In the summer of 2006, Texas Longhorns blogger (and unbeknownst to him, future Domer) Peter Bean took notice of my old site where I dabbled in writing about the Irish (along with summer movies, The OC and the NBA draft).   He reached out and asked if I was interesting in running a Notre Dame site for SBNation.  My friend Rob and I had been discussing starting an Irish-only blog and loved the name "Rakes of Mallow," the title of the Irish jig played during Notre Dame games that has some truly noble lyrics:

Beauing, belling, dancing, drinking,

Breaking windows, cursing, sinking

Every raking, never thinking,

Live the Rakes of Mallow,

Spending faster than it comes,

Beating waiter's bailiffs, duns,

Bacchus' true begotten sons,

Live the Rakes of Mallow.

One time naught but claret drinking,

Then like politicians, thinking

To raise the sinking funds when sinking.

Live the Rakes of Mallow.

When at home, with da-da dying,

Still for mellow water crying,

But, where there's good claret plying

Live the Rakes of Mallow.

When at home with dadda dying,

Still for Mallow-water crying,

But where there is good claret plying

Live the rakes of Mallow.

Living short but merry lives,

Going where the devil drives,

Having sweethearts, but no wives,

Live the rakes of Mallow.

Racking tenants stewards teasing,

Swiftly spending, slowly raising,

Wishing to spend all their days in

Raking as at Mallow.

Then to end this raking life,

They get sober, take a wife,

Ever after live in strife,

And wish again for Mallow.

I jumped at the opportunity, and the SBNation team has been great to me ever since.  On the other hand, I've been less than great to them, as you'll notice the lulls in writing that occurred when the real world got the best of me (Rob Thomas is sort of a prophet when you think about it).  Peter and I were talking about ways of improving the quality and frequency of the posting here to get it up to the standards of the other SBNation ventures, as I'm transitioning into a new role at my real job and will have even less time to work on this site.  After the tossing around of some ideas, the powers that be decided that instead of merging the sites after SBNation purchased the FanTake Network, they were going to just rebrand the Notre Dame presence on SBNation with the fine folks over at One Foot Down.  I'm going to stick around, essaying about football and taking point on basketball coverage, but as far as new posts on Rakes go, this is the final one.

This doesn't actually change that much, other than the URL you need to go to, which will be www.onefootdown.com as soon as the engineers flip the switch.  I'll still be on Twitter (@rakesofmallow), the fine folks at SBNation are footing the bill to keep this site around so all of the archives remain, you can always reach me on e-mail and I'll still be writing about the Irish, just in different places.

I want to thank everyone at SBNation for giving me this chance, and also everyone who has taken the time to write a comment, FanPost or FanShot on this blog.  It still amazes me the reach this site has had covering Weis, Kelly, Brey and the other tremendous programs at Notre Dame, whether it be a friend of a friend thanking me for a post at a random tailgate or seeing someone logged in on the DeBartolo quick access computers checking Rakes between classes.  I've gotten some tremendous feedback, had some fun feuds and got to cover a whole lot of Irish heroics and heartbreak over the last four-plus years.

We've been through some tough times as Notre Dame fans, and while we are mocked - justly, most of the time- for saying the future looks bright, it genuinely feels like things are moving in a very positive direction under Coach Kelly.  I was a big supporter of his hiring and it seems like, just maybe, those of us who thought Kelly-to-ND was a good idea might be right about something. 

So again, thank you all, and please go over and register at One Foot Down as soon as it's live on the SBNation servers.  This blog is departing into the blue, gray sky, but there are still plenty of great places to get your Irish fix on the internet.  And as long as there are insane voices out there clamoring for three fullbacks in at all times (so, you know, forever), I'll do my best to try and provide a slighter calmer version of things.

Less than eighty days until kickoff.  Go Irish, Beat Bulls.         

I've been considering writing about the tragedy on campus this week - the one already being used for link-baiting by some particularly terrible columnists - and have come up with nothing.  It's such a horrible thing, and we don't know any details, and this falls so far outside my normal range of topics that no good would come from what I wrote.  But a friend sent this post to me this morning, and it is so very good and so very sad that I think everyone should read it. 

So as we wait for details on the painful passing of Declan Sullivan, please remember that you're Irish.  You don't need to shout or place blame this early.  Pray for the Sullivans and pray for Declan's friends and classmates.  And read this.

Thanks, and Go Irish.

The fine folks at SBNation have given us a lot of gifts here at Rakes, and one of the newest is providing us with a top-notch store to sell whatever sort of random shirts we can think up.  You can find that reasonably priced corner of the internet right here.  We've only got a few in now, but more are coming down the pike.  Anything the community here wants, we can probably get made up*, so let us know if you have any ideas.

* Obviously there are copyright and trademark issues, so just be creative.

Continue reading this post »

Great news for Irish hockey fans and fans of ND athletics.  The University announced plans on Thursday to construct a new hockey facility on campus.  This new plan supercedes the old one that would have renovated part of the JACC North Dome to become slightly less-crappy, but still far away from where they should be.  Here's a snipet from the university's press release:

The University of Notre Dame will begin construction next year on a new, freestanding, on-campus ice arena designed to meet the needs of both the nationally ranked Irish hockey team and the local community, Notre Dame executive vice president John Affleck-Graves and athletics director Jack Swarbrick announced jointly today.

Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2010 on a projected 5,000-seat arena - with the venue ready for play to start the 2011-12 season.

The University's Board of Trustees approved the project at its meetings last week on campus.

"We're thrilled about the plans for a new ice arena on our campus, particularly based on the superb job Jeff Jackson and our hockey team have done to position our program as one of the best in the nation," said Swarbrick.

Obviously a lot of the thanks has to go to Jackson for producing some terrific hockey teams over the past few seasons, but Irish fans should really be thanking new AD Jack Swarbrick for his contributions to this project.  Here's a great quote from Coach Jackson about Swarbrick's involvement over the past 6 months:

"I give Jack Swarbrick a lot of credit for having the vision to see that it was something that was probably necessary," Jackson said. "I wish he would've been here three years ago to push this idea because we might be so much further ahead".

And even more, from a great interview with Coach Jackson in College Hockey News.

Jackson: He (Jack) started in August. And he came to me and asked what we had to do to make the program as great as it can be. And I think he did that with all the programs, not just ours. I think he saw an opportunity to go beyond what was planned before. ... There is still more fund raising they're going to do, but the commitment is there. It was time to make it public that this was a committed project.

He asked if I was willing to wait another year in order to have a facility on campus. I said absolutely. The only thing is, I feel bad for the kids who I told were going to have a new place in 2010.

If that's not a shot at former athletic director Kevin White, I don't know what is.  Still, this is a great success for the Irish hockey program as a whole and for Jack Swarbrick, who has shown his willingness to give Notre Dame athletics what it needs to succeed.  He'll be making a lot of big time decisions in the next year or so and it is refreshing to see that he's not afraid to make a statement with his decisions.  Congrats to the hockey team and coach Jackson and AD Jack Swarbrick.

Leading an American sweep of the podium, Mariel Zagunis, who helped Notre Dame to a fencing national championship in 2005, won the gold in individual saber over teammate and countrywoman Sada Jacobson.  You might remember Mariel from 2004, when she also won the gold medal, becoming the first individual to win gold medals in back-to-back Olympics since some French guys in the 80's (that's a rough citation of what the color commentator said after her victory). 

USA!  USA!  USA!  USA!

While it's always the point in time where you wish the college offseason would end, when it gets this close, people start going crazy and just desperately trying to fill the time before the first inaugural kickoff.  Case in point: The Big Lead tossing up some pictures of Jimmy Clausen, Brian Smith and James Aldridge participating in Beer Olympics and Notre Dame apparently taking steps to investigate it.  Cue the pointless hand-wringing, moaning and groaning:

A Notre Dame football spokesman said Monday there was no comment from the team for the time being. But du Lac, the school's guidebook for personal conduct, says that underage drinking and/or the participation in drinking games is cause for potential disciplinary action.

"The office of Residence Life will investigate possible violations of university policies when it is made aware of them, such as in this case," Notre Dame school spokesman Dennis Brown said Monday.

Join me in asking "Who honestly cares about this?".   College kids drink.  99.9% of the time it doesn't hurt anything other than their liver, sometimes your pride, your wallet and/or whatever stuff you break when thrasing out to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" at the after party.  Now at a normal school, this would get cast aside because there there isn't a single, normal, non-PTC person who would care that a group of friends got together, dressed up as different "countries" and competed in a series of drinking games for an afternoon.  I'd like to think this is just a creation of a blogger at the Tribune, but who knows, because ResLife was recently responsible for kicking a guy out of school for the most minor of minor drug violations that nobody else would or should care about. 

So it appears much like Clausen's Lame Summer Alcohol Problem: 2007 Edition, even those that generally take much glee in picking apart Notre Dame quarterbacks for their various transgressions aren't getting too worked up about it.  Orson is upset, and when the new, Leitch-less Deadspin isn't take a crack at somebody, you know it should probably just be let go.  So do you hear that, ResLife?  Just let it go.  You probably can't prove anything anyway, and if you start persecuting every Notre Dame student that drinks underage you won't have enough time to go after those that break parietals or are playing beer pong in their dorm room, and I know nobody wants that.

So let's just pretend this didn't happen and move along to more serious matters.

Mike Frank at Irish Eyes was probably the first to have it, but Blue-Gray Sky has confirmed that Notre Dame is set to hire alum Jack Swarbrick as Athletic Director sometime in the next few days.  Notre Dame, who many thought would bring in experienced alum Steve Orsini, will hire a 1976 graduate of the University who has some serious credentials in the NCAA-world, but none as athletic director.

He was a finalist for the NCAA top job a few years back and had this to say about the job:

"The one thing I came away from absolutely certain of, because it was important to me and I asked it at every stage, was: 'Are you prepared to really have someone lead the organization?' I didn't have any interest in the job if they were looking for an executive director of a membership association. I became very convinced that both at the search committee and executive committee levels they had an absolutely desire to make sure they brought in somebody who was prepared to take the initiative to try and lead the association."

Swarbrick has been a partner at Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis and is a 1980 graduate of Stanford law.  More to follow...

First Tim Russert last Friday and now George Carlin, both relatively young (Big Russ was 58, Carlin 71).  The world is turning into a significantly less interesting place.

More on the NBA Draft (Kurz Watch 2008) as the day progresses.