During a late evening meeting in 1969 with the late legendary former President of the University of Notre Dame, Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh, we discussed how the university would be able to support financially the explosion of 119 Black student applicants to Notre Dame. I was a Notre Dame sophomore at the time. I reported to Fr. Hesburgh, affectionately known as Fr. Ted, that our student-based Recruitment Action Program (RAP), which Fr. Ted fully supported, had recruited the then largest applicant pool of Black students to our beloved University. At the meeting’s end, Fr. Ted produced the plan: he would ask the Notre Dame Board of Trustees to reverse the University’s 45-year ban on participation in post-season football games to obtain revenue for minority student financial aid. He succeeded. Though we lost to Texas in 1970 in the Cotton Bowl, the University obtained a pot of gold. (ND would defeat the Longhorns in the 1971 Cotton Bowl.)
Prior to 1970, Notre Dame had last played in a postseason football game in the 1925 Rose Bowl game defeating Stanford. My memory of the reason for the four-decade plus ban on bowl games was that University leaders felt that such participation would interfere with student final exams. Conducting research on the rationale, there is mention that University leaders were concerned about amateurism, but I cannot recall that concern at the time of our meeting, unless it involved the final exams issue.
I initiated RAP and travelled throughout the country recruiting Black students — with the help of other Notre Dame students such as Art McFarland, ’70, the first president of the Afro-American Society, and the late Mark Winings, ’71, the 1970-71 student body vice president. I became the first Black student body president of the University in 1970. I am also co-editor with the renowned journalist, Don Wycliff, ’69, of the book “Black Domers: African-American Students at Notre Dame in their Own Words.”
In the second edition of "Black Domers" (published by the University of Notre Dame Press), Fr. Hesburgh stated in the replicated foreword of our book: “Besides the addition of women, the most dramatic change in the character of Notre Dame’s student body in my lifetime has been its growing racial and ethnic diversity.” In seeking that change, Fr. Hesburgh stated that such efforts “have been undertaken for the sake of justice.”
Fr. Ted, thank you for putting us in the position to be champions on our sports fields and courts, but more importantly, thank you for being a champion for increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the Notre Dame student body. Yes, we have more work to do to enhance Notre Dame’s racial and ethnic diversity, but you gave us a jumpstart.
Fast forward to Jan. 20, 2025, and Notre Dame is playing in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. What would Fr. Ted think of his Notre Dame student athletes playing in their fourth consecutive postseason football game in one year! Fr. Ted is extremely happy and proud. Go Irish!
David Krashna
class of 1971
Jan. 12, 2025
