Color analyst Allen Pinkett sent eyes all over America rolling in an interview this week, during which he said Notre Dame’s football program needed “a few criminals” in order to progress as a national power. While most pundits scoffed at the words Pinkett moronically uttered on live air, one man took the ball and hit the ground running; all the way to San Quentin Prison.
Head coach Brain Kelly appeared at the front gate of San Quentin, arguably the most dangerous prison in America, demanding to see the talent. Confused guards told him that visiting hours were over, and they doubted very seriously if they could “wrangle up [the inmates’] test scores and 40-yard-dash times.”
Undaunted by his first failure, Kelly packed himself into a duffle bag and was smuggled into the heart of the prison. It was there he started to turn around Notre Dame’s era of irrelevancy. Kelly believed his trip was worth the risk.
“I just always want to make my football team better,” he said while traveling to Ireland for Notre Dame’s game against Navy. “And better we will be. Catholics versus Convicts? That will be our spring game … in three to five years depending on parole.”
