Manti Te'o: Probably not the world's greatest ever boyfriend

For the love of God, please, someone take the shovel off of Manti Te'o. This hole he is digging is getting so deep there is no way he is going to be able to climb back out of it. You are probably following Te'o attempts to clear his sullied, muddied name by staging bizarre ESPN 'interviews' (they would appear to be 'interviews' along the same lines as a Kim Jong-il Press Release) where no real questions are asked while Manti finds new and interesting ways of making his whole story more confusing.

We will leave you to trawl through the facts and fiction and instead point you in the direction of one pretty damning comment on the unfortunate young man's part.

When asked by ESPN why Manti didn't once visit his dying girlfriend in her time in hospital, Te'o responded, and we quote;

"It never really crossed my mind."

Manti, Manti, Manti. Oh boy. It never really crossed my mind. So on one hand Te'o has told us that he had this incredible connection with a woman, after their eyes met at a Stanford v Notre Dame game (don't even get us started on that!), he even went so far as to tell us he would spend hours on end on the phone with this woman as she lay in the hospital bed, going as far as to stay on the line with her as she slept.

However, visit this poor, terrified, dying girlfriend in hospital? It never really crossed his mind.

Ladies!! Be warned! Even if Manti comes out of this somehow smelling of roses (and goodness is that unlikely right now) this is not the guy your Momma wanted you to date. Get sick, and you will be lucky to get a stuffed teddy bear or chocolates. Life crisis? He's just not bothered!

Ladies, there are always alternatives. There is always, for example, Johnny Football.

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Comments
We love your comments! The communicative back-and-forth is one of the best parts of sports journalism. A couple of quick notes on same. This is a sports blog, and it deals with both the USA and Ireland, hopefully that answers a few questions! Also, your opinion is greatly valued, strong ones even more so, but if you revert to personal attacks or any kind of hate speech, your comment will be deleted. Repeat offenders will have their IP address banned.Thanks for all the great feedback to date! 

The curious case of Manti Te'o and Lennay Kekua -- A few questions for Mr Te’o

So first things first, we have to clear a little business out of the way. Regular readers of this column will recall a certain Heisman trophy winner being dragged through the mud for basically being of apparent poor character. Well now, Johnny Football doesn’t come across too bad now, does he?! It takes a big man to say sorry, and, Johnny Football, I am sorry. You are definitely not the least reputable character amongst that Heisman class.

No, that dubious title now belongs firmly to Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o.

Last night the Internet almost exploded under the weight of the Manti Te’o story. You could literally hear it creaking. The story is that this past season many of us (basically almost all of us) believed fully that Notre Dame’s dominant linebacker Manti Te’o played out his magnificent personal season with the heavy weight of the death of both his grandmother and his girlfriend hanging over him. Some few people were aware there were cracks in the story around his supposed girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, the majority of us found out the depth and severity of those cracks last night.

There is no such actual human being as Lennay Kekua.

 Lennay Kekua: Never existed

Incredibly, it would appear either Manti Te’o or a team of crack hoax organisers that Te’o and his father Brian Te’o are blaming for the controversy were able to create a human being that Manti Te’o dated and grieved over, and that the entire main stream sports reporting media of the United States bought hook line and sinker.

It would appear that it is not just Donald Trump that struggles to obtain facts, like believable birth certificates, in Hawaii.

Whatever about the facts of the matter, which are still few and far between and often confused, there are enormous, gaping holes in the logic behind Teo’s story that he is victim of a hoax. The crazed race to find the real ‘facts’ behind all this is like a side story from the movie The Usual Suspects, you half expect the name Kaizer Soze to pop up somewhere beside the name Lennay Kekua. You almost need to cut everything else out and look at the issues around much of what Manti has said in the last 24 hours but most of all in the past couple of years, to fully understand the insanity behind all of this. 

Read more: Manti Te’o Notre Dame hoax is like an episode from ‘The Twilight Zone’

Say we take it that Manti is telling the truth, and he is just a poor young student athlete caught up in an elaborate hoax, well even then, there are gigantic gaps in the logic behind his supposed story. Consider the below for yourself. Obviously the main factor is that Manti and his father in particular have at very best lied in the past about actually physically meeting this alleged girlfriend. At best, Manti is a complete and utter idiot. At worst? Manti and possibly his father are an integral part of the hoax.

Let’s have a look through the problems in Manti’s alibi.

A couple of questions ‘From the Bleachers’ would like to ask Mr Manti Te’o

• Manti, we are sorry for your loss. A few questions for you, however. Notre Dame's athletic director Jack Swarbrick said you had learned of the hoax in early December. If that's the case then why are the public learning about it in late January? Is there a particular reason for this, other than a desperate attempt to play out the season without this controversy arising?
• Manti, Mr Swarbick has outlined how you told him that when you were at the ESPN awards on December 6th you received a phone call from a woman whose phone number matched Lennay Kekua's. He is widely quoted as saying "When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same voice he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead." Manti, our question is, why did you wait until December 26th to inform your coaches of the hoax? Why did you wait three weeks to reveal the alleged hoax?
• Something that is really troubling us today Manti, it was reported by Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel that you would phone your sick girlfriend in her hospital room and you would dutifully stay on the line with her for hours on end as she slept through the night. A quote from the interview "Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice," Well Manti, what relatives? Where are they? Also, what hoax organiser has the time to pretend to be in a hospital bed and stay on phone with anyone, even the great Manti Te’o all night? We have all played a few pranks in our time, I may have called a friend’s house once pretending to be the Police but after 3 minutes myself and my buddies were on the floor laughing. Hours and hours of sitting on the phone with someone as they slept? Phone hoax’s just don’t last that long. So, are you lying, or embellishing the facts perhaps? Or did that call ever take place?
• ESPN senior columnist Gene Wojciechowski is on record as saying he couldn't find an obituary for your supposed lady friend Lennay Kekua. He also couldn't find any records about a car accident. These should have been obvious red flags, and because of this Mr Wojciechowski asked if he could contact Lennay's family. Why did you say they would prefer not to be contacted? Why did you tell Wojciechowski  the Lennay family didn’t want any further pictures of Lennay circulated also? Manti, if this was all a hoax, who on earth are you talking about? What family members? Who, exactly? If this is a hoax, why were the pretend girlfriends pretend family contacting you to tell you to tell the press to back off?
• Manti, the South Bend Tribune (story now removed) said you and your girlfriend supposedly locked eyes after the Notre Dame and Stanford game in 2009. The same paper later wrote that your father, Brian, said Kekua sometimes travelled to Hawaii to see you, though the family had never met her. I assume you know what we’re going to ask next Manti, basically, which is it, are you lying about having locked eyes with this supposed girlfriend, to make your college football career sound cooler, or is there something deeper and darker going on?
• Manti, back to that South Bend Tribune article, in it you were quoted as saying that you and your girlfriend met November 28th 2009 after Stanford's 45-38 victory over Notre Dame in Palo Alto, according to the South Bend Tribune: "Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes." Further to this you told the paper that Kekua, allegedly a Stanford student, physically gave you her phone number. Hey, you know what’s coming, right? If this is all a hoax, then how did all this physical interaction happen? You need to either explain that, or admit that you lied your backside off to the media.
• Manti, your Dad Brian told the Tribune in 2012 that "Every once in a while, she (alleged girlfriend) would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there." Manti why would your Dad lie about this? Or did you lie to him about it? Which is it?
• Finally, and we’re kind of angry about this one, after your hoax, virtual, alleged girlfriend died, you came out with this heart wrenching quote; "All she wanted was some white roses. So I sent her roses and sent her two picks along with that." – Manti, and we really want a straight, honest answer from you on this one, Manti, where did those flowers go? Where did you send them? To what physical address? 

You know what, you feel like you need a shower after considering all of the above.

What are we being left with, currently? Is this all a hoax created by friends of Manti's , as some kind of cruel joke? Was Lance Armstrong involved (to divert attention from him!)? Did an Alabama alumni foresee that Notre Dame would provide the final hurdle to the BCS and create this heinous hoax?

Possibly one of the few shreds left to Manti is that there is another way of looking at this. This is Manti te'o's private life. No crime (at least none we are aware of as yet) has been committed by Manti. Other than the curiosity of the public, Manti owes nobody an apology on any legal grounds.

The big problem of course is if this is a hoax, and if he is a victim, well then Manti has told a whole mess of lies.

So what are we left with?

First, Manti Te’o has to get in front of this and either a) explain why he said he physically met his ‘girlfriend’ on several occasions (if she was a hoax) or b) come clean and spill the entire beans on this ridiculous story.

There is another group that has some explaining to. The journalists who merrily reported on Kekua graduating from Stanford, the journalists who reported on Manti meeting with his ‘girlfriend’ on those occasions, the journalists who reported on her ‘death’, they have a lot of explaining to do. Have the upper levels of journalism really experienced that level a drop in journalists standards, analysis and fact checking, that a website like Deadspin is the authority on this completely insane story?

The final possibility is that President Obama created this hoax in his spare time between planning to take away all the guns that honest hard working Americans have been hoarding and further plans to change the state flag of Texas to that of Mexico.  Of course, we have no way of knowing if that is true or not. It could be. It might not be. We're just asking questions.

Questions the journalists who had access to Manti all season long should have asked.

What a mess.

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Comments
We love your comments! The communicative back-and-forth is one of the best parts of sports journalism. A couple of quick notes on same. This is a sports blog, and it deals with both the USA and Ireland, hopefully that answers a few questions! Also, your opinion is greatly valued, strong ones even more so, but if you revert to personal attacks or any kind of hate speech, your comment will be deleted. Repeat offenders will have their IP address banned.Thanks for all the great feedback to date! 

Objectification of Katherine Webb shows just how far behind the times US sporting media has fallen

The BCS bowl game Monday night sadly was not what you would call compelling viewing. For Notre Dame fans the writing must have been on the wall as the teams came out of the tunnel, and they suffered that scary moment of realisation that hits all teams from high school up through college. ‘Damn, those guys are huge!’.

The game was such a non-contest that the commentary team’s minds and mouths wandered. Brent Musburger and his broadcast partner Kirk Herbstreit decided to add some commentary to camera shots of AJ McCarron's girlfriend Katherine Webb. You know what, you be the judge. Here’s the video.



So, we hate to be ‘that’ guy, but, seriously? To borrow a well-worn and still hilarious phrase from Monday Night Football, C’mon man! Scarily, there has been little or no reaction from the media or the public, other than people laughing it off, excusing Musburger on the basis of his age, or worse yet, agreeing with his frankly disgraceful comments. To their credit, ESPN has admitted that the commentary was at the very least over the top. Their comment; "However, we apologise that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that."

For me this doesn’t go far enough. Not even close.

Musburger’s comments would have been at home in the 1950s when women were meant to stay at home, make the dinner and look pretty. His comments were the worst kind of passive-aggressive crap that may sound inoffensive at first to some, but when you think about it, his behaviour is the worst kind of sexist bullying that we would never like any women that are in our lives to be subjected to. It doesn’t matter that Ms Webb has gracefully brushed the comments off. The inane, archaic and blatantly sexist comments affect far more women than just herself. If you can’t see the problem with the comments, then you may as well stop reading now, as you and I are not going to agree on this.

The main problem is how Musburger objectified Ms Webb. His comments basically suggested that she was nothing more than something nice to look at, a painting on the wall, a sculpture, whatever. Worse yet, if you think about it, his further recommendation that ‘’ If you're a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with pops’’ seems to be suggesting that you too can obtain a woman by doing that. You can get yourself one too!! Are we talking about watches here, or iPads or something? Musburger is guilty of the worst kind of sexist objectification. Just because he didn’t use any sexual slang or expletives doesn’t mean his comments weren’t sexist. 

''You too could own a Katherine Webb!!'' Brent Musburger

Most professionals who have to analyse and deal with sexism on a daily basis would have a field day with Musburger’s sexist comments. To the rest of us, they should at the very least be uncomfortable and perhaps leave us considering how we interact with the women in our lives on a daily basis.

Sadly, the Internet is reacting exactly how you would expect the Internet to react. The comments range from the confused ‘I don’t see what’s wrong here?!’ to the completely offensive ‘I would have said much worse!’ Those muddled fools are displaying exactly the cowardly bravado you would expect from the anonymity of the Internet. Here’s hoping that’s not actually how they think.

Going back to the ESPN reaction for a minute, and their tepid comment which seems to be agreeing with common decency, that Musburger’s sexist reaction was not OK. Is it enough for them to release said luke-warm statement? ESPN just sacked Rob Parker for inflammatory comments about race. Is race a more serious matter than sexism? Furthermore, is the US sporting media that archaic, stale and broken that is really is not going to react at all as an entity (I can’t find one single article anywhere on any sports site chastising Musburger)?

Take ESPN’s frankly minimal reaction to that of Sky Sports in England, when a similar controversy broke in 2011. Richard Keys and Andy Gray were the biggest soccer commentary team possibly in all of Europe, and both were sacked immediately in the aftermath of a controversy that saw them make sexist comments about a female official that were picked up on air. Gray’s comment in particular was very similar to Musburger’s seemingly senile ramblings. At the time, Gray said; "Can you believe that? A female linesman. Women don’t know the offside rule." Sky Sports acted immediately, sacking the two for that and other comments, and were almost unanimously applauded for doing so.

Why is it not OK in the UK and Ireland to make sexist comments to a wide audience, but, it would appear it is OK to do so in the USA? None of the fallout from this is funny, or acceptable. In this day and age we should not be accepting the objectification of a gender, male or female.

If you are one of the idiotic luddites who is laughing at this and boldly declaring ‘I don’t see what the problem is?!’, well consider for a second that it was your mother, sister, wife or girlfriend being salivated over by what sounded frankly like a disgusting old pervert, picture that and ask yourself, is that OK? Are you cool with that?

Completely unacceptable behaviour for anyone, and particularly for a senior ESPN analyst.

Let’s see if there is any further fallout, or if ESPN are going to play double-standards, and sack Rob Parker for a race related comment, while basically only slapping the wrists of Musburger.

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Barkley injury opens the door for The Fighting Irish

With another dominant win, this time blasting past over-matched Wake Forest, Notre Dame marched a little closer towards its first National title since 1988. With some dramatic news following USC’s capitulation to UCLA, that march became a full on charge. Word has come out that USC Quarterback Matt Barkley will not be able to face The Fighting Irish after injuring his shoulder against UCLA. The injury is being reported as a sprained AC joint in his right shoulder and is serious enough that Trojans coach Lane Kiffin has already ruled him out of the game against Notre Dame.

Kiffin has also confirmed that the immortal Max Wittek will take Barkley’s place. Wittek has never started a collegiate game.

What this means is that all that stands in the way of Notre Dame finishing the regular season unbeaten and advancing to the National title game is a downtrodden team fresh off a 28-38 beat-down and led by a QB who has completed 8-of-9 passes thus far in his entire college ‘career’. USC have been a relative flop this season (once holding the number one spot in the BCS standings), and basically have nothing to play for next weekend. Notre Dame on the other hand, will be taking the field knowing their destiny is in their hands. One more win and they go to the big dance.

Manti Te'o and his defensive colleagues must be frothing at the mouth, waiting to get their hands on Wittek.

It should be noted that while this is obviously incredibly good fortune for Notre Dame, Barkley deserved better. If you recall, he did not enter the NFL draft last season instead choosing to finish off his education and complete his senior year with his team mates in USC. The good news for Barkley is, he will still be drafted high up the board as he has all the skills needed at the next level. There are plenty of clowns out there who will stab at this and say ‘he should have left college’ (and entered the draft) but what they are missing is Barkley will finish his education and his final year at school will stand to him the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, next Saturday Notre Dame have a chance to make history and make their way to the BCS title game.

That path just got a little bit easier with this unfortunate news.

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Can Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o win the Heisman Trophy?

Just a handful of weeks ago a big, popular website scoffed openly at the potential of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o winning the Heisman Trophy, deriding the journalist who dared to suggest the possibility. Well, now that same website looks (even more so than usual) pretty stupid, as all the biggest sporting sites are openly discussing and indeed suggesting the validity of the young man’s candidacy.

Whisper it quietly, but Manti Te'o could just very well become the first defensive player to win the Heisman trophy since Charles Woodson. Manti’s play speaks for itself, as do his defensive statistics. 80 tackles in itself shows what kind of a demon he is on the field.

Obviously, the award is heavily weighted towards offensive players, to use that ugly old refrain, chicks dig touchdowns. However, as evidenced by the sheer weight of volume of text being put forth towards a Te’o win, it appears he really, legitimately is in with a shot.

Looking around the wide expanses of the World Wide Web, it is truly astonishing to see the growth of support for the fierce defender. First the best news. The ESPN fan ballot has Manti crushing it. Absolutely crushing it.

You do of course have to take that with a pinch of salt. That’s just fan voting and relative busts like Matt Barkley are still polling 5% because of the vagaries of said style of voting. The ESPN experts poll is probably a better measure of his actual chances, and they have him at number two, behind Kansas State QB Colin Klein.  This is of course still very respectable

USA Today is perhaps less kind to Manti, and has him second, with 23 second place votes, again behind Klein who has a whopping 35 first place votes.

Sports Illustrated also has Te’o at the two spot.

What appears obvious is that thanks to The Fighting Irish’s incredible run of success this season, Te’o is right there in the spotlight, and is seriously being touted as a possible Heisman winner. The problem is basically Collin Klein. The logical answer to the question whether Te’o can take the award or not, is that basically Klein needs to submit a couple of stinkers.

If Te’o can keep his performance levels at the lofty heights they are right now, and if he can perhaps chip in a couple more flashy plays, and if Klein slips even just a little bit, Te’o could very well be that rarity of rarities.

A defensive Heisman trophy winner.

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Notre Dame go to 8-0 but, is it all in vain?

Notre Dame appear to have something cooking this season. Defying pre-season expectations they have beaten all comers culminating in an impressive 30-13 win over Oklahoma last night, on the road, no less. Everett Golson threw for 177 yards and dove for the decisive 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. They got some serious help on the defensive side too. Just a few weeks ago some idiotic websites scoffed openly at the chance of Manti Te'o winning the Heisman, well now bigger, national sites are commenting that the young man bolstered his Heisman Trophy candidacy with a late interception. That's right, bolstered.

Notre Dame would appear to be, as they say, legit.

Here's the problem. The possibility remains of this incredible season being eventually measured as having been basically for naught, lost in the quagmire of the usual vitriolic debate over how College football should award its winners.

The fact to bear in mind here is the switch to the much anticipated playoff system doesn't come into force until next season. That means that even if Notre Dame run the table, and beats (in order) Pittsburgh, Boston College, Wake Forest and USC (on the road), the chances are they are not going to be playing for the National Championship.

How can we suggest that with such confidence?

Easy.

Alabama, Kansas and Oregon are all now 8-0 after impressive weekend wins, and are ranked higher than Notre Dame in the BCS standings. Kansas have beaten three ranked teams, including their last two victories. and have a relatively easy run-in on their schedule. Kansas should finish 12-0. If Alabama survives next week's battle with LSU, they should also finish 12-0.

Oregon faces perhaps the toughest run in, on paper at least, however USC and Stanford are not the forces they once were, and California should be easily swiped aside. Oregon's last game against Oregon State will probably decide whether they go 12-0 or not.

The bottom line is, at least two of those three should finish 12-0, and even if The Fighting Irish beat their own last four opponents, they most likely will not be playing for the National Championship.

Up to now, many great college teams have lost out of playing for the National Championship thanks to the antiquated, out-dated and frankly farcical old BCS format. Thankfully from next season four teams will have a chance to battle it out, in what should provide excellent, dramatic viewing for us the fans.

Sadly, that will most likely come a season too late for this Notre Dame squad.

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A retort to Rick Blaine who, ahead of the Notre Dame v Navy game, says Europe is not interested in Football

It is merely a couple of sleeps until kick off between Notre Dame and Navy in the college football game in Dublin this coming weekend. All around Ireland and indeed Europe the anticipation is building. Naturally, as we say here in Ireland, ‘There’s always one!’ meaning, there is always someone who is unhappy with the situation, despite everyone else looking forward to, in this case, the big game. Step forward Mr Rick Blaine, a writer for Yahoo, who penned this angry article proclaiming that the game is only going ahead as a ‘merchandising’ exercise.

To further anger the Notre Dame faithful, Blaine has also suggested the Fighting Irish could be in for an upset against Navy

Naturally, it goes without saying that Mr Blaine is entirely entitled to his own opinion, and if he doesn’t think the game should be played anywhere but the USA, well, good for him. Unfortunately, he uses a completely erroneous statement as the main basis of his assault on the decision to play the game here in Ireland. Blaine says, and we quote;

''Europe has shown little interest in American football, no matter how hard the NFL tried to force it on them.''

Woah, woah, woah. Hang on a second there. With all due respect to Mr Blaine, this is an incredibly stupid comment. I say that with authority. Stupid. There is an enormous fan base for Football American style in Ireland and the rest of Europe. It has been growing steadily since the 1980s and the NFL in particular is one of the most popular sports in Europe not called ‘soccer’.

Let’s delve a little deeper than Rick chose to.

First of all, and on a most basic level, the game on Saturday is sold out, and has been for the best part of a year. If Lennon and Harrison came back to life and the Beatles reformed, the tickets for their first gig would only be marginally harder to get than for this game. People in Ireland have been trying for months to get them, and there is absolutely none left. The game is being played at a shiny new Aviva Stadium, however it could easily have been played at the much bigger Croke Park, they could have sold the home of the GAA out twice, without any great difficulty.

That fact in itself should be some indicator as to the public excitement about the game here in Ireland.

Furthermore, football is all over Irish, English and European television. It has become one of the most popular sports to gamble on, a fact that illustrates in dollar figures how popular the sport has become over here. Everywhere you go there are NFL and college jerseys worn by fans all over Ireland, the UK and Europe. Sky Sports, the biggest sports station in Ireland and the UK, has several live games weekly. Last season Chanel 4 showed the Monday night games, and there are countless football related programs on ESPN and ESPN America. College football basically takes over the ESPN America schedule on weekends.

Everywhere you go in Ireland and mainland Europe, football is front and center in terms of popularity amongst sports fans.

Further to this, football is being played by tens of thousands across Ireland, the UK and Europe.

  Notre Dame players relaxing with a
giant chess set at their Irish hotel

There is a huge league in the UK, played out by thousands of weekend warriors, with a passionate and knowledgeable fan-base. Sky Sports, to its credit, takes an active interest in same, and frequently shows highlights from the games, and the quality of these is often praised by visiting American coaches and players. Germany has a massive league, which I believe is actually semi-professional, some players earning money out of it, the popularity and standard of play is that high.

Mr Blaine’s comment was not only flagrantly incorrect, it was also very poorly researched. A Basic level of same on the Internet might have suggested to him that there might be more to European American Football than has, to date, met his eyes. Take for example this simple list of teams in Europe. Take a quick look at it. There are hundreds. Look at Germany and France in particular. They themselves have dozens, each!

There are twenty American football teams in Denmark, for example.

We can only wish Mr Blaine had even taken a cursory glance at, for example, the German, British and Irish American football official web pages, before he wrote his regrettable and frankly insulting comment.

The Irish American Football league is a thing of beauty. It is a combative, passionate and talented league, with a very high standard of play. I can vouch for the ferocity of the defense and tackling personally, having played QB for the DCU Saints (now basically merged with the Rhinos) for three years. Let’s just say, those boys can freaking hit. We had some incredible players on defense in particular, guys like Eoin ‘Foxy’ Fox, Joe Carlyle, Connor Sullivan and Irish American Football legends Dave Rothwell and the late, very great, Steve Christian. The team was littered with passionate, knowledgeable and talented football players. In my first season with the Saints we made the playoffs and enjoyed several literally life affirming, uplifting moments, games and wins.

It is an insult to me personally, it is an insult to hundreds of football players in Ireland, and an insult to tens of thousands of football players across Europe. It is an insult to thousands of football fans in Ireland and an insult to hundreds of thousands of football fans across Europe to say anything less than the sport is huge over here, and growing still.

Myself and a few buddies held our annual NFL fantasy draft this week. In a Dublin bar, no less. That's right, fantasy football, in Europe, Mr Blaine. On the way home my good friend Andy said he was going to go to the Lansdowne area (where the game will be) on Saturday, without a ticket (because, if you recall, they are impossible to get), just to soak up the experience. What Andy was tapping into there was the fact there has been a tangible, exciting ‘buzz’ growing across Ireland for over a year now for this game. It is swelling from the ground level up, and the infusion of support, passion and color from the States, combined with the ground-swell of excitement that has been building here, should lead to a great spectacle on Saturday.

Here’s hoping Mr Blaine not only enjoys the game, but perhaps also comes to appreciate just why it is taking place here in Ireland.

Who knows, maybe the football loving European fans might even get an apology.

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Wexford Notre Dame fan shows his pride with Irish tattoo

With Notre Dame coming over to play Navy in Dublin, Ireland this summer, there will be plenty of Irish fans making the trip over. Funny thing is, there are plenty of them here already. They are a pretty passionate bunch too.

Take for example 37 year old father of five Michael Kavanagh from Wexford. 'Iron' Mike is a devout Irish fan who has been following Notre Dame and American football in general since back in 1989. He literally never misses an Irish game, and has been looking forward to the team coming to Ireland since the trip was announced.

Mike had always wanted to represent his passion for Irish football more visually, and with Saint Patrick's day coming up, decided to pull the trigger. He designed a tattoo of the famous interlocking ND in the middle of a traditional Shamrock design.

While this was definitely an unusual request at ''The Screaming canvas'' tattoo parlour in New Ross, they did a fantastic job on it.

Mike fell in love with the history and tradition of Notre Dame football at an early age and, like many college football fans in Ireland, felt a connection to the Fighting Irish that grew in the 80's and 90's into a strong bond. Whilst Mike is excited about this coming season for the Irish, he admits he says that every pre-season!

When I asked him if he was 'pumped' for the forthcoming season, he said;

''Very much so but then again i've been saying that going into every season for a long time now. With Manti Te'o and Jamoris Slaughter returning on defence and Tyler Eifert on offence I expect big things.''

'Iron' Mike summed up the feelings of all the Irish and NCAA football fans in Ireland about the forthcoming game by adding;

''Besides how can I not be excited with being able to see them practically in my back yard!''

Links.

• Contact Cormac
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