Hornung: Notre Dame must lower academics to draw `the black athlete'

DETROIT (AP) Football great Paul Hornung said in a radio interview that his alma mater, Notre Dame, needs to lower its academic standards to ''get the black athlete.''
''As far as Notre Dame is concerned, we're going to have to ease it up a little bit,'' Hornung told Detroit's WXYT-AM in an interview before the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame banquet Tuesday.
WXYT's sister station, WWJ-AM in Detroit, played a portion of the interview for The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Notre Dame spokesman Matthew Storin called Hornung an illustrious alumnus but objected to his comments.
''We strongly disagree with the thesis of his remarks,'' Storin said in a statement. ''They are generally insensitive and specifically insulting to our past and current African-American student-athletes.''
Hornung, who is white, won the 1956 Heisman Trophy at Notre Dame. He went on to star for the NFL's Green Bay Packers and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
''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 athlete,'' Hornung said in the interview. ''We must get the black athlete if we're going to compete.''
The Associated Press left phone messages seeking comment at Hornung's office on Wednesday.
Hornung, who is part of the Westwood One Radio team that broadcasts Notre Dame games, has previously criticized the school, saying its academic requirements have hurt the athletic department.
''We open up with Michigan, then go to Michigan State and Purdue those are the first three games, you know, and you can't play a schedule like this unless you have the black athlete today,'' he told WXYT. ''You just can't do it.''
Hornung was asked in the interview about the state of college football and why it seems there ''just aren't giants anymore.''
''No, no,'' Hornung said in agreement. The interviewer asked, ''Is it limited scholarships?'' Hornung then gave his response.
Notre Dame's football team went 5-7 last season, its second under Tyrone Willingham, the first black head coach in any sport in school history.
The academic standards at Notre Dame have long been discussed as a reason why the Irish no longer win consistently. Ara Parseghian, who coached the Irish from 1964-74, winning two national championships, has said he heard the talk when he first took the job.
The talk about it has been growing more widespread in recent years, though. The Irish have gone 15 seasons without a national championship, the second longest drought in school history. The longest stretch was 1949-66.
''Our records show that admission requirements for athletes have remained constant over those years in which we have had both great success and occasional disappointments with our football teams,'' Storin said.
Of the 68 scholarship players on the Notre Dame roster for spring practice, 35 are black and 33 are white. Of the incoming freshmen, 12 are black and five are white. If no one leaves the program, 55.2 percent of Notre Dame's football players next season would be black.
According to the latest NCAA statistics available, during the 2001-02 season, the percentage of Division I-A football players who were white was 48.8 percent and 43.8 percent were black.


AP. News

very sad and racist statement by hornung IMO

Happy to see ND have a losing season.

Horning is a tad senile.

Lets see who can out-PC the next guy..........

with 55% of the team black I think he meant to say, "we need the GOOD black athelete and everyone knows that the smart black guys don't play good ball... we need the blacks that spent their time playing not reading"

anyway I was just trying to make a point that racisim is alive and well in the USA... it's sad

funny, i thought Hornung was being racist against white people, saying they aren't real good athletes.

its amazing how everything is turned out to be racist against blacks.

maybe not the right wording, but what hornung said was completly correct.

alot more blacks are poor, as so they don't get the education that whites get, as so they do not have the academic backgroud.

does not mean whites are more intelligent, just means society is set up away that benefits white people more.

Most likely Hornung is referring to the very un-level playing field in college atheletics. Take a top high school prospect in football. When the grades are not top notch, where can he go and play? The kid looks at Notre Dame but has no shot academically, so he ends up at Florida St. So natrually schools with lower academic standards have a broader talent pool to recruit players from.

wil.

The guy told the truth really...and he`s probably tired of losing money on his alma mater! I bet he has action every night still!

wilheim

You hit it solid, right on the head........

buddyboy

racism and sh(t is everywhere, not just here in the US......


GottaWinToday

So what's worst, being called a poor stupid good black athelte, or a rich smart clumsy guy?
Yes racism is still very much present.

i'd rather be a rich,smart,clumsy guy

Another ND person crying


It isn't grades, Kids want to play at a school that can get them too the NFL


Example why would a Chris Leak even consider ND, when at Fla he plays in a pro style sysyem


They didn't mention that in the state of Florida, ND hasn't got a player out of Dade county since 1978, Kids in Texas + Cal + Fla don't want to go to ND anymore

why would a Kid from S.Cal go too ND, when USC will get them ready for NFL alot better

I know i'm gonna get heat over this, but an honest question.
Isn't this guy right? i don't like to consider myself a racist, but i do believe it is a social reality, that good black jogs don't have the grades. I think it, but i don't go around saying it like Hornung, is it racism just because you make it public by saying it on the radio?

Paul Hornung was right when he talked about Notre Dame's academic standards being too high to attract the quality athletes that they need to get the program back to a National Championship level. However in this case, he really didn't need to bring race into the issue. Blue chip recruits that used to go to Notre Dame and give them a top ten recruiting class almost every year are now going to the Big Ten, SEC, Big Twelve or other schools where the academic requirements to get into a large number of those colleges and universites are less stringent than Notre Dame's.

To give a perfect example of how Notre Dame has tightened up their admission policies, all you have to do is look at their QB recruits over the last six or seven years. Not one of them could play a bit. The Irish used to be able to pick who they wanted at nearly every position. Those days have long passed and Notre Dame will have to lower their admission standards or soften up their schedule. If they don't do something to change what has clearly become an average football program, then they will have to settle for 6-6 seasons.

Actually ND head coach Tyrone Willingham runs the NFL favored west coast offense. A top prospect at QB can learn plenty about playing in the NFL from Wilingham, an ex 49 assistant.

wil.

Chris does make some good points though, when Holtz was there it was 3 yards and a cloud of dust...Holtz system won`t get you ready for the NFL if you`re a QB or WR, not compared to FSU MIA or Fla...They have had a few but not many in the last decade...

I can`t see any Fla kid leaving the state with the Big 3, one of them is going to land any kid with half a chance at being a star...Same with Texas, same with Ca.

The Golden Dome has lost its mystique in the new millenium...these kids today don`t care about tradition or history!

No more win one for The Gipper, those days are over! Willingham was a very good hire, atleast they went minority and you know exactly why they hired a black coach...

There`s just too many obstacles now for ND to overcome to be a perrenial top 10 team...They may end up like Army and Navy in another 10 years

Kinda hope the domers get back on track. Just about tradition.

ND screwed up huge when they turned down the Big 10, ND beleives they are bigger than all teams, those days are over with


Top HS players from Cal, Fla + Tx aren't going to go there they have to face that fact

Notre Dame turned them down for strictly monetary issues... the mystique is not dead... like every other young person alive u forget that ppl actually lived and had lives before u, for them the mystique and ND's huge TV contract lives on.

BTW ND is bigger then all teams,,, when one of the other teams get an exclusive contract with one of the big 4 broadcast TV give me a call.