The University of Notre Dame was “collectively responsible” for the October death of a student manager working for its football program, according to an internal report released by the school earlier today. Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins cited insufficient protocol for safety and unusual wind conditions as causes for the death of Declan Sullivan, the 20-year-old team videographer who was fatally blown off a hydraulic lift during a Notre Dame practice.

According to the report, the football program’s policy was to keep the videographers off the lifts if the winds reached more than 35 mph. After coach Brian Kelly opted to hold practice outside, the staff checked the wind speeds six times during the day to make sure they had not exceeded the threshold.[..]

When checking weather websites, the staff saw reports of 23 mph sustained winds with 30 mph gusts prior to practice, according to the report. Computer forensics show that no one on the staff clicked on a wind advisory icon that warned of possible winds exceeding 50 mph, said John Affleck-Graves, the university’s executive vice president.

Eight minutes after the football staff checked the weather for the final time, the National Weather Service reported wind gusts up to 38 miles per hour in South Bend. There were no wind gauges on the field, so the staff depended on their own observations to determine if the conditions were safe.

–Chicago Tribune.

Those observations did not include Sullivan’s Twitter feed, who expressed fear for his life minutes before the wind would topple the lift he was occupying. The school, in its way, absolved the negligence of Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly and his staff, which is neither satisfying nor surprising.

The entire 145-page report from the school can be read here.

I’m not big on the whole concept of sports hate. I’m an Ohio State alum that has a lot of respect for Michigan. I don’t think that hating an opposing player/fanbase/whatever comes off as anything other than thinly-veiled envy. It’s just weak and really sad. Having said all of that, I really, really hate Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly.

You’ll remember that Kelly bolted for South Bend while his team at Cincinnati was in the middle of an undefeated season, and then stood idly by when a member of his student staff was killed in a needless accident because Kelly had to have his precious video. And he just sticks his nose in the air at every turn, as if we dare ask about how one of his players might have raped a student. I do not care for him.

So imagine how wonderful it must have been for Kelly to return to Cincinnati to roast a local celebrity and then talk smack to all the poor losers that he left in his wake in 2010.

“I had a steak named after me at The Precinct [some stupid steakhouse --Ed.]. It was 12 ounces, and I thought that was fitting for someone who went 12-0,” Kelly joked to the crowd. “But I’m no longer on the menu… So Jeff and I cut a deal. He said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do for you. How about if I cut Butch Jones’ and Marvin’s steak down to 4 ounces, since they only won four games?’ ”

–Chip Patterson/Eye On Football.

Very funny, Chunk. You should type that joke up and hang it next to your Sun Bowl trophy. That’ll do wonders for recruiting. So would your wandering your fat ass into oncoming traffic, but I’ll take what I can get.

I liked Notre Dame a lot better when their ineptitude was limited to losing football games, but this is pretty GD tragic: a 20-year-old member of the Notre Dame football program’s video team died in a fall after a scissor lift he was standing in was toppled by high-speed winds. And one could argue that the kid, who was in the tower filming Wednesday’s football practice, saw it coming, as evidenced on Twitter.

In the first [of two Twitter posts], Declan Sullivan, who was perched on a scissor lift to film a Fighting Irish football practice, made a dark joke predicting his horrific fate.

“Gusts of wind up to 60 mph. Well today will be fun at work. I guess I’ve lived long enough,” Sullivan wrote at 3:22 p.m., just as practice was getting started, CBS reported.

More than 40-minutes later, the 20-year-old junior from Long Grove, Ill., was frozen with fear as wind-gusts approached 50 mph.

“Holy [f-ck]. Holy [f-ck]. This is terrifying,” Declan wrote. –NY Post.

Less than an hour later, Sullivan would fall from that tower. Sad. Deadspin has more on how Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly not only was adamant about having practice outdoors in the wind, but also that the team stayed out for 25 minutes after Sullivan’s fall. I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could have asked that kid to go up 50 feet in the air in the middle of a windstorm. I really didn’t think I could be more annoyed or angered with Kelly than I was when he left Cincinnati. I was wrong.

It was bad enough that Joe Montana had to beat my Bengals in the Super Bowl (twice, even). Now he has to ruin one of the greatest sports films ever made. Montana was asked earlier in the week about the film Rudy, which was based on a true story that happened while Montana was at Notre Dame.

Well, the crowd wasn’t chanting. No one threw in their jerseys. He did get in the game. He got carried off [at the end of] the game. [...] Back then they tried to play someone at the end of [the season] that all the seniors could get in the last home game. The schedule was kind of set that way.

So he got in. He did get a sack. And then the guys carried him off, just playing around. I won’t say it was a joke, but it was playing around. He worked his butt off to get where he was and to do the things he did. But not any harder than anyone else. –Dan Patrick, via Doc Sat.

The jerseys thing was old news–the real “Rudy”, Daniel Ruettiger, said as much on his website. But Montana’s account of Ruettiger being carried off the field already has been refuted by a teammate that was there. Whether it was the case or not, Rudy remains one of the great Little White Guy That Could movies ever. And if you don’t cry at the end of that film, then you have no soul. Or maybe you’re just really, really dehydrated. Either way, I don’t think we can be friends.

Amidst all of the conference consolidation chatter–specifically with the Big Ten’s alleged plans to take over the entire east coast, the head football coach at Notre Dame has weighed in on the matter.

“From my standpoint, being the head football coach at Notre Dame, there’s nothing better than being an independent football school,” he said, eliciting a roar from the gathering of roughly 300 people. “I know you’re hearing all these rumors about the Big Ten and all these other things, but let me tell you one thing, the history … the tradition of Notre Dame football is steeped in that independence.” –SB Trib, via FanNation.

A lot of people have been on Notre Dame’s case to join a conference, and maybe that’s just the fascist tendencies of fans that like to see teams neatly organized in the conference standings page or something. But I’ve never seen a case for them to join the Big Ten. They get their own TV money (for now), they can play anybody they want, they get an annual payout from the BCS…what the hell do they gain in joining the crowd? Besides the joy of watching the league try and cram a “2″ under that “T” in their logo. That would almost make it worthwhile.

Annie Brophy might be one of those girls who lies about her weight and embellishes stories about encounters with famous people, because that’s what I see golfers at Notre Dame doing when they lie about their scores. It’s fine if you’re playing a nassau at your friend’s bachelor party, but not so much at an NCAA Regional.

Brophy, 22, of Spokane, Wash., said she can’t remember when she came up with the idea of turning in inaccurate numbers to Golfstat.com, which posts scores in three-hole increments to the Web. However, Brophy insists she planned on turning in her actual score when the round ended. She never made it that far.

NCAA tournament officials pulled her off the course on the 14th hole and disqualified her for unsportsmanlike conduct…“I had no idea my individual score would mess so much with team scores,” she said. –GolfWeek.

So she’ll be graduating with the stain of a cheater on an otherwise impressive career (she was the Big East tournament medalist as a junior last season). She’ll have to carry that shame with her forever. On the other hand, hey, nice ass. I can always find a silver lining with these stories. It’s a gift, really.

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