Notre Dame Student Manager Dies in Tower Collapse

They practiced inside. Tressel didn't send his video guys upstairs.

 

The college I cover films practice from the pressbox, but they have a second camera behind one of the goalposts. The camera sits on a high, narrow tower, and the camera can be operated from ground level.

I know major colleges have their own practice facilities without a pressbox, but good gawd, how tough would it be to build some kind of small, two-level building that could be used for storage and filming?

 

Sadly reminiscent of when Eddy Sutton had the student managers get on the prop plane while players got on the jet.

 

A couple of lawyerly points.

Was the kid paid for his job or was it volunteer -- I know managers job are usually volunteer, but if he was being paid, his only damages against the school and any employee of the school would be workers compensation benefits.

I also wonder what kind of waiver he may have been asked to sign in connection with his role as a manager -- presumably there is the chance of getting hurt by a player.

 

If Kelly personally ordered him to stay up there then, yeah, he's done.

But I highly doubt that is the case. If Notre Dame's operation is anything like just about any other college program, they have a "director of video services" or something like that who functions like a head athletic trainer. That is the guy who is responsible for the video crew. It would be his call on whether or not to put that kid on a lift.

The coach could overrule him but a smart one wouldn't - and more to the point, the university would probably have a policy that wouldn't allow him to - for liability reasons. This is going to come down on the video director.

Looking at their website, the video guy has been with ND for 20 years and oversees video services for the entire athletic department. That would mean he's not a guy Kelly brought with him.

 

"Manager" needs to be defined too. I doubt he was one of the kids who washed uniforms and painted helmets. He was a probably a student assistant in the video department.

 

If the scissors lift was being operated during unsafe conditions and those conditions were spelled out by the operating manual for the scissors lift, I think the lawyers representing the family would have plenty of ammunition.

 

I've always thought that filming practices is overkill. You really have to wonder how much time a coach has to watch.

 

You'd be surprised how limited the legal options are.

Regardless, it's a huge tragedy and the school is going to pony up lots of money to the family.

 

Sleep is for the weak.

 

Notre Dame will pay them a significant amount of money before this ever gets to court.

 

It doesn't matter who ordered the kid up there. Anyone with a lick of common sense should have figured out it was an inherently dangerous situation and either told someone to A, not send the kid up there, or B, lower the lift when it became obvious it was dangerous (ie, like when it started swaying, as it undoubtedly did long before it fell over).

Where were the people in charge here? Notre Dame people always tell us how smart they are. Apparently they're not.