The Beaste – 9/23/2022
Note from the Editor: there is nothing better than waking up to four 2am emails from [email protected], who becomes COS’s most prolific 2022 contributor with this post. Please enjoy his latest below.
I should have written this a week ago, when the Hot Take types might have been tempted to predict that Notre Dame might not win a game all year. After losing to Marshall, it appeared that the offense might have no path forward to improve. A new receiving corps wasn’t going to spring forth from the Touchdown Jesus mural(1). The line was abysmal so running was impossible and there’s only one Michael Mayer. If there’s a dimension between zero and one, that’s where Notre Dame’s offence could be found. Vast improvements needed to be made, but there was that sinking feeling that it might not be possible with the players they had. Then they lost their quarterback for the season.
And I felt a certain kind of lightness. During the broadcast, much was made of the fact that Marcus Freeman was the first Notre Dame coach to ever lose his first three games(2). And yet I had a little flutter of joy in my heart. You see, Brian Kelly is no longer the head football coach at the University of Notre Dame.
For those not familiar, Kelly’s tenure at Notre Dame consisted of very successful regular seasons, each followed by an embarrassing loss at the end. Often very good. Never great. That I can forgive. What I find it hard to forgive is when someone is openly and brazenly just a fucking slimeball. He’s the type of coach who blames “execution” (i.e. his players) when the team loses and lauds “coaching and preparation” (i.e. him) when they win. Coaches yell at players, sure, but for some reason when Kelly did it, he had all the decorum of a four year old who wanted cheetos for dinner and can’t believe that life is so cruel. Still though, is all of this really so bad? I mean, he’s not a monster(3). But who could possibly root for the kind of guy who fakes a southern accent when he meets his new fan base? You know the world is upside down when I feel bad for LSU.
Over this past summer, Mrs.TheBeaste noted, “The Steelers are about to find out how much they relied on their piece of shit of a human being quarterback to pull out last minute wins for the past twenty years.” She was right, as always. The case against Ben Roethlisberger is much more cut and dry. Rape. There, done. Besides his actual prison-deserving crimes(4), his personality flaws are massive and too many to list(5) and it gives me great joy to hear Pittsburgh sportscasters(6) talk openly about what a garbage human being he is. It’s a weird space to be in to root for a team but to root against the player who is most responsible for them winning.
It can’t be healthy for me to harbor such negative feelings. I guess I’m hoping that writing this will serve as a sort of exorcism, now that it’s safe to do so. Because (say it with me, people) THOSE FUCKERS ARE GONE. This is the first time in nearly twenty years that I can root for football teams that I actually, unequivocally, LIKE. We in the The Beaste household are celebrating all of this upcoming season. And that celebration will go on, despite the fact that the Steelers and the Fighting Irish are about to lose a LOT of games.
“Show me someone who is comfortable with losing and I’ll show you a loser.” Sure. But here’s the thing that people miss in all of this. I’m not the one winning or losing the games. I’m just watching other people compete and rooting for their success because it’s fun. When it comes to sports, winning is just how I feel at the end of the day(7).
Which brings us to the thorny case of Lou Holtz. So, let’s be honest with ourselves here. Even before the national championship that he won, in fact even before the team played a single down with him as head coach, we all knew that he was a little bit slimy and we loved him anyway. Even among the members of my family that can’t stand Brian Kelly’s “character” all was forgiven with Lou(8). His differences compared to Kelly are pretty obvious, national championship aside. Lou’s charisma was off the charts, and his clear and genuine love of the university itself was endearing as fuck. But the slime was still there, indelible, and backed up by his actions occasionally. And this led to a certain *wink, wink* vibe that it was ok because he was *ours*. And sometimes I think that the “It’s ok when it’s our guy” approach to moral choices is one of the root causes of what is wrong with our society. But I loved him as much as anyone else. Would I still love him in the same way today(9)? I honestly can’t say.
Post-script: I attended a wedding a few months ago, in a picturesque back yard on a lake in Florida. Weeping willows, lighted docks, all that shit, gorgeous. And I got into a similar discussion with the gentleman whose gorgeous house and yard it was. He was also a Notre Dame grad and a Steeler fan. And when I said something like “Success is great, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t have character” he immediately became offended. Ok dude. You do you. Life’s litmus tests abound, I suppose. …Then later, when I was shooting the shit with one of the servers, she let me know that the leftover alcohol from the reception had already been purchased and would be left in the house. As we left the reception to continue matters back at the hotel, my nephew [name redacted], in an act of glorious chutzpah and questionable morals that will no doubt be remembered for generations, brazenly walked out of the house with a large crate full of assorted booze, and then ten minutes later spilled half of it as we entered the hotel. Legendary.
——–
(1) I think the other non-Jesus folks on the mural are apostles, maybe? There may be a king or two in there? I should know this. Definitely not wide receivers though.
(2) In Freeman’s case, dating back to last year’s bowl game
(3) We’ll get to the monster momentarily
(4) Some in the Steelers organization who saw the report from the NFL’s investigation, called it “horrifying”
(5) including self-servingly calling his past sins “between me and God” to avoid any actual reckoning
(6) including the late, legendary Myron Cope
(7) Fer chrissakes, the Grad Assistant is a Pitt fan, but that doesn’t make *him* a loser.
(8) You can tell a lot by the fact that we call him by his first name, a sign of affection. Brian Kelly is just “Brian Kelly” or “”Kelly” and you could probably do a peer-reviewed sociological study about who calls Ben Roethlisberger “Ben” vs “Roethlisberger” vs “Fatty” vs “”That Rapist” and the correlation to their political beliefs
(9) It’s all too easy to retcon Lou into Bad Guy status due to his recent descent into the MAGA morass, so let’s choose to ignore that for the sake of embracing all of this delicious ambiguity