Tag: Rev. John Jenkins

Notre Dame fencing team member Spencer Vermeule killed in car accident

Awful news.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Notre Dame fencing program is in mourning after losing one of its own. Sophomore [autotag]Spencer Vermeule[/autotag], who was on the 2023 national championship team, died Saturday after the Audi A3 he was driving hit a tree and flipped over in Elkhart County. He was pronounced dead at the accident’s scene, and an investigation is continuing.

Notre Dame’s president, the [autotag]Rev. John Jenkins[/autotag], released the following statement:

“We are deeply saddened by Spencer’s tragic death. On behalf of the entire Notre Dame community, I extend our deepest sympathies to the Vermeule family, and offer prayers of comfort and peace to Spencer’s family, friends and all who knew and loved him.”

A moment for silence for Vermeuhle was planned before the women’s basketball team’s sold-out home finale against Louisville at Purcell Pavilion. We at Fighting Irish Wire join Notre Dame in offering our deepest condolences to his family and friends during this difficult time.

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Rev. Robert Dowd elected as Notre Dame’s 18th president

The future is near.

The Notre Dame community now knows who will lead the university when the [autotag]Rev. John Jenkins[/autotag] retires after the current academic year. The [autotag]Rev. Robert Dowd[/autotag] has been elected as the 18th president in the university’s history. He will take over for Jenkins on July 1.

Dowd originally is from Michigan City, which is about 40 miles west of campus. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame in 1987 and, after being ordained a priest in 1994, served as part of campus ministry. Since 2004, he has been a faculty member of the political science department.

Jack Brennan, the head of the university’s board of trustees, said the following:

“We are thrilled that Father Dowd will be Notre Dame’s next leader. His character and intellect, along with his broad academic and administrative experience and his deep commitment to Notre Dame, make him an ideal person to lead the University into the future. Since its founding, Notre Dame has been led by a priest-president from the Congregation of Holy Cross, the religious order to which Father Sorin, the University’s founder, belonged. The University has had only three presidents in the last 70 years, each exceptional in their own right – Father Jenkins, Father Edward Malloy, C.S.C., and Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. Father Dowd continues in this rich tradition.”

Dowd, meanwhile, said this:

“I am deeply humbled and honored by the Board’s decision. We can all be grateful for Father Jenkins’ selfless and courageous leadership for almost two decades. Working together with others, his efforts have positioned the University extremely well in every way. We will build on those efforts. Informed by our Catholic mission, we will work together so that Notre Dame is an ever-greater engine of insight, innovation and impact, addressing society’s greatest challenges and helping young people to realize their potential for good.”

Here’s to much success for Dowd and the university once he assumes the reins.

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Rev. John Jenkins to step down as Notre Dame president

A major change is coming to the university.

There soon will be a change in leadership at Notre Dame. The university’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, has announced that the 2023-24 academic year will be his last at the helm. Jenkins, who has been Notre Dame’s president since 2005, will remain at the university as a teacher and minister.

Jenkins released the following statement:

“Serving as president of Notre Dame for me, as a Holy Cross priest, has been both a privilege and a calling. While I am proud of the accomplishments of past years, I am above all grateful for the Trustees, benefactors, faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends who made them possible. There is much to celebrate now, but I believe Notre Dame’s best years lie ahead.”

Board of Trustees chair John J. Brennan said the following:

“Notre Dame is and has been incredibly blessed by Father Jenkins’ courageous and visionary leadership. Together with the remarkable leadership team he has assembled, he has devoted himself to advancing the University and its mission, fulfilling the promise he made when he was inaugurated – to work collaboratively to build a great Catholic university for the 21st century. This is an extraordinarily exciting time for Notre Dame, and we are confident that the next leader will take the University to even greater heights of accomplishment.”

Here are some images of Jenkins at Notre Dame over the years:

Will Notre Dame ever be able to attract five-star recruits again?

Irish fans have to have this question on their mind.

During my junior year of high school, the math team won the state championship in what some might consider unusual fashion. In the state competition, the team placed first in only one event. But a bunch of second-place finishes put the team over the top. It was a proud moment for the school.

But college football doesn’t allow the same cushion as high school math competitions. You need to finish first in several races to have any real shot at a national championship. Not the least of those races is for five-star recruits. And Notre Dame is far behind the sport’s best in that area.

Irish fans are smarting over five-star defensive tackle recruit Justin Scott picking Ohio State when Notre Dame seemed to be in the running. It wasn’t only that this happened or that Scott fit the profile of many past Irish signees. It was that it was the latest in a long list of five-star recruits to snub the program.

The numbers speak for themselves, and they don’t speak kindly about the Irish. Ohio State and Georgia’s 2024 recruiting classes have four and three five-star commits, respectively. Three more await the Bulldogs in their 2025 class. Going back to the 2014 class, the Irish have had two: [autotag]Michael Mayer[/autotag] and [autotag]Jaylen Sneed[/autotag].

So to recap, two programs that are in college football’s top tier have more five-star commits for 2024 than every Irish recruiting class spanning a decade combined. Florida has equaled that number for 2024. While there are several reasons the Irish haven’t been able to crack that top tier, this one has to be at or near the top of the list.

Taking all of this into consideration, it’s worth questioning when or if the Irish will attract a bunch of college football’s top recruits again. We know they have plenty of three- and four-star recruits, but those only will take you so far if you want to win a national championship. Eventually, you need to either get a regular piece of that five-star pie or develop your own players to be on that level. The Irish don’t have a recent track record of doing either.

Whether the Irish can get to that next level and stay there could depend on getting out of their own way. That means abandoning many of the things that the university seems resistant to. Particularly, will it choose to play ball in the NIL era, and will it relax its stringent academic requirements to some degree? As dirty as it sounds to Notre Dame, it might be the only way to end the national championship drought.

The pressure will be on [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag], [autotag]Pete Bevacqua[/autotag] and the [autotag]Rev. John Jenkins[/autotag] to produce results before too long. They can go about business as usual and hope for the best, or they can follow the rest of college football’s top dogs so the program doesn’t get left behind. The choice sounds easy for us outsiders, but as we know all too well, Notre Dame often has caught up too late or not at all. When it comes to five-star recruiting, it would be better late than never.

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Marcus Freeman ‘was in complete shock’ about Jack Swarbrick news

What was your reaction to the news?

When [autotag]Jack Swarbrick[/autotag] announced that he would depart as Notre Dame athletic director in 2024, [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] didn’t expect it. In fact, that would be putting it mildly. In a discussion with NDInsider.com, Freeman was asked whether he knew the news was coming, and he said the following:

“No, I didn’t know (in advance). I knew at some point Jack Swarbrick was going to say, ‘This is it.’ And he’s told me that and (Notre Dame President) Father John (Jenkins) has told me at some point (in) this thing, ‘Hey, we’re getting to the end of our time here at Notre Dame.”

Freeman then added:

“I just did not expect it to be last week when we had this conversation. I was in complete shock.”

Freeman also said a few other things about Swarbrick, but you get the idea. Hopefully, after Swarbrick’s departure, he’ll have a good relationship with incoming athletic director [autotag]Pete Bevacqua[/autotag]. Perhaps then, he’ll be able to do everything he wants with the program and more. That’s not necessarily to say Swarbrick doesn’t do that, but there’s at least the hope that Bevacqua will give his coaches a little more freedom.

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Mike Brey, Cormac Ryan, Marcus Hammond speak after Notre Dame loss

Read some final words summing up the season and a whole era of Irish basketball.

Notre Dame’s 67-64 loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament signaled the end of an era. Yes, it means [autotag]Mike Brey[/autotag]’s days as Irish coach are over, but it also means the end for many players on the roster, especially rotational players. Two of them are [autotag]Marcus Hammond[/autotag] and [autotag]Cormac Ryan[/autotag], players who didn’t begin their collegiate careers with the Irish but were the most impactful in Brey’s final game for the program. That allowed them to come out with Brey for the season’s last postgame news conference.

Hammond and Ryan sat next to Brey as he, among other things, called out the officials for a late lengthy review that ultimately resulted in a dead-ball technical for [autotag]Matt Zona[/autotag] that might have affected the game’s outcome. This came as the Irish were about to shoot their own free throws in a close contest. Brey has called out ACC officials before, and he apparently decided to do it one more time on his way out.

Here is what the Irish trio said after the game:

Notre Dame fans replying to Jenkins’ MSU tweet should be ashamed

Is football all some people think about?

Once again, the nation finds itself in mourning over a school shooting, this one at Michigan State.

As of this writing, three students are dead and five are in critical condition after being wounded. In an act of solidarity, the Grotto on Notre Dame’s campus has candles spelling out Michigan State’s initials. The university’s president, the [autotag]Rev. John Jenkins[/autotag], tweeted a photo of the arrangement at the Grotto along with a message for those in East Lansing:

Unfortunately, too many Irish football fans took the tweet as an opportunity to bash Jenkins, athletic director [autotag]Jack Swarbrick[/autotag] and the university as a whole for not paying up to get Utah offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig. With Ludwig staying where he is, Irish fans were infuriated, and they decided to vent.

We will not post any of the replies here, but let’s just say a lot of them don’t know how to read a room.

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Marcus Freeman has converted to Catholicism

Welcome to the Church, Coach!

Not everyone who works or goes to school at Notre Dame is Catholic, but Catholicism is the primary identity of the university. Anyone who professes the faith can fit in right away strictly for that reason. Now, you can add [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] to that list. The Irish football coach officially has joined the faith according to the Sept. 11 bulletin at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Granger.

The Rev. Nate Wills, Notre Dame’s football chaplain, had been preparing Freeman for this moment ever since Freeman first came to South Bend. During a Mass in August that included the [autotag]Rev. John Jenkins[/autotag], Notre Dame’s president, Freeman was confirmed and made his First Communion:

By joining the Church, Freeman joins his wife and six children as members. It also paints his decision to reinstate the pregame Mass with the football team in a new light. This is his faith now, and he can serve as an example to the community with that faith.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

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Jenkins: Clemson field rush ‘exactly the right thing to do’

When Notre Dame upset top-ranked Clemson in South Bend last season, the students allowed into Notre Dame Stadium stormed the field.

When Notre Dame upset top-ranked Clemson in South Bend last season, the students allowed into Notre Dame Stadium stormed the field. With COVID-19 doing the worst of its damage at the time, this action immediately drew criticism on social media, and Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, wrote a letter to students about how “disappointing” it was to see this happen and called for widespread testing. Considering Jenkins was coming off his own positive COVID-19 test shortly after participating in a high-profile activity, many saw the letter as hypocritical. However, Jenkins sang a different tune as commencement wrapped up at the scene of the storming:

It’s easier to say that now with the virus having less of a stranglehold on our lives than it did in the fall. Heck, the fact that commencement was able to be held in person this year shows how much progress has been made in the fight against this dreaded disease. If it helps the new alumni leave Notre Dame with a clean conscience, it’s all good. It’s a time to celebrate, so you might as well feed into that celebration.

 

Notre Dame secures enough Pfizer vaccine doses for entire student body

One day after Mike Brey was vaccinated against COVID-19, there is some welcome news for the Notre Dame student body.

One day after Mike Brey was vaccinated against COVID-19, there is some welcome news for the Notre Dame student body. In an email to the campus community, the Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, announced that the university will have enough doses of the Pfizer vaccine for students at all levels of education. Faculty and staff also will be able to receive the vaccine if they haven’t already:

This undoubtedly is very good news for people who have experienced anything but a normal year of college. We have had too many stories this year ranging from infected students not receiving proper care to positive tests affect the various athletic programs in one form or another. By the end of the spring semester, everyone who wants to receive a COVID-19 vaccine will have done just that. It’s the best way of ensuring that the 2021-22 school year will look much different than what the university has experienced for the past 12 months.

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