would we still of been a dynamic academic institution without Rockne and the football history?
Or would we be somewhere in between, like a Xavier or Creighton?
Hesburgh also built the place into an impressive academic university starting in the 60's.
The average Joe thinks of footy when they think of ND, but they also think top academics.
Your mileage will vary depending how into the place and program you are. Alumns obviously have the closest affiliation and rightly focus on the academics.
da gipper, rock, four horsemen, all of that did far more to enhance the school's profile than whatever the academic side could put together. hell, saint viator college had a football team which the irish beat back in 08. what made the difference was some fortuitous recruiting of a few ghost players, a coach with a flair for the theatrical, and america's growing obsession with college football....
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But right now the success of the university has little to do with the football team and that is all that matters. ND has been an outstanding academic institution for close to a half century but folks on here continue to want to attribute it to the football team. It really is quite amusing. The endowment thrives regardless of the record of the football team.
Without football and Rockne, ND would be nowhere. In fact, the Navy would not have been there to bail us out during WWII. Good chance ND doesn't exist. Michiana would never have supported it with enough students, especially if it was all-male.
Notre Dame has apparently always used FB "profits" for the general fund. Have read and heard "old timers" (when I was a student in the 60s) talk about how FB money was used to expand "the plant" starting in the 20s. It provided the funding to see ND thru "The Depression." Pretty clearly the Navy kept our ship afloat during WWII but ND also scheduled a lot of "money games" following the same strategy that has been followed from the days that ND burst on the national scene - doubt if anyone has played as many intersectional games from the 20s on.
Remember well the early 60s when the revenue stream was endangered as not wining resulted in less home attendance (we played North Carolina in 1962 to an actual crowd that was only marginally more that the Spring Game now). While the deemphasis cycle receded for awhile with the arrival of Ara, the very first effort to create an endowment (and the library) reached its goal (a near miracle at the time but subsequent Challenge efforts made that amount look paltry in hindsight).
We are still using those profits to fund ND and a glance at the balance sheet makes it hard to imagine how ND would contract to deal with the absence of those funds (a really big hit looking forward a generation).
It is hard to imagine ND without its FB for $ program. Whatever would have happened would have left its leaders in constant fund raising mode just to keep "the lights on." Many small private colleges of similar age have navigated a path to today and probably more have not.