I still hav a few years of eligibilidy left, maybe Mr. Horrning can rite a leter for me to help that underacheivin Harvard squad.
I understood his statement this way: 1) ND needs to recruit black athletes and 2) these black athletes cannot be admitted to ND under the current admission standards. I don't see anything wrong with the first part. Yes, ND recruits blacks and saying ND should recruit more blacks is bad in what way? I see his wrong in the second part grouping a race.
The problem is that they already have a significant number of black players at the school. It's silly for him to say, ND needs to recruit blacks, when they are doing so already and quite successfully. With this being said, his comments come off implying that, "Yes, ND has some black players, but we need the dumb ones (or shall I say, 'less intelligent ones') to be more successful.
If you think about it, there isn't a lot difference between what he said and affirmative action. What he is really talking about is lowering standards for a centain class of people (less well off, weaker school system), and it just happens that a lot of black athletes come from that background.
ALL football players and college athletes in general have lower admissions standards than other students. It has nothing to do with affirmative action. It has to do with trying to win.
But he was talking about lowering the standards even more to allow those who otherwise couldn't make it to enter.
It is more despicable than affirmative action (not that I'm bashing AA) because affirmative action is motivated by a desire to increase social equality by giving minorities access to an education that was denied them earlier in life. Hornung's motivation is to win football games. Not quite as noble.
I saw him on BDSSP and he didn't really recant anything, but I can't say I was offended...I'm not black, but Eric Dickerson said he wasn't offended... He gave an example last night that stated the administrators of ND told them that out of the 100 best prospects in the country, only 5 were academically able to get into ND, which means that those 5 were the only ones able to be recruited by them, thus backing up his original statement of ND lowering the standards...
First of all let me say this, I won't knock this guy too much because I don't think he's racist. Afterall, he said he didn't deserve his Heisman, and he acknowledged he only got it over Jim Brown because he was white. But Juan hits on another issue in his statement. The exploitation of College Football players. Whether it be Notre Dame, UT, Alabama, Miami, or where ever, a lot of these schools are doing a disservice to these guys for having them in college when they don't really belong. Some of these guys at SEC schools are barely graduating High School. You mean to tell me that's not exploitation. Some of you may think these schools are doing these guys a favor, but for the many kids who a) will never go pro and b) barely read at a 4th grade level, the whole situation is nothing but a waste of their time.
They would be better off working the Drive-thru? I agree the school exploits them. But not sure its quite a waste of their time.
Per Chicago Tribune, ND's football players avg 925 on the SAT. They rank #51 in D1. If the SAT scores are any indication, imagine the type of recruits if they lowered the admission standards. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/printedition/chi-0404030177apr03,1,2896262.story
