Tag: The Fight

Legendary Notre Dame QB Describes Beating COVID-19

Terry Hanratty, who helped lead Notre Dame to a national championship before winning two Super Bowl’s with the Steelers has beaten COVID-19.

Terry Hanratty helped guide Notre Dame to the 1966 national championship, throwing for 1247 yards that season with the Irish going 9-0-1 with the closest thing to a blemish being the famous 10-10 tie at Michigan State.  In his three years playing for Notre Dame, Hanratty would finish in the top ten of Heisman Trophy voting three times, finishing third in 1968.

Hanratty would play two more seasons at Notre Dame before being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969 where he’d be a part of two Super Bowl winning teams before spending 1976 with the Tampa Bay Buccanneers.

Hanratty recently became ill will COVID-19, something he discussed openly on Tuesday’s “The Fight” in which Notre Dame raised funds for students with family members who have been effected by the virus.  He discussed becoming ill, being hospitalized and ultimately recovering.

Hanratty on Getting Diagnosed with COVID-19:

“I went to get a B-12 shot. I get one about every three weeks, so it’s not a big deal. That evening I started feeling a little down. I figured maybe it was some kind of reaction with that shot. I’ve never had one in the past and I’ve been getting these shots for about five years. The next day I started feeling worse and told my doctor, and she knew my background obviously. 72 years old, former smoker, and she said she wanted me to go get my test for the Corona. That’s not a pleasant thing to go through, believe me. Then she also gave me a prescription for the medicine. She said, once you take your test, you go and start your medication and if your test is negative, you’ll stop, if it’s positive, then you keep going. So, obviously it came back positive. I tried to do it at home, but it just didn’t work. The fever was just horrible. I called my doctor and it happened on a Monday morning, and she said, come down to my office, but stay in my parking lot. I still had my pajamas on. So, I went down to her office and she took my temperature, it was 103, and my oxygen level had gone from 95 or 96 down to 85. She called the ambulance right there and said you’re going to the hospital. And so it was a little tense at the moment. I went to the hospital and then they started treating me. I went to Norwalk hospital here in Norwalk, Connecticut, and you can’t say enough about the help from the doctors on down. They’re just marvelous individuals. They’re caring. You put your faith in them and they really come through…Probably the biggest thing was the fever. You just could not shake it. They had four blankets on me and I was laying in bed just shivering. It wasn’t until the fever broke that you start feeling better. That took about three days, but luckily I was on the medicine. I thank my doctor because she got me on the medicine right away, so we didn’t let it last too long. I think the combination of that and plus going in the hospital and getting my oxygen regulated, I think that was a big factor.”

Glad to hear and see that Hanratty has beaten the virus and is feeling better.

WATCH: Star-Filled Notre Dame Zoom Meeting

The fun started with Lou Holtz and Digger Phelps jumping on a Notre Dame Zoom meeting but it certainly didn’t end just there!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Lou Holtz and Digger Phelps log into a Zoom meeting…

And Justin Tuck, Rudy, Tim Brown, Raghib Ismail, Ian Book, Hannah Storm, Brandon Wimbush and a ridiculous amount of other former Notre Dame stars are there to join them.

That’s exactly what happened Tuesday night and the Twitter account @NDLoyal was there to share it with all.

Every Zoom call I’ve ever been on I find myself being like Ian Book is for the majority of that two minutes.

Pretty cool to see that many familiar faces getting together on a random Tuesday night.

Mike Brey Chats About COVID-19 Recruiting During “The Fight”

If you follow Notre Dame basketball, one of the highlights of “The Fight” undoubtedly was Alex Wilcox’s conversation with Mike Brey.

If you follow Notre Dame basketball, one of the highlights of “The Fight” undoubtedly was Alex Wilcox’s conversation with Mike Brey. Since the event revolved around the battle against COVID-19 and there’s really not much else to discuss these days, it only made sense to talk about the basketball program’s issues related to that.

Brey talked briefly about “The Fight” itself and reminisced about his team’s experience when the college basketball season was halted. Most notable in the conversation was how Brey’s recruiting efforts have changed during this pandemic. Like with everyone else, a lot of it has been accomplished through Zoom. While it’s not the same as going on the road or having recruits come to campus, it did help them land Santa Clara transfer Trey Wertz.

Like every coach, Brey has to use any method necessary during this time to go after talent either still in high school or looking for a different collegiate opportunity. No one knows how long this will go on or what effect this will have on the future, both short- and long-term. All we know is one thing that will never change: If you don’t stay aggressive, you’ll lose out on a player you really want. The football program already has suffered recruiting setbacks in part because of the virus, and it’s what the basketball program doesn’t need.

Notre Dame to Limit Attendance for 2020 Home Football Games

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick informed the masses Tuesday that home football games won’t feature full crowds in 2020.

Notre Dame spent a large chunk of their Tuesday raising money with “The Fight” which raised money for students whose families have been effected by Covid-19.

The stars of the Notre Dame community aligned with Brian Kelly, Pat Connaughton, Mike Brey and plenty of others speaking on a live stream but it was athletic director Jack Swarbrick who stole the headlines.

Swarbrick was asked about if there would be fans in the stands for Notre Dame football games this fall and the athletic director didn’t sell any false hope.

We’re committed to having fans in the stands and we’ll start with the other students. My view throughout has been, if we think it’s safe for students to be on the field playing football, it should be safe for the students to be in the stands watching football. So, we’ll build off that base of the other students, faculty and staff will be a priority for us to give them an opportunity, and then our fans. We haven’t yet gotten to the question of how big that audience is. We won’t be at capacity. We’ll do something less than that. And we’ll be very careful about maintaining social distance, how the facility works, how you enter it, how you exit it, all things to be determined. We’re working hard on them.” 

-Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick on “The Fight”

Swarbrick didn’t give an answer on how many fans will be in Notre Dame Stadium this fall but it certainly won’t be the 80,795 capacity crowd that the Irish usually play in front of.

If you’ve been to Notre Dame Stadium you’re well aware how they pack you in like sardines.  Your seat on the wooden benches are wide enough for perhaps a nine year old to sit comfortably, but not anyone much older than that.

Now factor in social distancing and trying to maintain six feet of separation then that we’ve been told to keep apart and you’re looking at what, a maximum of a one-third capacity crowd?

It’s not surprising but it doesn’t mean it won’t look strange when Notre Dame Stadium is at roughly 30% capacity or whatever that number ends up being.

Teddy Atlas on Gennadiy Golovkin: ‘Looked like a shot fighter’

Hall of Fame trainer Teddy Atlas believes time has caught up to 37-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin.

Is Gennadiy Golovkin shot?

Teddy Atlas, the Hall of Fame trainer, thinks so. He believes that it’s too late for a third fight between Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez for lack of interest and because the 37-year-old Triple-G isn’t the fighter he used to be.

Golovkin and Alvarez agreed before the coronavirus pandemic took hold to fight one another in the fall, which presumably is what DAZN executives were hoping for when they signed the rivals.

“If you heard a giant sigh of relief somewhere it was coming from [DAZN Chairman] John Skipper and the other executives when finally … that third fight is done,” Atlas said on his show “The Fight.”

“Maybe it’s going to save a few people’s jobs over there [if] … it actually does happen. So that’s the good news. Here’s the bad news. The bad news is it’s too late … Time has passed, people have moved on. … I don’t know that interest is there anymore for that fight.”

And Atlas believes Golovkin’s long amateur career, 42 pro fights, two taxing bouts with Alvarez and a war with unheralded Sergey Derevyanchenko in October have taken a lot out of him.

“[Golovkin] showed the heart of the warrior that he is,” said Atlas, referring to the Derevyanchenko fight. “He wasn’t right. Was it because he was sick, was it a fluke, was it an anomaly, was it that or was it what [Golovkin] is now? An older fighter … that has left parts of himself in the ring and parts of himself from the first two Canelo fights.

“I thought those fights [against Canelo] took a lot out of [Golovkin], and I think 400 amateur fights take a lot out of you. And I think when you’re at the age he’s at … what is he now? 38? He’s getting up there toward that number 40. I always say you don’t judge a fighter’s age in this tough business chronologically. You judge them by the tough fights they’ve been in.”

Atlas added a blunt commentary.

“In the Derevyanchenko fight, [Golovkin] looked like a shot fighter,” he said. “Yeah, I said it. I said it, you people that want to get your knives out now and your bow and arrows ready. ‘How dare you say that about my guy.’

“It’s called Father Time, it’s called nature, it’s called aging, and it comes to all of us, but we all don’t have to fight for a living. … When the truth comes to you in the ring, the truth can hit you, bang, hard and fast.”