Notre Dame settles in death of Declan Sullivan

Notre Dame and the state of Indiana have settled on a $42,000 fine for six violations in the death of student videographer Declan Sullivan. Notre Dame was originally fined $77,500 in Sullivan’s death for “knowingly putting its employees in unsafe conditions.”

On October 27, 2010, my job became the most talked about job in collegiate athletics when Sullivan’s hydraulic lift fell in a 53 mph wind gust on a windy day in South Bend. The incident hit close to home for myself and my coworkers, especially since our former head coach, Brian Kelly, was now leading practice at Notre Dame.

Questions came in from my friends and family. “Did that ever happen to you?” “Have you ever been up in winds?” And my parents were bombarded by coworkers and friends saying, “All I could think about was your son.”

Notre Dame said in a statement reported by the Associated Press that it, “appreciates the professionalism that (Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Administration) officials have demonstrated throughout this process and is pleased to have reached agreement with them on the safety orders.”

The IOSHA report did not identify one person in particular who was responsible for putting students in the lifts on that day. IOSHA reports normally do not place blame on any one.

However, in April, the University issued a report that stated, “Ultimately, because staff never saw winds in excess of 35 mph, the lifts were not grounded. Nonetheless, where any person has a subjective concern for safety, protocols should be strengthened to help ensure that such concerns are addressed, even where objective safety procedures (such as the 35 mph procedure here) are not triggered.”

Also, “Kelly did not think the wind was as severe as Tuesday, nor as severe as the heavy winds

he frequently encountered at Central Michigan, Grand Valley State, Cincinnati, or earlier

practice days at Notre Dame.”

I’m not sure we’ll ever know exactly what happened on that day, but it seems that Notre Dame will try everything they can to make sure this never happens again.

“A spokesman for Sullivan’s parents said the family was satisfied with the settlement, particularly the nationwide safety campaign,” in the AP report. “There can be no better way to remember Declan than to help others avoid future tragedies,” Sullivan's uncle, Mike Miley, wrote by e-mail to the AP. Miley and Notre Dame both said the amount of money Notre Dame was contributing to the memorial was a private matter.”

Is $42,000 enough? Not in my opinion. But it seems that the state and the school are happy with the outcome, which is sad.

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Got any opinions or questions? I’d love to hear them. Leave a comment.

Notre Dame bans hydraulic lifts from practices

Notre Dame announced Tuesday that hydraulic lifts, such as the one 20-year-old Declan Sullivan was filming practice from on October 27 when he tragically fell to his death, have been banned by the school.

Instead, the school announced that it will install remote control cameras mounted on 50-foot poles and controlled from a room inside the Notre Dame Athletic Complex. The camera system was designed by XOS Digital—the company that supplies Notre Dame with editing and technical equipment.

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown told the AP that the call was made to XOS in November. “We went to XOS last November and said, ‘Is there any way to eliminate the use of hydraulic lifts?’” he said.

The boxes holding the cameras will be equipped to protect the cameras from rain and wind, and will also have a wiper to clear the lens. The boxes will also be outfitted with the green shamrock logo with Sullivan’s initials inside it—the same logo the Notre Dame team wore on their helmets last season to honor the video worker.

When Notre Dame starts spring practice on March 23rd, the new camera systems will be in place. Works began drilling holes for the camera poles on Tuesday.

The Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) is still investigating what caused the lift to fall on the blustery day in late October where wind gusts were over 50 mph.

This new development is an interesting new twist into the current job I hold, and I have mixed feelings about it.

Coaches are control freaks, and if they don’t get their film on time they are not happy campers. The only people to get that done are people like myself and my co-workers who sit at computers and punch keys to cut the film. It’s quick and efficient.

While I know nothing of the new XOS system, I have worked closely with XOS products over the years (including the three-year reign of Brian Kelly at UC) and they are top-of-the-line products. I’m interested to find out more about how these fiber optic cable camera system works.

On one hand, I’m excited to see Notre Dame step up and make a stand on worker safety, but on the other hand, I worry. How many schools will see these systems as a waste of money?

‘Throw a kid up there, it can’t happen to us,’ they may think. They are wrong.

While many schools will still rely on hydraulic lifts to film practice, at least Notre Dame has made a stance trying to prevent tragedies like Declan Sullivan’s death from occurring to them. It’s a step in the right direction, and I applaud the move by the Irish.
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For more on the Sullivan story from ESPN and the AP, click this link: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6192497

For one of the best stories I’ve ever seen written in my life, check out Ryan McGee’s “Up in the Wind” story from last year: http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/blog?name=mcgee_ncf_ryan&month=october-2010&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncf%2fblog%3fname%3dmcgee_ncf_ryan%26month%3doctober-2010

If you don’t understand our job, you will after you read McGee’s article.

Oregon wide receiver pays tribute to fallen student

Everyone thinks tonight’s Oregon-Auburn National Title game will be an offensive show, and as a fan of college football, I hope the “experts” are spot on. This game could look more like a basketball game with the Oregon Ducks’ high-powered, quick-strike offense matching Auburn’s Heisman-winning signal-caller Cam Newton and the Tigers’ own high-octane offense.

Everyone wants to root for someone, and I’m rooting for Oregon. Here’s why…

Oregon wide receiver D.J. Davis, a senior, is described as “the consummate team player.” In the team’s final game of the season, against rival Oregon State, Davis caught a touchdown pass that put the Ducks ahead 23-7. A photographer snapped a photo of Davis that made headlines nationwide.

Tucked in Davis’s waistband was a photo of a kid who chased the same dream that Davis can accomplish with a win in tonight’s National Title game. The photo was of Notre Dame student videographer Declan Sullivan, who died on October 27, after the lift he was filming Notre Dame’s practice from fell over in high winds.

Davis never knew Sullivan, but news of Sullivan’s death hit Davis especially hard. “I have a 20-year old brother (Eric) who will be 21 in January and Declan was the same age,” Davis said. “I kept thinking about it a lot and usually God tries to talk to you in some strange ways and give you some messages.

“I just thought He was telling me to use that as some motivation for this year and giving me something else to play for.”

Davis will wear Sullivan’s photo in tonight’s game, and has been in contact with the Sullivan family, learning more and more about the young man he honors every game. “Pretty much when I talked to them, they wanted to let me know what kind of guy he was,” Davis said. “And he seemed like a really good kid from what I've heard from them and just that keeping his memory alive is one of the things they want to accomplish.”

Mission accomplished.

I tip my cap to D.J. Davis for doing something that very few others would even think of doing. “Just knowing someone can have an impact on you without even meeting them is an awesome experience,” Davis said.

I feel that way about D.J. Davis now. Hopefully he and his Ducks teammates have a little extra help tonight. I know I’ll be rooting for them.

2010 in Review

I love Cincinnati, but forgive me if I seem spoiled by saying after the past few years, this New Year’s Eve in the Queen City will be disappointing. Two years ago we rang in the new year in Miami, and last year it was one wild party on Bourbon Street (which I watched from my hotel room—I wasn’t about to venture down into that craziness) in New Orleans.

So, this year won’t be quite the scene it has been in the past few years, but nonetheless it will be another night to ring in the next year, and hopefully 2011 will be just as much fun and just as exciting as 2010.

There were plenty of highs and plenty of lows, and if you followed the blog, you know most of the upcoming story, but stick around. There are a few good new gems I’ve got planned, including a quick preview of 2011.

As Celine Dion once sang, “God bless us everyone, the good and the bad, the happy the sad.” Whether the moments were happy or sad, good or bad, they were one thing: memorable.

The first day of the year might be remembered by UC football fans as light years ago, and I understand how it feels that way, but the thrashing UC took at the hands of Florida was actually within the calendar year of 2010. The Sugar Bowl was exciting—if you were a fan of the Florida Gators, led on the field by Tim Tebow for one last hurrah.

Well, at least I got to see the greatest college football player of our generation play.

As we rolled toward February, the NASCAR season took over, and what better beginning could you ask for as a NASCAR fan than on day one seeing 51-year-old Mark Martin claim his first Daytona 500 pole?

It was an all Hendrick Motorsports front row in Daytona (Getty Images)

Everything seemed to be going well until that pothole got a hold of the season’s biggest race, turning the 500 into a twice-delayed race on Valentine’s Day. Even though it was sad to sit through almost as much time in delays as we did during the race, it was pretty neat to see Jamie McMurray win.

Rolling into March it was time to begin basketball season, and although my brother and I wanted to win more than one game, we only had the opportunity to win one. Another season starts up in about a month, and we’ve promised to be the best dressed coaches in the league. Let’s see how many wins that gets us.

Also in March of this past year, I began the second internship of my career, this time with FOX19, the city’s smallest TV station. The guys in sports there were more than glad to have me around and we had some good times covering everything from the Reds to the Bengals and the Cyclones. I enjoyed hanging out with Brian Giesenschlag, our producer Rufus, Zach Wells and Dan Wood, and even enjoyed the trip to Indy where Rontina McCann and I worked on some NASCAR coverage together.

We’ll see what 2011 brings, especially with the invite from the guys at Channel 19 to come on back any time I wanted to in order to help them out and get more experience.

Here I am interviewing Elder volleyball player Steve Kent after Elder won the 2010 state title in volleyball

April and May were full of local sports and spending nights at Channel 19, as well as full of school work. As June rolled in, I knew it was going to be one crazy month.

We had football camps, the Nationwide (nee Busch) Series race at Kentucky Speedway, and even a change of address for the UC football video office. To say it was a whirlwind would be an understatement. After finishing camp films, we got the notice from Butch Jones that we’d be moving into his office, and he’d inhabit our much larger office.

It turned into a month-long project for us, moving bits and pieces of our computer equipment into our new, much, much smaller office.

That was compounded by the low point of the year, as I have mentioned numerous times. The July 7th death of my grandfather made the whole year turn on a dime. Even as we moved along throughout the year, there was always that little part missing.

But, not to make it all turn out to be doom and gloom in the month of July. Sure, the summer’s most prominent month began in a rather depressing way, but it ended on a happier note for myself with the trip to Indianapolis, Ind.

My dad and I had a great view of the 2010 Brickyard 400

If you missed any of my Brickyard coverage, you missed a lot of fun observations and stories about the enjoyable weekend in Speedway, Ind. Jamie McMurray won again, and it was fun seeing Mark Martin run well again.

August is normally the least busy month on the blog, and that’s because I’m stuck in West Harrison, Ind. at Camp Higher Ground going through two practices a day with the UC football team. This year was no different, and we were busier than ever this year with the new coaching staff.

The football season began on Labor Day weekend, and from September on it was fourteen weeks of football, football and more football, with some schoolwork sprinkled in here and there. Even though the season was a disappointment, our video looked great.

And on one windy day in South Bend, Ind., the whole perception of my job was thrown into the national headlines. On October 27th tragedy struck the Notre Dame football program when student videographer Declan Sullivan was killed when the scissor lift he was filming practice from fell.

Everyone I ran into in the days following the incident said the first thing they thought of was me. During our game against Syracuse that Saturday it was the topic of discussion between the two film staffs from UC and Syracuse. At least it was in my lift in the endzone at Nippert Stadium.

We also hung the above banner on our lift and it stayed there throughout the season. It certainly wasn’t the way we ever wanted our job to come to light, and the publicity from the incident in South Bend was quite interesting to read. After all, in three seasons with Brian Kelly, nothing of the sort ever happened to me or any of my co-workers, which was interesting. Even though no official sanctions have been handed down yet, it will be a story I’ll keep a keen eye on.

The disappointing football season ended in the most insane weather I’ve ever filmed in here in my four years in Cincinnati. Inches upon inches of snow fell as Pittsburgh’s Dion Lewis torched the UC defense for 261 yards and four touchdowns.

Jordan Stepp of UC stopped Dion Lewis on this play. It was a rare sight in the snow (Cincinnati Enquirer photo)

It was an entertaining game to film, and the addition of my dad on the lift (it was senior day, and we assumed, incorrectly, that we’d be shown on the video board. Instead the “thank you” to the football staff that was given was rather quick and no one was shown on the video board, much to the dismay of my dad, who hung out on the lift for the entire game) made the game so much more fun, although my counterpart from Pitt made the game enjoyable as well.

All of this added up to a few weeks of vacation in the final weeks of December—after recruiting and our banquet work was finished—and plenty of blogs for you to read.

As we head into 2011, there’s plenty of NASCAR, college football and other things to be covered here. Basketball season will begin, I’m still refereeing volleyball, and who knows what else is in store in 2011. We’ll see what the biggest part of the year holds for us, my expected graduation in June.

Until tomorrow, or next year, have a good day, a safe night and Happy New Year!

The Best Blogs of 2010

Happy 20th birthday to my brother Tony on this lovely Wednesday, and thanks for reading as always.
This year was full of fantastic stories on the blog, and I hope you tuned in to read the 160-plus (and counting) posts I have put up. Throughout the year I have had the chance to weigh in on NASCAR, college football, high school sports and much, much more. Yesterday I went through my posts a month at a time and checked them to find my favorite stories of the year.

Whether they were well written (and let’s be honest, most of them were pretty good—I know, I’m extremely humble) or they were just great stories with awesome storylines, I picked each story because of what it meant to me. Let’s check out some of my favorite stories of the 2010 calendar year.

During my annual Daytona 500 countdown I offered up my reasons on why I love NASCAR drivers, and the sport in general. Stories about Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and my own memories of Mark Martin filled the story, which you can check out here: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/01/as-young-kid-growing-up-in-cincinnati-i.html

It was a fun story to write, but without fans, NASCAR is just another set of grown men driving around with road rage. One of my favorite stories of the year was one I wrote about my friends, the Markaholics. For a class I went in-depth with some members of the Markaholics, who gave me so much information to work with I actually had trouble paring down the info to write a good article! Here’s my favorite story about my favorite Mark Martin fans: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/02/nascar-fans-use-internet-to-connect.html


Also for that same class I did a little “behind the scenes” story on the Elder High School basketball team. Head coach Joe Schoenfeld allowed me to visit a few practices and the game against St. Xavier. At Elder, the all-male Catholic school of 1,000 or so young men, team masses are a big part of the athletic experience. I had the ability to write about the team masses from the perspective of the basketball team, and I got to watch the Panthers defeat their No. 1 rival St. X, all in a good week’s work. Here’s the story on Elder basketball and the tradition of team masses: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/02/elder-basketball-team-learns.html

Speaking of high school sports, one of my favorite high school sports, and one that gets zero publicity, is high school volleyball. In May, while I was interning at FOX19, I had the ability to go out to Moeller High School and talk to four members of the Moeller squad along with head coach Greg Ulland. As a three-year stat guy with Elder’s volleyball team I never saw my team beat Moeller, and I know that the Crusaders are dominant. Six state titles in 13 years equals a dynasty in my book.

So I did my first ever video report for the FOX19 website, and I also ran the story on the blog. Here’s my story on the Moeller volleyball dynasty, but you have to go to the link at the top to see my smiling face on the video: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/02/elder-basketball-team-learns.html

I also took a class during the spring in Holocaust Literature. It was quite interesting, and we had the ability as a class to listen to a local Holocaust survivor give his memories about the horrible experiences he had as a German Jew during the Holocaust. The day was full of thoughts from a man who had seen possibly the worst period of human history. Here’s the story: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/05/holocaust-survivor-werner-coppel-shares.html

Then came Father’s Day, and this year was a different year. As you may know, my 87-year-old grandfather was in failing health and so I did the only thing I could think of: write. It’s a story that was shared to all my family members, including one of my cousins, who told me it was “professional grade stuff.” FOX19 Sports Director Brian Giesenschlag told me it reminded him of a story he wrote when he was in college about his grandfather. Get your tissues ready, here’s my Father’s Day Wish: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/06/fathers-day-wish.html
Then came the low point of the year, when my grandfather passed away. Again, all I could do was write about it. Except, I had a difficult time putting words down on paper; it was that tough to write about. But, the end product was a blog that was once again shared by my family before my grandfather’s funeral, and a number of my mom’s relatives said they were crying as they read the story. Here’s the story “In Memory”: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-memory.html

July was also a happier time for myself, as I once again got to attend the Brickyard 400, again with a media pass. In 2009 I wrote a story about Mark Martin’s coach driver Bart Starr (not the quarterback) and this year I decided to do a long profile story on a woman that all Mark Martin fans have become acquainted with via Twitter, his media relations manager Kendra Jacobs. On a hot and sunny afternoon in Speedway, Ind., I stood in Mark Martin’s hauler and chatted with Kendra. Here’s the story: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/kendra-jacobs-media-manager-and-top.html

Some of my less well written pieces are my rants and ramblings about college football stadiums that we’ve visited with the UC football team. Here are all of my stories, complete with photos of course:
Fresno State: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/09/fresno-state-stadium-photos.html
NC State: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/09/carter-finley-stadium-best-in-four.html
Louisville: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-papajohns-cardinal-stadium-still.html
West Virginia: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/post-400-country-roads-take-me-home.html
Connecticut: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/11/they-say-its-not-over-til-fat-lady.html

Speaking of college football, a profound incident occurred on October 27 of this year in South Bend, Ind. During a Notre Dame practice, a 20-year-old student videographer, Declan Sullivan, died when the scissor lift he was filming practice from toppled in high winds. The story hit especially hard for myself, being that I too perform the same job as Sullivan, and did for three years under Brian Kelly. While I had no time to write a response to the incident, I found an article by ESPN.com’s Ryan McGee, called “Up in the wind,” and it was so good that I shared the link via my blog. Here’s McGee’s article (and it’s one of the finest bits of reporting I’ve ever read, and definitely the best story about the Notre Dame tragedy) http://espn.go.com/ncf/blog/_/name/mcgee_ryan/id/5740321/up-wind
As the football season wound down and the first term of my final year as a student at UC wound down I had the ability to write a story about Dave Allen, the “West Side Musical Maestro,” as I called him. Dave Allen impacts hundreds and hundreds of lives each year with his work as Elder Glee Club director, St. William childrens and adult choirs director and director and conductor of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Orchestra. My story about DA can be found here: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/12/dave-allen-west-sides-musical-maestro.html

I hope you’ve enjoyed each and every post I’ve put up this year. It’s been a fun year, with plenty of ups and downs, as you can see from browsing my short list of the best posts of 2010. I’m compiling a few more stories to post before the crystal ball drops on Friday night to ring in 2011, and check back for those posts. Enjoy your day, and tell my brother Happy Birthday if you see him around town.

Urban Meyer steps down: Is college football life and death?

Much to the dismay of Florida Gator football fans across the country, head coach Urban Meyer announced last week that he’s officially stepping down as head coach of the Gators after their bowl game on Jan. 1.

If this sounds familiar, well, it’s because Meyer did this almost a year ago, just before his team hopped on a plane bound for New Orleans. Before playing his alma mater, Cincinnati, in the Sugar Bowl, Meyer announced he would step away from coaching because of health concerns.

He was back coaching the Gators this year.

Meyer cited health concerns again, according to a recent report by the Gainesville Sun. Former Texas defensive coordinator and head-coach-in-waiting Will Muschamp will be introduced as Florida head coach tomorrow.

Meyer stepping down because of health concerns might surprise some people, but to me, it’s just a case of a guy actually making a good move. Mark Dantonio (former UC head coach) suffered a heart attack after the Michigan State-Notre Dame game in September. A lot of focus was shifted onto the intense amount of pressure to win faced by college coaches each and every week.

So, is college football a matter of life and death? Some may argue that it isn’t.

Bucky Gleason, sports columnist for The Buffalo News, said, “The greater good would be putting Division I football on trial and examining how many other details are ignored in the pursuit of victory and big business. In a perfect world, college football would be a game for amateurs in pursuit of an education. That's how it was years ago, before it became life and death.”

Gleason was referring to the incident that took place in South Bend, Ind. on October 27 of this year. By now I know you’ve heard the story. Notre Dame student Declan Sullivan was killed when the lift he was filming practice in fell over.

Was it necessary to have practice outside? Is it necessary for coaches to risk lives (sometimes their own) to win football games? Urban Meyer decided it wasn’t, and although it might cost him millions of dollars in earnings, you can’t fault him for wanting to be happy and healthy with his family in the future.

So, kudos to Urban Meyer for making a life saving decision. It was smart. Now, if only all of college football was the same way, everyone would be much happier, and much healthier.