Ah, Notre Dame, setting the high standard of decency and sportsmanship which all other college football programs can only hope to attain someday... tinyurl/mfnz6yb >Eddie Vanderdoes might some day become a standout football player for UCLA, but last week he learned that there is one opponent he’ll never overcome. The NC2A. For those of you who don’t know the story, Vanderdoes is a 6-foot-3, 310-pound, five-star defensive tackle from outside of Sacramento, who signed a letter-of-intent to play for ND in February, then changed his mind last week and decided to play for UCLA, in order to be closer to his family. Granted, this is a big blow to the Irish, since Vanderdoes is considered a marauding defensive force, but ND’s tactics are spiteful and sadly consistent with today’s college sports climate created by the NC2A. Instead of allowing the young man to leave the Notre Dame orbit without penalty, Fighting Irish coach Brian Kelly refused to release Vanderdoes from his LOI, even though the young man said in a release that “over the past four months, circumstances have changed for me and my family.” While nebulous, that could mean any number of things, from illness, to economic setback to family upheaval. It doesn’t matter. The kid wants to get closer to home. By not allowing Vanderdoes to break cleanly, Kelly removed a year of eligibility from the defensive tackle’s clock and showed once again that the athletes the NC2A purports to serve so selflessly in its disingenuous promotional messages are at the mercy of the member institutions...
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:40:11 +0000