Criminals Needed For Notre Dame Football?
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By DERON SNYDER
Allen Pinkett, a former star halfback and current radio analyst for Notre Dame, was sincere Wednesday when he said the Fighting Irish need “a few bad citizens” on their roster in order to succeed at the highest levels of college football.
“I mean, that’s how Ohio State used to win all the time,” Pinkett said Wednesday in a radio interview. “They would have two or three guys that were criminals. That just adds to the chemistry of the team … You can’t have a football team full of choirboys. You get your butt kicked if you have a team full of choirboys, so you’ve gotta have a little bit of edge.”
Not surprisingly, that was followed by a swift rebuttal from Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbick and a suspension for Pinkett. Swarbick said that the comments were “nonsense. Of course, Allen does not speak for the university, but we could not disagree more with this observation.”
However, Pinkett was half right in his assertion, even though he subsequently apologized. “It’s clear that I chose my words poorly and that an apology is in order for these inappropriate comments,” he said in a statement. “My words do not reflect the strong pride and passion I have for the Notre Dame football program. I am deeply sorry and did not intend to take away the focus from the upcoming season opener.”
But we can’t have a frank and earnest discussion about top-level football — college or the NFL — if we overlook the sport’s violent nature and some of the personality types it attracts.
