1) “Matter of fact, I witnessed two completed passes…” Translation: “It wasn’t windy enough to prevent the team from attempting a pass. Everybody knows that heavy winds, had they been present, would’ve limited us to a ground game at the very least, or driven us indoors (like Ohio State that day).”

2) “I turned to face North and experienced a pretty extraordinary burst of wind. Things started flying by me that otherwise had been stationary for all of practice.” Translation: “I really don’t know if things were flying around or not during ‘all of practice’ because I had just arrived at the practice field. I do, however, want to stress that this was an ‘extraordinary’ burst of wind because that way, we can rely on an Act of God defense and claim that we had no way of foreseeing this event and thus limit our legal liability to this grieving family.”

C’mon Jack, this family deserves better from their caring ND family. Oh wait, I forgot, there’s going to be decals on the helmets.

I hope this family lawyers up themselves real soon. They are at a real disadvantage if they don’t. ND can simply continue to taint the potential jury pool with their one-sided PR campaign. If Sullivan was working, there is a workers’ comp claim and also a negligence/product liability claim against the machine mfr, owner, operator, and the university and any of their agents, servants and/or employees who had control over whether Sullivan went up that day or not and whether practice should have been outside or not. If he was a paid employee, then Sullivan’s own actions ( vis-a-vis whether he was comparatively at fault for failing to refuse to go up or in staying up there too long) will not enter into the case.

Before any of you attempt to bemoan the legal system, realize that a lawsuit is the only thing that we, as a society, offer to the victim and his family as a means of righting this wrong. From all accounts so far, they certainly have been wronged. A verdict should be large enough to catch the attention of coaches and AD’s everywhere so this doesn’t happen again. Finally, let me ask you: If this was your child and you got this horrendous nightmare of a phone call, would you take legal action, or would you believe Jack’s statements about extraordinary bursts of wind which are really, no pun intended, so much hot air. Yeah, I thought so.