Paul Hornung is no stranger to bad judgment.
In 1963, at the height of his career as the Green Bay Packers' Golden Boy, Hornung was suspended by the National Football League for gambling on pro football games.
Forty years later, Hornung suffered another lapse of judgment that could cost his alma mater, Notre Dame, dearly.
During a radio interview in Detroit on Tuesday night, Hornung, frustrated by a losing season at Notre Dame, said that the university needed to lower its academic standards so more black athletes could play there.
In the interview with WXYT-AM as reported by The Associated Press, Hornung said: "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 athletes. We must get the black athletes if we're going to compete."
By Wednesday afternoon, Hornung was being bombarded by calls.
And the university issued a statement that said: "We strongly disagree with the thesis of his remarks. They are generally insensitive and specifically insulting to our past and current African-American student-athletes."
Hornung's remarks were an insult to every athlete -- black and white -- who ever played for the university, earned a degree and added to its football legend.
There is a long line of former Notre Dame athletes -- Justice Alan Page of the Minnesota Supreme Court comes to mind -- who could surely lecture Hornung about standards.
"I didn't say anything that I thought would be offensive," Hornung said in the phone interview. "That's not what I intended."
Hornung said that if he could make his remarks again, he would not differentiate black and white players. "We need better ball players, black and white, at Notre Dame," he said.
You don't have to lower standards at Notre Dame to get the nation's greatest football players to accept scholarships there. In a more competitive marketplace, you have to do a better job of selling the program.
That has become increasingly difficult to do - not because of its entrance requirements, but because there is no major conference affiliation and thus no glamour conference championship game, and because of a mediocre won-lost record over the last few years. Notre Dame was 5-7 last season and 5-6 in 2001, and the Fighting Irish have not won a national championship in 15 years.
Ultimately, Hornung's ridiculous comments come down to Tyrone Willingham's ability to recruit. Hornung's interpretation of Willingham's hiring in 2002 is that his mission was to get Notre Dame healthy fast by snatching blue-chip athletes from the South -- especially Florida -- and the West. This has not happened.
What really bothers Hornung is that the football program is not raiding the Deep South. At one point in our conversation he asked: "Where are the best football players coming from? Florida."
He noted that not one member of Notre Dame's incoming class of recruits is from Florida.
Do you seriously expect star athletes in Florida, Georgia, Texas to come to South Bend and play for a fading independent? Leave Florida for South Bend?
Notre Dame doesn't have it like that anymore. That has nothing to do with the university's academic reputation but with the pool of elite football powers with whom it competes, like Louisiana State, Oklahoma, Southern California, Michigan.
Hornung said he wasn't demeaning black athletes.
"If anything, I was saying the opposite," Hornung said.
South Korea’s two-goal skipper Son Heung-min said that “not pleasant” comments from opponents China had fired him up to do the business in their FIFA World Cup qualifying clash. The Tottenham Hotspur forward scored twice and set up the third as Jurgen Klinsmann’s side won 3-0 on Tuesday to silence a sell-out home crowd of more than 40,000 in Shenzhen. South Korea have a perfect six points from their opening two qualifying matches for the 2026 World Cup in North America and have scored eight goals, conceding none. “Honestly, when I heard they [the China team and media] were saying they know how
HATS OFF: After Sinner became the first man to beat the Serbian in a singles match at the Davis Cup since 2011, Djokovic said all he could do was congratulate his opponent A “proud” Jannik Sinner on Saturday beat world No. 1 Novak Djokovic twice in one day to send Italy into the Davis Cup final with a 2-1 win over Serbia in Malaga. Italy, who won the trophy for the first and only time in 1976, was yesterday to face 28-time winners Australia. Sinner, who has triumphed three times in four clashes across 11 days against the usually unstoppable Djokovic, crucially kept Italy in the tie by beating the 24-time Grand Slam winner 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 in the second singles rubber. Sinner and Lorenzo Sonego then defeated Djokovic and Miomir Kecmanovic 6-3, 6-4 in
Tokyo’s well-kept streets might not be the most obvious place to do it, but competitive litter-hunters yesterday sifted through the Japanese capital in their first world championship. The Spogomi World Cup featured 21 countries battling it out to collect the most trash within a set time limit, scouring the streets in search of plastic, cigarette butts and other trash. Spogomi founder Kenichi Mamitsuka started to pick up litter on his morning runs and realized that setting targets could turn it into a fun activity. He organized his first competition 15 years ago, taking the title from the words “sport” and “gomi” — Japanese
David Benavidez on Saturday retained the interim world super middleweight belt by stopping Demetrius Andrade after the sixth round, while in Ireland, Katie Taylor avenged her only professional loss by beating Chantelle Cameron in a majority decision to become a two-weight undisputed champion. In what was billed as clash of styles that could go the distance between unbeaten 168-pounders (76.2kg), Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) looked more like a clinician with a dominating performance before Andrade’s corner requested the stoppage after the sixth round in Las Vegas. Andrade (32-1) suffered the first loss of his career. Benavidez is widely recognized as the world’s best
RSS