring from the Notre Dame community, which included some football players, Kelly and two busloads of students who made the 130 mile run from South Bend convinced her. "I was going to spend the last few months of his life with him at a place he loved," she told north suburban Chicago's Pioneer Press' writer Ronnie Wachter. The people behind -- students, Irish fans across the land, university officialdom -- were left to grieve, pray, console, hug. The fabled Notre Dame grotto on the campus's north end was almost a tourist trap as people who didn't know Declan Sullivan from Ed Sullivan stopped by, particularly on game day before and after the Irish's 28-27 loss to Tulsa that dropped Notre Dame's record to 4-5. "Declan was a very, very special individual," university President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., said to a hushed crowd of 80,795 before the Tulsa game. "We ask that you remember him in your prayers..." The hardhearts among us would say this was just another scmaltzy Notre Dame moment, but that would earn such individuals a well-deserved trip to sensitivity training. What's left now is to ponder Kelly's decision not to take practice indoors. Indiana's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has called it a "workplace fatality," according to the Chicago Tribune. The pastor of the Sullivan family's home parish, Saint Mary Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo Grove, talked of "letting go," a most difficult challenge. It was a Mass Sullivan's uncle, Michael Miley called "Beautiful and soaring," according to the Tribune. "We hope over the next few days, weeks and months that people in the community will heal as we are beginning to do," Miley told the Trib's Lisa Black. "We have a lot to learn and we will learn all of it," Notre Dame Athletic director Jack Swarbrick told South Bend TV station WNDU. But not unexpectedly, a number of alumni, many of them former Irish athletes, were left to wonder. "Swarbrick's a lawyer, and from my experience, lawyers usually don't make very good athletic directors," one Monogram Clubber emphasized. "He was out there when this wind was howling around. What was he thinking?"
Naturally, the tragedy drew nationwide attention. Penn State coach Joe Paterno, who has had a long, cordial but very competitive relationship with Notre Dame, was a good example. |
About Paul Smith
Paul Smith covers the Big Ten, Notre Dame and the rest of the national college football scene with his View From the Midwest.Most Popular
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