ND Rap Video elicits letter

Notre Dame Outdoes Super Bowl Shuffle3

4/30/2010 11:49 AM ET By John Walters

John Walters
College Football Writer
To: Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C., President, University of Notre Dame
From: John Walters, '88
Re: Ever Being Able to Wear ND Gear in Public Again


Dear Fr. Jenkins,

Hasn't the Class of 2010 suffered enough? Four straight losses to USC. Two home losses to Navy. The 3-9 season. A first-round NCAA tournament loss to Old Dominion (which, okay, if it were women's hoops, would not be so awful) before half the student body had even woken up that day. And now, just a week or so before graduation, this video, which we've also embedded later in this letter along with some other reviews of the thing.


There needs to be an investigation. Isn't this exactly what the NCAA means by the term "lack of institutional control"? I've watched many a disturbing video in the past decade (the Zapruder film, those Sarah McLachlan animal-cruelty ads, Miss Teen South Carolina's "U.S. Americans" response), but this tops them all. Or bottoms them.

Honestly, Padre, whither the self-inflicted wound? This is like a fragging incident without the live ammo. If I'm Lane Kiffin I open every press conference next season with this tune.

My editor sent me a link to this video on Friday morning, warning me that it was disturbing news related to Notre Dame. Before opening the link, I was a'feared the video might contain incriminating footage of a certain head coach with a certain former South Bend anchor woman. If only it had been that tame.

Fr. Jenkins, you're an alum. Please tell me this is a joke. Please tell me this is an hilarious outtake from The Keenan Revue and you thought it would be fun to release as a social media experiment. Please tell me you're deaf.

Losing at home to Syracuse...and Pitt..and UConn...and Air Force...and of course the aforementioned Midshipmen (twice!) the past three years provided more than enough "laughing-stock" fodder for the rest of the country. But this--this is like finding out that Charlie Weis stayed up late watching game film in a Snuggie (and I wouldn't put it past him).

I don't even want to get into the details: The pilfering of the bass line from Morris Day and the Time's "Jungle Love." The white rap interlude from someone who appears to be the president of the Notre Dame Young Republicans (I know, redundant). The Mike Golic and Brian Kelly cameos. When Appalachian State's promotional video is better than yours, that's just sad.

Seriously, how many verbal decommits will it take before Notre Dame disassociates itself from this unbearable whiteness of being? Even "Up With People" is laughing at this video. Suddenly "The Super Bowl Shuffle" doesn't seem so abominable. The Vatican just this morning released a statement that read, "We acknowledge, accept full blame and express the deepest remorse for decades of improper behavior regarding altar boys, but we had nothing to do with the Freakbass video."

The reviews are already shaking down like thunder:

"If ND can land Manti Te'o in a snowstorm, Irish recruiting can survive this."
--Bruce Feldman, ESPN.com

"If ND leaders had any hand in this, I take back any nice things I said about them in today's column."
--Andy Staples, SI.com

"I like Freekbass' early stuff, but he's just getting too commercial now."
--Brian Hamilton, Chicago Tribune

"You can tell that this is a Notre Dame music video because it has no hot girls, just a lot of cute ones."
--Dave Fink, Dillon Hall, '88

"Dear Dude who punched out Jimmy Clausen: I have another job for you. Holler back."
--Me

I'm trying to imagine the meeting in which this video got the green light.

"Let's do a music video to promote Notre Dame because, you know, we just never seem to get any attention."
"Great idea! Let's get U2. They're Irish. They're Catholic. And I've been watching ESPN lately and they seem to be into that whole football thing."
"I don't think we can afford U2."
"Who can we afford?"
"Are you familiar with the funk stylings of...Freekbass?"

Earlier this month a few Purdue students conjured up a video that went viral entitled "Boobquake". They do Boobquake and we do this? Somewhere Jim Delany is laughing and re-thinking the wisdom of inviting Notre Dame to join the Big Ten.

Fr. Jenkins, we all have our moments of embarrassment associated with Notre Dame. Two of my friends once penned -- and sent- - a letter to a female high school basketball player from Iowa who appeared in Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" imploring her to attend our fine institution (she did not). Another buddy handed in a term paper that began, "Moses was a very historic man." I may (or may not) have appeared on the front page of The Observer taking a nap in the library as spittle dropped from my lip.

But we were young...and subsisting on a diet of Meisterbrau and Doritos. What's the administration's excuse?

I'd like to think that this is my alma mater's nadir. I'd like to think that. But then I imagine Digger Phelps dancing to this tune next season accompanied by two extremely uncomfortable cheerleaders and I realize that the worst is yet to come.

PS I wont link it. You'll have to find it yourself. I am not responsible. ABT