Goes well beyond football...

ACamp1900

Counting my ‘bet against ND’ winnings
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this is why I love Notre Dame... for those like LMI, Ja Pham and others who are or have attended it must seem obvious... but for the many here who are simply fans I thought it would be a nice way to spend 10 minutes... enjoy

GO IRISH!

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southbendkid

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middle of nowhere...what!!!??? middle of nowhere???? that just pisses me off. if you went to a foreign country and told the natives that they lived in the middle of nowhere, how do you think they would feel? we don't owe our livelihood to notre dame. it's true that home games are a big help but the fact is notre dame, one of the wealthiest universities in the world, gets out of a shit load of taxes because it is a religious institution. notre dame and st. joe hospital are the two wealthiest institutions in south bend and they hardly pay the rent.
we shouldn't be forced to grovel at their feet because they put in some community service, 6 homegames a year, and a couple of paved roads. we won't revert to !@#$ chucking apes if notre dame ceased to exist. we have our pride. we have our history. just because we aren't imfamous doesn't meen we are backwater hicks.
we pull for notre dame, we respect them just as avidly as any alumni. we idolize Charlie Weis. we idolize Brady Quinn. why can't we get the slightest amount of respect in return? am i wrong? do i make at least a couple of good points or am i just ranting like a lunatic? oh well, words in the wind i guess in the grander scheme of things.
 

johnnd05

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middle of nowhere...what!!!??? middle of nowhere???? that just pisses me off. if you went to a foreign country and told the natives that they lived in the middle of nowhere, how do you think they would feel? we don't owe our livelihood to notre dame. it's true that home games are a big help but the fact is notre dame, one of the wealthiest universities in the world, gets out of a shit load of taxes because it is a religious institution. notre dame and st. joe hospital are the two wealthiest institutions in south bend and they hardly pay the rent.
we shouldn't be forced to grovel at their feet because they put in some community service, 6 homegames a year, and a couple of paved roads. we won't revert to !@#$ chucking apes if notre dame ceased to exist. we have our pride. we have our history. just because we aren't imfamous doesn't meen we are backwater hicks.
we pull for notre dame, we respect them just as avidly as any alumni. we idolize Charlie Weis. we idolize Brady Quinn. why can't we get the slightest amount of respect in return? am i wrong? do i make at least a couple of good points or am i just ranting like a lunatic? oh well, words in the wind i guess in the grander scheme of things.

Yes, you do make a couple of good points, but you're also WAY overreacting.
 

irishlaw77

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middle of nowhere...what!!!??? middle of nowhere???? that just pisses me off. if you went to a foreign country and told the natives that they lived in the middle of nowhere, how do you think they would feel? we don't owe our livelihood to notre dame. it's true that home games are a big help but the fact is notre dame, one of the wealthiest universities in the world, gets out of a shit load of taxes because it is a religious institution. notre dame and st. joe hospital are the two wealthiest institutions in south bend and they hardly pay the rent.
we shouldn't be forced to grovel at their feet because they put in some community service, 6 homegames a year, and a couple of paved roads. we won't revert to !@#$ chucking apes if notre dame ceased to exist. we have our pride. we have our history. just because we aren't imfamous doesn't meen we are backwater hicks.
we pull for notre dame, we respect them just as avidly as any alumni. we idolize Charlie Weis. we idolize Brady Quinn. why can't we get the slightest amount of respect in return? am i wrong? do i make at least a couple of good points or am i just ranting like a lunatic? oh well, words in the wind i guess in the grander scheme of things.

Without ND, I think South Bend would not be very recognizable to you. South Bend's industries are a shell of their former selves. The famous shutdown of the Studebaker plant is one example. I know there is a GM Hummer plant and some light industry around the edges, but what does South Bend really produce these days? All the service based businesses that you see around town like banks, restaurants, hospitals, etc. just move money around within the community, and rely on the infusion of cash that ND provides to survive. If you lifted ND out of SB, you'd lose a lot more than just some paved roads and home games. Yes, there has been history in South Bend. Unfortunately, a lot of it negative as far as its economy goes. It has changed from a predominantly industrial town to a dependent college town these days, and that's okay.
 
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southbendkid

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south bend is for the most part a dependant college town. south bend is arguabley lame. it would be a lot less lame if south bend and notre dame cooperated and became more integrated. instead south bend innacts stupid laws and buts heads with notre dame and notre dame tells its students to not get apartments and encourages them to stay on campus. why does notre dame need to be an island? because ,imo, notre dame does not think south bend is worthy. they never respected us. i think it was hesburgh who said south bend was a one horse town without the horse and that was in the sixties when we did have studebaker.
 

irishlaw77

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south bend is for the most part a dependant college town. south bend is arguabley lame. it would be a lot less lame if south bend and notre dame cooperated and became more integrated. instead south bend innacts stupid laws and buts heads with notre dame and notre dame tells its students to not get apartments and encourages them to stay on campus. why does notre dame need to be an island? because ,imo, notre dame does not think south bend is worthy. they never respected us. i think it was hesburgh who said south bend was a one horse town without the horse and that was in the sixties when we did have studebaker.

Good post. I agree that there is poor integration, as the SB ordinance that I think you're referring to is an example of. I think that ND's trying to keep kids on campus has more to do with trying to keep control and to mold behavior than a hatred of South Bend at large, except to say that they don't trust temptations that can be found beyond school grounds and parietals. Good Hesburgh quote.
 

johnnd05

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Look, I loved South Bend, and I miss the place in much the same way as I miss ND.

But maybe this sort of thing is also part of the reason why students are told to stay on campus.

Shit, I used to drink at that place. (And play lousy pool, and pump the jukebox full of quarters, and ...)
 
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Jason Pham

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I'm sorry but I try not to step too far off campus if I can help it. The SBPD is horrid when it comes to protecting students and when it comes to targeting students, the residents have issues with us living anywhere near them, members of the city council target the students with perplexing bills, a member of the council has stated that in general, students at Notre Dame are racists and elitists. Sure doesn't make it easy on the students to have any affection for a town and its residents who seem to have a disdain for the students.

As for what we've contributed. Besides bringing in 700,000 visitors annually, second in the state only to the Motor Speedway, and earning the county nearly $40 million in expenditures through the football games, Notre Dame is also the largest employer of South Bend employing around 18% of the working population in the Bend.
 

ACamp1900

Counting my ‘bet against ND’ winnings
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I'm sorry but I try not to step too far off campus if I can help it. The SBPD is horrid when it comes to protecting students and when it comes to targeting students, the residents have issues with us living anywhere near them, members of the city council target the students with perplexing bills, a member of the council has stated that in general, students at Notre Dame are racists and elitists. Sure doesn't make it easy on the students to have any affection for a town and its residents who seem to have a disdain for the students.

As for what we've contributed. Besides bringing in 700,000 visitors annually, second in the state only to the Motor Speedway, and earning the county nearly $40 million in expenditures through the football games, Notre Dame is also the largest employer of South Bend employing around 18% of the working population in the Bend.

owned??

I do believe so...

;)
 
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southbendkid

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let me rebutle please before announceing the winner. the relationship is flawed on both ends. i didn't deny this. both sides mistreat each other. but maybe if nd helped pay the bills more instead of hoarding hundreds of millions of dolloars sb could put more money into police training and education and keep kids off the streets. i think it was holy cross that spent millions of dollars on a retirement community and didn't pay one red cent in taxes.
notre dame does contribute alot to the economy. i didn't deny this. frankly i don't care how much money notre dame pumps into sb. what good does it do? i'd rather notre dame contribute to the culture in south bend, to integrate with south bend. iusb probably contributes more to the culture in south bend than notre dame does. nd kids rarely stay after graduation in south bend to make the community better. they don't go out and mix ideas with the locals. i can't tell you the last time i meet a notre dame student. when they grow up they just go to the game get something to eat and then go home. if they did this south bend would be a much more pleasant place and people would want to visit south bend more than 6/7 days out of the year. bloomingtons economy is booming because the level of alumni who stay in town.
as for my main point, the only point i was trying to convey, do you think it isn't arrogant and rude to say somone's home is "in the middle of nowhere."
 

johnnd05

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Many good points here, IMO.

maybe if nd helped pay the bills more instead of hoarding hundreds of millions of dolloars sb could put more money into police training and education and keep kids off the streets.

This criticism seems reasonable, though I take it that in recent years things have changed in this regard, at least somewhat. But it's important to see that doing things to make South Bend better - improving the schools, making neighborhoods (like, e.g., the historic district around the river) safer, and so on - would benefit EVERYONE: students would enjoy themselves more, faculty would be more inclined to come to ND, etc. I'm not at all sure that the way to solve problems is by pumping money into gov't-run services - I think ND should be focused more on ground-up strategies - but I agree that this needs to be something ND does more of. Again, though, I take it that they've been working on this of late.

notre dame does contribute alot to the economy. i didn't deny this. frankly i don't care how much money notre dame pumps into sb. what good does it do? i'd rather notre dame contribute to the culture in south bend, to integrate with south bend. iusb probably contributes more to the culture in south bend than notre dame does. nd kids rarely stay after graduation in south bend to make the community better. they don't go out and mix ideas with the locals. i can't tell you the last time i meet a notre dame student. when they grow up they just go to the game get something to eat and then go home. if they did this south bend would be a much more pleasant place and people would want to visit south bend more than 6/7 days out of the year. bloomingtons economy is booming because the level of alumni who stay in town.

Remember, these sorts of things cut both ways. When I was at ND, I went to townie bars and a SB church, and I don't remember the locals doing a ton to reach out to me, either. Similarly, think about the current circumstances under which students and locals ARE "mixing ideas": they concern a policy specifically designed to target students that the city council tried to surreptitiously pass while school was out of session. So this is clearly a case where mistakes are being made on both sides. That said, it's true that ND students could do more - the challenge, though, is to overcome all the negative inertia.

as for my main point, the only point i was trying to convey, do you think it isn't arrogant and rude to say somone's home is "in the middle of nowhere."

A bit, yes. But then again it's just a turn of phrase and so it's important not to get too upset about it. The more sane thing to do is point out that SB is BIGGER than, e.g., Bloomington and West Lafayette. Valpo may be in the middle of nowhere; ND, not so much.
 

Jason Pham

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To tackle the main point at hand:

South Bend wasn't even South Bend until a trading post went up in 1820. Founders, Coquillard and Taylor worked together to develop the settlement and had to encourage settlers with gifts of land and money. The city was platted and named the county seat in 1831, incorporated as a town in 1835, and wasn't chartered as a city until 1865.

The University was founded on November 26, 1842. Rev. Edward Sorin, CSC, arrived to the land grant he purchased of several hundred acres of an early mission to the Potawatomi tribe to find a marshland frozen over by a brutal winter a mile and a half away from a small neighboring trading town. It's not an insult, it's just how Father Sorin found it, and at the time, Old College was very much so in the middle of nowhere.

As far as your other points.

I think it's a bit much to ask a Notre Dame graduate who just earned his or her degree from a top 20 institution and who may very well have accumulated around $180,000 in loans to stay in South Bend. There are a few Notre Dame graduates that I personally know who have stayed. But while there may be a small number of graduates who stay in the community, can one honestly suggest that there are a suitable number of opportunities in South Bend that offer the same level of compensation, advancement, or proper skill placement that might be found elsewhere? Color me what you will, but until South Bend can offer this job market and pique the interest of a recent college graduate who needs to pay off his loans and bills, I wouldn't hold my breath to find many of the willing. It may be plausible for some as is evident, but it is just financially suicidal for the rest of us.
 

LOVEMYIRISH

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as for my main point, the only point i was trying to convey, do you think it isn't arrogant and rude to say somone's home is "in the middle of nowhere."

No.

I have lived in a couple "middle of nowheres".

Sometimes it just fits.

I also went to Earlham College in Richmond, IN...that's the middle of nowhere.
I also lived in Millinocket, Maine. That is the middle of the middle of nowhere.

South Bend is slightly better than that...but if you listen to HOW it is phrased in the video it fits pretty well.
 

IrishAlum1997

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No offense SBKid, but ND is BIGGER than South Bend, it is a NATIONAL university. There are not kids in California or Texas or Florida that say "one day, I am going to Indiana University." There are plenty that say, "I sure hope I have the grades to get into Notre Dame." Once the experience is over, students migrate back to whence they came, or in many cases, travel even further away from home.

I would bet that the IU student population is predominantly Hoosier. The cultural comparison between those two schools is not apples to apples. More IU alums are going to stay in-state and have more of a long-term impact on the local economy as a result.
 

ACamp1900

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as for my main point, the only point i was trying to convey, do you think it isn't arrogant and rude to say somone's home is "in the middle of nowhere."

depends on the point of view I suppose... in this case I would say it WAS the middle of nowhere when the school was founded... which is what the phrase was referring to..
 

LOVEMYIRISH

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No offense SBKid, but ND is BIGGER than South Bend, it is a NATIONAL university. There are not kids in California or Texas or Florida that say "one day, I am going to Indiana University." There are plenty that say, "I sure hope I have the grades to get into Notre Dame." Once the experience is over, students migrate back to whence they came, or in many cases, travel even further away from home.

I would bet that the IU student population is predominantly Hoosier. The cultural comparison between those two schools is not apples to apples. More IU alums are going to stay in-state and have more of a long-term impact on the local economy as a result.

For undergrad, I completely agree. For grad school...well, ND stacks up well, but IU is a bit better.
 

fitz_bu47

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I have only been to Mecca (South Bend) twice, and along w/ Lawrence Kansas, it is one of the greatest places on earth. I am lucky enough to say I have seen Notre Dame Play football in Notre Dame Stadium (2-0, by the way 33-3 over Purdue when we had The Rocket, and Zorich and last year against UCLA=One of greatest finishes ever), and the Kansas Jayhawks play basketball in Allen Fieldhouse. I don' t know about the interaction between SB, and ND, but if its like KU and Lawrence, there is always gonna be positives about being a big college town, and negatives.
 

johnnd05

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I don' t know about the interaction between SB, and ND, but if its like KU and Lawrence, there is always gonna be positives about being a big college town, and negatives.

Totally different. SB is a city, not a college town. Which means there's less for students to do, more town-gown tension, etc., etc.
 
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