Many other colleges with huge athletic budgets follow a similar track, although OU is probably the most extreme example of a place where scholarship athletes are afforded accommodations which set them apart from most of the general student population. We also hear a lot about practice facilities and how they play a major role in the recruitment process. The one year old Athletes' Village at the University Of Minnesota, with a price tag of $166 million, is an example of how schools which wish to be competitive must keep up with the Joneses. It's all part of the arms race. Other perks might include training table meals, first dibs on "Easy A" classes, individualized tutorial help, and even an eased admission policy for prospective student athletes with subpar academic credentials. Athletes admitted under such eased conditions are sometimes called "exceptions." Heck, the University Of North Carolina even gave credit for non-existent classes to some of their "student" athletes, a scam that went undetected for years. We'd better not get into the hiring of strippers to entertain basketball recruits at the University Of Louisville, alleged to have occurred under the watch of former head coach Rick Pitino.
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You would be hard pressed to find an athletic dorm among the thirty residence halls at the University Of Notre Dame. That's because no such thing exists. The ND philosophy is that the student athletes should blend in with the rest of student body. The athletes are sprinkled around campus and, to the extent their in-season team obligations allow, live much the same life as their "non-jock" classmates.
That is the background in which Bob Kuechenberg became my roommate in Dillon Hall during our senior year. Well, okay, I'm guilty of a slight exaggeration; Bob was my suite mate, not my roommate. It sounds a little more civilized to call him my suite mate than to say we, together with our roomies, Wayne and Mike, shared the semi-private bathroom which was between our two rooms. Kuechenberg, better known as "Kooch," was a three year starter on the Irish football team. This was the Era of Ara -- named for head coach Ara Parseghian -- when more often than not Notre Dame was in the running for the national championship, the only goal that mattered since we were (and remain) an independent. (Mission accomplished in my sophomore season, 1966, and also 1973 under Ara.)
Kooch was born on October 14, 1947, making him sixteen days older than I. He passed away unexpectedly a week ago today in Florida, where he had lived since 1970. The family announced that he died in his sleep; a heart attack is suspected, although not yet officially confirmed.
Kooch was from Hobart, Indiana, a suburb of the rough and tumble steel city of Gary. At six foot two and around 255 pounds, he was all muscle, and on the football field, all business. When Kooch walked into your room it felt like the square footage of the space shrank exponentially. He started his ND career as an offensive tackle. In one of the most famous games in ND history, the 10-10 tie at Michigan State in 1966, he lined up across from Spartan All American defensive end Bubba Smith on virtually every snap. As a junior Kooch moved to defensive end to fill in for an injured teammate, then back to starting guard on offense his senior year. Kooch told a Miami sportswriter many years later that he thought his having to switch between O-line and D-line in college might have caused him to slip to the fourth round in the 1969 draft, especially since Ara then moved him from his old spot, tackle, to guard. Admittedly, Ara had a valid reason for doing so. The guy who'd slipped into Kooch's old spot was George Kunz, probably the best offensive tackle on any of Ara's eleven Irish teams, a consensus All American and the number 2 overall pick in the 1969 NFL draft (going to the Atlanta Falcons).
Kooch was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1969, and had a cup of coffee with the Falcons later that year. He married his high school sweetheart the same year, and ended up playing for a semi-pro team in Chicago, the Owls. After a tryout with the Miami Dolphins he signed as a free agent in 1970, and ended up playing fourteen years for the "Fins," all that time under the legendary Hall Of Fame coach Don Shula.
Kooch's accolades as a pro are too numerous to list in their entirety, but I would not be doing him justice if I didn't mention a few. Most football fans of my vintage know that Kooch was a key contributor on three championship teams: Notre Dame's 1966 national champion, and the Miami Dolphins' Super Bowl champs of 1972 and 1973. There is a little known but almost equally important fourth championship involving Kooch; I will describe it momentarily.
Many NFL players have a career lasting ten or fifteen years and never reach the Super Bowl. In the Dolphins' franchise history, they have made five Super Bowl appearances; Kooch was the starting right guard in the first four of them. Kooch only had to wait until his second year with Miami to experience his first such start. Unfortunately his team lost by three touchdowns to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl VI. Kooch's mano-a-mano adversary that game was Hall Of Fame defensive tackle Bob Lilly.
The following season begat one of the greatest teams in NFL history, the Dolphins, who ran the table for a perfect season, 14-0. That team remains the only one which has ever gone undefeated throughout both the regular season and the playoffs, including Super Bowl VII, a seven point victory over the Washington Redskins. You have probably seen pictures of Kooch and his old teammates lighting up cigars each year when the last remaining undefeated NFL team suffers a loss, thereby preserving the '72 Fins' place in history.
Then there was Super Bowl VIII, an easy 24-7 demolition of the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings featured their supposedly unstoppable defensive front four known as the Purple People Eaters: Carl Eller, Alan Page, Gary Larsen and Jim Marshall. Page, a fellow Notre Dame alum (Class of 1967), lined up across from Kooch and never got a whiff of the Miami QB, Bob Griese. The Dolphins' offense was so dominant that Griese only had to pass seven times during the entire game.
Finally there was Super Bowl XVII following the 1982 season. The Dolphins came up short, losing to the Redskins by ten.
Despite his prominent role in helping Miami reach four Super Bowls, plus being a six time selection to the Pro Bowl and an Associated Press All-Pro three seasons, Kooch was never elected into the NFL Hall Of Fame. It was little solace to him that he was a finalist for Hall induction eight times. One explanation offered by many so-called experts is the fact that three of his Miami offensive line mates, Larry Little, Jim Langer (a product of Royalton, Minnesota High School) and Dwight Stephenson, were all voted into the Hall, thus diluting his chances. Here is what Coach Shula had to say: "I've coached a lot of Hall Of Fame Players, including a number of offensive linemen, and Kooch was as good as any of them. He gave everything he had on every snap."
The highest honor bestowed on Kooch occurred on December 15, 1995 when he was added to the Dolphins' Ring Of Honor. At the time, he was just the eighth player so anointed, and the only one of them not enshrined in the Hall Of Fame. He retired after the 1984 season after having played in 196 games, the third most in Dolphins' history. An amazing Kuechenberg stat: In his entire career, he was called for holding a mere 15 times.
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And now for a description of that fourth championship I promised. In the spring of 1969, a movement was started in Dillon Hall to conduct a beer drinking contest. In order to appreciate the atmosphere, you have to realize that out of the dorm's 325 residents, aka Dillon Dirt Bags, more than 225 of us no doubt considered ourselves quite proficient in the art of beer drinking. After all, what else (besides studying) was there to do when the cold March air was cutting across campus from nearby Lake Michigan? [Note: That's a rhetorical question. For a real answer check out my post from September 9, 2014, Dillon Hall Diaries: Kiwi Can Contests.]
The Dillon beer drinking contest had just one rule. You had to drink a shot of beer every 30 seconds. My friends and I scoffed at the leniency and ease of such a regulation. Surely we could stick with that program for hours. We were wrong. When forced to drink beer at that rate, pretty soon it doesn't go down the hatch before it's time to quaff another. I felt so humiliated when I had to throw in the towel after nine shots. I didn't even feel a buzz, but my esophagus was about to rupture.
I was surprised Kooch was talked into participating. Between football commitments and Vomit Comet trips home to the Gary/Hobart area, we didn't see a lot of him on weekends. But once he signed up for the contest, it was almost inevitable he'd be crowned the champ. As I recall, he put down 237 shots, one every 30 seconds. The number sticks in my mind first of all because he beat the second place finisher by over 100, and secondly because I remember talking about his remarkable feat when I came home shortly thereafter for spring break.
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Following his death, Kooch's family requested that memorials be forwarded to The Buoniconti Fund To Cure Paralysis, a non-profit organized to assist The Miami Project. The Miami Project is a spinal cord injury research center owned by and located at the University Of Miami. The Project was co-founded by Nick Buoniconti thirty-four years ago following a spinal cord injury sustained by Nick's son, Marc, in a college football game. Nick Buoniconti played football for Notre Dame, Class of 1962, and was Kooch's Dolphins teammate for six NFL seasons.
John, you have me in tears. What a wonderful tribute to Kooch. I implore you to send it to his family!
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