A Mass to Celebrate Declan Sullivan's Life

The University of Notre Dame family met on campus last night at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart with the family of Declan Sullivan and the Notre Dame football team -- to celebrate Declan's life.  The crowd was larger than the Basilica could handle as hundreds were forced to stand outside (photo) or gather in other campus locations to watch the Mass via a live TV feed.  Here's a link to a Chicago Tribune story along with WNDU-TV's story on the Mass and a MUST READ blog post from Amy Holsinger, a junior at Notre Dame -- it will make you very proud of our Notre Dame:

LINK:  REMEMBERING DECLAN SULLIVAN

LINK:  WNDU-TV'S COVERAGE

LINK:  A ND STUDENT'S REFLECTION OF LAST NIGHT'S MASS

Football Weekend Weather @ Notre Dame

Looks like another "sunny" football weekend at Notre Dame!  Since the forecast doesn't show any rain for a few days in the Michiana area -- I've dropped the radar link and added the WNDU-TV webcam link of the Notre Dame campus skyline.  Go Irish!

LINK:  WEBCAM OF NOTRE DAME SKYLINE

Notre Dame: #1 in the Classroom!

The NCAA released its Graduation Success Rate (GSR) measurements for student athletes, this week, and the University of Notre Dame is the clear NATIONAL CHAMPION!  19 of Notre Dame's 22 NCAA Division 1 athletic teams had a 100% graduation rate over the last six years.  The only three sports that didn't have a perfect graduation rate over this period was football (96%), hockey (95%) and men's tennis at (93%).  The football team's GSR was #1 in the country and the hockey team's GSR was #2 in the country.  Notre Dame's 19 for 22 in perfect graduation rates amongst it's sports teams (86.3%) also led the country.  Here's the ranking of the seven schools in the country who had at least 50% of its athletic teams achieve "perfection" with their GSR:

#1:  University of Notre Dame:  19/22 -- 86.3%
#2:  Boston College:  19/25 -- 78%
#3:  Wake Forest University:  10/14 -- 71.4%
#4:  Stanford University:  19/27 -- 70.3%
#5:  Duke University:  14/22 -- 63.6%
#6:  Northwestern University:  10/19 -- 52.6%
#7:  Rice University:  6/12 -- 50%

This marks the fifth time in the six years since the NCAA began this survey that the University of Notre Dame has had the highest percentage of athletic teams with a 100% graduation rate!  Wouldn't it be nice if the national sports media reported on this!  Have you seen ESPN cover this?