After a sucky weekend followed by a few sucky days of sucky comments about sucky play and sucky cheap shots and sucky injuries, it’s time to turn the corner. As ND’s football team needs to put the past in the past and focus on Tulsa, so must we. How? By Just Askin’.
So, deep breath.
Pause.
Enjoy.
Q1, from Trey: IYO, what is the best wayto travel to ND from Chi town? Take the train, taxi in, Victory Liquors-type bus, rent a car & park in a lot? Grades will be calculated on atmosphere, cost, price, & fan-related aspects.
Getting to South Bend from Chicago (O’hare for me most of the time) tends to be a patience-testing siege of frustration. The rental car counter always takes too long. The traffic always, always sucks, even at 11pm local time. I have no idea why – I think God wants me to not get to the Bend too early maybe. That way I can get up super early to booze (having not had a chance to do so Friday night).
So I am horribly inept at getting to the Bend. I always go Rental Car, and always park just South of the JACC Lot (highly recommended) and score a parking pass that my brother in law uses for his big ole mini van for the tailgating. That part we have down. But the getting down there from Chicago part? I fail like Bob Diaco against the Veer. (oooops, wait, ignore that —-> TURNING THE CORNER).
Q2, from Trey: 2. Wtf is wrong with prep rallies?
Assuming that Trey just had a typo and isn’t asking about ‘prep rallies’, as in rallies where people prepare for things, or ‘Prep Rallies’, where Preppy kids in polos congregate, the issue with Pep Rallies at ND is that they’re too controlled/manufactured, and there are too many. Over the course of a (sometimes) 7-game home season, it just becomes another responsibility for the team. It’s tough to get fired up for #6 or #7 of a season, and by the time I was a Senior I was lucky to attend just one. The answer? Fewer, and more in the hands of the students. Alums, sub-alums and visitors should certainly be welcome, but letting the students run the show would make them more organic and impactful. They might also completely blow up and fall apart, but that’s the chance you have to take. I think 1 before the first home game (Dillon), and 2 others (whatever the 2 biggest games are) makes sense. And the venue should change for each one.
Q3, from Trey: Are there any gameday traditions you still like attending?
For me, the trip back nowadays is mostly about visiting with my family and friends in the tailgating lot. I do take time on Sunday to walk around campus, and once in a while we’ll go watch the Band step off, but generally I am tossing football with my nephew and drinking beers with my dad. And that is good.
Q4, from Trey: Have you ever gotten into an altercation with an oppposing fan after any game youve been to at ND?
The short answer is no. I’ve mocked some fans here and there and they’ve mocked me (although at ND, that’s pretty much only been Michigan fans, because they suck). At Michigan, I had batteries tossed at me and some threatening language, but nothing ever came to a physical altercation. I get quite drunk, and enjoy tossing a well-timed and articulate insult my enemy’s way, but in the end we all have moms and sisters and jobs (okay not all of us) and we just love college football. It’s really not so important that I’d ever toss a right cross at a guy.
Q5, from Trey: Would you rather kick NDSP or ISEP?
ISEP. Easy.
Q6, from Steve in Iowa: What is your first Notre Dame Football memory?
Freshman year, fall of 1996. ND versus Purdue, and I’m a brand new frosh and don’t know a single cheer. All the other freshman seem to know every word and movement. I’m a bit lost, but a bit buzzed and pretty fired up. Purdue lines up and kicks off, and I watch Allen Rossum take the ball 3 yards deep in the corner of the end zone right in front of us. And then I watch him take off and smoke the entire Purdue D for a 100 yard return for a TD. I remember thinking “Huh, so this is Notre Dame football. We’ll probably never lose.” Man, I wish I’d been right.
Q7, from Steve in Iowa: When did you fall in love with Notre Dame?
My Junior year I was touring a bunch of colleges. Most of my focus was on those schools recruiting me to play soccer. ND was open to me coming on as a preferred walk-on, but I wasn’t getting any schollie love or anything like that. But I took a trip up there over a long weekend in February anyway to meet with the coaches and check things out. We hit the coldest freaking weekend. I think it was like -12 with the wind chill. I remember the weather person (lady) standing outside and tossing a pot of boiling water into the air and it freezing immediately. It was THAT COLD. We walked around, taking a look at the campus. It blew me away. It just felt like home. I went and met with the coach ‘recruiting’ (meaning dealing with me and other preferred walk-on-types) and we sat down in the stands in the JACC and talked about Notre Dame. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he was really pumped about me coming to ND. He thought I could contribute on the team, and he thought the world of the school in general. He talked about how if it felt right, it would be right. If it didn’t, maybe I should look elsewhere. Sitting in that seat, looking at the ND emblem on the court below me, with a coach telling me I pretty much had no chance of being recruited to be a scholarship player in the sport I loved, I knew I was going to Notre Dame. I felt the chills then, and I feel them now. That place was home. Still is.
Q8, from Steve in Iowa: What is your most painful Notre Dame football memory? (A: Unquestionably for this fan, the clipping call that nullified Rocket’s punt return against Colorado, Orange Bowl, 1990).
Man, this is tough. But I would have to go with the sequence of events leading up to the Bush Push. I was sure that Weis had everything figured out and that we were, legitimately, back. I saw this game as the proof of that fact, and when we had them 4th and long with little time left inside their own 20, I knew the W was coming, and that ND would be, officially, ‘back’.
Then it all happened: The long pass play. The fumble. The bad spot. The stop that was not a stop. The heartbreak.
And since then, ND has been anything but ‘back’. That play sucked so, so hard and it somehow feels like that suckitude has hovered over the program since. Now, the NCAA doesn’t even recognize that it ever happened. But it certainly happened to me.
Q9, from Jonathan: Where do you find the time?
I have a pretty hectic life, but I try to make time a few times a week to post. I do so late at night, or first thing in the morning. I do so when I have a break at work or any time I have a little down time. This thing started off as a lark but I’ve come to really value the group of folks we have here, and I love having a place to share my love for college football and Our Lady’s University. So I make the time. I wish I had more and we could make this a place where we could update every single day, multiple times a day. That’d be sweet. Instead, we just do our best, when we can. I’m more impressed with DMQ – little girl at home and a job and having to actually build the technology/coding, and running the Twitter side of things. I have no idea how he does all of that.
Thanks again for the questions, we’ll keep it going…
- (Re)Introducing: DANCING LEPRECHAUNS - August 29, 2019
- Ticket Auction: ND vs USC - August 22, 2019
- No Respect! - December 14, 2018
domer_mq
How I find the time.
This blog, if anything, is testament to the notion that anyone has time to do anything so long as they actually want to do it. The economists were right.
So if and when I wonder why I haven’t made more headway in other ventures, like ones that could make me rich, I should probably look at HLS.
Anyway, it’s not really that time-consuming. And with a little kid, that means a lot of nights at home, so it’s this or watch TV. And I hate reality (read: almost all) TV.
Most pieces, like the one I did about the Navy game (Section 202), actually takes me maybe half an hour to write. I’ve generally got stuff like that all worked out in my head. I mentally wrote that Navy thing on the drive home from the stadium. Usually after writing a piece like that, I’ll save it, look it over again a few hours later to see if there are major mistakes, and then publish it. That might happen during a lunch break, or just as I get home from work, or whatever. Stats-heavy pieces might take longer, in the sense that I might take a lunch break, plus some time in the evening to compile data. I’ll mentally write out the commentary while I compile it. Then jot it all down in 20 or 30 minutes and publish it.
HLS for me is basically my “hobby.” Lots of people have hobbies. I’d encourage a lot more people to start their own blogs. I think more blogs fosters better conversation.
OderName
Wow, the parallels are amazing. We were in the same class at ND, I did the “preferred walk-on” thing too – for the golf team. My first experience with ND football was Awesome Rossum’s opening return on Purdue. I grew up in Louisville, basketball country, a die-hard UofL fan. This meant that football Saturdays in the fall were mostly about two things – tailgating and talking about the upcoming basketball season. ND was a culture shock – people cared about football to the point I could not imagine, and the team was actually good. I still remember the weekend after that year’s loss to Ohio State – I don’t think I heard a word spoken on campus for two whole days.
Then basketball season rolled around – and comparing John McLeod’s Irish to Denny Crum’s UofL program, well, the tables were turned. But I digress.
trey
Nothing north of OK is football crazy, IMO. Come down to TX for a Friday night and youll see some nuts-for-football types.
Ska
Something has to give in terms of time for HLS which is an excellent, well written and presented blog. When was the last time you cut your lawn? Do you have an ale delivery person for your neighborhood (to save time)?
IrishMoon
You guys should really monetize this blog. Nothing obnoxious, but a little ad on the side will generate some revenue. Not much, but certainly enough to cover any hosting, domain, and SEO fees.
The Biscuit
Moon we tried ads for a bit using google. It was okay for a bit but only works if folks click and so didn’t end up being worth the clutter. I would love to get a single sponsor on board. Something ND related/centric. But we’re not really out there selling.
Nate
Where do we send a check?
The Biscuit
Appreciate the thought Nate. We may devise some sort of donation or membership system down the road. For now, you’d have to ask DMQ. He puta up all the cash to run this mess.
trey
“prep” rallies most definitely isnt a typo. I guess it’s a bit of a personal inside joke, but in HS, they were optional to attend and the ones who usually did were a) team players obviously, and b) preppy nerds. I know, because I was both.
Steve in Iowa
Thanks for answering all the questions. I over-lapped with you as well, but on both ends. Since I was a perpetual grad student on campus for seven and half years, from 1995 to 2003. I was a fan before I got there and never really had the divided loyalties of some other grad students because the liberal arts college I attended didn’t have a football team. First game was the loss to Northwestern when they went to back-to-back Rose Bowls under Gary Barnett. Brutal. Obviously my extended time under the dome was the cause of a long stretch of sub-standard football.