BleedGopher
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2008
- Messages
- 60,698
- Reaction score
- 15,935
- Points
- 113
per the Wall Street Journal:
It may not have been Bobby Thomson’s home run, or the Rumble in the Jungle, or even Michael Jordan’s 63 points against Boston in 1986. But the October 1988 showdown between the undefeated University of Miami and undefeated Notre Dame is one of those moments real sports fans remember. They remember where they were. Where they lived. They certainly remember the score.
So the fact that ESPN’s “Catholics vs. Convicts” achieves such a high degree of drama—despite being about one of the more infamous games in the history of college football—is saying something. Even those who don’t know what’s going to happen can sense what’s coming. And yet director Patrick Creadon creates, and maintains, tension. (Note: The plot spoiler of all time was in the title of Kevin Rafferty’s 2008 football documentary—“Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.” Yet it too remains a bona-fide thriller.)
As he tells it, the unbridled loathing between the two schools dated to November 1985, when Gerry Faust—who had already announced his retirement and would be coaching his last game at Notre Dame—brought his woebegone Fighting Irish to meet the vastly superior Hurricanes of Miami. Encouraged by their coach—current Fox sportscaster Jimmy Johnson—Miami players piled on, ran up the score, jeered at Notre Dame from the sidelines and displayed what several of the film’s interviewees recall as no class whatsoever. The final score: 58-7.
Why would Mr. Johnson purposely humiliate a colleague at the end of his career? It’s a question that goes unanswered in any direct way, though Mr. Creadon does cover a lot of other territory, including the various intersections in the lives and careers of coaches and players. Steve Walsh, for instance, a Catholic boy who played high-school ball virtually in Notre Dame’s backyard, was overlooked by that college and went on to play at Miami. Mr. Faust’s successor, Lou Holtz, had gotten the job Jimmy Johnson wanted at his alma mater, Arkansas.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/30-for-...cts-review-gripping-gridiron-drama-1481228994
Go Gophers!!
It may not have been Bobby Thomson’s home run, or the Rumble in the Jungle, or even Michael Jordan’s 63 points against Boston in 1986. But the October 1988 showdown between the undefeated University of Miami and undefeated Notre Dame is one of those moments real sports fans remember. They remember where they were. Where they lived. They certainly remember the score.
So the fact that ESPN’s “Catholics vs. Convicts” achieves such a high degree of drama—despite being about one of the more infamous games in the history of college football—is saying something. Even those who don’t know what’s going to happen can sense what’s coming. And yet director Patrick Creadon creates, and maintains, tension. (Note: The plot spoiler of all time was in the title of Kevin Rafferty’s 2008 football documentary—“Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.” Yet it too remains a bona-fide thriller.)
As he tells it, the unbridled loathing between the two schools dated to November 1985, when Gerry Faust—who had already announced his retirement and would be coaching his last game at Notre Dame—brought his woebegone Fighting Irish to meet the vastly superior Hurricanes of Miami. Encouraged by their coach—current Fox sportscaster Jimmy Johnson—Miami players piled on, ran up the score, jeered at Notre Dame from the sidelines and displayed what several of the film’s interviewees recall as no class whatsoever. The final score: 58-7.
Why would Mr. Johnson purposely humiliate a colleague at the end of his career? It’s a question that goes unanswered in any direct way, though Mr. Creadon does cover a lot of other territory, including the various intersections in the lives and careers of coaches and players. Steve Walsh, for instance, a Catholic boy who played high-school ball virtually in Notre Dame’s backyard, was overlooked by that college and went on to play at Miami. Mr. Faust’s successor, Lou Holtz, had gotten the job Jimmy Johnson wanted at his alma mater, Arkansas.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/30-for-...cts-review-gripping-gridiron-drama-1481228994
Go Gophers!!
