There has been much debate about the crimes Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel and former Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl committed against the NCAA and collegiate sports.
Media and fans have argued whether Tressel deserved the five-game suspension for next season that he and the school have levied against themselves for failing to report to his bosses that players sold championship rings, jerseys and awards to the owner of a Columbus tattoo parlor, an NCAA violation.
And in the middle of March Madness, there has been extensive discussion about whether Pearl should have been fired for lying to NCAA officials about the improper hosting of high school recruits at a cookout at his home, in addition to other possible recruiting violations.
Selling trinkets. Grilling hot dogs. These are the crimes that bring about moral outrage in the world of college sports.
No one seems to be particularly upset about Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly.
All he did was make a terrible decision that sent a student to his death.
The office of Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Indiana released the results this week of its five-month investigation into the death of DeClan Sullivan, the 20-year-old Notre Dame student camera operator who died in October after the hydraulic lift from which he was filming football practice toppled in dangerously high winds.
The agency found Notre Dame committed numerous workplace violations — including allowing an untrained student worker to use the lift during dangerous weather conditions — and fined the school $77,500.
Kelly apparently didn’t think there were dangerous weather conditions. According to reports, he told OSHA during the probe that it was “a beautiful day. It was 68 degrees. I remember looking up 11:54 a.m. and the wind was 22 miles per hour.”
His boss, athletic director Jack Swarbrick, declared after the accident that the weather was “unremarkable.”
Here’s what Sullivan reportedly said on that “beautiful” and “unremarkable” day as he was sent up in the lift to film football practice.
“Gust of wind up to 60mph … I guess I’ve lived long enough,” he tweeted after learning that practice would be outside that day — being it was such a “beautiful” day, as Kelly called it.
“The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrated that the university made a decision to utilize its scissor lifts in known adverse weather conditions,” Indiana Department of Labor Commissioner Lori Torres stated in the report.
So why, in light of this report that came out this week, isn’t there outrage over the crimes committed at Notre Dame? Why isn’t anyone calling for Kelly’s head?
I know why Notre Dame isn’t. They are not about to fire anyone connected with this horrific negligence at this early stage of what will likely be devastating litigation since to do so would be an admission of guilt of sorts.
But why are people seemingly more upset with cookouts and jersey sales than the death of a college student?
Maybe, sadly, because Sullivan wasn’t a player. In the perverted business of college sports, a student camera operator does not have the same value as a player.
That is cause for outrage.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
