The news of the tragedy that occurred on the campus of the University of Notre Dame has spread across the globe. The only thing faster than the dissemination of the terrible event was the ignition of the damage control program.
I found the news on the web a couple of hours after the accident. When I went to the university's website, the mass of remembrance had already been set. On the nightly news, the university president spoke in soothing tone of how the boy would be missed. This morning, the university's athletic director is quoted describing how there was nothing irregular about conditions just minutes prior to the accident.
As the father of a boy who is making plans to head off to college, my own response was iterative. I was shocked, and saddened for the child's family. Suspecting what would follow, I began to feel anger and resentment at what I expected...and like clockwork, it began to happen.
The mass of remembrance registered with me as the first cop out: we're heading for church, see how upset we are.
The he will be missed speech is a boatload of bureaucratic bullshit. I told my wife just what the words would be, and "ta-daa", there they were.
The child's initials will be worn on the players' helmets. Again, I told my wife this was a sure thing, a public display to dull the sharp inquisition. It is not my place, and hopefully never will be, but the last thing I would agree to is to allow my child's wasted life to be memorialized, trivialized, by the business that chose to ignore his safety.
When I heard the inevitable he loved Notre Dame, I wanted to scream. Don't love this place. Don't pledge your allegiance. Don't let the responsible people (whomever they may be, whenever they are forced to step forward) wriggle away in a torrent of misplaced emotion. Don't be fooled.
They didn't care about this child. They don't care now. They want to minimize the cost, and they immediately began to move on.
Kickoff is at 2:30 on NBC.
As usual.
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