According to Hawaii Football Coach… hold on, I have to look this up… Greg McMackin, the night before the Hawaii Bowl last season, the ND and Hawaii squads took part in a ceremony during which the Hawaii squad did the completely bad-ass Haka, of which you can see a performance by the “All Blacks” in the video below.
*Remember, these are Ruby Players, so this is scary and intimidating. If you and I were doing this, it would be neither scary, nor intimidating.
Not wanting to be outdone, Charlie Weis explained that at Notre Dame, the players “do something special.”
Um, now, we don’t have any video or any idea of what that “something special” might be. We don’t believe we’ve seen it. But the ND players and coaches must think it’s pretty awesome if they’re willing to put it up against The Haka. Greg McMackin, on the other hand, did not think it was “awesome.” No. He thought (and said) something else entirely.
They get up and do this little cheer. Like this … little fa**ot dance. You remember, Jason and Steven. The guys were all looking and trying not to laugh. I gave them the …
Those ellipses are a direct quote of McMackin trailing off of his line of thought and remembering, moments too late, that he doesn’t live in 1950s South Carolina, but 2009 Hawaii, complete with all the furnishings of Twitter, the Internets, and modern society. Before he could even get this next line out to the 12 reporters attending WAC Media Day, we all knew what he’d said…
don’t write that ‘fa**ot’ down. I was misquoted. Anyway, I give them the shaka. So our guys get up, and it was the best haka I’ve ever seen. They’re on their chairs. They had beads on, they’re ripping the beads off. It was a little scary. I think Notre Dame watched that and said ‘we better have ourselves ready.’
Such a shame, really. Because in all likelihood, whatever “something special” is, it probably is pretty lame compared to The Haka, and probably deserves some derision so that it’ll be replaced by Manti T’eo this season with an Irish Haka set to something by Flogging Molly. But there’s appropriate derision, and there’s homosexual utterances by clueless, uncivilized morons. Now we find ourselves in some awkward position where we probably have to dutifully defend whatever lame, likely-set-to-a-Bon-Jovi-tune cheer the Irish had performed.
*Note: We can only assume the ND Football Players are not still doing the “Blood! Blood! Blood makes the grass grow!” thing.
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-15 - November 15, 2009
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-08 - November 8, 2009
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-01 - November 1, 2009
I have to disagree. Men dancing, even big ugly men, are just not scary. There is nothing scary or intimidating about dancing men. This is goofy.
wow, mcmackin is a dipshit.
Obviously ND was not scared or intimidated by dancing men.
I was scared when i watched the team do the Haka, when i went to see the All Blacks play. Then again I am a 5’2″ girl and I am very aware that anyone of those guys could pick me up and throw me. However I would very much like to see the ND football team do the Haka to a Flogging Molly song. I think that Drunken Lullabies or Fuck You I’m Drunk, would be best!
2 observations:
1. When the All-Blacks do the Haka, it’s scary because they’re actually good. Hawaii’s not horrible, and it fires them up, but I wouldn’t really consider them “scary”. If a team like Washington did the Haka, it’d be downright laughable.
2. This is a classic case of winning the battle and losing the war. I’m glad McMackin can take solace in the fact that his team won the “dance off”. Did that make the evisceration of his team’s defense through the air any easier to swallow? Smart people don’t talk s**t when they’re on the wrong end of an ass-whuppin’.
McMackin is obviously not smart people.
Does anyone else think this incident has stirred a bit too much controversy? Immediately after he said it, he expressed his regret at having done so. He didn’t just issue an apology after he found out people were mad about it. He felt genuine remorse. What he said wasn’t even an attack against homosexuals. It’s one thing to use a derogatory term like that to describe a particular group of people. But as applied to the ND football team, I think the term has to lose some of its sting. I hope this story doesn’t last beyond today.
BJ, I don’t think he should lose his job over it or anything, but I go by a general rule of thumb for things like this, or racism, or whatever: If you throw around such terms in public, you probably do so in private. This stuff today about all of it “being unlike McMackin” is crap. Anyhow, after this weekend, I’m sure it’ll die down a lot.
Flogging Molly? It has to be the Pogues’ “Sick Bed of Cuchulain”
If we are going with the Pogues then I would have to say “Fairytale of New York”. But that isnt quite scary enough to me…