There’s a buzz at Notre Dame Preparatory Academy among its students, alumni and parents. What is going on in the athletic department?
“I’m frustrated with Notre Dame, I love the school, but they hadn’t told us this before, we had no idea it was coming,” Nathan Edmonds said.
Edmonds is an alumnus and has a daughter in school at Notre Dame. Wednesday, he received a three-page letter stating the school is withdrawing from the Catholic League
According to Executive Vice President Andy Guest, it’s been a long time coming.
“We’ve been at odds with Catholic League for years on cross-over games. It’s a mismatch game,” Guest said.
“We do it in other sports, but football, which I call a ‘collision sport’ is different.”
At issue, a football game set for the fall 2016 season. The cross-over game was scheduled against Brother Rice, a bigger school in a bigger division.
“We have 350 male athletes against a school with a population of anywhere from 600-1100 male athletes. We feel that puts our students in an unsafe situation,” Guest said.
The Catholic League disagrees.
“The board thought this game between the two schools would be competitive,” Vic Michaels, athletic director of the Catholic League, said. “We’re taking a team 2-7 last year against a 7-2 team. They are comparable in enrollments.”
Notre Dame appealed the schedule and asked for a compromise, to withdraw only in football, but the
Superintendent of the league denied it.
“We cannot in good conscience accept a game that puts our students in unsafe position,” Guest said.
“Therefore if we are forced to play this game in football, we have to withdraw from league.”
“Per our regulations, if a school denies a schedule, they are suspended from all sports on all levels for one year,” Michaels said. “The board imposed that penalty for next year.”
So now all sports on all levels at Notre Dame must reschedule its games against non-Catholic League teams. The rest of the schools in the league must reschedule its games as well to eliminate Notre Dame.
For Edmonds, his daughter will not be able to play softball games against Catholic League teams, he believes that’s a shame.
“There wasn’t some kind of compromise?” Edmonds said. “Instead you have to punish every kid in the school that plays a sport?”