“Catholics vs. Convicts” — Strange Bedfellows in College Football
An inquisition into the atmosphere and circumstances that resulted in one of the most legendary college football games ever.
By Jack Slattery and Max Brodeur
COVID-19 has dealt sports fans a devastating blow. However, while there may not be any live sports on television, there are plenty of moments in sports history that deserve a second look. Among the best 30-for-30s is Catholics vs. Convicts which features the Notre Dame-Miami rivalry and the infamous 1988 t-shirt. Our analysis will examine the rivalry’s origin, the influence this specific game had on the respective universities, along with the stylistic choices director Patrick Creadon employed to help tell this unforgettable story.
Spoiler Warning
If you would like to watch Catholics vs Convicts without spoilers, please do that first. You can find it on ESPN+, then come back and continue reading this article.
The Build-Up
The story begins in 1985 with Gerry Faust’s last game as Notre Dame’s Head Coach. He had announced his retirement before the game, so all of Notre Dame fans knew that the game at Miami would be the last regular-season game under Faust. Their hopes for a fond memory ended when Miami racked up the score to an eventual 58–7, a move many Notre Dame fans interpreted as a criminal attack upon their retiring coach. Notre Dame Basketball Head Coach at the time, Digger Phelps, shared these bitter feelings. In the following winter when Notre Dame played Miami, Phelps took the opportunity to pay back the favor, winning the game with a final score of 126–73. However, Miami isn’t a basketball school, so the win didn’t mean much for Notre Dame.
THE FOLLOWING YEAR, Notre Dame decided to bring on Lou Holtz to rebuild their football program. It was not an easy fix. Under Faust players voted for shorter practices and declined bowl games.
Fast forward to 1987, Notre Dame returned to Miami, but this time under Holtz. It became evident early that Notre Dame wasn’t going to win, but when Notre Dame’s starting quarterback suffered a broken clavicle, Holtz inserted the elusive Tony Rice. And while Notre Dame still lost 0–24, Rice impressed Holtz with his leadership. He secured his spot as the starter, and began to lead the team towards success.
Surprisingly, the next person to contribute to the now fierce rivalry between the two schools was President Ronald Reagan, a huge Notre Dame fan. In the summer of 1988, Reagan gave a speech at Notre Dame to unveil a Knute Rockne stamp in honor of his 100th birthday. During Reagan’s acting career he actually played the role of George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American, and a portion of Reagan’s speech was dedicated to motivating the Notre Dame football team for the upcoming season. The Irish delivered; and by the time the Miami game rolled around, the Irish had an undefeated record.
An Instant Classic
IT WAS FINALLY TIME for the game everyone was waiting for. Due to all of the built up hype and controversy, tensions were high. In fact, a fight broke out when Miami ran through Notre Dame’s warm-up lines on the way to the locker room tunnel.
Notre Dame gained an early lead, but Miami tied the score 21–21 just before halftime. In the third quarter, Notre Dame maintained its steady offense and took a 31–21 lead. After making a field goal early in the fourth, Miami brought the game within one touchdown. When Miami got the ball back with eleven-minutes left, they drove right down the field, and on fourth and seven quarterback Steve Walsh made a pass to Cleveland Gary who was tackled and fumbled the ball at the 1-yard-line. It was a close call and is a very controversial topic between the players.
The game saw another controversy on Miami’s last touchdown when receiver Andre Brown clearly trapped the ball. Referees, however, ruled a touchdown, giving Miami the chance to win the game with a two-point conversion. Steve Walsh had time. After surveying the field, he attempted a lob to the back of right end zone. However, his pass was swatted down by Pat Terrell and Notre Dame won a thrilling 31–30 victory.
The Infamous Shirt
“I was a senior at Notre Dame that year and my best friend and roommate was one of the guys in the middle of that t-shirt that gave the game its name.
We wanted to go back and look at the game, but we also wanted to re-examine the shirt and take a look at why that name stuck; why some people thought that t-shirt was funny and accurate but while a lot of us thought that the shirt was mean-spirited and reckless.”
— Director Patrick Creadon
What truly made this game legendary was the scale of the antagonism and dissent outside of the game itself. In the 30-for-30, Creadon primarily focuses on “the shirt” made by his roommate Pat Walsh which allows Creadon to insert his own personal narrative to the story. Creadon keeps the viewers’ focus on the shirt throughout the film, creatively cutting to a screen-printing workshop depicting the creation of “the shirt” after each influential event leading up to the Catholics vs. Convicts game; turning the creation of the shirt into a countdown to anarchy.
However, with this strategy the viewer may over-focus on the shirt and over-emphasize the role of the shirt in the rising controversy. However, before game-day, Walsh only sold around 100 Catholics vs. Convicts t-shirts. So, imagine if the shirt never existed. The game would have been just as big, and the rivalry just as intense. The shirt did not create the controversy, the shirt was merely an attempt to capitalize on the controversy. It is this choice to structure the entire story of the “Catholics vs. Convicts” game around the development of the shirt that makes the shirt the star of the story.
BESIDES THE SHIRT, the teams themselves managed to build up their own controversial characters. The film also does a great job of not only characterizing the teams but also timing when to change your perspective. Initially, Creadon characterizes Miami as a bunch of thugs dancing on field, showing off, etc. One commentator even compared Notre Dame’s “Win one for the Gipper” to Miami’s “Win one for the stripper they had in the locker room.” As the documentary continues, they show Miami less and less as the bad guys, even going as far as having former Head Coach Jimmy Johnson explain that he had previously lost a game in which he had been leading by 30 and gave that as the reason why he kept scoring in Faust’s last game. It wasn’t personal, it was a game.
“I think people confuse the bad boy image with free spirit, emotional, and passionate. And I think at times, especially when you’re winning every week, I think that kind of played wrong to some of the opponents.” — Jimmy Johnson
The Rivalry Gets Political
It was universally known that President Ronald Reagan was a huge Notre Dame fan. In 1940 After playing “The Gipper,” Reagan had a deep love for Notre Dame. Even before speaking at Notre Dame to unveil the Knute Rockne stamp, Reagan actually received an honorary degree and gave the 1981 Commencement address.
“The INF Treaty and George Bush’s election were important but having the Fighting Irish win the national championship is in a class by itself.”
— President Ronald Reagan
During the 1980s, the U.S. was in the middle of the “War on Drugs” led by President Ronald Reagan. On the other hand, Miami was in what’s now referred to as its “Miami Vice” era, being the epicenter of the drug war with cartels using Miami as a hub for bringing drugs onto U.S. soil to then be distributed elsewhere. Knowing Reagan’s connections to Notre Dame, it becomes apparent why the “good vs. evil” debate came into college football. It was quite literally the “War on Drugs” on a football field.
WITH ALL THE MEDIA ATTENTION gradually shifting focus from football to social and political issues, the schools began to get a bit worried about a PR disaster. While Notre Dame was more worried about students’ actions and began cracking down on students calling and sending mail to Miami coach Jimmy Johnson, Miami was more worried about their reputation in general. With Miami being characterized as the bad boys, many students were angry about how they were doing the same things as Notre Dame students but were the only ones whose reputation suffered from it.
Dan Le Batard, a writer for the Miami student newspaper at the time and current sportswriter and ESPN guest host, had published an article the week before the game featuring Lou Holtz’ phone number, “vehemently encouraging University of Miami students to give him a call.” The weekend of the game, he published an article both apologizing and showing his frustrations.
“the Notre Dame student body can do anything and still be considered the birthplace of all that is holy, while the UM student body can do the very same thing and suddenly be the University of Hell.” —Dan Le Batard
HOWEVER, some Miami players embraced their “bad boy” reputation. Quarterback Steve Walsh, at the end of the documentary, expressed his opinions about their reputation, “We got it. I mean we had earned that reputation with some of our past behavior.” With Miami’s history of showing off and stunts like getting off the bus in army fatigues, Miami was playing the part it was trying to avoid playing.
Because the school seemed to be doing nothing about their actions on the field, Miami was easily interpreted as the “bad guys.” It wasn’t students’ actions causing Miami to be misrepresented, it was the fact that the school appeared to be turning a blind eye. Though Notre Dame couldn’t do much to stop people from calling or sending mail to Jimmy Johnson other than asking students not to, it was something. At Miami they didn’t appear to be doing anything, giving the notion that the school administration supported it, and that’s what hurt their reputation.
Notre Dame, however, may have benefited from the attention. Within a few short years Notre Dame was able to go from a failing football team to winning a national championship in 1988. Going into the ’90s, the College Football Association (CFA), which consists of 64 college football schools, was looking into making deals with television companies for rights to broadcast their games. In October of 1989, ESPN bought the rights to the CFA’s games for $110 million over five years, and in January of 1990, ABC bought rights to the CFA’s games for $210 million over five years.
Notre Dame had problems with this deal because ABC planned to just show Notre Dame games regionally rather than nationally, which is interesting because Notre Dame had recently won the National Championship the year before. But interestingly enough, in February of 1990, Notre Dame became the first school to make its own independent national television deal, which it did with NBC, and agreed to a five year deal giving NBC broadcasting rights to all Notre Dame home games for what’s speculated to be a total of $40–75 million. But it begs the question, if it weren’t for the massive amount of attention given to Notre Dame just a year earlier, would NBC really have made this deal?
Conclusion
SO AS WE NOW KNOW, the legendary “Catholics vs. Convicts” game means many different things. The different sources of controversy make it a great story to tell, and a great documentary, but we need to remember to look deeper. To understand the headline is easy, but to understand why that’s the headline, and not like every other story, is the hard part. And while Creadon’s film does a great job telling a story, it seems to be heavily focused on Notre Dame’s perception of the story, upholding the saying that the winners write the history books. So even while some might argue that the game was hateful or hypocritical, the vast majority just remembers it as a great football game with a story to tell.
Bibliography
Le Batard, Dan. “A Public Apology to UM.” The Miami Hurricane, 14 Oct. 1988, pp. 8–8. University of Miami Digital Collections, http://merrick.library.miami.edu/cdm/ref/collection/asu0053/id/23042.
Creadon, Patrick, director. Catholics vs. Convicts. ESPN, 30-For-30, 10 Dec. 2016.
Wilson, Natasha. “Miami Shirts Sold Without Approval.” The Observer, 13 Oct. 1988, pp. 1–1.
Carter, Bill. “Notre Dame Breaks Ranks on TV Football Rights.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Feb. 1990, www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/business/notre-dame-breaks-ranks-on-tv-football-rights.html.
