On Sportsmanship and ‘Hating’ Opponents

The most remarkable line from our coverage of Notre Dame’s 7-0 victory which ended Oklahoma’s record 47-game win streak in 1957 was this from the AP report of the game:

As the game ended, when Oklahoma’s desperation passing drive was cutoff by an intercepted aerial, the crowd rose as one and suddenly gave the Notre Dame team a rousing cheer.

 Talk about your time warp!  Could you imagine anything like that taking place in today’s super-charged college sports atmosphere?

Instead, we have The Oklahoman newspaper and website, in a piece entitled “Ire for the Irish,” soliciting its readers to write as to “why they hate Notre Dame.”  It’s staggering to see how many mention ND ending the streak. It’s as if they, what, expected to win every game of all time going forward?  47 wasn’t nearly enough.  And how dare Notre Dame wreck the plan?  There’s not a scintilla of respect, as in, “We had a great team, it must have been quite an effort (by ND) to stop us.”

It’s not often you see the term “papist hooligans” used anywhere these days.  But it actually appeared in The Oklahoman this week, if reference to the ’57 Irish.  Yikes.

And it’s telling that OU president David Boren felt it necessary to write an open letter to Sooner fans imploring them to “show our visitors from Notre Dame the same kind of warm hospitality in return” that Oklahoma received in its last visit to ND in 1999.

The Owen Field crowd need only look at the folks sitting in their seats 55 years earlier to learn how to behave.