Before Kelly addressed the 28-27 loss to Tulsa, he spoke at length about the video tower’s collapse and the death of Declan Sullivan.
Here is the entirety of his statement:
Obviously a very difficult loss for our football team. Certain pales in comparison to the unimaginable sorrow we had this week in the loss of Declan Sullivan. As a father of three, I can only imagine the sorrow that accompanies the loss of your son. So it’s been a very difficult time for me and everybody within our football family.
I didn’t think we were going to have to go through something like this so close to the tragedy we had with Matt James. You know, you think you’re strong and able to handle all of those things that are thrown at you. This one was very difficult. All we can do in these very difficult times is what we did, and that’s support Declan and his family, rally like we did here at Notre Dame to provide for all those affected with this great loss the opportunity to heal.
So it’s been, from a personal perspective, a very difficult week for all of us. I focused strictly on the Sullivan family, our football family and my own family. Really that’s been all the things that have taken up my time since this tragedy occurred.
Declan, you know, quite frankly, I don’t know if it’s customary or not, but the head coach usually doesn’t come in contact on a day-to-day basis with a lot of videographers. They come in and we leave. Our time never really syncs up where we get a chance to spend much time.
But I got a chance to meet Declan and know him because of all the time he spent in our office, especially this summer. As you know, he was a lover of film and writing. He was a great writer. I’ve got great memories of him just being in the film and video offices, putting things together secretive on most occasions. I’d look over his shoulder.
I pass that on because this one hurts because, again, in my 20 years I don’t know that I’ve had maybe a dozen people, student workers, that I knew. I knew Declan. It’s was a very, very difficult week for all of us.
Extraordinary the way the university has come together. The mass was so good for me and everybody on our football team, our football family, the university. The leadership that Father Jenkins and Jack Swarbrick has helped me with me and all those associated with our football program.
On Wednesday I made the decision that we could have a productive and safe practice outdoors. Productive because the conditions were such, although windy, were not unlike many days that I had practiced at other universities, including here at the University of Notre Dame. Productive practice is important obviously within our offense, as well. Throwing the football, you have to be able to look at the weather conditions and find out whether you believe it’s going to be a productive day first. We believed it to be productive. It was productive, obviously up until the tragedy.
The next thing that is important is that it’s a safe session, that the practice must be safe. That takes on a litany of different things when you talk about safe. When we’re indoors, my biggest concern is always running out on the track or running in an area where there’s medical equipment or water bottles or just the safety of our football team.
Outdoors, different weather elements obviously play in that relative to safety, as well. You know, whether it’s a tornado warning the day before or it’s a lightning storm that’s in the area, or the heat index is at a certain number, and certainly wind. All of those elements have to be evaluated in making the decision, which I made the decision that I felt it was productive and safe.
We have systems in place to make certain and that deal with issues of safety. Clearly in this instance, they failed. We are in the process of examining all of those systems that are in place and looking for those answers. That’s currently where we are: investigating this tragedy and carefully looking at everything relative to safety.
You know, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that, when you talk about taking your football team outside, those items are at the forefront of every coach’s – not just me, not just here at the University of Notre Dame – everybody in the country thinks about the same things. That’s probably the one area obviously that we’re all grappling with right now.
I can recall being out at the practice site. It was a windy day, but a productive day. Next thing I knew, I heard that the tower was down. First thing that I did is I got to my coaches that were obviously affected by the situation, some of them running around. I gathered the coaches quickly, two of them, and said, Keep practicing. At that point we had players that were starting to migrate towards the accident scene. I thought it was important for me to keep our guys away from that accident scene.
Our coaches did a great job of monitoring our players, staying with our players, keeping them preoccupied, as I then left to go to the accident scene.
I got to the accident scene and saw that our training staff were with Declan, and I wanted to make certain that that area was in good hands. It looked like to me everything was moving in the right direction. We had Notre Dame responders, we had ambulance responders. And once I felt comfortable in that situation, where we had professionals on-site dealing with it, I went back inside to the practice field and subsequently called our football team together at midfield. We prayed for Declan. I told and informed our football team of the injury, the seriousness of it, and I then dismissed our football team.
That’s my best recollection of the events surrounding the accident itself.
Obviously there’s going to be a lot of speculation, there’s going to be a lot of questions. I’m not really adept at being able to handle some of the specifics. I can tell you that we’re working hard to get all those answers. We’re so close to this event occurring that we’re still putting together a lot of the information that everybody I’m sure is interested in, as we are as well. We’re very interested in making sure that we provide, my staff has been incredible, in providing as much information as possible. That’s really important.
For me, it was important for me to get a chance to spend time with Declan’s family before the mass and pass on to them our entire football team’s sincere sorrow for what has occurred. It’s just a devastating thing for everybody. But it was really important, I wanted to be able to meet the family. I was very, very fortunate to do so.
I’m trying to cover as many of the notes that I have scribbled down here.
Again, I think the most important thing is that for me, productive and safe. Weather-related factors are examined every day relative to that safe atmosphere. We’ve got systems in place to deal with that. We’re obviously examining them very, very carefully, especially obviously wind.
So, again, I don’t have a lot of answers relative to specifics. I’ll open it up to some questions.
Q. When did you realize that it was Declan that was down? Did you know when practice started that it was him?
COACH KELLY: I knew once the tower went over who it was.
Q. Why didn’t anyone tell him to come down? Who is responsible for monitoring stuff during practice as conditions change? Why wasn’t there anyone to tell him to bring the lift down?
COACH KELLY: Certainly, as you know, those are all the things that we’re examining right now. We could probably come up with a number of different things that we’re all wondering. Those are the questions that are being asked exactly as you’ve asked them. We’re doing that, and have been doing it since the accident occurred.
Q. Is there a max wind speed prescribed for those pieces of equipment, that you know of?
COACH KELLY: I don’t. Again, if I had the knowledge specifically of wind speed and heights of lifts, all of those, I certainly would provide those to you. I just don’t have that information.
Q. The daily protocol of the videographers, do they come in and get assigned, or do they do their duties knowing what they are?
COACH KELLY: Typically they all meet together, get a practice schedule, because each one of them are assigned different areas of the field to film. Declan was on the defensive field. His duties were generally filming the defensive and our offensive show squad. Everybody knew their roles as they began the day. We’re given a schedule as to, We want you filming in this area at this particular time.
Q. When you met with his family, in what capacity did you meet with him? Where were you?
COACH KELLY: We were in the main building. It was a great exchange because Declan had informed his family how much he enjoyed his year here with me and the staff. It was great to hear that. But more importantly, it was me telling the family how much he meant to our entire football team. His personality was so easy to recognize. He stood out from everybody else.
Obviously, we wanted to pass on our sorrow, as well, not only individually, but also as a team.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH KELLY: Not that I’m aware of.
Q. Will you be back outside again next week and will you have videographers up in the lift?
COACH KELLY: We will be outside. We will not be using the lifts until we clearly have more information relative to some of the questions that were asked here today.
