September 23, 2008

Milligan Minute: SBPD, ISEP and Notre Dame

As I am sure you all know the Indiana State Excise Police with the help of the SBPD decided to raid a party and not issue tickets but to arrest the underage drinkers as some sort of a way of flexing their muscles. What is the sense of arresting underage kids as long as they are not a danger to themselves or the people around them?

From sources I have heard that there were students that blew less than .04 that were taken into custody. You can get that much amount of alcohol in you system just by breathing in the Ethanol laden air in South Bend.

I guess it is more important to the state of Indiana and South Bend to arrest Notre Dame student specifically athletes at a off campus house party than arrest the drug dealers on the west side or the people robbing ND students at gunpoint. This is a gross miscarriage of justice in South Bend.

What is the Universities role in this? One can only speculate that Notre Dame condoned these types of raids on their student body and that is sickening. This is just another way of Notre Dame reaching out and scolding its student body for trying to escape the bubble that is Notre Dame campus. If I recall correctly during my time at ND the Boat Club (the best bar ever) and Finnegan’s were raided on a Thursday. Why would you raid a bar on a Thursday? Hmmm? Could the bars have been raided on direction from Notre Dame in order to keep students from going out during the week? Was it because too many students were missing classes on Friday and there were drunken students roaming campus on a Weekday... Heaven forbid.

The Woman's and Men's lacrosse teams had members busted in this most recent raid and with the most media coverage two members of the Notre Dame Varsity Traveling Tackle Football Squad were caught up in this incident and may have their play careers ruined. I feel truly sorry for Will Yeatman for being caught up in this for a second time with in a year. Will keep your head up and hopefully things will work out for the best.

I cannot believe the ridiculousness of the Police in South Bend and the University. There are a few things all college students must learn... One is to see that they can survive on their own with out their parents. Another is to see if they can become a socially independent make friends and meet members of the opposite sex that they didn’t know from the time they were kids in grade school. The most important is to see if you drink alcohol and prove that you won’t die. Enter beer and liquor and most importantly welcome to college.

If you never took a drink before your 21st birthday feel free to cast stones at me and tell me I am going to hell and I will be happy to accept it. I had a beer before my 21st birthday, sue me...
In fact I had a beer in high school. Oh my god alert the authorities.
One of my favorite pastimes as a freshman was going to dorm parties On Campus and watching the freshmen introducing themselves to alcohol for the first time. These kids were laughable in their ineptness at handling booze. They were dancing, singing, slurring words and even talking to girls. I kid but it was fun to watch these future captains of industry learning to interact once they had some alcohol in them. It was like watching a newborn deer trying to walk and find its leg. They slip and fall and shake a little but soon they find out who they are and make their way in the world. The same happens to the baby deer. When you have your first sips of alcohol, you make a fool out of yourself (I am included in this) but you learn where your limits are and when to say when. Granted some people don’t ever find their limits but isn’t that part of growing up and maturing. You need to make mistakes to learn from. I am not saying the University should embrace underage drink but understand it is part of growing up and the college experience. They shouldn’t actively try to ruin the lives of ND students to prove there over bearing parenting points.

Notre Dame come into the 21st Century and get with the times and loosen up a little (the scary thing is this message is coming from a hard core conservative). Protect your students from armed robbery, rapes, and shootings and leave the underage drinking as an after thought.

There are so many more tragedies in this life than cracking an ice cold Budweiser on a warm fall evening and enjoying it with some of the best friends you will ever have. And sipping the chilly suds and talking about the times when you didn’t have a care in the world. Sitting in a chair on the porch and watching the world speed by. Actually I think I am going to do that right now... Enjoy a Great American Lager. The mind of Milligan has gone drinking.

2 comments:

Mike said...

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Notre Dame was involved, given the track record of Bill Kirk and Mark Poorman. These guys appear to be intent on ruining every fun aspect of college for students. Every year, there seems to be another new crackdown on some sort of "improper" behavior by ND administrators, such as bar busts, SYRs moved off campus, new initiatives against alcohol in dorm rooms and random tailgating raids.

This new attitude toward alcohol is a complete joke and it detracts from the overall college experience at Notre Dame.

Doug said...

Standing ovation!!! I could not agree more. It is an absolute disgrace that ND is enabling this type of treatment of our students. It is almost as if ND goes out of its way to get its own students into trouble, which is absolutely absurd.

I don't think I will ever get over what happened to Kyle McAlarney. Kicking him out of school was an absolute joke.

I have no doubt that ND will come down hard on Will Yeatman, but I hope they give him another chance. An underage drinking ticket is nothing in the grand scheme of things. He can bounce back from this type of thing easily, and I don't think it harms the university's reputation to allow a kid like Yeatman back into the school and the football team.

Great stuff Sean, and I hope to see more material out of you during the season!