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Inspirational Reads

A Flagon of Ale and Forgetfulness, Please

November 7, 2009

I know everybody loves sports posts and because there are just so few blogs out there in cyberspace dedicated to sports, I thought I'd do a quick little one here on a Saturday. I mean, seriously...no one has an opinion or seven million on sports in this country?

Anyway, this little gem comes from The House Rock Built, which is a Notre Dame football blog. It's appropriate for today, since today is the day Notre Dame and Navy square off in their annual tilt. So, enjoy the video.

Delete the Wikipedia page...


There's a bunch more over at The House Rock Built. If you're a Notre Dame fan, you'll appreciate them all. If you're not, I'd still recommend the video from the week after ND lost to USC, mostly because we've all been sad clowns and tried to forget our misery via mini candy bars before. Plus, the music on the video is R.E.M.

And, since it's Navy weekend, that usually means that stupid ass college football fans start bitching about how Notre Dame is scheduling weak service academy teams in order to pad their BCS resume. Most of these dipshits are ACC fans, so they wouldn't know a football team if it slapped them in the face. First of all, how is this different from the one or two Division I-AA schools that you schedule every year in order to pad your numbers just to make it to a bowl game? Oh, that's right, Navy is Division I-A. My apologies to the USNA.

Second, Notre Dame and Navy have a long history together. During WWII, a sort of perfect storm erupted over South Bend, IN. Young men (Notre Dame was not co-ed at that point) were being sent off to Europe and the Pacific to fight our enemies and protect our shores and defending our allies from tyranny and totalitarianism. This meant fewer students were on campus, and the lack of students meant a lack of funds, putting a huge financial burden on the school.

Now, as the branches of the military were swelling with more and more recruits and enlistees, there was a pressing need to train officers to command these men in the course of battle. Notre Dame's president, Fr. Hugh O'Donnell, seeing this as, perhaps, a way of solving the cash crunch, opened Notre Dame's doors to serve as an officer training school. He first approached the army, who politely declined. However, Admiral Chester Nimitz liked the idea and immediately took Fr. O'Donnell up on the offer. Notre Dame then became a training facility for officers in the US Navy. The cash crunch was solved a the school and the navy got to train their soldiers. Both parties were happy.

Nimitz (who has a street named after him in South Bend...I used to live off it) and O'Donnell then agreed that Notre Dame and Navy should play football every year. O'Donnell promised that Notre Dame would always keep a spot open for Navy on the football schedule. Sixty-three years later, and we're still upholding that promise (the current series is scheduled until at least 2016, and will be renewed again when it's time). Yes, the luster has come off the football program at Navy, however it is still a rivalry game. Not so much like the hated rivals of Michigan and USC, but a rivalry borne of mutual respect and friendship. Do the two schools want to beat each other to a pulp during each game? Absolutely. But after the game is over, we shake hands, joke a little bit, congratulate one another on a hard-fought game, and promise to see one another next year.

So, to cocksuckers like John Feinstein, who whines about how Notre Dame is a bully for scheduling an overmatched Navy team every year, you can just shut up, eat dick, and maybe--just maybe--take a little time out of your daily need to make up for your tiny dick and have a little respect for a time-honored traditional football game between two friendly rivals.

Alright, Irish. Let's go! Beat Navy! Make it 45 in a row because, as we saw above, 2007 never happened!

Also a little note. Monday will mark one of those really rare occurrences in the universe: I will actually be rooting against Indiana basketball. Why? Because my alma mater will be playing them in an exhibition game, that's why. Do I expect the purple pumas of St. Joseph's College to beat Indiana? No. But then again, no one expected LeMoyne to beat Syracuse, either.

Go Pumas! Beat Hoosiers!

10 comments:

Amber Tidd Murphy said...

*two of your favorite sports teams, not "to" of them...

Grr. Typos suck even more when one is attempting to talk smack.

Amber Tidd Murphy said...

You'd better watch yourself cheering against my Hoosiers... but since it is a really rare occurence, I guess I can forgive you.

Also, I kind of feel sorry for you since your Damer's are losing 21-7 at the moment. It would suck to see to of your favorite sports teams lose in the span of 48 hours.

words...words...words... said...

Yay, sports posts!

LeMoyne beat me and Navy beat you. We should have a beer. Maybe one of those Victory Storm King Stouts you recommmended in GITW. I tried it last weekend, and it was great!

the iNDefatigable mjenks said...

2009 never occurred, either.

adrienzgirl said...

Bwahahahaha! I was going to same the same thing.

I was watching the game, and was like wait, did that just happen? Navy beat The Irish for real?

Sorry about your bad luck Dude!

Scope said...

Is that what you call, "hitting the open reciever"?

And I was in the stadium, with goal line seats for the 3 overtime game that didn't happen.

And I'm pretty sure I didn't see what didn't happen again today.

Anonymous said...

My, My do kiss your Catholic Wife with that potty mouth,iND Jerks?? Touchdown Jesus punishes little boys like you by having your team lose to teams like Navy. Your ultimate punishment is having Charlie Weis as coach; though his huge ass does not begin to match your over the top pottypost. You, sir, are a loser like your team.

Amber Tidd Murphy said...

damn. that was one harsh anonymous comment.

the iNDefatigable mjenks said...

I've had some anonymous dickweed in here for a few weeks talking about what a terrible parent I am AND how I shouldn't use such terrible language in my posts.

However, Anonymous is apparently a synonym for dickless, so I'm not too concerned.

I'm more concerned with how you hexed my football teams this weekend. I'm not blaming my green shirts, I'm blaming YOU, Amber Tidd Murphy.

Nej said...

History and football all wrapped up into one little ball. You, mjenks, are quite crafty. :-)