Lacking voice in decision
Letter to the Editor
Mugimin Lukito
I woke up this morning with a severe sore throat. Every bone and muscle in my body is aching, but the one organ that hurts the worst is probably my heart.
Like all the football players on the field, the loyal students and I gave the game all we had on Saturday afternoon. The student body was as loud as ever among the overwhelming sea of red in our own house. We came up a little short against the number-one-ranked Cornhuskers, but that is not really my source of bitter disappointment. Truly, I am proud of a team that fought so hard and I hope in their heart they know that they have done their best.
The game is called college football. To me the word "college" is much more important than football, for when all the dust from the game settles, we are still the sons of Notre Dame.
We are what matters in this institution, yet in that last 67 seconds in the fourth quarter, I with many other students felt small. I am not a football coach who gets paid to guide a team to victory, so I cannot say if the decision to "rest" for 67 seconds makes perfect rational sense in the coaching world. But as a student who shed a tear at the end of the game, I can tell you this: I feel that my effort in the game was not appreciated.
I sing the victory march over and over and maybe I'm stupid enough to believe in it. I have seen magic happen in the Notre Dame stadium, so I hoped that the last 67 seconds could once again turn into the embodiment of what the victory march is all about. To my utter disappointment, I was told boldly by Coach Davie that we should replace the word "victory" at the very end with "overtime."
Who knows what might have happened either way it was called? We might have fumbled or had a pass intercepted and returned for a touchdown in that 67 seconds. We'll never know. We didn't have much to lose, and at the same time, I felt that the student body had lost its voice, literally and figuratively.
Mugimin Lukito
graduate student, University of Notre Dame
September 10, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Monday, September 11, 2000
