Commentary: Dave Zirin on Notre Dame’s Rogue Football Team

Commentary: Dave Zirin on Notre Dame’s Rogue Football Team

Commentary: Dave Zirin on Notre Dame’s Rogue Football Team

After two avoidable deaths and an accusation of sexual assault by a Notre Dame player, it’s past time that the storied football squad had its program suspended.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

It’s past time that the storied Notre Dame football squad had its program suspended, says Dave Zirin. First there was the death of 20-year-old team videographer Declan Sullivan in October. Now there is the emerging truth behind the September 10 suicide of first-year student Elizabeth Seeberg. Seeberg overdosed on antidepressants ten days after telling friends and campus police that a University of Notre Dame football player had sexually assaulted her. This is a football program that has officially gone off the rails.

The Nation on GRIT TV is a weekly video collaboration between The Nation and GRIT TV with Laura Flanders. Watch for Monday briefings, Wednesday commentaries, weekend conversations and more at TheNation.com. For full half-hour episodes of The Nation on GRIT TV, or local television air times visit www.grittv.org.

Independent journalism relies on your support


With a hostile incoming administration, a massive infrastructure of courts and judges waiting to turn “freedom of speech” into a nostalgic memory, and legacy newsrooms rapidly abandoning their responsibility to produce accurate, fact-based reporting, independent media has its work cut out for itself.

At The Nation, we’re steeling ourselves for an uphill battle as we fight to uphold truth, transparency, and intellectual freedom—and we can’t do it alone. 

This month, every gift The Nation receives through December 31 will be doubled, up to $75,000. If we hit the full match, we start 2025 with $150,000 in the bank to fund political commentary and analysis, deep-diving reporting, incisive media criticism, and the team that makes it all possible. 

As other news organizations muffle their dissent or soften their approach, The Nation remains dedicated to speaking truth to power, engaging in patriotic dissent, and empowering our readers to fight for justice and equality. As an independent publication, we’re not beholden to stakeholders, corporate investors, or government influence. Our allegiance is to facts and transparency, to honoring our abolitionist roots, to the principles of justice and equality—and to you, our readers. 

In the weeks and months ahead, the work of free and independent journalists will matter more than ever before. People will need access to accurate reporting, critical analysis, and deepened understanding of the issues they care about, from climate change and immigration to reproductive justice and political authoritarianism. 

By standing with The Nation now, you’re investing not just in independent journalism grounded in truth, but also in the possibilities that truth will create.

The possibility of a galvanized public. Of a more just society. Of meaningful change, and a more radical, liberated tomorrow.

In solidarity and in action,

The Editors, The Nation

Ad Policy
x