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Volume 55, Issue 53 | Monday, April 12, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com
Examining Zahm’s ‘troubling culture’ Plans to alter COVID tests, thousands of dollars of property damage, a disputed partying reputation By ADRIANA PEREZ and ISABELLA VOLMERT Editor-in-Chief and Assistant Managing Editor
Editor’s note: This story includes strong language, as well as mentions of sexual assault. A list of sexual assault reporting options and on-campus resources can be found on the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross websites. The email was stark and unsparing. A junior resident of Zahm House, a dorm that University officials effectively decided to close last month, was responding to an apparent challenge to a drinking game from a first-year resident. “I’ll teach you how to f*cking finish after I’m standing over your puking body as you cry about how you don’t belong in this dorm,” the junior’s email read. “... I’m about to make you my little b*tch after 10 margs. I’m about to give you months of content for your therapist after you need to resolve these daddy issues … I’ll f*ck you until you love me you f*cking m*ricon.” When the University announced plans to essentially dissolve Zahm, officials explained the decision by offering vague references to concerns regarding the dorm’s “troubling culture” — including vandalism over the years, demonstrated disrespect for University officials and a disregard for University COVID-19 testing protocols. However, after more than a dozen interviews conducted by The Observer over the past month, a clearer picture of the life and culture inside Zahm House has emerged: At one point during the fall semester, the dorm had more than twice as many COVID cases as any other residence hall and several students hatched a plan to alter their COVID test results by cleaning their nostrils out with rubbing alcohol in an attempt to be able attend a football game. The cost of vandalism damages in and beyond Zahm has been nearly 10 times higher than the average of other dorms in the last few years. And a series of mass emails distributed among Zahm residents in recent years portrays a culture of partying and drinking, and includes coarse and deeply misogynistic references to women, such as
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ISABELLA VOLMERT | The Observer
A banner reading “Save Zahm” was hung from two of the dorm’s rooms shortly after the decision to close the hall was announced mid-March. Zahm residents created a petition calling to overturn the decision.
On Sept. 10, 2020, vice president for student affairs Erin Hoffmann Harding sent an email to Zahm residents saying the dorm had twice the amount of coronavirus infections than any other residence halls on campus. Zahm rector Fr. Bill Dailey said Zahm residents have often attributed the rates of COVID-19 cases within the residence hall to what he described as a tight-knit community: “They have a very tight sense of knowing one another and [they] make that a priority.” Fr. Dailey previously served as rector in Stanford Hall from 2013 to 2016. In 2016, he was asked to found the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason at St. John Henry Newman’s University Church in Dublin, Ireland. Last year, he asked to return to campus ahead of schedule and to lead a residence hall, he told The Observer in an email. And so he was assigned as the Zahm rector beginning in the fall of 2020 — according to associate vice president for residential life Heather Rakoczy Russell, he is the seventh the dorm has had in nine years. “I very much appreciate the way the men here support each other, but I do not agree with them that their friendships are qualitatively different from those in other dorms such that they were entitled to indulge in behaviors they knew to be
wrong,” Dailey added in the email. “... That’s one example that points to underlying culture.” Junior and resident assistant Joe Day also said the high rate of infection was probably a result of the tight community the Zahm residents have. Per the Sept. 10 announcement, Zahm residents eligible for testing — those in quarantine and who had tested positive were exempt — were given instructions to report for a surveillance test by the end of the day Sept. 11, a Friday. If a student did not get tested, they would not be able to attend the Sept. 12 game between the Irish football team and the Duke Blue Devils, the email said. Students who did not complete testing could also be referred to the University’s conduct process. Though many Zahm House members were planning to comply and report for surveillance testing, some had planned to alter their test results, according to Rakoczy Russell. “When called for surveillance testing, some Zahm residents planned together to modify the test through a hall-wide student GroupMe, which became known when a concerned Zahm resident passed along a warning to the testing center,” she told The Observer. Some residents, Rakoczy Russell said, actually tried to follow through with these plans, but the testing center staff had been made aware of possible issues. “When Zahm men appeared for surveillance testing, deliberate disregard was most apparent when
some of them tried to alter results by cleaning their nostrils with rubbing alcohol just prior to the test and actually failing to swab their nostrils,” she added. “Their behavior required nurses at the testing center to adjust testing procedures to ensure the accuracy of the tests.” “I highly doubt that there was a coordinated effort to change the type of the results of the test,” Junior Zahm resident Daniel Castaneda told The Observer. Day said the incident didn’t involve any more than two or three residents.
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jokes about gang rape and sexual assault.
Twice as many COVID-19 cases, required testing and plans to alter results
Thousands of dollars in annual vandalism costs, within and beyond Zahm Residence halls typically average
$500 in vandalism-associated repairs during academic years, with occasional outliers reaching around $1,000, Rakoczy Russell said. In the fall 2020 semester alone, vandalism-associated repairs in Zahm cost $4,785, she said, which “was consistent with prior patterns.” For instance, during the 20182019 academic year, costs related to vandalism reached $6,785, she said. And by the end of the 20192020 academic year, Zahm House’s property damage due to vandalism-associated repairs totaled $14,738. An example of routine vandalism, according to Rakoczy Russell, was destroyed or “paneled” doors — a “near-weekly occurrence” in the hall. Dailey said this year has seen an “endless parade” of ceiling tiles, door panels, window screens and other items damaged in the dorm, with no one to take responsibility for any of it. When the responsible students cannot be identified, they cannot be made to pay for the repairs as restitution, so the cost of these is charged to the hall account, Rakoczy Russell said. Day explained the residence dorm rooms have wooden doors with eight wooden panels in them, and residents will commonly punch out panels in someone else’s door if they “have beef with somebody” or as a joke. Castaneda said Zahm residents see ZAHM PAGE 3
Courtesy of Fr. Bill Dailey
The doors in Zahm have eight square panels that are often kicked out by residents, a practice that induces routine vandalism expenses.
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Last week’s Undocumented Student Week of Action sponsored by DreamND and the Office of Student Enrichment displayed support and offered resources for students who are undocumented or part of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Christin Kloski, project coordinator at the Office of Student Enrichment, who works year round to ensure DACA and undocumented students are supported, said she and her colleagues planned Undocumented Student Action Week to raise awareness and humanize the issue. “Undocumented Student Week of Action is a week of events that promise to raise awareness and humanize conversations about immigration and undocumented identities, showcase a variety of scholarship, advocacy and resources on our campus and promote the ‘spirit of diversity and inclusion’
on our campus,” Kloski said in an email. The week began Monday with a Campus Ministry prayer service that took place around the Holy Family Statue on Bond Quad. Director of Campus Ministry Fr. Pete McCormick spoke at the service, emphasizing human dignity. In an interview with The Observer, McCormick spoke about the words he shared at the prayer service, saying human dignity should far outweigh documentation. “One of the points that I made at the prayer service is that we don’t start as men and women of faith about what documents people do or do not have,” McCormick said. “We start with inherent dignity.” He also said this week is important for the Notre Dame community because it is important to care for those on the margins of society. “Whenever we have moments in which we recognize that the dignity of another human is
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not cared for, it is our responsibility to call that out and to draw attention to a better way,” McCormick said. After the prayer service, more events took place throughout the week. Tuesday offered an opportunity for a virtual pause for a breath Zoom session in the afternoon and a lecture on hyperdocumentation in the evening by Aurora Chang, a former undocumented immigrant turned hyperdocumented professor. Students had one final opportunity to participate in the week’s events through an enrichment series seminar on the Mexico-U.S. border held Wednesday on Zoom.ourse, it’s a global issue and I think that needed to be addressed.” Unlike the 2019 Undocumented Student Action Week, this year’s featured more events on Zoom, Kloski said. Despite offering more virtual activities this year, Kloski said she is hopeful for more inperson events in the future and pleased with the support for this
year’s Undocumented Student Week of Action. “My favorite experience from the week is seeing all of the support from campus for our DreamND community,” Kloski wrote. “Faculty, staff and students join in the events from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College and Holy Cross College, and it creates a sense of community and support.” Kloski said Notre Dame students should care about this cause, even beyond Undocumented Student Action Week. “At the University of Notre Dame, we are committed to assembling a community of talented individuals regardless of their backgrounds, financial circumstances or national origins,” Kloski said. “We ask that students continue to become advocates for their fellow peers and to continue to learn and raise awareness on conversations about immigration.” Contact Maggie Eastland at meastlan@nd.edu
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Panel: “State Responses to COVID in Comparative Perspective” virtual 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
OVI Seminar Series III virtual 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Lecture on the Vita Nuova in Italian. Please register online.
“The American Trip” virtual 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Art history lecture featuring guest speaker Damon Willick.
Shred Your Home Files at Work Day Mason Services Center Parking Lot 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. Free, safe shredding.
Trivia ‘Til You Drop! virtual 4 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Trivia about French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish cultures.
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Hesburgh Libraries Hackathon 2021 virtual all day This year’s theme is Building Connections.
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were aware of the problem of vandalism well before the decision to close the dorm. “Everyone or most people in Zahm recognize that it is something that we can fix,” he said. “Some traditions, maybe, deserve to take a step back … it’s not great that vandalism is occurring and the Zahm community is aware of that.”
ndsmcobserver.com | Monday, April 12, 2021 | The Observer
Before the decision to close the dorm, Dailey told Zahm residents this semester “rather explicitly” that the vandalism in Zahm needed to stop, Castaneda said. “It stopped this semester, vandalism has been near zero,” Castaneda said. “I think that, yes, [vandalism] might be weird, and I don’t really have an explanation for why it occurs. But, like I said, Zahm is definitely trying to improve itself.” In addition to the vandalism
that occurs in the building, the aforementioned email in which the Division of Student Affairs announced plans to close Zahm mentioned “significant vandalism over many years within and beyond the building (including the University’s Sculpture Park this year).” “The Notre Dame Sculpture Park was also specifically mentioned in the letter to Zahm residents because it marked a move from private behavior within … the walls of Zahm to
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public behavior that impacted the University community,” Rakoczy Russell said. She also confirmed this particular incident occurred at the Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park last semester. The University declined commenting on or giving more specific details regarding the vandalism incident. The Snite Museum’s director, Joseph Becherer, confirmed through Gina Costa, marketing and public relations program manager, that an incident involving Notre Dame students in which a tree in the sculpture park was uprooted did, in fact, occur last semester. The park is part of the Snite Museum. The situation was handled by the Notre Dame Police Department (NDPD), according to Becherer. Day confirmed the incident involved residents uprooting a tree from the sculpture park with the intention to plant it in the middle of North Quad as a joke. Castaneda said, to his understanding, the residents involved with the incident were Zahm resident assistants at the time. Castaneda said he was surprised when the University cited this incident in the decision to close the dorm. “I don’t understand why an entire dorm would be punished for the actions of individuals that have already been punished for their actions,” he said.
A disputed culture: partying, drinking, sexual assault In an earlier interview with The Observer, junior and former Zahm resident J. J. Dyke had reflected on a dorm culture he said “revolves almost exclusively around beer and women.” “There aren’t a lot of social opportunities that aren’t related to alcohol and the larger Zahm culture,” he said. “… So, rather than being alone, people Paid Advertisement
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tend to accept the culture at some point.” According to Zahm residents interviewed by the South Bend Tribune, “Parties and drinking are common at Zahm, but no more so than in other dorms. They also say that, despite some students’ perceptions, there is no data to suggest sexual assaults happen any more frequently in Zahm than any other dorm.” Data about sexual assault cases on Notre Dame’s campus is not publicly available. Since NDPD operates as a private branch of the University and not as a public agency, the department is not required by Indiana law to identify specific dorms or locations where reported incidents have taken place. NDPD daily police logs only identify the locations of sexual assault reports vaguely, such as “south side women’s residence hall” or “east side campus residence.” University spokesperson Dennis Brown said in an email Notre Dame “will remain consistent with our past practice regarding location.” The most updated information about campus-wide sexual assault reports comes from the 2020 campus climate survey, where 4% of female respondents and 1% of male respondents indicated they had experienced non-consensual sexual intercourse as a student, and 16% of female students and 4% of male students said they had personally experienced other forms of non-consensual sexual contact while enrolled at Notre Dame. Given NDPD’s current policy regarding the availability of records to the public, the exact number of reported sexual assault cases in any given Notre Dame residence hall is thus impossible to determine. Liz Coulston, Saint Mary’s Belles Against Violence Office (BAVO) coordinator, and Nicole Hundt, Saint Mary’s Title IX Coordinator, said in an email they could only confirm “incidents in Zahm” have been reported by Belles to their respective offices. “I cannot comment on whether these incidents occur more often in Zahm than other residence halls,” Coulston said. Castaneda said residents in Zahm are aware of the implied connections between sexual assault and the hall — something he said residents actively try to change. Joseph Calce served as a resident assistant in Zahm during the 2019-2020 academic year. In an email correspondence with The Observer, he said Zahm residents took it upon themselves to increase training in the GreeNDot violence prevention program within the dorm, in addition to it being mandatory to join the five-man rooms in Zahm. “From there, I believe that the sophomores just encouraged see ZAHM PAGE 4
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The observer | Monday, April 12, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com
Panel explores impact of Charlottesville rally By RYAN PETERS Assistant News Editor
Friday afternoon, the Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights hosted a panel exploring the origins and impact of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. as part of the “Building an Anti-Racist Vocabulary” weekly lecture series. The panel consisted of Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First for America (IFA), a nonprofit committed to defending democratic norms, and attorneys Michael Bloch and Jessica Phillips, who are both members of the legal team working on Sines v. Kessler, IFA’s lawsuit against the 24 white supremacists, neo-Nazis and hate groups that organized and executed the violence surrounding the Charlottesville rally. Spitalnick spoke about the current relevance of the hate expressed in Charlottesville. She said the white supremacy and anti-Semitism present in the Charlottesville rally was
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the younger guys to participate in GreeNDot training, and it has carried on like that,” Calce said. In her email to The Observer, Rakoczy Russell wrote the University did not endorse drinking or partying in any residence hall, but that this “was neither the source of the concern nor the reason for the Zahm decision.” “Also, the decision about Zahm and the challenge of sexual assault on campus are separate matters,” Rakoczy Russell added. “Sexual violence is a concern on college campuses across the nation, including in any Notre Dame residence halls and at off-campus locations.” In regards to the Notre Dame dorm party culture, Saint Mary’s BAVO coordinator Liz Coulston wrote to The Observer that “In general, college and university party cultures have been found to perpetuate rape culture and increase incidents of sexual violence. Alcohol and partying are ingrained in the traditions of the college experience and are often utilized as a catalyst for fun.” Castaneda said the University and hall staff have criticized Zahm for being a “cliquey” dorm with a culture of hierarchy between the upperclassmen and first-years and power dynamics between popular residents and others. But he rejected this claim, saying, “I remember parties my freshman [and] sophomore year, and everyone in the dorm [was] invited.” He also stressed that parties that occurred in years past
present in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the recent Pittsburgh, Christchurch and El Paso shootings and is growing increasingly prominent. Spitalnick specifically cited the rise of the concept of “replacement theory” — which she described as the conspiracy theory that Jewish people are orchestrating the replacement of the white people. “At the core of what happened in Charlottesville and so many of the other white supremacist attacks in recent years is a white supremacist conspiracy, called the great replacement or replacement theory,” Spitalnick said. “It’s this idea that Jews are the puppet masters orchestrating effectively a white genocide — the replacement of the white race.” Spitalnick referenced a Thursday segment by Fox News host Tucker Carlson to demonstrate its growing popularity, saying Carlson “effectively endorsed, embraced and celebrated this idea of ‘replacement theory’.”
While arguing that the antiSemitism present in the “replacement theory” has ties to the Capitol insurrection and recent white supremacist attacks, Spitalnick said it is important to recognize white supremacy, anti-Semitism and other forms of hate are all connected. “You certainly can’t take on anti-Semitism without taking on white supremacy, racism, xenophobia and the other forms of hate that are inherent here,” Spitalnick said. “They are deeply interconnected and inextricable.” Bloch described the rationale for IFA filing the case against the Charlottesville conspirators, arguing that federal prosecutors did not make a strong effort to target the organizers of the rally. One of the mechanisms Bloch said they are using as a basis for the case is a Virginia statute that allows for prosecution of those who possess fire with the intent to intimidate. “When you had 500 neoNazis storming through UVA
campus with Tiki torches, chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’ and surrounding a group of counter protesters and then ultimately throwing torches at them, one would think that that set of facts would fit fairly well into that statute,” Bloch said. Bloch called the lack of prosecutions on the state level “a slap in the face” to people traumatized by the violence. The case’s defendants are both organizations and individuals. Phillips said they were able to identify the defendants through thousands of communications leaked from the digital messaging platform Discord. The plaintiffs represent several members of the Charlottesville community who were harmed in the counter protests, Bloch said. The trial was originally scheduled to begin in the summer of 2019 but was delayed due to problems with information exchange and then the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now scheduled to begin Oct. 26. Phillips said the IFA team
has already had five critical rulings in the case with two of the defendants facing jail time for contempt and three adverse inference rulings against the defendants. Adverse inference reveals that information in discovery was withheld intentionally and therefore is assumed to damage those that did not cooperate in discovery’s case. Spitalnick said she is proud of the work IFA’s legal team has done and is excited by the opportunity the case provides to draw attention to white supremacy and other forms of hate in the future. “Imagine what could be done if the full weight of all of the tools and resources we have are brought to bear in the fight against extremism, and I think that we’re hopefully starting to recognize that as a country — the capital attack put a very fine point on that,” Spitalnick said. “There’s so much more that needs to be done though.”
were always voluntary. “We don’t pride ourselves in drinking more than other dorms or throwing more parties than other dorms,” he said. “We just want to have an inclusive community and host fun things for freshmen if they want to participate.” The Observer obtained email messages that were sent during the 2019-2020 academic year between roughly 200 residents and alumni of the allmale dorm, the main purpose of which appears to be sharing information about social and dorm events, such as parties and interhall sports competitions. Zahm houses about 170 undergraduate residents in a
normal academic year. About 10 email addresses in the recipient lists were accounts from outside of Notre Dame. A handful of students communicate through these messages, which are shared with the entire recipient list. Joe Day told The Observer these email chains are opt-out and are sent to almost the entire dorm, except for hall staff, but that this type of messaging hasn’t been as common this academic year — mainly because there have been fewer social events happening in the residence hall due to the pandemic. However, beyond serving as a way to communicate about social events, the emails obtained
by The Observer contained strong language, as well as often-graphic and misogynistic jokes regarding sex and sexual assault. Screenshots of these email chains circulated among students a couple of weeks ago, further fueling conversations about a social and party culture some claim enables sexual assault and about whether this had anything to do with the University’s decision to close Zahm. Rakoczy Russell said she did not know of the 2019-2020 emails “or any similar emails that may have been sent to Zahm residents this academic year.” She also said director of
residential life Nathan Elliot, who supervises Zahm, had “no knowledge of these emails in this or any year.” “I have no knowledge of any such listserv myself, either in the past or this year, so I can’t help you there,” Zahm’s rector Fr. Dailey wrote in his email to The Observer. “I would emphasize that what you have described certainly sounds concerning but this is the first I have heard of it.” Some of the messages referenced women by name. In an email chain dated Oct. 9, 2019, with the subject “Thunderdome,” a first-year
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student tells a junior not to tell a woman he mentions by name “about your loss tonight — or do ... some wh*res dig the pity sex.” The first-year student seemed to be challenging the older student in a drinking competition, to which the latter replied: “Listen here you juiced up, red dot piece of sh*t. I don’t know what the f*ck is wrong with you p*ssy freshmen thinking the only way to drink is through thunderdome but I’m about to break you worse than you broke the quad door.” “I’ll teach you how to f*cking finish after I’m standing over your puking body as you cry about how you don’t belong in this dorm,” the junior’s email continued. “... I’m about to make you my little b*tch after 10 margs. I’m about to give you months of content for your therapist after you need to resolve these daddy issues … I’ll f *ck you until you love me you f *cking m*ricon.” In another email chain dated Oct. 17, 2019, a student who called himself the House’s “self appointed leader” offered others condoms, he said, in an effort to prevent sexually-transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. For those residents who asked him for bigger condoms, the author continued, he would have to “manually inspect” and “take photographs for research purposes.” Another email chain shared from Jan. 22 to Feb. 22, 2020, begins as an invitation to an interhall event. In an email, one resident challenged another, saying he was “probably struggling with secondhand chlamydia”
from other students allegedly “running a train on the only girl desperate enough to f *ck you.” The other resident replied, “Sex should be loving, caring, tender, and from a place of love, unlike the brutal a** r*pe that is about to go down when I rail you in this Thunderdome. Actually, on second thought, I’m excited to f*ck a virgin like you.” The existence of similar email chains was confirmed by multiple current and past Zahm House residents who talked to The Observer, all of whom were in the recipient list. “I remember my first dorm party,” reads an Aug. 29, 2019, email sent with a nonNotre Dame Gmail address, inviting first-year residents to a social event. “I ocho paneled my door with my rock h*rd c*ck and f*cked a Smick through each hole. I miss when I had that endurance, now I can only manage seven at a time.” “Smicks” is a term occasionally used to reference Saint Mary’s students. In another email from Feb. 19, 2020, the same Gmail sender wrote: “no women have anything like the p*ssy that comes from Saint Mary’s College.” The email also referred to Saint Mary’s students as “smick sl*ts” and “wh*res” before going on to discuss an interhall game with Dunne Hall, where it said a team member “is gonna f*ck one of those Dunne p*ssies so hard he will get Title IX’ed.” BAVO coordinator Liz Coulston said she was unaware of these email chains. “Any time sexual assault is joked about, it perpetuates rape culture,” she said in an email to The Observer. “This is entirely unacceptable.
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The tri-campus community continues to work tirelessly to address these issues and build a healthy and respectful culture.” Stephanie Johnson, a 2019 Saint Mary’s alumna, also commented on the content of the Zahm email chains. “W hile many Saint Mary’s students arrive to campus and learn of how we must always protect each other, other dorms are able to make jokes about what we’re trying to protect each other from,” she wrote to The Observer. Johnson also referenced the partying culture prevalent in dorms at Notre Dame. “I do not say this to demonize the men of Zahm, they are simply being made an example of the culture Notre Dame has allowed for so long,” she said. “... I would say while Notre Dame is coed, men still clearly hold more power on campus in terms of how they can use their dorm spaces and the way that enables the opportunity for more incidents to occur.”
Zahm residents discuss dorm’s closing Past efforts to address the so-called “troubling culture” have included a ban from RecSports activity and reconfiguration of common rooms, per the University’s decision email. Castaneda said there have also been multiple efforts by Zahm residents themselves to improve the community within Zahm. He said, for example, that in order to be able to have a common room in their room configuration, residents must be trained in the GreeNDot program — a violence prevention strateg y. Ever since Castaneda was a first-year student, Zahm hall staff and residents have engaged in “continuous conversations” about how to improve the culture, he said, including in regards to issues of sexual assault and vandalism. Castaneda said when he moved into Zahm as a firstyear, one of the first conversations the rector at the time had with his class centered around Zahm’s reputation, and included topics of sexual assault among vandalism and other issues, as well as how the dorm could improve. Day said he is against the decision the University made — the issues regarding COVID and vandalism, he said, were temporary and could have been fixed. “You do notice there’s a certain level of independence that Zahm has,” he noted. “I think that’s the main cause of what the University doesn’t like — it’s the fact that as a community,
we make our own rules. And because of the independence there’s some bad things that sometimes go on, whether it’s a mob mentality or just a disrespect to the University in general.” Both Day and Castaneda said one reason for Zahm’s tight-knit community is the way other University students view their reputation. “As soon as you get placed into Zahm, you feel that [stigma], and I feel like that creates sort of a badge of pride … I think that makes our community very strong,” Castaneda said. A final, unprecedented decision: W hat this means for residential life at Notre Dame Rakoczy Russell told The Observer she had no reason to believe the decision to close Zahm will set a precedent for any other current residence halls. Furthermore, she said, “although Zahm will serve as the swing hall for major renovations for the foreseeable future, we expect that Zahm will return to a traditional hall again one day after the completion of its own major renovation.” Though she recognized the impact the decision would have on current members of Zahm House, Rakoczy Russel wrote to The Observer “... we no longer believe the community is equipped to welcome new students in a manner that ref lects the best integration into the Notre Dame family that we can offer and is owed to every student.” Castaneda, who has been a part of the Zahm welcome weekend team for two years, said “I just feel incredibly disrespected … because I feel like we always put a lot of effort and work into making sure that our freshmen felt welcome,” he said. “And from having conversations with the freshmen and the current sophomores now, I say that the overwhelming majority have felt welcome.” In response to the decision as a whole, Castaneda said, “Zahm is not a perfect dorm. But I don’t think any dorm on campus is perfect.” Fr. Dailey spoke to a concern for first-year students as well, saying he doesn’t “want to invite more first-year students into a situation where, randomly distributed, they will nevertheless predictably encounter things they feel they cannot challenge, even when appalled.” “It’s not about one issue, or any given incident, it’s about Notre Dame calling our communities to very high standards of conduct and accountability and finding patterns that fall short here of what we owe the residents,” he wrote. “Precisely because we believe in their goodness we infer from these regular patterns despite random assignments that something is
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being passed on that we have to put a pause on.” First-year Zahm resident Michael Bsales said he was grateful for his time in Zahm and described the community as “welcoming” and a “warm environment,” where he has made his closest friends and become acquainted with many of the Zahm upperclassmen. “[Zahm] gave us [firstyears] a lot more mentorship and leadership than a lot of other dorms,” he said. “And I think it’s kind of a shame that the school doesn’t recognize that like I do.” Sophomore Josh Swanson was never in Zahm — he transferred out of his first residence hall and into St. Edward’s Hall after his first year — but he spoke to how an emphasis on dorm life created an odd cultural dynamic within residence halls, especially men’s dorms. Swanson discussed how students at Notre Dame are randomly sorted into dorms where they often remain for most of their time as undergraduates, which he said produces an “in-between” dorm culture that shifts between a fraternity environment and that of a residential hall from any other college campus. He said during his dorm’s Welcome Weekend events, upperclassmen encouraged first-years to f lirt with women, collect Snapchat usernames from them and serenade them, which created a dynamic he said he felt uncomfortable in — and in which others could feel uneasy as well. For instance, he said, “Anyone in the LGBTQ community would probably also be made pretty uncomfortable by that. Because if you don’t fit into that perfectly from the very beginning, it kind of just sets you up to fail down the road.” From the beginning, he said, there is an expectation to participate in activities, though not everyone is accommodated in that expectation. And going forward, for example, many of the all-male dorm events are sporting events “geared to a certain demographic, and if you don’t fit … you’re kind of left hanging.” “I wonder if Notre Dame is trying to take a serious look at their culture … I think Notre Dame themselves should take accountability and figure out how they want to fix the dorm environment,” Swanson said. “I mean, I have a couple of ideas, but I think whatever they do has to be a little more drastic than just closing a single dorm or closing any dorm down, really, and then just going about their day.” Contact Adriana Perez at aperez8@nd.edu and Isabella Volmert at ivolmert@nd.edu
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Inside Column
Thoughts on sledding and life Stephen Hannon Systems Administrator
It’s that time of year again, when the graduating Observer seniors write columns looking back on their past for years. But as a graduating Observer senior in These Unprecedented Times, I’m going to use my last column to write about COV ID-19, on-campus abortion housing and the leggings vaccine. Just kidding. Buckle up and indulge me, we’re taking a trip over my last three-and-a-half years. Life is like sledding down a hill: you can steer a little bit, but a lot is controlled by your environment and other people bumping into you, and it starts out slow and only gets faster and faster. I am incredibly lucky that this section of my hill has had gorgeous scenery and been mostly smooth — but just bumpy enough to keep me on my toes and remind me that other people’s hills are rockier and that mine could be rockier one day, too. I am also grateful that the sledders around me guide me in the right direction: they warn me of treacherous territory ahead and redirect me when I veer off course. These companions arrive and leave as time goes by, although thankfully, more have arrived than have left. Through all these cherished friends, one stands out for both longevity and closeness. He arrived on my hill nearly four years ago (July 8, 2017, to be exact, in an email with the subject line “Roommates”), and we drew close over the course of that fall and have remained nearly inseparable. Kevin, I am endlessly grateful for how you have shaped me, challenged me, accompanied me and encouraged me. You have an uncanny ability to make me laugh and think, and to annoy me — sometimes all at the same time. I could fill 500 words trying to name all the people who have had an impact on me at Notre Dame, but I would be remiss not to appreciate Haley, Matt and Zeke for the light they have brought to my life as well. As this section of my hill draws to a close, I know we will all have to become more physically separate as we chart our own paths. But I am confident my companions will continue to nudge me helpfully throughout the rest of our lives, just as I will do to them. There is a special place in my heart for The Observer, and it’s not just because it has given me the platform to write this column. It has given me plenty of resume-building skills and jobinterview-answering experiences (feel free to endorse me on LinkedIn), but that’s also not why I joined or why I’ve become so involved. Rather, it’s the many good friends and good memories forged over many hours in the basement of South Dining Hall. I’m grateful for the people who took a chance on a kid who joined a newspaper with no desire to write articles and trusted him and gave him confidence to do more. Again, there are too many people to thank by name, but Liz deserves special kudos for being the one to welcome me into the door. Thank you to everyone for sledding with me, and here’s to new hills. You can contact Stephen at shannon3@nd.edu The views expressed in this Inside Column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
The world we have made Trevor Lwere On The Other Hand
The world is not unfair. We have made it so. The world is not a jungle. We have made it so. We have certain assumptions about the world and made a certain world on that basis. Dar w in’s theor y of evolution suggests that competition is the primar y adaptive strateg y for species in nature. That is, nature favors the strongest, while the weakest are dropped. In short, the world is a jungle where it is sur v ival for the fittest. This logic has even been extended to the realm of human affairs. It is not uncommon to hear people say things like “the world is unfair” as an explanation for why some people have more than others. Thus, we have modeled societ y along competitive lines, like the jungle in which animals live. This is true especially in the economic realm. One of the basic assumptions of neoclassical economics is scarcit y. That is to say that there is not enough to go around for ever yone. As such, the stor y goes, we must therefore find the most efficient, not necessarily the best, way of allocating resources in societ y. The competitive marketplace is the answer to this for neoclassical economists. The market is simply an exercise in sur v ival for the fittest. It pays no regard to how or why some people are fitter than others and therefore allocates goods to those who can get them, not necessarily to those who need them. But it does it so efficiently, market failures notw ithstanding, that we have concluded it is best and perhaps only way of organizing commercial affairs in societ y. It is on this foundation that we build the superstructure of a market-based societ y where it is literally sur v ival for the fittest. And because it is a competition, we always have an incentive to dev iate from the rules of the market in order to ma x imize our material welfare. This is the inev itable result of a system premised on scarcit y and competition. The nature of competition is such that the competitors are struggling to outcompete each other which means that as some get more of the proverbial pie, others must necessarily get a smaller share. And so, when we out muscle our neighbors and gain more from the market at their expense, we justif y our ruthless greed as rational self-interest and apply some sugar-coating to it w ith such terms as “w inners” and “losers” in the market, w ith losers being those who are least efficient.
And so, we codif y scarcit y as a fact of life and self-interest as the primar y motivation for all human action. And that, despite all professions of faith in the moral equalit y of all indiv iduals and claims to a concern for the common good. In essence, we model the world off of the w ild jungle while claiming to still care about each other. Our struggle for sur v ival in the marketplace may have formal rules which the struggle for sur v ival in the w ilderness lacks, but it is a struggle nonetheless — a fight, literally. We call it rational self-interest, not greed. Competition, not ruthlessness. But let us pause for a moment and consider the strength of the assumptions that form the basis of our jungle — our market societ y. First, is it the case that resources in the world are scarce? Or do resources become scarce depending on the mode of distribution or allocation we use? It seems plausible that because we have decided to allocate our resources in a certain way, they appear to be scarce. Resources w ill definitely because scarce if some people can hoard them i.e., get as much as they want simply because they can afford it, even if they do not need it all. Perhaps if we distributed in a different way, we might end up w ith enough to go around. Secondly, is it true that self-interest is the primar y or even only motivation for human action? Self-interest is simply one of many sources of motivation for human action. Consider soldiers in the militar y who go to war for a medal of whom in return while Zuckerberg gets a 20-year patent that earns him billions of money in return for his innovation. The point is not the Zuckerberg does not deser ve all that money. However, the w illingness of ser v icemen and women to risk their lives for just a piece of metal should demonstrate to us that indeed there is more than self-interest that people can respond to. The world is not unfair. We have made it so. The world is not a jungle. We have made it so. If we rev isit and question the assumptions we have made about the world, and the implications of those assumptions for the world we have created for ourselves, we can remake the world — for better. Trevor Lwere is a junior at Notre Dame majoring in economics, with a PPE minor. He hails from Kampala, Uganda and lives off campus. He is a dee-jay in his other life and can be reached at tlwere@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.
Submit a Letter to the Editor: viewpoint@ndsmcobserver.com
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What didn’t make the cut Renee Yaseen Renaissance
Rejection letters. We all get them, we all hate them. This week, I stumbled upon Rejection Letters, a literary magazine that publishes ... fictional rejection letters. Satirical, heartbreaking, artisticallyinclined rejection letters. What a concept! I was inspired, looking for a Viewpoint column idea and still cooling off from my last inbox disappointment. As is written on the Rejection Letters website, “We all cope in our own weird ways.” So it is with the deepest, regrettiest of regrets that I inform you I’ve written a few of my own Notre Damerelated rejections this week. Enjoy! Dear Pfizer-BioNtech, Thank you so much for submitting “Vaccine” to “My Left Shoulder.” This year, we received a staggering volume of work from many incredible vaccine companies — both seasoned and emerging. And while we are immensely grateful for the opportunity to review your work, we regret to inform you that “Vaccine” was not accepted into Issue 1: Things My Immune System Immediately Enjoys. We encourage you to revise and resubmit this piece, perhaps within a period of 21-42 days. Your work won great praise from our editors for its precision. It was so sharp, we literally had to put on a bandage afterwards. But your use of authorization
was more emergency-use than experimental, more sterile than avant-garde and our editors were split on whether or not it “worked.” Specifically, the chapter, “Vaccine Envy” was underwhelming. And while we appreciated the obvious care and attention to detail you put into the piece “Not Getting COVID-19,” we found the second-day mild headache and arm pain to be a bit much. One of our editors was unable to sleep on her left side for “a while.” Lastly, while “COVID Vaccine Dose Number 1” was clean, elegant and simple, with minimal effects on the reader, “COVID Vaccine Dose Number 2” felt a bit scattered, and left us feeling confused about the severity of our potential side effects. In the future, we’d like to see you take on a variety of variants. Challenge yourself to merge some of the two-part pieces into singular works. Please do not be discouraged: “My Left Shoulder” believes you have great promise, and sincerely looks forward to reading more of your work. Warmly (redly, and a little swollenly),
have enough space to accommodate for the piling up of assignments due several days prior, a lack of sleep and burnout. Though we appreciated the restorative and restful value of your work, our editors found that two wellness days was simply not enough to, “help students maintain their mental and physical wellness” as you wrote in your bio. In the future, we’d like to see how you experiment with longer pieces and forms, as we believe this could improve your outlook for acceptance into our journal. We encourage you to continue submitting your Mini-Breaks to us in the future, as we believe you show great promise. One editor in particular remarked, “My professors were so kind as to not schedule any homework on the mini-break day!” Please feel free to reach out for more detailed feedback, and do apply again. Sincerely,
My Left Shoulder Editor-In-Chief
Renee Yaseen is a junior who majors in economics with minors in theology and the philosophy, politics, & economics (PPE) program. In her free time, she writes poems, hangs out with loved ones, and works on her software startup. She can be reached via the chat on a shared Google Doc at 3 a.m., on Twitter @ReneeYaseen or at ryaseen@nd.edu by email. The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.
Dear Two Mini-Breaks, It is with regret that we inform you that your piece, “48 hours of unscheduled time during an already stressful semester” was not accepted for publication at this time. We had many other accomplished school days this semester, and we simply did not
A Student Who Would Like A Day Off Editor-In-Chief
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Consider this a sign: check in with yourself, check in with your friends I have COVID brain fog, and I’m sharing my experience to give a voice to what I know must be happening all over campus. I was extremely careful. I was intent on getting out of the pandemic without getting the virus. And then I was close contacted. On day two, I started showing symptoms. I tested positive on day four and spent twelve days in isolation. The real struggle of the whole ordeal was the toll it took on my mental health. People joked “At least you can get ahead on your work now, haha!” But I couldn’t focus on anything. It was the second week of the semester and I instantly started falling behind. The first assignment I got done was reading an article for my research lab, and I could only get through that because my parents sat on FaceTime with me as I read it aloud to them, asking questions about the material to help me retain the information. I felt like I was in the first grade again. After isolation, things didn’t get much better. The panic disorder I’ve dealt with since freshman year of high school intensified. My first week out of the Q, I had more panic attacks than I had all of last semester. They lasted longer, became more exhausting. I couldn’t understand what was going on. I dropped a class. I quit caffeine again. Listened to a lot of music. Called home a lot. Exercised. Took walks to the grotto. Made trips to Target with my
friends. Ate my favorite foods. Nothing helped. All these weeks later, I still have instances when I need to call my family to sit on the phone with me just so I can get out of bed. I’ve felt such a sudden and intense change in myself. I get quiet and withdrawn. I don’t sleep well. Tasks that used to take 30 minutes now take hours. I get restless sitting through class. I launch into fits of tears and desperation for no reason that can take four or five or six hours to subside and recover from. Often, I just want to give up and go home. I share all these details not because I think my experience is exceptional. On the contrary, I share this because I know I’m not alone, and my first step toward combating the stigma surrounding mental health is transparency. If any of this sounds like what you’re going through, this is your sign to reach out for help. University resources are far from perfect, but they’re a start. The UCC gave me an excellent psychiatrist. The brain fog obviously doesn’t explain all of my psychological challenges, but it definitely explains why I’ve been too overwhelmed to cope on my own. I’ve started medication. Outside of professional help, I’ve been open about everything with my friends. I’ve set boundaries, let them know when I might need a little more support or more space. I’m not perfect now. I still miss the person I was before all of this. Some nights I feel like I’m getting worse instead of better. But I’m more
patient with myself. I know progress doesn’t have to be linear. I may not be excelling, but I’m keeping up. And that’s definitely enough right now. Please note: Don’t wait for things to get bad to reach out. Your struggle is valid. You don’t have to have lost anyone or have tested positive for COVID-19 for this pandemic to have taken a toll on you. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your friends. Hopefully you’re as lucky as I am; my best friends are the reason I didn’t give up on this semester altogether. If you don’t know how to tell them, send them this. This can be their sign to keep an eye out for you. So consider this your sign to check in with your friends. The ones you talk to everyday, the ones you only see on the weekends and the ones you haven’t gotten lunch with in a while. Most importantly, check in with yourself. Quit gaslighting yourself. If you’re struggling, it’s not for no reason. Allow yourself the room to breathe, to recover. The campus-wide vaccinations may be the light at the end of the tunnel, but prepare yourselves. We have a long road of recovery ahead of us, and that’s not a journey any of us should have to make alone.
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Nathalie García sophomore April 8
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LETTERs TO THE EDITOR
The Catholic Church, COVID and love A friend recently suggested that I should write a Letter to the Editor to the Observer. He didn’t say exactly what I should write about, just that I should write something. What can the Catholic Church teach us about the continued COVID-19 pandemic? What are we to think when faced with physical evil on such a massive scale, an interloper into our modern world which technology had previously done so much to control according to our own desires? One essential lesson I believe the Church can teach us in this crisis over the past year is humility; accepting the limits of our temporal existence, remaining ever aware of our own mortality in this vale of tears. The realities of sin and suffering are ever-present no matter how hard we try to dodge them. And there is nothing our human efforts can achieve independently of God’s grace that will bring us the eternal happiness we all seek but cannot find on this earth. In a certain sense, COVID merely accelerates and reminds us of the constant struggle we all must face in this life: the fact of our own mortality. But the most essential lesson of all that the Church teaches us about sin and suffering cannot be articulated in words: Rather, it is embodied in a person, the person of Christ, whose victory over death on the cross is “our only hope.” None of us can live life without experiencing suffering to some extent. Even after that suffering is alleviated, the wounds of the past
linger. Indeed, our world post-COVID will never be the same. The only constant through all this change is Christ, who asks us to leave all of our suffering with Him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mt 11:28-30). There is a relationship between knowing and loving that this continued pandemic has seemed to reinforce like never before, especially here at Notre Dame. Friendships formed at Notre Dame before everything went crazy in March became frozen in time for months, and when everyone returned to campus in August we all had so much more love to give to each other. Although our familiar routines were upset, familiar people and places became outlets of our desire for communion in a way that felt profounder than we had experienced before. What we had previously taken for granted — campus, friendships, classes, football — felt like new gifts of unprecedented value. But ultimately, this communion we have experienced with each other as Notre Dame students this successful academic year merely foreshadows our desire for something more: Union with Christ in heaven. Whether or not we live in “unprecedented times” now due to a global pandemic, the Church
teaches us we must at all times orient our actions toward the goal of seeing God face to face. Along the way, we might be beset by tragedy, hurt, guilt, regret, sin, suffering and doubt, and we also might experience joys, successes, laughter, poetry, beauty, romance and love; these things which, as Robin Williams declares in Dead Poets Society, we stay alive for. But in the end, the Church teaches us, there is something still greater on the horizon; more than just “contributing a verse” as Williams and Walt Whitman would have it, the Church promises us we might sing a song with Him that never ends. All we truly desire is to know Him and therefore to love Him. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:12-13). Let’s take a step back and think about how this promise of eternity might change the way we live our own lives and relate to others on an everyday basis. Let’s not get so caught up in our own immediate, often disordered loves here on earth that we direct our gaze away from love Himself. Let us desire Him who is love imperishable. Brennan Buhr first-year law student March 28
Get the vaccine After over a whole year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the end is finally within sight. Vaccinations are occurring across the U.S. at a rapid rate, including now at the University of Notre Dame. Courtesy of the Indiana Department of Health, students can receive doses of the Pfizer vaccine through the months of April and May. As a senior, this is exciting news. This means I will be fully vaccinated by graduation, and I can safely celebrate commencement with my family and friends after what has been a disappointing and arduous final year of college. However, there are several classmates and friends that do not share the same excitement as I do about the vaccine. There have been concerns about the vaccine’s safety and morality, and a considerable number of students are electing not to receive the Pfizer vaccine distributed by the University. Although the University has stated the vaccine will be mandatory for the following academic year, this will not change anyone’s concerns about the vaccine, and students may wait until the last minute to receive it. After hearing some reasons why some of my fellow classmates are hesitant to get vaccinated, I would like to address these concerns in this letter to help educate people to make the right choice. To those concerned that the vaccine was rushed and may be unsafe: Although the vaccines being distributed started development not long after COVID-19 came along, scientists did not start from scratch. mRNA vaccines had been researched and developed for years before now. When the pandemic hit, scientists were ready to implement this technology relatively quickly. To those concerned about the implementation of an mRNA vaccine, which has never been used before: The mRNA vaccine does work differently than a typical vaccine, but the end result is the same. Instead of your immune system reacting to the virus itself (like in other vaccines), the mRNA inside the vaccine instructs your body to make a “spike protein,” which is a part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Then, your immune system reacts to this protein by creating antibodies that will protect your body if the actual virus entered your system. The extra step of your body creating the protein has no negative effect on your body. The
mRNA does not stay in your body, nor does it have the potential to alter or destroy cells. To those concerned about short term side effects from the vaccine: There are reported side effects right after getting the shot, especially if you’re younger or have already had COVID-19. Reactions like these are unpleasant, but not unnatural. They are a result of your immune system reacting to the vaccine. More severe side effects are possible, but quite rare and treatable. These side effects are a lot better than COVID-19 symptoms, which may last weeks or months. To those concerned about long term side effects: These are of concern for a lot of people, especially since the vaccine has only been mass distributed for about five months. Previous vaccines have caused rare, severe long-term effects, typically within two months, but these vaccines contained the virus, which may result in a real infection. To date, there have been no reported long-term illnesses due to the COVID-19 vaccines in America. This may be because mRNA vaccines do not contain a virus, and mRNA cannot cause illness. Additionally, long-term effects are usually caused by constant exposure to a harmful chemical or component. If I walked into a room with lead paint then walked out, I would be fine, but if I lived in that room for months or years, I could get seriously ill. Our bodies are resilient enough to handle small doses of foreign objects. Receiving two shots of the Pfizer vaccine can be easily handled by our bodies. If they do not cause damage in the short term (which they don’t), our bodies will process it, then expel what was the vaccine with no harm done. To those concerned about the morality of receiving the vaccine: I understand the ethical concern raised by fellow pro-life Catholics that the Pfizer vaccine has used HEK-293 cells (cloned from a 1972 abortion in the Netherlands) in research. The Pfizer vaccine has the most remote connection to this in that the cells were not used in production. Both the CDF and the USCCB have stated it is morally permissible to obtain the COVID-19 vaccines due to the lack of a morally perfect vaccine and the need for public health. In addition, it is unknown whether the fetus used to clone HEK-293 cells had passed due to an elective abortion. Therefore, there is not a clear cooperation with an
evil act. This, along with the fact that the cells have been cloned over decades, the remoteness of their relationship with the vaccine, and the approval of the Catholic Church, does not give me any concern about the morality of the vaccine. Getting vaccinated is considered an act of charity for others, and if you still elect not to receive the vaccine under moral grounds, you are still ethically obligated to follow guidelines on physical distancing and mask-wearing until cases disappear. Between these choices and the reasoning above, I elect to receive the vaccine. To those concerned that the government, the media and/or public health experts are lying about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness: There just simply isn’t any evidence that supports these claims or any wild conspiracies such as the vaccine causing sterility. If there is, I sure would like to see it, but I doubt its existence. As a Catholic, I have faith in God who created mankind in His image. God made us good with an inherent desire to seek goodness and the truth. Of course evil exists, and mankind has committed horrendous acts of evil against others, but that is not our true nature. We strive for what is good, and I have faith in the countless women and men who have dedicated their time and talent in making a vaccine for the common good. Having the opposite attitude and believing every single doctor or scientist is out to harm us without evidence is unbecoming of a Christian and is unsustainable for society. To those who don’t feel like getting the vaccine because Compton is too far of a walk: I appreciate your dedication to social isolation, but please, get out of bed and take a hike. It’s spring at Notre Dame. Enjoy the weather, get vaccinated and help stop the spread of COVID-19. This pandemic has impacted everyone. Loved ones have died. People have lost jobs, homes, livelihoods and opportunities. The suffering needs to end, and there’s two possible routes: continue what we are doing or get vaccinated. The former has no sign of bringing about an end to this, but the latter does. Get the vaccine, not just for your sake, but for everyone. Thomas Howe senior April 8
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MAGGIE KLAERS | The Observer
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By ANGELA MATHEW Scene Writer
2019 Oscar winner “Parasite” was screened at DPAC this past Saturday in black and white. The South Korean film is a black comedy about class tension in which the poor Kim family use deception to obtain service jobs in the house of the wealthy Park family. “Parasite” suggests that it’s not just the poor who are ‘parasitic;’ the affluent, too, are guilty of bleeding the poor dry. The film keeps viewers engaged constantly, whether through thrilling action sequences, impeccable cinematography or astute social commentary. Since “Parasite” is such a multi-layered film, watching it in black and white made me notice things that I hadn’t before. With the color stripped away, certain aspects of the cinematography become less noticeable — for instance, the contrast between the bright, colorful mansion of the Parks and the dingy, grey contrast of the Kim’s semi-basement home isn’t as apparent in black and white. Similarly, shocking elements like the pools of blood in climactic attack scene don’t feel as jarring without color. However, the stark visuals made me realize even more how dark the themes of “Parasite” really are. Despite its witty storytelling and gripping plot, the film is about the profound failure of modern capitalism to provide employment to the educated middle class. The poor family may scheme and laugh through their hardships, but their story is devastating. The monochrome made me focus on how masterfully the soundtrack of “Parasite” complements the visuals. The film uses the sounds of a soprano choir to accompany the scene
By SOFIA CRIMIVAROLI Scene Writer
Ask anyone over the age of 30 what Blockbuster Video is, and they will immediately know what you’re talking about. They probably remember the yellow walls, the iconic logo and (of course) the trademark khakis worn by employees. Blockbuster provided an experience that very few from our generation will understand. We live in a world of convenience, a world in which any movie you could possibly want to watch is already waiting in some corner of the internet to be streamed on your TV or computer. Largely thanks to these technological developments, Blockbuster has been rendered irrelevant, and all its stores have been forced to close … all except for one, that is. “The Last Blockbuster,” an aptly-named 2020 Netflix documentary directed by Taylor Morden, details the rise and fall of the iconic company with a special focus on the lone standing Blockbuster, the team behind it and its struggle to remain open. The first segment of “The Last Blockbuster” follows the company’s journey to become the biggest movie rental chain in the world. First, movie companies decided to sell copies of the movies directly to consumers on VHS tapes. Then, some entrepreneurs had the idea of buying a copy or two of the movie and renting it out to others for a much lower price. The studios sued them and the case went all the way to the Supreme
where the Kim family is enjoying the mansion while the Park family is on a camping trip. This beautiful, lilting singing marks the proverbial calm before the film’s huge tonal shift from comedy to thriller, which takes place when the Kim family finds out that the old housekeeper’s husband is trapped underneath the house. Scenes that boast intense action — among them, the moment when the Kim family is wrestling the old housekeeper and her husband as the latter duo threatens to expose their deceptive scheme — are accompanied by energetic orchestral string music that heightens the tension. The baroque music coupled with slow-motion shots of violence really make you reflect on how capitalism reduces the poor to fighting each other just to maintain their relative affluence. “Parasite” is realistic in the sense that it portrays the rich family as gullible and ignorant rather than as malevolent villains. The Park family, for instance, has no idea that the housekeeper’s husband has been living in the basement of their house. They don’t realize that the lights that they think are controlled by motion sensors are actually being turned on and off by the housekeeper’s husband pounding his head against the switchboard in a somewhat masochistic attempt to maintain his sanity. Similarly, the Park family is generally very concerned about their employees maintaining professionalism and not overstepping into their personal lives. However, they routinely make the Kim family work overtime, pushing the boundaries of their jobs to include entertaining guests at the Park’s son’s birthday party. The Parks don’t allow them to refuse working overtime, thinking that offering them extra pay means that they don’t need to have
consideration for their employees’ lives. The film uses these examples to talk about the wider phenomenon of ‘cool capitalism’ where we take for granted products like gadgets and clothes sold by large corporations, turning a blind eye to the exploitation of the workers who make them. Watching “Parasite” in black and white gave me a deeper appreciation for the creative connections in the plot and the brilliance of the score. It also made me remember an argument I had with one of my friends who said she didn’t like “Parasite.” At the time, I was transfixed by the film's tight plot and deftly satirical elements. She, on the other hand, was very saddened by the reality depicted in the film. The haunting starkness of the monochrome made me understand more deeply how “Parasite” sketches a portrait of our broken society.
Court before it ruled in favor of the entrepreneurs. From there, mom-and-pop movie renting stores began popping up all over the country. The market became very competitive; many smaller stores were driven out of business, while large companies like Blockbuster— which had over 9,000 stores worldwide at its peak— rose to the top. Another segment of the documentary is about the last remaining Blockbuster, which is still open today. Located in Bend, Oregon, the last Blockbuster is run by a woman named Sandi Harding. She has almost single handedly kept the store afloat as others bowed out and closed. People love the nostalgia of going to Harding’s Blockbuster and perusing the aisles. Apparently, the store even attracts some tourists who want to experience Blockbuster again while they still can. One of my favorite aspects of the documentary was the appearance of several guest stars. The film’s producers reached out to celebrities who had worked at Blockbuster locations before they made it big and asked if they would be interested in being in the film. A few notable presences were Jamie Kennedy (“Scream”), Samm Levine (“Freaks and Geeks”), Adam Brody (“Jennifer’s Body”) and James Arnold Taylor (“Star Wars: the Clone Wars”). The most famous cameo, however, was from director and actor Kevin Smith (“Clerks”). These contributors told stories about their time at Blockbuster and their
favorite memories there. One of them, Doug Benson (“The Lego Movie”) even visited the last Blockbuster in the documentary. I think the appeal of “The Last Blockbuster” comes from the fact that it documents an era unfamiliar to most of us. We can only imagine what it was like to head to the local Blockbuster on a Friday night to peruse the aisles with friends, debating the perfect movie as we browse. We don’t get a cashier telling us all about his favorite movies or recommending series based on ones he noticed we’d been renting. We get an algorithm that is programmed to recommend movies that companies have paid to be sponsored. Our modern movie streaming is incredibly disingenuous and utterly lacking in personal interaction; Blockbuster represents a lost age and I envy those who had the opportunity to experience it.
Contact Angela at amathew3@nd.edu
“Parasite” Director: Bong Joon-ho Starring: Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-dam, Woo-shik Choi Genre: Black Comedy, Thriller If you liked: “Get Out,” “Memories of Murder”
Contact Sofia at scriminiva@nd.edu
“The Last Blockbuster” Director: Taylor Morden Genre: Documentary If you liked: “Netflix vs. the World”
MAGGIE KLAERS | The Observer
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ndsmcobserver.com | Monday, April 12, 2021 | The Observer
Crossword | will shortz
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Horoscope | Eugenia Last Happy Birthday: Consider what you want, and move full steam ahead. Connect with people who can help you bring about positive changes. Be brave, speak up and take action. Find your passion and do your best to make a difference. The rewards will feature peace of mind, personal growth and satisfaction. Share with someone you love, and it will enhance your relationship. Your numbers are 9, 13, 21, 25, 34, 38, 47. ARIES (March 21-April 19): If change is what you want, it’s up to you to make it happen. Update your resume to accommodate what’s necessary to head in a new direction. Be true to yourself, and you’ll find the confidence required to set sail on a new adventure. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Take care of formalities before you make a move. Preparation will be the road to success, no matter what you are trying to achieve. Use common sense when it comes to investments, donations or any contribution you are considering. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Call on people you know you can count on, and you’ll start a wave of positive changes that will improve friendships, living conditions and the environment. You can make a difference if you use common sense and adopt a minimalist lifestyle. CANCER (June 21-July 22): Be secretive regarding your plans. Problems will mount if you get involved in a joint venture or you trust someone to make decisions for you. Leave nothing to chance. Handle financial, medical and contractual matters personally. Don’t take unnecessary health risks. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Follow your heart, intuition and dreams. Delve into something that will encourage you to grow emotionally and intellectually. Refuse to let a change someone makes discourage you from doing what makes you happy. Romance will enhance your love life. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Do the groundwork, and be prepared to keep up with economic trends. Knowledge is power, and recognizing when and how to make the right move will take research and precise timing. Leave nothing to chance. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You’ll attract people who are unique, adventuresome and active. Take online classes geared toward being the best you can be. An energetic approach to life will lead to new beginnings and exceptional relationships. Romance is favored. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Take note of what’s entailed before you decide to make a move. Let your intuition be your guide and give you the courage to help you push forward. A self-sufficient lifestyle change will ease stress. Do whatever it takes to lower your overhead. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Let your experience help mold the way you plan to live moving forward. A positive attitude coupled with charm and persuasive tactics will encourage others to help you achieve your personal goals. Home improvements and romance are favored. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You’ll meet with opposition if you aren’t willing to bend when it comes to domestic matters. Listen to the demands someone makes and look for a solution that will appease others and ensure that you get what you want. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You’ve got what it takes to excel. Focus on how you can improve your skills to qualify you for a position you want to pursue. Put your energy into self-improvement, physical fitness and fine-tuning your life. Romance is in the stars. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Don’t interfere in other people’s lives. Stay focused on what you are trying to achieve, not what others are doing. Change begins within, and to get ahead, put your time and effort into selfimprovement. Birthday Baby: You are powerful, insightful and intelligent. You are thorough and realistic.
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Sports Authority
Sports Authority
Cubs should not be content Gehrig Smalstig Sports Writer
If you could travel back in time to April of 2016 and tell any Cubs fan that they would not have put Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo or Javier Baez on a long term contract by the year 2021, they would have called you crazy. The core that took them to their first World Series win in 108 years surely wouldn’t be neglected like that, right? Well, here we are. As it stands, the Cubs are no longer the face of talent and promise in the league. When they won the World Series, Bryant, Baez and Rizzo were all 26 years old or younger and things were only looking up. Now, they’re all 30 or approaching that mark quickly and the Cubs are coming off a year that, while abbreviated, exposed their shortcomings at the plate and saw them part ways with their ace on the mound, Yu Darvish, who had a career year and finished second in Cy Young voting. They also let slugger Kyle Schwarber and 3rd starter Jose Quintana walk. If they were a piece or two away from contending for a title last year, they seem to be a lot further away now. Even the structure of the team is not conducive to the way baseball is trending. Almost the entire lineup struggles against velocity and their staff is full of starters that struggle to throw many fastballs over 90 miles per hour in a league that has seen the average fastball velocity rise to 94 mph. This has been evidenced by their abysmal performances in the playoffs the past few years, where you are only seeing faster pitching and better fastball hitters. So, it’s clear they have to get better in order to contend. The first place to look would be free agency, but they don’t seem to be fond of spending a lot of money, seeing that they won’t even pay their own stars who are essential on offense, defense and in the clubhouse. They did sign a replacement for Schwarber with Joc Pederson and got a quality starter back in Zach Davies when they traded away Yu Darvish, but in the best possible scenario they are still worse than before. The next place to look has to be the farm system. Well, that isn’t panning out well either. According to MLB Pipeline, it heads into 2021 ranked as the 22nd best out of 30, and that’s even after
A Panthers fan’s thoughts on the Sam Darnold trade
trading for a haul of prospects in exchange for Yu Darvish. The only player of note that seems to be primed to be called up for good this year is Nico Hoerner, who would likely slide into the second base position, but a contact hitting middle infielder is not the answer to all of the Cubs’ problems. So, what should they do? The answer is clear: something. They should either commit to a rebuild and ship away a few key pieces for prospects in order to bolster the farm system, or they should stop pinching pennies and pay up, both within the organization and on the market. While this is much easier said than done, especially emerging from a pandemic that has left all of baseball in a precarious financial position, there are too many examples from across the league that suggest that stagnation and success can no longer coincide in the MLB. For the best example of an active ball club, the Cubs can look no further than the south side of Chicago. The White Sox have had one of the best farm systems in the league for the past several years, and now they’re reaping the benefits of their youth. Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert, Eloy Jimenez, Yermin Mercedes, Michael Kopech, Garrett Crochet, Andrew Vaughn, the list goes on. They have also been able to fill holes in the rotation and the lineup during free agency. Starters Dallas Keuchel and Lance Lynn, catcher Yasmani Grandal and closer Liam Hendriks were all some of the most sought after free agents in the past two years at their respective positions. Because of this, the Sox are in a position to succeed now and for a long time to come. In the end, the point to be made is that the Cubs should actively work to not let history repeat itself. While the occasional wild card appearance or division title is good for morale, it’s not the standard a club like the Cubs should be content with, and certainly not what fans want to sit through for decades to come. The Cubs have the market, the money and the relevance to look past early exits towards more titles, so that’s exactly what they should do.
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Contact Gehrig Smalstig at esmalsti@nd.edu The views expressed in this Sports Authority are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
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Thomas Zwiller Sports Writer
Last Monday, the news that the Jets had sent Sam Darnold away in a trade wasn’t all that surprising to me. I had been predicting that Darnold would leave New York since the Jets landed the second-round pick. What I wasn’t expecting was Sam’s new destination: the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers sent away this year’s 6th round pick and next year’s 2nd and 4th, a cheap haul for the once upon a time 3rd overall pick. As a Panthers fan, I was pretty surprised, and at first unpleasantly so. But, after thinking about it, I think I like the trade. Here’s why:
Current state of the Draft With the 49ers trading up to third, three of the five quarterbacks will be gone in the first three picks. The Falcons are at four, and I think it is a fifty-fifty chance they take TE Pitts or a QB. Then the Bengals pick, and they should take OT Penei Sewell or a WR. Then the Dolphins at six, and I am positive they take WR DeVonta Smith if available to them. The Lions pick at seven, and the odds are good they take a WR; they have Jared Goff and don’t need a QB at the moment. And then there are the Panthers at eight. I think the Panthers would need to move up to fourth to be confident they can get their guy. Both the Falcons and the Lions could take a QB, and then the Panthers would be out of options. The Broncos could easily trade up to the Falcons or Lions, and the Panthers can’t really move up. For one, a top-five pick is going to be equal to the price of the 49ers trade. The Falcons are division rivals and wouldn’t want the Panthers to get a franchise QB. The Bengals might be willing to part with five, but giving up what the 49ers did just to jump three spots isn’t worth it.
Flexibility Besides, the trade frees up the Panthers to fill another need. I think the Panthers can get Rashawn Slater, which would fill the need they have in O-Line.
Should the Panthers be so lucky to see Kyle Pitts fall to them, they should draft him in a heartbeat. The move also allows the Panthers to deal Teddy Bridgewater. If you think that the Panthers gave up too much capital, there is the potential for it to be recouped. I think Teddy is a solid backup at worst and an okay starter when in a good situation. He would do well in places like New England or Miami. Teddy could potentially be worth a third-round pick to the right team. I think he would need to rework his deal a little, but I genuinely believe he can be of value to the right team. The trade for Darnold gives the Panthers flexibility at the QB position, they can keep or trade Teddy and still feel secure at the position. It’s a reasonably cheap trade. And, if the QB the Panthers like is still there, nothing prevents them from taking him. I know Matt Rhule said he liked Mac Jones. If the 49ers don’t take Jones like I think they will, and he falls to eight, take him. In summary, I think the trade offers the Panthers flexibility they didn’t have before.
It’s cheap In the grand scheme of all trades, future second, fourth and sixth picks are cheap, especially given that the Jets used the third overall on Sam. There is a mathematical way to value NFL Draft Picks. The first pick is worth 3000 points, and the last at just 2 points. The pick spent on Sam was worth 2,200 points, quite a lot. The Panthers sent picks valued at 580, 82, and 1 points — pennies on the dollar. This compared to the picks the 49ers sent to the Dolphins to move up to the third pick. The 49ers sent the twelfth pick, a third in 2021, 2022 first, and 2023 first which are valued anywhere from 2,565 points to 7,385. There is something to be said for it being financially cheap as well. Sam will be a 4.77 million dollar hit on the Panthers cap, incredibly affordable when compared to Teddy Bridgewater or, for example, Ryan Fitzpatrick. And yes, Sam will jump up to 18.9 million should the Panthers
pick up his fifth-year option. But if he jumps up to Ryan Tannehill levels (more on that later), that’s a bargain, Tannehill currently makes 29.5 million. The jump in Darnold’s cap hit likely won’t end up mattering. Assuming we see the NFL salary cap rise next season, the hit’s impact will be lessened dramatically.
Upside As I mentioned earlier, I think Sam Darnold has the potential to be like Ryan Tannehill. They both would be leaving teams devoid of talent and are arriving at teams with good receivers and an improvement in the o-line. They would be leaving the same head coach in Adam Gase and coming to good situations with excellent coaching. I have an incredible amount of trust in the ability of Matt Rhule and Joe Brady to repair the damage done to Darnold. Assuming Darnold follows a similar trajectory to Tannehill the trade will basically put Scott Fitterer in prison for grand larceny. In Tannehill’s first year as a Titan, he threw 22 TDs, 6 INTs, and had 2,700 yards all in 12 games. He was able to sustain those numbers this year. Through sixteen games, he had 33 TDs, 7 INTs, 3,819 yards. Tannehill is starting from a higher floor, though; he had 17 TDs, 9 INTs, and just under 2,000 yards. This season, Darnold only had 9 TDs and 11 INTs with 2,200 yards.
Less pressure I feel that Sam’s departure from New York may do him some good. New York is the media capital of the world and can be hostile to athletes. I think that Charlotte will offer him a clean slate. I also think that the pressure to save the franchise and to play for his job is going to lessen. The Panthers have piece around him, and he will likely be extended a year. Good luck Sam! Contact Thomas Zwiller at tzwiller@hcc-nd.edu The views expressed in this Sports Authority are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
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Bouts Continued from page 16
RecSports guidelines, we’ve been practicing in much, much smaller groups,” O’Brien said. “The largest challenge that we’ve had this year is the distance. It is challenging to teach boxing and even to explain boxing well when you have to maintain 6 feet of distance. But to a certain extent, a lot of the technique that we cover, especially earlier on as far as stance, and explaining the basics of each punch, you don’t need contact.” Junior captain Alec Vasquez explained the difficulties that the club has faced in engaging members and raising money for the mission statement in Bangladesh without an end of the year tournament. “Without that tournament, there’s a lot of motivation lacking, particularly among our veteran guys. And it’s just been tough to keep them engaged and to find something that they can build up to because we’re limited by what we can do,” Vasquez said. “It’s also been difficult to fundraise because our primary source of income and fundraising money comes through the tournament
Volleyball Continued from page 16
opportunity,” he said. “I look at perhaps our seniors who really love the game and love to compete, and they would have been done in December. And yet, here they are in April, still wearing Notre Dame across their chest, and so we’re just grateful for the opportunities to compete.” The Irish will take on Army (6-2, 4-2 Patriot League) in the first round of the tournament on Wednesday, and should they advance, they will take on No. 16 Oregon in the next round. The top sixteen teams in the tournament all secured first round byes. “I like where we are, if we’re fortunate enough to beat Army, to go into [the Oregon game] with a little momentum,” Johnson said. “I think it could work to our advantage.” The Black Knights, who came into the Patriot League conference tournament seeded third, pulled off two upsets in a row to secure the conference’s automatic bid. “We talk about Notre Dame being different with the demands here, athletic, academic, personal, but I also got to think at Army, those kids experience some pretty exceptional demands,” Johnson said. “They handle the ball pretty well. They’ve got a good setter, they’ve got some good arms, And I think they’ll come to play.” Notre Dame has struggled recently in the NCAA tournament. The last time the Irish advanced
through selling tickets and having that hype around the tournament.” O’Brien emphasized the importance of each individual boxer raising money. “[The tournament is] where a lot of our donations come from. But where they actually come from within the tournament is the individual boxers who fundraise in anticipation of the tournament. So what we’re trying to do is basically maximize our membership, and maximize the engagement of the people who are participating,” O’Brien said. He also stressed the importance of having an end of the year event to keep members motivated despite the tough workouts. “Frankly, some of our workouts are just not fun, especially if you’re in your first couple years in the program. We design them to be unpleasant sometimes, and when you’re doing a lot of burpees, you need a reason to show up the next day even though you’re sore,” O’Brien said. “I think the mission in that regard is more than enough a reason to show up the next day. But for a lot of the guys that are like first years, second years in the program or maybe just haven’t been as engaged in
the past, we want to give them something that they can look towards in the future.” Some of the current Bengal Bouts captains were part of the last group of athletes to go over to Bangladesh in the Summer of 2019 before the pandemic began. Senior captain Ryan Smith explained that they have used their experiences from the trip to motivate others that have not been to Bangladesh before. “We have a wealth of experiences and pictures and media that we can show the guys that kind of keep them motivated,” Smith said. “We are able to kind of feed information and keep people up to date with how they’re dealing with the pandemic and how they’re dealing with some other things like they had flooding and national disasters to deal with over the past year.” Senior captain Bo Heatherman discussed his experience in Bangladesh. “For the first half of our trip, which is like five weeks, we were split up in pairs and lived the quiet village life out away from the city. And then they brought the four of us all back together,” Heatherman said. “Through our shared experience and shared suffering
of that trip, we became best friends very quickly. And it was great to swap stories and recount everything that had been going on and that was really meaningful for me.” Smith explained how the captains have been talking to Father Tom at Moreau Seminary to try to establish a better connection with the club’s mission statement on campus. “Especially this year, Bo [Heatherman], myself, and Dan [O’Brien] have been really trying to establish a connection with the The Holy Cross Mission Center, which is across the lake at Moreau seminary,” Smith said. “[Father Tom] has been a really big help trying to build that connection on campus so that it’s not just the four of us that went to Bangladesh or a couple captains in the past that went overseas but really a more firmly established connection on campus that people can look to as a resource.” Dan O’Brien shared that his favorite memory with the club was sticking around after his fight following his early round fight at last year’s tournament. “The best part was having that sense of accomplishment not for myself but for all the guys that I cornered, all the other captains that I worked
with and just the fact that the evening went the way it was supposed to,” O’Brien said. Alec Vasquez described winning his first fight freshman year as his best memory with the club. “It was the only fight that I’ve won, but I was cornered by two guys who were mentors for my entire freshman season, and they have really left an impact on me to this day,” Vasquez said. “After winning that fight or after any fight, everyone knows you’re exhausted and I just embraced both of them after the fight. And it was just a great feeling to know you’d been working up to it the entire season, so it’s probably one of my best memories.” Smith’s favorite memory with the club was after winning his finals fight junior year. After losing his fight freshman year, Smith made a promise to his mom that he would win the tournament someday. “It was the first time that she saw me fight since freshman year, and I won. The first thing I did was I ran down and I started crying in her arms and I just said, ‘I did it! I told you that I was going to do it,’” Smith said.
past the first round was 2005; since then, they have lost their opening game in five consecutive tournaments. However, this Irish team has experience, featuring seven upperclassmen and could be primed for a run. Additionally, six Irish players earned All-ACC honors this year. Junior setter Zoe Nunez and junior outside hitter Charley Niego were named First Team All-Conference for the second straight year, while sophomore outside hitter Caroline Meuth and freshman middle blocker Lindsey Miller were named to Second Team All-Conference, announced on April 5. Outside hitter Aubrey Hamilton and libero Hattie Monson joined Miller on the All-Freshman team. “We’ve got a group of players who are hungry, players who have been in the tournament and in the fire before, and are really kind of looking at this matchup not so much as happy to be here, but more ‘let’s go make a run,’” Johnson said. “This team has a swagger and a confidence about them, that they’re ready to go do it.” The Irish have been playing some of their best volleyball of the season as of late, having won five of their last six contests. “One thing I appreciate about this team is if you look through the season, we’ve won the different matches in very different ways. We’ve won some with very strong offensive performances, and others with very strong defensive performances,” Johnson said. “The magic to me is really putting that all together and doing it all at once for a string of matches.”
The first set against Army is scheduled for noon on Wednesday in Omaha, Neb. and will be broadcast on ESPN 3. If the Irish advance, they will face Oregon the following day at
noon. After all the uncertainty of the season, Johnson and his team are simply grateful to be where they are. “When we get down there, at the end of the
day, there are four white lines and a net and we’re gonna compete like heck.”
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Baseball Continued from page 16
a cause for celebration in South Bend, but the No. 12 Irish, even after two impressive wins against No. 14 Yellow Jackets, seem to have gotten a taste of what this squad can accomplish, and they aren’t here to settle for 2-1 series victories. At 14-6 in ACC play, this Notre Dame team isn’t here for moral victories — they’re here to win championships. Friday night, Notre Dame pulled off a win worthy of a championship team. The opener of this series looked lost as the Yellow Jackets jumped out to a 7-0 lead by the top of the fourth inning, with the Irish having utilized four pitchers with little success. The Irish showed signs of life in the bottom half of the fourth, as sophomore third baseman Jack Brannigan slammed a RBI double off the right field wall for Notre Dame’s first run, and then flashed his speed on the ensuing RBI single by junior shortstop Zack Prazjner. However, the score remained 7-2 through the sixth inning. The Irish found some stability on the mound, as graduate student Jack Sheehan, making his first appearance of the season, worked around three walks to muscle through 2 2/3 scoreless innings. That set the stage for part 1 of Notre Dame’s stunning rally. Once again, Brannigan was the spark, as he blasted a solo shot to start the frame, cutting the Georgia Tech lead to 7-3. Then there was senior outfielder Ryan Cole, Notre Dame’s newfound clutch hero, drawing the Irish one-step closer with a RBI single to center, before usual suspect and red-hot senior first baseman Niko Kavadas sent another
Adams Continued from page 16
Seriously? All due respect to Matt Salerno, but seriously? This is the best you could do? Way to signal to everyone in the universe that you are throwing in the towel on having any kind of punt return game.
Oct. 17 vs. Louisville It was a dreadful game, that’s for sure. But Notre Dame was in control more than the final margin indicated, and that control would have been more apparent had Ian Book and Austin connected on this play. Considering the windy conditions, it was a really good throw, and few receivers (maybe none) could have made that catch aside from Austin. It’s the play of the game because it just about sums up what could have been for the Notre Dame passing attack had Austin stayed healthy.
Oct. 24 at Pitt Screw it, let’s just go with the obvious here. After that Louisville game, there were a LOT of questions about this receiver group and their apparent inability to
ndsmcobserver.com | Monday, April 12, 2021 | The Observer
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offering into orbit, with his 2-run home run checking in at over 450 feet and bringing Notre Dame within one run at 7-6. However, the deficit got a little more daunting once more, as the Yellow Jackets notched their first runs since the fourth inning with a 2-run eighth, stretching their advantage back to three runs. But the Irish still had some magic in their bats during this wildly entertaining Friday evening clash. Prazjner continued his hot night at the plate, blasting an RBI double off the centerfield wall, making the score 9-7. Then, leadoff man and senior centerfield Spencer Myers made his big contribution, with a pair of runners on, lacing one to the right-center gap. It looked like a RBI single, but it was misplayed in the outfield, as Meyers would fly around to third base and two more Notre Dame runs scored to tie this one at 9 runs apiece. Some wildness from the Georgia Tech pitching staff allowed Notre Dame to load the bases, and junior designated hitter Carter Putz worked a goahead RBI walk for the 10-9 lead. That was all Irish graduate student transfer Joe Sheridan needed to lock it down in the ninth inning. He allowed one baserunner, but he induced a two-out grounder to Prazjner who fired to Kavadas who emphasized the incredible victory with a celebratory fist pump upon catching the game’s final out. “The bulk of our team that was available to play was involved,” Jarrett said. “I told them that was a big gut-check victory, the likes of which are rarely seen at this level.” All in all, Notre Dame utilized 22 players in this game — 14 position players and 8 pitchers, as Jarrett constantly moved guys around, and pushed enough
buttons, and the Irish completed the stunning rally. “That’s one of the greatest team wins I’ve ever been a part of. I can’t remember anything like that,” Jarrett said. “This is the toughest team I’ve been around, and they find a way to hang in there and grind through it. Some of the big swings late made up for the slop early. Can’t say enough about our guys.” For Notre Dame, a team that lacks a bevy of traditional starters, Saturday has been their day of stability, with left-handed grad student John Michael Bertrand having taken the ball for the middle game of most ACC series. However, dealing with arm soreness, Bertrand was unavailable, and the Irish were forced to juggle again. However, they needed no such magic as on Friday, as the pitching staff responded spectacularly, junior southpaw Aidan Tyrell was nothing short of dynamite, firing six innings of two-hit ball, keeping the Yellow Jackets off the scoreboard. Having not thrown more than three innings or 50 pitches in any of his previous outings on the year, Tyrell doubled that with his sixinning outing, firing 102 pitches. Meanwhile, the offense was good enough to stake their lefty to a 4-0 lead through six innings, which was more than enough in a comfortable Saturday victory. Cole was at the center of the early offensive success, scoring Notre Dame’s first run of the game on Putz’ RBI single, before delivering his fourth bomb of the season — and of his career — in the third inning, for the 2-0 Notre Dame lead. Kavadas doubled the lead with a 2-run single in the fourth, and the Irish were off to the races. The briefest sign of trouble emerged in the seventh, as junior
Alex Rao allowed two men to reach in relief, but he notched a big strikeout, and Notre Dame completely broke it open in the seventh. Brannigan drilled an RBI double off the left field wall and then came around to score via a throwing error a few batters later, as Notre Dame built their lead to 6-0. Cole accounted for the 7-0 final with an eighthinning sac fly, while Rao closed out the game with three shutout innings. For the Irish, it was their sixth series victory in ACC play, as their only non-series win was a rain-shortened series split with Louisville, who currently sits just percentage points above the Irish in league standings. Sunday was a less-than-ideal ending to the series for Notre Dame, as they simply could not get anything going offensively in a 4-2 loss to end the top-15 series. The teams traded runs in the second inning, with Prazjner ripping a RBI double for the Irish, and junior righty Tanner Kohlhepp delivered 4 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball in relief in a lowscoring series finale. Prazjner and Kavadas were a combined 4-6 with two walks, but the rest of the lineup mustered just three hits. Prazjner scored on Ryan Cole’s double in the fifth, but the Irish couldn’t extend the lead, and they eventually gave it up in the 7th and 8th innings. Georgia Tech victimized Joe Sheridan in the late innings, tying the game on a two-out infield single in the seventh and then taking the lead with a two-run bomb in the eighth. Notre Dame had no answer, and they fell meekly in the series finale. “Good weekend, not great,” Jarrett said, setting the tone of the post-game press conference at less than satisfied. “We made too many mistakes today, and we
couldn’t overcome it offensively. We didn’t play a great ballgame, and they’re a very good team.” Asked about his team’s overall success and their current 2ndbest record in the ACC, Jarrett noted that he hadn’t realized that, and his attention wasn’t focused on such things “When the dust settles, you are who you are, and the dust hasn’t settled yet,” Jarrett said. He went on to add, “I understand what it takes to compete in this league. To win a weekend series in this league is not easy to do. I do appreciate what we’ve been able to accomplish.” The appreciation is there, but make no mistake, Jarrett and the Irish are far from satisfied. After combining to use 14 pitchers in three games, the Irish are learning how to win in a lot of different ways, and this team has more than a few series victories on their mind. They’ll look to rebound from this loss against Central Michigan on Tuesday, before welcoming NC State for another home conference series. The week presents an interesting challenge — Central Michigan is 17-9 with series victory over West Virginia to their names, and they’ve won nine of ten, so they’ll have no shortage of confidence coming in on the road for this non-conference battle. Jarrett has not announced a starting pitcher, with the health of several arms and players up in the air after the gritty series with the Yellow Jackets. After facing the Chippewas, Notre Dame will welcome an NC State team that is just 8-10 in the ACC, and 14-11 overall, but somehow 8-0 on the road. First pitch Tuesday is at 5 p.m. at Frank Eck Stadium.
stretch the field, and Skowronek seemed to quell that at least a little bit with two receiving touchdowns, especially a 73-yard bomb.
from Tuscaloosa, Ala., preventing a kick-6 before the half. Book throwing the game-tying, overtime-forcing touchdown to Davis. Daelin Hayes sacking D.J. Uiagelelei in double overtime. Storming the field (sorry not sorry). The postgame locker room celebration video.
“For TP,” in reference to Tyler Plantz, whose brother Zac died over Thanksgiving night before the Black Friday game vs. UNC.
McCloud making the worst possible attempt at a tackle. But, like I said, I gotta give credit where credit is due, because Harris not only hurdled a dude, but he hurdled a 6-footand-one-half-inch McCloud who was standing nearly straight up. And, after that, he proceeded to rumble downfield for 53 yards — coincidentally the same number of yards on Book’s fourth quarter pass to Avery Davis in the first game against Clemson (but I think that’s just the nostalgia making me bring that up).
Oct. 31 at Georgia Tech It’s a majestic thing to see K-Ham breaking through the line of scrimmage to trip ’em up in the backfield — or to see him make pretty much any play on a football field. The main reason I pick Hamilton here, honestly, is to atone for not picking his trip-up of Malcolm Perry on fourth down in 2019’s Navy game as the moment of that contest. Still, while I credit Hamilton for making yet another incredible play for the Irish, I’ll give a brief mention to junior receiver Joe Wilkins for his first career touchdown catch.
Nov. 7 vs. Clemson I can’t choose from this one, so I leave it to you: Kyren Williams’ 65-yard house call on the first (official) play from scrimmage. “And it’s in the hands of Owusu-Koramoah!” (Thank you, Mike Tirico, for the fantastic soundbite). Jay Bramblett, a football player
Nov. 14 at Boston College It was kinda funny (and very annoying) when the refs in this game dished out three largely unwarranted unsportsmanlike penalties to Notre Dame. That included one when Skowronek flexed his guns after one of his three receiving touchdowns in the first half. It was a great TD catch despite a defensive pass interference, so credit to Ben, but if K-Ham hadn’t dropped that would-be pick-6 then that would easily be the play of this game.
Nov. 27 at North Carolina Some things are bigger than football, and Tommy Rees tweeting out an aerial snapshot of Notre Dame in 14 personnel getting ready to convert said “Silencer” is just too special. That’s because the caption read,
Dec. 5 vs. Syracuse I’m going with Tyree letting loose because it really felt good to see the guy who we’d heard was nothing but speed, speed and more speed all year finally break a real home run. Who cares if it was against Syracuse in garbage time? That’s what Notre Dame has to look forward to for at least the next two seasons.
Dec. 19 ACC Championship Game Onomatopoeia. You hate to see (and hear) it. It’s often a foreboding sign of bad things to come when the pigskin bounces off the upright and the ensuing reverberations drive an eerie feeling into the very core of your being. That’s what happened to senior kicker Jonathan Doerer, in the red zone, on Notre Dame’s second drive of the ACC Championship game against Clemson. And after it hit the upright, it hit the fan.
Jan. 1 Rose Bowl This was an objectively awesome play, if not one aided by
Contact Aidan Thomas at athoma28@nd.edu
That’s just how it is when you only play a 12-game season. It’s the beautiful thing about college football. And as someone who had the absolute privilege of spending two years covering not just one of the most historic college football programs ever, but one going through an awesome resurgence throughout my four years as an undergraduate, I couldn’t be more thankful. Contact Hayden Adams at hadams3@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
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The observer | Monday, April 12, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com
nd volleyball
bengal bouts
ND looks to make tourney run By LIAM COOLICAN Sports Writer
When the Notre Dame volleyball team returned to campus in August, they didn’t even know if there would be a season. Just over eight months later, the Irish (14-3, 13-3 ACC) find themselves ranked 22nd in the country and returning to the NCAA tournament for the third time in the last four seasons. “I said to our team a number of times, it says a lot about the people in this room, that in the hardest year, we have one of our best years, and there’s a reason they call us the Fighting Irish,” head coach Mike Johnson said. Conferences around the country postponed or cancelled fall sports, seemingly updating decisions by the minute, although the ACC ultimately made the decision to play. “There was a period in August, September, where you’re, more than anything, just wondering what’s going to happen,” Johnson said. “The things that we could control
Despite pandemic rules, Bengal Bouts fights on
were our improvement in practice, our effort, our attitude, our enthusiasm and whether or not there was going to be a championship, we knew we were going to show up that day to practice and we could make some progress.” Typically, the NCAA tournament is held in December, and consists of 64 teams. This year, in addition to being postponed to the spring, the field was trimmed to 48 teams. Johnson sees an opportunity to increase volleyball’s audience. “This tournament really gives the sport of volleyball an opportunity to be showcased in a different light,” he said. “Normally the volleyball championship is going on the same time as almost the college football playoff and the start of the NBA and the NFL, and Christmas, and a lot of those factors aren’t there (this year).” Johnson highlighted other positives of the spring tournament as well. “In every difficulty lies some see VOLLEYBALL PAGE 14
By NATE MOLLER Sports Writer
ANTHONY REO | RecSports
Tim Mikulski, left, dodges a left hook from Ryan Smith during the Bengal Bouts finals on Feb. 26, 2020, at Purcell Pavilion.
baseball | nd 10, georgia tech 9; nd 7, georgia tech 0; georgia tech 4, nd 2
Notre Dame wins top-15 Georgia Tech series By AIDAN THOMAS
Although Georgia Tech put the wraps on a 4-2 victory over Notre Dame baseball on Sunday afternoon, salvaging the final game of the three-game set, the Irish still emerged with yet another series victory — they’re yet to drop one this season — so the overall mood had to be positive … or so one would think. But that’s not the culture that head coach Link Jarrett has instilled in the Fighting Irish, where winning has become the norm, after years of struggling to compete in a highly competitive conference. “They [the team] are out there, knowing they had a chance to win three straight games against a really good team, and they didn’t,” Jarrett said. “They’re mad about it, and hungry to have it not feel that way.” Two years ago, a top-15 series win at home would have been see BASEBALL PAGE 15
Moments of 2020 football: Defined Senior Sports Writer
In this column, I am going to perform the same task as the last one of picking the defining moment of every one of Notre Dame’s 12 football games in 2020.
Sept. 12 vs. Duke I’ll give credit to Bramblett for giving the offense an injection it desperately needed after three straight three-and-outs to start the season. I didn’t really process how exciting it was to see Notre Dame’s first special teams trick play in years because I was trying to snap some good photos of it, but it was still dope. But more than that, it’s emblematic of how the offense consistently leans on the other units of the Notre Dame football team, and unfortunately those other units can’t always make a little magic happen like Bramblett did here. RYAN VIGILANTE | The Observer
Irish senior outfielder Ryan Cole connects with a pitch during Notre Dame’s 7-4 loss to Louisville on Mar. 26 at Eck Stadium.
see BOUTS PAGE 14
FOOTBALL
Hayden Adams
Sports Writer
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the spring semester extensively so far, Bengal Bouts has still been practicing and supporting their mission statement in Bangladesh despite the pandemic restrictions. Senior captain Dan O’Brien discussed how practice has been similar in some aspects even in the midst of the pandemic. “Our mission is largely unchanged, which is to fundraise for the missions in Bangladesh, and while we’re doing it, to develop our boxers physically, mentally and to help them progress and develop their boxing skill throughout the season,” O’Brien said. Despite these similarities, the pandemic has limited what the club can do in terms of physical contact and training sizes. “It has been different this year. Abiding by University and
words from Tommy Tremble here. There wasn’t much to take away from this game, except for the idea that maybe Tremble would turn into Notre Dame’s go-to receiving threat. That didn’t happen, but it was a beautiful thing to see any member of the Irish’s stable of running backs running behind Tremble as a lead blocker. Absolutely beautiful.
Oct. 10 vs. Florida State I hate to make it a downer moment in an otherwise enjoyable game, but after Lawrence Keys III muffed a punt in the first quarter that led to a 17-14 deficit at the end of that period, one of the Brians (Kelly or Polian) made the decision to yank Keys from the starting punt returner role, relegating him to the bench for the remainder of the season. From then on, it was just garbage time chances for Notre Dame’s leading returning receiver (not counting Northwestern transfer Ben Skowronek) in 2020.
Sept. 19 vs. USF “I just love contact.” Poetic
see ADAMS PAGE 15