This evening, I saw what I thought was a very strange factoid pop up in my timeline. Bruce Feldman had claimed that Notre Dame only had three people on an academic support staff for its student-athletes:
Interesting. RT @ChrisVannini: Per Bruce Feldman, Texas has 20 people on academic support staff, Alabama has 12, and Notre Dame has 3.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) August 25, 2014
This didn’t make any sense to me at all. For long time readers of this site, you are likely aware that I was a student manager while at Notre Dame. As a manager, I had access to the same academic support as athletes did and boy did I ever need it for an EE course, Signals and Systems, that was, quite frankly, handing me my ass.
I know I had at least three different people help me out. Certainly there had to be something I was missing here. So I made the following conjuncture on Twitter:
…three people assist me when i requested a tutor as a student manager (we got same academic support services as athletes). (2/2)
— Ryan Ritter (@ndtex) August 25, 2014
After some back and forth with ND fans, my DM inbox got a message from Bruce Feldman himself. I was able to have a brief conversation with him about the claim, so here is the answer from the horse’s mouth (and this, by the way, is re-posted with his permission):
So, yes, Feldman was only going off of the full-time academic support directly employed by the athletic department. Further, this was a part of a larger discussion in which someone yanked a quote from. Let’s be honest, Alabama and Texas having more academic support staff than ND is truly eye-popping. Hell, it got my attention and I wasn’t even aware of the context when I started my theory-crafting.
Further, Feldman is completely right in regards in ND not being able to “hide borderline students” as other schools can/do. Nick Saban, in my opinion, made the kind of push that Bruce mentions to make sure he had a group of people with only one job: keeping people academically eligible. Further, he’s playing his odds. If he has 20 full-time staff members, he is practically guaranteeing that the majority of his starting 22 will be on the field. Of course, I doubt Saban worries that 20 out of his 22 starters will have issues, but Saban strikes me as the kind of guy that doesn’t like to take chances on something he feels like he can have some level of control over.
Notre Dame on the other hand relies on people not directly employed by the athletic department. Back to my earlier example of when I had to get tutoring, I know the person I talked to at the desk was a student and the person that tutored me was a student as well. These are all paid positions and I do know there are quite a few staff members that assist student athletes whom are employed outside the athletic department.
In fact, Christianne Harder of FIDM and Bryan Fischer confirmed it:
@IDtheMIKE @BryanDFischer @ChrisVannini I don't think that's true, but the academic advisers aren't in the Athletics Dept- they are separate
— Christianne Harder (@CNHarder) August 25, 2014
I count 9 academic counselors for student-athletes at Notre Dame. Only two dedicated to football per http://t.co/IUB8M4jzgv Not incl tutors
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) August 25, 2014
To me, this is another case of how ND operates differently than the rest of the powerhouses in college football. I honestly don’t think that system is broken in the least. I felt overwhelmed (in a good way) by the amount of support that I received. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have survived my junior year at ND without it.
So people will have their soundbite from Feldman and it looks damning to ND. However, as is often the case in the situations, the truth is far more nuanced and, yes, Feldman is very much aware of that.
- Epilogue - January 3, 2022
- HLS Podcast Finale - January 2, 2022
- The Final Fiesta: Notre Dame vs Oklahoma State NCAA ’14 Sim - December 31, 2021