Talk:Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Football

please find someone who has said weis' tenure could be a considered a moderate success. Becuase I can find a dozen articles that say it was a failure. I'll give you a few days to change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.233.253 (talk) 02:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

here sandbox this The 2007 season has produced the worst start (0-5) ever; the most losses in a season ever (9) [1]; two of the ten worst losses ever (38-0 losses to both Michigan and USC); and, the first 6-game losing streak for home games. With two games still left to be played, the Irish are already ineligible for a bowl game -- the fourth time in the last nine seasons that they have missed-out on a bowl appearance [2]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.233.253 (talk) 21:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

honestly, i dont want an edit war, lets have a discussion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.233.253 (talk) 10:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Notre Dame Men's basketball page

• Does anyone think that ND's men (or both men and women) should get their own wiki entry? Although it's not nearly as famous as the football team, ND basketball has a very storied tradition with many famous players and games that deserve their own space. Thoughts? Fuhreeus 10:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea. Notre Dame is the only Division I-A school ranked in the top 20 all-time in wins and wimning percentage in both football and men's basketball. The only thing missing from Notre Dame's men's hoops resume is an NCAA title. Cheemo 19:35, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I second it as well - Notre Dame is definitely a program deserving of such an article even without their storied past. Chiwara 21:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I think we should merge The Notre Dame Leperchaun into this article. Nothing444^{Go Irish!} 21:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

• Against- Seperate article. Most schools have seperate pages for their mascot. - Libertyville | Talk 20:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

• Against - I agree. It should be separate. The athletics pages should generally be shorter in length and any subject that goes in-depth(like ND football) should have its own page. Especially the Leprechaun. The image is widely used by high schools and other organizations. There is also controversy from some people claiming it is a racist image. This is too off topic for the athletic page. Tedmoseby (talk) 20:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Football National Championships

11 or 13? In the french and spain wiki are 13 championships --78.54.141.21 (talk) 07:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

They also include championships won in 1919 and 1964 per other title selectors. See College Football Data Warehouse recognized national champions. Jeff in CA (talk) 10:14, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Colors

There is a problem with the sourcing for the university's colors, listed in the infobox as "Madonna blue and papal gold." The reference supporting this, however, is to the university's "visual identity" handbook, essentially a style sheet for publications and media. Visual ID .pdf That document states "The official colors of the visual identity are Madonna blue and papal gold" - not those of the school itself. The athletic department correctly identifies and explains that the sports teams wear gold and blue, and in that order - UND Athletics. Now, the heraldry of the coat of arms

The Coat of Arms

of the university indeed features Madonna blue and papal gold - those are the colors depicted here. However - the SEAL of the university, included in the infobox, - University Seal||right|150 px|thumb - is the standard gold and blue, neither papal nor Madonna. The visual identity is not representative of the actual colors - the "Madonna blue" has never been worn as athletic colors, nor featured on pennants, nor on diplomas, nor anywhere else I can find or recall except for post-2009 publications. The sports monogram itself -

- is the traditional blue, far closer to navy than Madonna. This error needs to be changed, which I will do when I get a second source in addition to the athletics dept page cited above. Sensei48 (talk) 18:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

No 1944 UND tennis national championship

Notre Dame's tennis team did not win a national championship in 1944. Notre Dame's own contemporary source, The Notre Dame Alumnus, in assessing the spring sports seasons only mentions a "western" championship. There was no NCAA team championship until 1946. The collegiate championship that existed from 1883 to 1945 awarded titles only in singles and doubles. In 1944, Miami and Texas won those titles, which likely led an over-zealous Irish fan to incorrectly deduce that Notre Dame somehow shared a title with those two schools.

Stereotyping

Has there ever been any public discussion or controversy in the United States concerning the insulting stereotyping of the Irish by the slogan "Fighting Irish" and the aggressive leprechaun mascot?

When we were younger, my brother and I in Ireland received gifts from the United States of jackets bearing the slogan "Fighting Irish" in big, block capital letters and we were both too disgusted to accept the well-meaning gifts. My brother was still only a child and yet was smart enough to recognise the problem on sight. They were just too embarrassing to wear. Has no-one in the United States ever been concerned by the issue of pejorative stereotyping by the insulting slogan and mascot? — O'Dea (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

If this is an issue, you'd have to take it up with the University of Notre Dame. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that reports on what is, not what should be. Notre Dame has employed the "Fighting Irish" name and logo for about a century now, and the monniker was attached to them by the sports press. University teams generally called themselves "The Ramblers" in the early years of the 20th century because in many sports they played a national schedule instead of a regional one. However, it is the University itself that uses the name and logo. Objections to it as an inaccurate and insulting stereotype need to be taken up with the school's administration. If the University changes the designation, Wikipedia will report it accurately. Sensei48 (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I should have been clearer. The point of my question was not to protest or complain, rather, I read the article and was surprised not to find any mention of complaints about the motto and mascot. Thus, I wanted to discover if criticism had ever occurred so that it could be added to the article. I would be willing to include it myself, however, I did not find any material about this online after a most casual search, which is puzzling, especially in view of the retirement of sports teams' names and mascots which refer to Native Americans, teams such as the Braves, Blackhawks, Chiefs, Indians, and Redskins. — O'Dea (talk) 01:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification and sorry for my misunderstanding. Anything that I have to say about this is just informal, based on my growing up as an American of Irish ancestry in the 1950s and later and as a student at ND from 1967 - 1971. I've taught American literature in college for more than 40 years, and of course the politics of each era are part of the narrative.

The university itself has a brief discussion of the name here [1]. Most of those of us of Irish descent (I am James Kevin Moran, my father being a Moran-Flaherty hybrid and my mother an O'Connor/Goodrich) realize that the "Fighting Irish" was originally a pejorative, accompanied as it was by the stereotype of "the drunken Irishman" and other assorted negative images of immigrants from Ireland. A good deal of this may be attributable to the overwhelming number of Catholics among the Irish, and anti-Catholicism ran deep in American culture from the arrival of the first English colonizers and on. Other large immigrant groups from Catholic countries like Italy (later 19th century) and Poland (early 20th) faced the same hostility.

Other ethnic stereotypes abounded and were current in popular culture here as late as my 1950s childhood - Italians in America as gangsters and criminals, Jews as parsimonious skinflints, Mexicans as shiftless and lazy, and on and on. In some cases, the negativity of the stereotypes was turned into an admirable trait - A Jewish banker would be careful with your money, or an Italian a steadfast companion in a fight - and an Irish friend might likewise be dependable in a conflict with the WASP majority here (and that is a derogatory acronym from all of us descendants of unwashed Catholic immigrants for "White Anglo-Saxon Protestants", always to be pronounced with upper lip curled into a sneer).

In that context, the "Fighting Irish" moniker was a source of a sort of pride among American Catholics of all ethnicities as the tiny university in the middle of nowhere became a dominant power in American collegiate athletics from about 1910 and ever after. The idea that the Irish in this country would "fight" ceased being the 19th century barroom brawler image and began to be associated with positive role models like Al Smith, crusading New York governor in the 1920s who likely would have been president had he not been Catholic; unionist, radical, and social activist Dorothy Day - and ultimately president John F. Kennedy. The "fight" became one for justice and equality, and Americans of Irish ancestry played major roles in most of the struggles for social justice in the 20th century.

The leprechaun mascot, though, is a typical American misstep. It was adopted relatively recently, only a year or two before I enrolled in 1967. As the university strove mightily to overcome its popular perception as a "football factory" and be recognized as a powerfully influential American institution, the athletic department went out and developed the ridiculous little leprechaun logo. As you note, the Indians and Redskins teams are dumping their insulting logos, and though the Black Hawks, Braves, and Warriors are standing fast for the moment, they are under increasing pressure to change.

I don't think that "Fighting Irish" need be a negative if the university chose a representation that was honorable and not ridiculous. As a folk musician for fifty years, I'd nominate Roddy McCorley or Kevin Barry, but I'd be fine with Pearse or Wolfe Tone as well.

More than you needed to know, I'm sure, and likely not sufficient, but it's a bit of the history behind the name. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 09:08, 11 June 2021 (UTC) Jim Moran

And I just realized that I failed to address one of your key points. In my lifetime there has never been a sense of insult regarding the name, and if there were any time between 1920 when the same became common and 1960 and following where someone objected, I don't know about it. In fact, there's another tale about the name's origin dating to the 1920s that casts "Fighting Irish" in arguably an even more positive light, but it's very late here and I'll get to that tomorrow if need be.Sensei48 (talk) 09:13, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the considered reply. I have lived in both the UK and US and was never the target of any ethnic bigotry in either place (or anywhere on the planet, for that matter). On the contrary, people in both countries were very friendly.

I understand that the place of the Irish in the US has improved enormously since the 1800s so that I can't see that any need survives for a living struggle against anti-Irishism. Indeed, the election of John Kennedy signalled to the Irish in Ireland a long time ago that the US had moved past its former anti-Irish sentiments.

Your description of Irish Americans having adopted the slur "fighting" and deploying it as a positive term appears to mirror how gay people use the word "queer" and black people address each other as "nigga" (while some in the black community dislike that usage).

It has long been clear to me that Irish Americans and Irish people are two very different species so that the slogan "fighting Irish" may seem positive in the US but certainly felt nasty in Ireland. Thanks again. — O'Dea (talk) 15:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello again O'Dea - Just FYI - the first section ("Moniker") here [2] of the Wikipedia article goes into a bit more detail about the name, including the 1924 incident that I was going to relate to you. You'll see again that there was never a controversy about the name as a slur, however startling the name may have been to later immigrant newcomers to this country. I appreciate that that may seem surprising to you, though I think you get to its source well in your reply above about gay people and black Americans turning slurs into self-descriptors.

A further thought - regardless of how Americans of Irish descent (or any other ethnicity, in fact) may think they are claiming connection with the lands of their ancestors, they/we are usually after a couple of generations only aware of the flat and stereotypical portrayals in mass media. I'd guess that plays a part in all of this as well. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 17:53, 17 June 2021 (UTC)