To the Notre Dame Fans
To the Notre Dame fans who booed their football players and pelted them with snowballs:
Shame on you.
The fact that the snowballs were coming from the student section appalls me even more.
You shouldn’t call yourselves fans any more. Fans don’t stick with the team during the good days, and then mistreat them on the bad. Fans don’t throw things at their players.
You love your team. You love your team when they’re massacring the other guys, and you’re supposed to love them when they’re losing. How can you expect them to even want to play anymore, after you threw things at them?
No one said it was easy, sticking to your team when they’re not playing well. And it’s hard to hold your head up when the other team and their fans are cheering. But for the men who train for you, who work for you, who represent you and who play for you…they do not deserve snowballs and jeers.
If you’re showing up for games, I already know you love your team. No one sits still in the freezing cold for hours to watch something they don’t love. That kind of thing – snow, sleet, wind - doesn’t matter to you. You can bet it doesn’t matter to them, either.
What does matter to them is you. They play for you. They live for your screams, your cheers, your love. And to turn on them when they needed you the most…the team didn’t betray you, Notre Dame fans. You betrayed the team.
Notre Dame fans have disappointed me today.
