Who Is Brian Kelly?

Until now, I have not said anything regarding the tragic death of Declan Sullivan. Declan Sullivan, if you do not know, is the young Notre Dame University student who died last week when the tower upon which he was perched while filming the football team’s practice last Wednesday fell over in the midst of fifty mile per hour winds. As is always the case in times of tragedy, the blame game has been running strong in the aftermath of the young man’s death. Many in the media are calling for the firing of Notre Dame’s head football coach, Brian Kelly. Some people are saying that none of the blame belongs to Kelly because Declan Sullivan was of sound mind and body and had the choice to climb down the tower. Still, others have been discussing the fact that the head coach cannot be blamed because, sometimes, tragedies happen and there’s nothing anyone could have done about it.

In my opinion, all of these people are missing the most fundamental issue that led to this tragic incident. I do not believe you can fire the person who is ultimately responsible for the events that led to Declan Sullivan’s death. I don’t believe you can bring that responsible person before the media. You can’t expect that person to apologize to Declan Sullivan’s friends and family or to the Notre Dame community. You just can’t do it. You can’t hold that person responsible because that person does not exist.

The responsibility for this tragedy goes above Brian Kelly. It goes above Jim Marchiony, the Notre Dame athletic director. It goes above the university president. This tragedy, I believe, is what can happen when proper safety measures are not followed. The safety protocol for the tower upon which Declan Sullivan stood does not fall under the head coach’s jurisdiction. It can’t. Who is Brian Kelly? What does Brian Kelly, or any other football coach, know about proper safety procedures and operation conditions are for a tower? How can anyone expect a football coach to be knowledgeable about such a thing? I’ll go so far as to say this: we have no right whatsoever to want or expect a football coach to make the decision about whether or not it is safe for a videographer to climb the tower. Putting the football coach in the position to make that decision is nothing short of reckless.

In my professional life, I deal with dangerous equipment and machinery every day. Even if I am trained to operate a specific piece of equipment, I cannot just operate it when there is a need to do so. There are protocols that must be followed. There are criteria that must be met. There are inspections that must occur. There are policies in place to make sure, as much as possible, that the equipment and environmental conditions are safe for operation. These policies exist in order to prevent loss of limbs and lives. When these policies are not followed, the risk of injury and death are greatly increased. If these policies are not followed, the FDA can and will shut down the facility.

No matter the job, safety must be the top priority of those in charge.
The problem with the Notre Dame football—and, I imagine, every other college sports program—is that there is no one in charge enough to be responsible for operational safety. It is the NCAA who sets the guidelines for overall collegiate sports. Among the NCAA’s responsibilities are governing player safety. The organization has no dominion, however, over the workload, working conditions, and other workplace safety issues for peripheral personnel. At the same time, people like Declan Sullivan are not truly employees, which means they don’t necessarily fall under guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. As such, there is a responsibility gap when it comes to providing safe working conditions for these students who work around college sports programs.

It’s easy for people to chime in and say that Declan Sullivan was a grown man and should have made the decision on his own to climb down the tower. Anyone who expects a twenty-year old college student to stand up to the head football coach and tell him that his practice will not be videotaped lives in the most naïve, idealized world I can imagine. That does not happen. So while it is true that Mr. Sullivan could have saved his life by getting himself fired from his job, it is crime against humanity to blame the young man for not doing so.

At the same time, that responsibility does not belong in the hands of anyone involved with the football team. Neither coaches nor administrators are qualified to make the type of decision that would have spared Declan Sullivan’s life last week. These people have their own jobs to do. Coaching a football team has nothing to do with inspecting equipment and/or wind conditions.

When I go to work, there are people who are specifically trained to inspect scaffolds, confined spaces, climbing equipment, and air quality. Oftentimes, those qualified people happen to be the same people who will be performing the work. The difference between us and student workers like Declan Sullivan is that we are professionals. This is our livelihood. We do this work full time. The same cannot be said for student workers, and that same burden should not and cannot be placed on them.

Every school has facilities and maintenance departments. To some degree, someone from these departments would be fit to be the one to make the final determination as to whether or not Declan Sullivan could have climbed the tower that day. In practice, however, this would not work. The person with the responsibility to keep someone from working in unsafe conditions would have to have a level of power. No one in anybody’s facilities and maintenance departments will have enough power to speak an enforceable “No!” to the head football coach. That’s just not realistic.
My other issue with the tragedy is the tower itself. Every piece of equipment, especially structures used to support weight at height, should have specifications and usage guidelines. Forklifts, for instance, have a specified maximum load. The tower used by the videographers should have a wind specification. I am not in the position to know whether or not this specification exists. If it does, then that specification was certainly not followed. Again, though, who should be the responsible party for making sure equipment is used in the proper fashion?

I don’t know what the right answer is. I just know that the right position does not currently exist. And, unfortunately, there is nothing in place to prevent this from happening again. Just as was the case last week, we are reliant upon the head football coach to decide to hold practice indoors. But as we know, college football coaches should never be relied upon to do anything but try winning the next game.