As an 8-year-old kid, I remember coming home from Sunday Mass to eat breakfast, watch Rocky and Bullwinkle at 11, Notre Dame highlights for 90 minutes with Lindsey Nelson and Paul Hornung, and then it was time for the Cleveland Browns game.

It was during those early years that I forged my allegiance to the Notre Dame football program. Oh, I listened to the Ohio State games on the radio on Saturday, but it wasn’t like the Sunday ritual.

In later years as I grew older, I studied my favorite school’s history beyond the storied athletic tradition. I came to understand why the school was founded and what it stood for in terms of policy and principle.

It was those strict principles that led to the departure of one of my all-time favorite coaches and persons, Lou Holtz. Notre Dame would not join schools like Miami, Clemson, and Duke and lighten the academic requirements for the athletes.

Holtz said he didn’t want the school to lower its requirements, just let him have the marginal players. He proved how players like Chris Zorich and Tony Rice could flourish if given a chance and kept under watchful eye.

Rice was on academic probation as a freshman because he did not meet the school’s 2.0 GPA requirement. He not only eclipsed the 2.0 GPA, but earned his degree and won a national championship along the way.

Zorich became an athletic and academic All-American who was selected in the NFL draft.

Those stringent standards are what made me grow to respect the university beyond its athletic program. But I think some things need to change, such as allowing the school to redshirt freshmen.

But it is in the wake of these strong policies that has me upset with the administration. The school that won’t bend on athletic requirements will not only invite President Barack Hussein Obama to speak at the school’s commencement ceremonies but give him an honorary degree.

Obama doesn’t want the U.S. Army to use tough tactics against terrorists who have bombed buildings and killed innocent men, women and children. Yet he not only favors abortion but wants the taxpayer to fund killing babies.

He also plans to use taxpayer money for embryonic stem cell research.

Pushing a terrorist around or vilifying someone for making a lot of money is criminal in his mind, but leaving a baby in a closet to die or drilling a hole in their neck and sucking out their brain seems to be okay.

I have a sister-in-law who is a nurse. I know about the abortion process at a hospital and she is one of the nurses who refuses to work the abortion floor.

Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins cannot make decisions based strictly on what other academic institutions do. Notre Dame has its policies and anyone attending must accept those ideals or they are free to attend another school.

The school’s website even states the president of the university encourages all faculty and staff to remain committed to the core values of integrity, accountability, team work, leadership in mission, and leadership in excellence.

Father Jenkins made the decision to invite Obama. He is not the Catholic Church which opposes murdering babies, born or unborn. Jenkins is human and is susceptible to making humanistic decisions.

Murder is murder. Call it abortion, call it choice, call it an ice cream sundae, but it doesn’t change what it is.

People opposed going into Iraq even though those people were being terrorized, raped, beaten and killed by their own government. The U.S. went to help them and protect our people here. If it was about oil, gas prices would never have been $4 a gallon.

I don’t like Obama’s opinion on abortion, nor did I like John Kerry, Bill Clinton or Al Gore for their similar views. It’s not about the political party but the party’s platform.

I’m still a fan of Notre Dame and what it stands for even if there are people making decisions contrary to the principles on which it was founded. More than 200,000 people have already signed an on-line petition protesting the decision to invite Obama and there are church leaders not only speaking out against it but boycotting the commencement address.

Maybe the university should let Lou Holtz enforce their policies.

–– Sinatra ––

Jim Walker is sports editor of The Ironton Tribune.