Notre Dame News - Head coach Kelly

Somebody screwed up, but in this country we are far to quick to assign blame. The person was 20 which means he was an adult. That in my mind means he has responsibility to make decisions. I feel very badly for him, but he decided to go up on the tower. When I was 20, Michael Jordan could have told me to climb a tower and if I did not want to do so, I would have told him to F off.

I understand what you're saying. Technically, a 20 year old IS an adult. My point is, the REAL adults here - the ones in charge - used poor judgment. That's why the ND people aren't talking right now. What they allowed to happen is hard to defend, so it's better to say nothing at all. You can blame that kid all you want, but he never should have been asked to go up in that thing to begin with. Deep down, the ND people know it, so they don't have much to say. You want to call this an accident? That's your opinion. I would call it an act of stupidity, or certainly poor judgment. On this subject, let's just agree that we disagree - nothing personal.

[QUOTE=sean1;31382]Somebody screwed up, but in this country we are far to quick to assign blame. The person was 20 which means he was an adult. That in my mind means he has responsibility to make decisions. I feel very badly for him, but he decided to go up on the tower. When I was 20, Michael Jordan could have told me to climb a tower and if I did not want to do so, I would have told him to F off.[/QUOTE] I think this is a bit unfair of you. You are basically telling a 20 yr old kid that he is supposed to tell the coach of a major college football program to F off and even if he does it nicely he likely gets kicked off the team loses the resulting friends status etc that you and I probably think is stupid but likely meant the world to this kid. He is 20 and he is an adult but I think asking him to stand up to Kelly in this situation is a bit unrealistic. Just my 2 cents.

I agree it was an act of poor judgement, but I don't think you should be fired for not knowing about construction lifts... I highly doubt the coach knows anything about lifts. I would guess the coach, you, I, and most others on this site would not have thought the thing would fall over. The odds of this kid getting toppled and dying has got to be less than 1/1000. People are on those lifts all the time in high winds and you don't read about them falling over all the time. If they fell over all the time they would land on people all the time and they would not be used. 50 mph is not that uncommon. If the coach thought there was any reasonable chance of the thing falling over, its highly unlikely he would have said go up there. It was a freak accident that was not prevented because of bad judgement. I don't think anyone should be fired over this, but I certainly think the NCAA, NFL, etc should put a written rule out to coaches that no one goes on the towers with wind over 25MPH going forward. Hopefully some lives can be saved in the future. -sean

If he was an employee it sure seems like Notre Dame or Kelly would be held liable for telling him to go up there. Little different circumstances here perhaps. It's not unreasonable for the student to assume that Kelly would have more knowledge of the scissor lift if he voiced his concerns and Kelly told him to get up there. And really, Kelly should have been smart enough to figure it out. I think the obvious reason we don't have more accidents like this is because other coaches/assistants etc.. have the commons sense to realize that a 50 foot scissor lift isn't that sturdy.. or read the warnings associated with them.

These things are not meant to be used in winds of over 20 or 28 MPH - I can't remember the exact number. At the ND practice field, they documented gusts of 50 MPH. Even though I know nothing about lifts, if one of my guys has a deadly accident (at my business), you can bet that OSHA would be all over my ass. With all the educated people (no humor intended here) on the ND staff, I can't believe someone doesn't understand a little something about the laws of physics. What happened was not a random "act of God." Being at the top of the hierarchy, Swarbrick and Kelly have some explaining to do - unless there's a big payout (to the kid's family) tied in with a gag order. Then, we may never know the real story here.

He was an employee [QUOTE=Twoniner;31401]If he was an employee it sure seems like Notre Dame or Kelly would be held liable for telling him to go up there. Little different circumstances here perhaps. It's not unreasonable for the student to assume that Kelly would have more knowledge of the scissor lift if he voiced his concerns and Kelly told him to get up there. And really, Kelly should have been smart enough to figure it out. I think the obvious reason we don't have more accidents like this is because other coaches/assistants etc.. have the commons sense to realize that a 50 foot scissor lift isn't that sturdy.. or read the warnings associated with them.[/QUOTE] Kid was an employee. And the earlier suggestion that someone made that this poor kid was an adult and therefore bore some responsibility here was obviously made by someone who has never been around a major college sports program. The coach controls every aspect of everything, and made the judgement to practice outdoors and have those kids go up in the lifts, which are not to be used in winds of 25MPH or higher, and the sustained winds were higher on that day. The AD's "Gee wiz, everything was normal and suddenly this big ole' gust blew up" in the initial press conference was pure spin.

Tressel I understand the frustration with the constant desire to find someone to blame for everything bad that happens. But ND and Kelly were extraordinarily careless here. Read this quote from Tressel in the Dayton Daily News. If Jim Tressel is the coach at Notre Dame, this kid never, ever would have been in that situation. [url]https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/minn-a-homecoming-for-ohio-states-dick-tressel-988742.html[/url] TOWER TRAGEDY: On Tuesday at his weekly news conference, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel remarked to reporters that he was worried about practicing outside later that day because high winds were forecast. He even voiced concern for the camera crews in the stationary towers at the team's practice facility. As a powerful storm blew through Columbus that afternoon, the Buckeyes went through their paces inside. A day later, a 21-year-old Notre Dame student was killed while videotaping the Fighting Irish football team when a strong gust of wind blew over the hydraulic scissors lift he was on. Asked about the Notre Dame tragedy on Thursday, Tressel said that his video coordinator, Mark Quisenberry, watches weather conditions closely because of the effect they have on the guys up in the towers at practice. "Quiz is very adamant in our meetings about, 'Are we going in or are we going out?' 'I'm only putting my tower up 20 feet if we go out.' Those kinds of things," Tressel said. When Ohio State spent $5 million on a redesign of its practice fields last year, it installed permanent towers around the field and eliminated the scissors trucks that it had been using. "Our towers are tested for over 100-mph winds, as opposed to having scissors," Tressel said. Tressel, who swears he knows next to nothing about the internet and technology, said he now consults his iPad when planning for practices, looking up wind strengths and directions. He said steps are taken to protect those filming the practices. "You try to get as safe as you can," he said. "The wind is a scary thing when you're up there."

Blaming everyone but oneself is what is wrong with this country.

I agree with your statement (in general), but it doesn't apply here. Are you saying this kid was primarily responsible for his own death? It's not like they asked for volunteers and he said "I'll do it." Directly OR indirectly, Swarbrick and Kelly are responsible for the things that happen. They make the big money. They call the shots. When this kid was told to go up in the scissors lift, I don't think he had the option to say no - not if he wanted to stay with the team in some capacity.