Paul Hornung is no stranger to bad judgment.
In 1963, at the height of his career as the Green Bay Packers' Golden Boy, Hornung was suspended by the National Football League for gambling on pro football games.
Forty years later, Hornung suffered another lapse of judgment that could cost his alma mater, Notre Dame, dearly.
During a radio interview in Detroit on Tuesday night, Hornung, frustrated by a losing season at Notre Dame, said that the university needed to lower its academic standards so more black athletes could play there.
In the interview with WXYT-AM as reported by The Associated Press, Hornung said: "We can't stay as strict as we are as far as the academic structure is concerned because we've got to get the black athletes. We must get the black athletes if we're going to compete."
By Wednesday afternoon, Hornung was being bombarded by calls.
And the university issued a statement that said: "We strongly disagree with the thesis of his remarks. They are generally insensitive and specifically insulting to our past and current African-American student-athletes."
Hornung's remarks were an insult to every athlete -- black and white -- who ever played for the university, earned a degree and added to its football legend.
There is a long line of former Notre Dame athletes -- Justice Alan Page of the Minnesota Supreme Court comes to mind -- who could surely lecture Hornung about standards.
"I didn't say anything that I thought would be offensive," Hornung said in the phone interview. "That's not what I intended."
Hornung said that if he could make his remarks again, he would not differentiate black and white players. "We need better ball players, black and white, at Notre Dame," he said.
You don't have to lower standards at Notre Dame to get the nation's greatest football players to accept scholarships there. In a more competitive marketplace, you have to do a better job of selling the program.
That has become increasingly difficult to do - not because of its entrance requirements, but because there is no major conference affiliation and thus no glamour conference championship game, and because of a mediocre won-lost record over the last few years. Notre Dame was 5-7 last season and 5-6 in 2001, and the Fighting Irish have not won a national championship in 15 years.
Ultimately, Hornung's ridiculous comments come down to Tyrone Willingham's ability to recruit. Hornung's interpretation of Willingham's hiring in 2002 is that his mission was to get Notre Dame healthy fast by snatching blue-chip athletes from the South -- especially Florida -- and the West. This has not happened.
What really bothers Hornung is that the football program is not raiding the Deep South. At one point in our conversation he asked: "Where are the best football players coming from? Florida."
He noted that not one member of Notre Dame's incoming class of recruits is from Florida.
Do you seriously expect star athletes in Florida, Georgia, Texas to come to South Bend and play for a fading independent? Leave Florida for South Bend?
Notre Dame doesn't have it like that anymore. That has nothing to do with the university's academic reputation but with the pool of elite football powers with whom it competes, like Louisiana State, Oklahoma, Southern California, Michigan.
Hornung said he wasn't demeaning black athletes.
"If anything, I was saying the opposite," Hornung said.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS