'14 WA DT Marcus Griffin

[clashmore_mike]

I've got some sign language for the admissions office!

 

[wizards8507]

I would've accepted sign language. That's a pretty unique language in and of itself.

Yeah except the trend in the world is that business is going global, not that deafness is on the rise.

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[Ironman8]

I would've accepted sign language. That's a pretty unique language in and of itself.

Foreign means "strange and/or unfamiliar". How is learning an additional language in school that is strange and unfamiliar to you, such as sign language, not technically 'foreign' to you?

Idk, I get that requirements are requirements and it's why ND is ND, and not a football factory. You have to take the good with the bad if you truly want to be seen the way ND wants to be seen as an Academic University of true Student-Athletes. But just seems to me like this one wasn't as big as a stretch as to eliminate the prospective student athlete from admission to ND.

 

[BeauBenken]

Yeah except the trend in the world is that business is going global, not that deafness is on the rise.

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English is already the international business language, no?

 

[wizards8507]

"Foreign language" always feels like a red herring to me. Haven't guys made up specific credits like that in summer school or community college night classes before enrolling? I feel like if someone was 100% Irish, there are ways of making that up if you're willing to do the work.

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[IrishLax]

The foreign language requirement (and specifically refusing to accept sign language) has cost Notre Dame an absurd amount of recruits over the years. So sick of it.

 

[Pa Golden Tate Fan]

The foreign language requirement (and specifically refusing to accept sign language) has cost Notre Dame an absurd amount of recruits over the years. So sick of it.

Doesn't the NCAA require foreign language for all athletes coming out of high school?

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

The foreign language requirement (and specifically refusing to accept sign language) has cost Notre Dame an absurd amount of recruits over the years. So sick of it.

Sounds like Admissions is letting them know who is in charge.

 

[Ironman8]

The foreign language requirement (and specifically refusing to accept sign language) has cost Notre Dame an absurd amount of recruits over the years. So sick of it.

Maybe it's just me, but if I am ND Admissions, I would be way happier to admit a kid with good grades and solid test scores and sign language (or no language), then a kid who is barely meeting minimum requirements for admittance as a player and who skated through 2 Spanish classes with two C's or D's.

Just illogical to me. Look at the body of work.

 

[wizards8507]

The foreign language requirement (and specifically refusing to accept sign language) has cost Notre Dame an absurd amount of recruits over the years. So sick of it.

Any idea of the logic behind it? We make exceptions left and right for test scores and GPA, at least as they compare to the average ND student. Why is the language requirement such a sticking point? From a strictly academic standpoint, I'd rather have a somewhat intelligent kid who only speaks English than a dummy who can dice unas palabras en espanol.

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[Ironman8]

Doesn't the NCAA require foreign language for all athletes coming out of high school?

No, they don't.

 

[Ironman8]

NCAA requires 16 core courses:

4 years of English
3 years of Math
2 years of a natural or physical science
1 additional year of any of the above
2 years of social science
4 years of additional cores from any of the above areas or religion, philosophy, foreign language, etc.

 

[Pa Golden Tate Fan]

NCAA requires 16 core courses:

4 years of English
3 years of Math
2 years of a natural or physical science
1 additional year of any of the above
2 years of social science
4 years of additional cores from any of the above areas or religion, philosophy, foreign language, etc)

Thanks man.

 

[dwshade]

Frankly I think every HS student ought to be required to take a foreign language.

 

[Emcee77]

Frankly I think every HS student ought to be required to take a foreign language.

I'll just put it this way: I don't get how so many kids who want to go to college aren't taking a foreign language. At my high school, you had to take one. I was under the impression that it was a normal part of a college prep curriculum. Who is advising these kids, that they want to go to college and aren't taking foreign languages?

OTOH, maybe ND really is just an outlier for requiring their athletes to have taken a foreign language. If so, let's drop it, huh? I don't know why that should be a requirement for entrance. It's not like that's a building block subject that will put you at a disadvantage as a student if you don't know it (maybe in the global marketplace though, as wizards pointed out).

UGH I don't even know who I'm mad at, but this is frustrating. Reminds me of Anthony Standifer ... gotta turn away an emergency recruit late in the cycle at a position of dire need because of the stupid foreign language requirement.

 

[ResLife Hero]

Dammit. This foreign language thing bites us every freaking year.

 

[WakeUpEchoes]

Stanford would have taken him.

Universities That Accept ASL In Fulfillment Of Foreign Language Requirements

 

[rtrn2glory]

wow i remember sign language being offered as means to take care of foreign language requirement while i was in school...seems like something the school could get in trouble for discriminatory wise.

un-real how we keep swinging and missing on interior DL the past 4 cycles.

 

[irishff1014]

Surprise surprise right on course!

 

[stlnd01]

Frankly I think every HS student ought to be required to take a foreign language.

^^^ This.
It's not like foreign language is a Notre Dame football player requirement. It's a requirement of everyone at the university. And it should be. You can't take two Spanish classes in four years of high school? Really? It's not that hard.
I, for one, wish I'd taken more language classes in high school (and college). It's a big world out there and you've got to be able to talk to people. Even if you're a 300 pound defensive lineman.

 

[IrishLax]

^^^ This.
It's not like foreign language is a Notre Dame football player requirement. It's a requirement of everyone at the university. And it should be. You can't take two Spanish classes in four years of high school? Really? It's not that hard.
I, for one, wish I'd taken more language classes in high school (and college). It's a big world out there and you've got to be able to talk to people. Even if you're a 300 pound defensive lineman.

That's not the issue. The issue is that many high schools allow kids to take sign language as their foreign language. And then they are automatically a non-take for Notre Dame just because they opted to learn that instead of French or Spanish or whatever. It's Notre Dame's prerogative to be this way, but there are a number of VERY highly touted universities that are fine with sign language.

With regards to Griifn, I'd heard like Standifer it was just more than just a foreign language class. With many other guys that isn't the case and those scenarios make me sad.

 

[stlnd01]

That's not the issue. The issue is that many high schools allow kids to take sign language as their foreign language. And then they are automatically a non-take for Notre Dame just because they opted to learn that instead of French or Spanish or whatever. It's Notre Dame's prerogative to be this way, but there are a number of VERY highly touted universities that are fine with sign language.

With regards to Griifn, I'd heard like Standifer it was just more than just a foreign language class. With many other guys that isn't the case and those scenarios make me sad.

Several posters above were suggesting we drop the language requirement entirely. That's what I was responding to.
As for sign language, I have no idea how many schools do/don't accept it or how many kids take it in high school (is it actually easier than a Romance language?), and no strong opinion on whether Notre Dame should accept it or not. I'd just say it strikes me that allowing sign language to substitute for foreign language is sort of thing that at least some people around here might view as a PC cop-out, except when it helps us recruit four-star defensive linemen.
Regardless I agree it's an unfortunate way for kids to lose the chance to go to Notre Dame and it would seem like summer classes or something would be a reasonable middle ground.

 

[IrishLax]

Several posters above were suggesting we drop the language requirement entirely. That's what I was responding to.
As for sign language, I have no idea how many schools do/don't accept it or how many kids take it in high school (is it actually easier than a Romance language?), and no strong opinion on whether Notre Dame should accept it or not. I'd just say it strikes me that allowing sign language to substitute for foreign language is sort of thing that at least some people around here might view as a PC cop-out, except when it helps us recruit four-star defensive linemen.
Regardless I agree it's an unfortunate way for kids to lose the chance to go to Notre Dame and it would seem like summer classes or something would be a reasonable middle ground.

Yeah, someone linked a list earlier of schools that accept sign language. Lots of Top 25 schools like Stanford, Berkeley, Virginia, etc. accept it to satisfy their foreign language requirement.

I do think Notre Dame already shows some flexibility for certain cases. I don't know this as a stone-cold fact, but I think they allow prospects with a good academic record and 1 year of a language to take a second year over the summer before ND. Should they be more flexible than that? I don't know. Where do you draw the line?

 

[Emcee77]

^^^ This.
It's not like foreign language is a Notre Dame football player requirement. It's a requirement of everyone at the university. And it should be. You can't take two Spanish classes in four years of high school? Really? It's not that hard.
I, for one, wish I'd taken more language classes in high school (and college). It's a big world out there and you've got to be able to talk to people. Even if you're a 300 pound defensive lineman.

I don't know if this was directed at my earlier post, but if so let me say I was venting semi-sarcastically. I was a foreign language major in college. I do think they should be required universally by every school and that everyone should take them. Realistically, most people who take foreign language courses won't ever become even conversant in the language, but at a minimum you learn a lot about your own language by being able to put it in context and view it from a distance and you inevitably learn something about the culture of the native speakers of the foreign language, and those are good things.

There are intro language courses at ND, someone might say. Why can't the requirement just be that you take foreign language before you graduate from college? Well, if you didn't take it in high school, how can ND know whether you can do it in college?

I don't know whether sign language should count. It certainly is a different language and its speakers have a different culture. But does it tell you much about a student's aptitude for learning languages? I don't know.
It sounds like ND might be fighting an uphill battle here though. Sigh.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YlOxiwGLAkY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

To me the following questions are :
Where is the line between what we expect of a student, and a student athlete?

At what degree of significance between the two (student and student athlete) do we acknowledge that one is academic pursuit, and the other is solely a business endeavor?

At what point do we realize that the instantaneous exceptions, from excuses for behavior to poor or failing academics hurts the athlete more in life than if we banned him from playing football? (This past week I heard people say we should excuse an athlete from repeatedly menacing, if not assaulting a police officer, and then making jokes because one disturbed soul did just that, almost succeeding in knocking a security guard out; all in this environment of a wave of violence sweeping across high school and college campuses in this country.)

Besides, if he checks out, and I have no reason to believe he will not, Peter Mokwuah, is going to be the best DT candidate available; I bet he will qualify, and that he is a goal oriented sort of guy. I notice he doesn't even have a profile. Must be too many members at the wake of Irish football - "dead primarily because of too many restrictions : restrictions what got it there in the first place."

 

[NDinL.A.]

Not a big miss, and definitely not losing sleep over this one because i wasnt as big of a fan of his as others were. I'd actually like to hear more about why we didn't accept him, as I'm skeptical of it being just because of a foreign language class. There is usually more to the story, of which we rarely hear unfortunately...

 

[Irish#1]

Foreign means "strange and/or unfamiliar". How is learning an additional language in school that is strange and unfamiliar to you, such as sign language, not technically 'foreign' to you?

Idk, I get that requirements are requirements and it's why ND is ND, and not a football factory. You have to take the good with the bad if you truly want to be seen the way ND wants to be seen as an Academic University of true Student-Athletes. But just seems to me like this one wasn't as big as a stretch as to eliminate the prospective student athlete from admission to ND.

Admissions hasn't learned how to "step out of the box!"

 

[Irish#1]

Not a big miss, and definitely not losing sleep over this one because i wasnt as big of a fan of his as others were. I'd actually like to hear more about why we didn't accept him, as I'm skeptical of it being just because of a foreign language class. There is usually more to the story, of which we rarely hear unfortunately...

I agree and as Lax said there's probably something else (probably grades and classes taken).

 

[rtrn2glory]

so looks like we're all in on Sawyers and possibly the rutgers commit?

maybe Cage?

 

[ep1987]

Ok i'll bite (i'm from the UK).

Why are foreign language classes a pre-requisite other than the fact that that's what the rules say? Most people will only gain only a basic understanding in high school and if it is their choice to take other classes which they belive will be of more benefit to them then why should they be denied admission to an institution if their grades are otherwise good enough?

I know that they know they should know the rules but these are young people and also plans can change. It's not as if a basic understanding of a foreign language (which could be anything) will actually help them at Notre Dame.