Indeed. Lost in our nostalgia...
by eddysorin (2024-04-29 08:43:37)

In reply to: It’s a shame Bavaro was wasted in the Faust years. *  posted by irishhawk49

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...about Gerry Faust was some of the damage he did to the players he coached.

He was the coach at ND for all of my four years there (1982-85 seasons).

It’s hard to find anyone who would argue that Gerry Faust ISN’T a very good man.

But when you think of the Mark Bavaros of the world – and there were DOZENS of players on those 4 teams with immense talent – it’s hard not to feel a little anger that he was so over-matched and over his head, that those guys (many of them my classmates) could have and should have had a much better college athletic experience than they did.

It’s one thing for a fan like me to bemoan the lost opportunities for the Class of 1986.

It’s quite another to show up to practice every day as a player, go through the pain and sacrifice and mental and physical exhaustion that those guys endured, all the while knowing your leader was basically a bumbling idiot who was sub-optimizing your team’s chances to win.

What an awful feeling that must have been.


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