It's A Mailbag -- 4/8/07

Smaller version of the mailbag this week as we're watching some of the top golfers in the world continue to hack it up at the Masters.

Remember, as always, you can send your questions to mrothstein@jg.net or leave a comment on the bottom of one of our posts. We'll tackle almost any topic you'd like from football to basketball to our favorite places to eat on road trips. When you do send your questions  in, please include your name and where you're from because we like to track these sorts of things.

And don't forget -- the spring game is less than two weeks away.

Why don't the players' names appear on the Irish jerseys? Is there any chance that the names will appear on the jerseys in the future? Personally, I would support the names appearing on the jerseys. As a fan, it would help me in identifying the players.
-Timothy J. McCoach

Timothy --
We're not totally sure, but our best guess is that tradition has a great deal to do with not having names on the back of the jerseys. Only two coaches have had names on backs -- Dan Devine and Gerry Faust. Other than that, it hasn't happened and we're going to doubt Charlie Weis is going to change it. Never say never, I suppose, but we'd think it is unlikely. We here like the no names on the jerseys. There is an elegance to it, going back to the older days of the sport. On a side note, we're not sure how it would help identifying players more than the numbers except in the case of double numbers.

Please stop using rising for everyone you write about.
-The O'Brien & Nye Cartage Company
Solon, Ohio

What is a "rising sophomore?"
-Mike Sullivan

Well, only a few more spring practices to go -- meaning just a few more rising mentions for the year. A "rising sophomore" is a freshman who will be a sophomore next football season. It is a fairly common term to denote someone who is technically still a freshman but will be a sophomore next season.

Any word on Darrell Hand?
-John Poss

John --
Hand has been working mostly with the second unit as a defensive end. If he can stay healthy, he's probably got a shot of working his way into the rotation this year and see some playing time.

Since you mentioned (Asaph) Schwapp (Eds. note, We did in last week's mailbag), how does he look? A little rusty or back in full swing?
-Gabe

Gabe --
Schwapp still doesn't look 100 percent, at least in the media portion of the practices that we see. But that's just stretching and one set of individual drills. We asked Charlie Weis about him earlier this week and he said "he's not bad." Weis said a lot of the rust is gone, but that he still can improve. This is Weis' description of the rising junior: "He's a tough, physical lead blocker. That's why you got him."

We'll end our mailbag on this Easter Sunday with a bunch of gripes about our Hall of Fame voting.

If you're going to vote for the Hall of Fame, why can't you look past the players you grew up watching and look to the ones who were truly great at their craft.
For example, how could you not select George Kunz from Notre Dame in your balloting? On the 1966 championship team. Academic All-American at ND. Put fellow first-rounder and USC defensive lineman Alan Keys (Eds. note...we couldn't find an Alan Keys anywhere. More on that later) on his back on the second play from scrimmage against USC in 1968. Selected to play in 12 of 12 college all-star games in 1969. Drafted second overall behind O.J. Simpson in the 1969 draft. NFL 8-time Pro Bowl selection and 7-time All-Pro selection in NFL. Two-time Seagram Award winner as voted by NFL offensive line coaches as being the best NFL offensive lineman.
I know you're partial to the players you grew up with,  but if you're not going to select some of the best there ever was, you shouldn't be voting.
-Matt Kunz

I can not agree with you more, Matt.
-Ryan C.

To see more comments about George Kunz, click here to our ballot.

Matt, Ryan and others --
We respect your love for George Kunz and we will not deny or doubt that he was a great player at Notre Dame. But everyone on the ballot was a great player during his time. The players -- and coaches -- we voted for all had impressive resumes. We didn't vote for only players that we grew up with, although it may seem that way. We weren't born when Art Monk, Lawrence Taylor and Eric Dickerson played all or part of their college careers. We were also a small child when many of the others did as well. And if we were just going on names we knew, Kirk Gibson and Bob Golic would have been on our ballot. So maybe next year for Kunz with us. Also, just so you know, there was no Alan Keys drafted in the first round. The only person we saw who would fit your description would be Al Cowlings, who of course is better known as the driver of that White Bronco that interrupted Game 5 of the 1994 NBA Finals with O.J. Simpson in the passenger seat.

Thanks all. Looking forward to more of your questions. Have a great week.
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette     

Comments

[NDcivil03]

I believe one of the reasons for the tradition of not having names on the back of jerseys is to promote the idea that it's about the team, not any one individual.

[Andrew]

There's nothing wrong with the "rising" prefix on someone's class. It's the most precise way of saying things.

On the other hand, convention says that you use the fall's academic class when referring to a player during the spring workouts. Thus, when you call someone a "senior" during the spring, for example, that person is expected to be a senior in the fall. Thus, for people who read about football, they know and understand that convention without the need for a modifier.

Then again, some publications defy convention, and call someone who will be a senior in the fall only a "junior" right now. That's also technically accurate, from an academic standpoint, but it defies convention.

These are the questions that will plague this sport -- this country -- long after Irish Insights has come and gone.

To formalize everything, I'm going to start calling rising juniors "Koojabonkeys." And, rising seniors will be "Tragmatonkles." All others will be called "Hoo-has," unless they have only 30 or less college credits, in which case they'll be called "Hoo-hees."