Today, we here at HLS launch a new series, “The Irish,” our homage to the boys in blue and gold and to HBO’s seminal gangland drama, “The Sopranos.” The language and characterizations found in our effort fit the television show, so this is perhaps not something you want to share with your kids. That being said, we felt that to censor ourselves would do an injustice to the material. Plus, you have Father Sorin’s regular posts on Friday morning to cleanse the soul.
We hope you enjoy.
Brian Kelly sticks his left arm out of the rolled-down window of his S.U.V. and snatches the ticket from the age-worn dispensing machine. The time is 10:22 a.m. as he drives onto the I-90 Skyway. The opening bumps of “Crazy Train” thump out of the speakers.
The sanctuary of the drive is all that’s left for this man from Massachusetts who is self-aware enough to spot the similarities he shares with the ticket-dispenser as he considers his reflection in the rearview mirror. “I gotta stop smoking these fucking cigars. Paqui is gonna be on my ass like a corner on Davaris on third and fifteen.” The broken painted line accelerates toward him, his eyes and thoughts now on the far horizon, racing.
He knows he’s going home because everything’s to his left. The Lake, the factories of Gary like heaving props out of Dune, the flailing fight of community after community struggling to make it another day in an existence that makes you think of Springsteen, or Mellencamp, because it’s Indiana.
“Ain’t that America,” the coach thinks to himself. “Fucking America. I gotta recruit the whole goddamn thing. And not just for QB’s. No. Fucking Charlie and Ty. Those motherfuckers got to pick DT’s from Goshen, but I gotta send my guys to fucking Florida and Texas. You think it’s easy to fucking recruit in Florida when you can’t sell a toilet-paper diploma?” Kelly smiles at himself. “Brian. Who the fuck are you talking to?”
After familiar miles, he sees it finally. The Golden Dome. And then, the rest of the buildings. Peeking above and between the trees as he nears. Names of buildings and curves in the campus that to him, just three short years ago, were strange. Manicured. Imposing. Cold. Today, familiar to him as Stanford’s defense. Pulling into his spot at the Gug, with “Crazy Train” weirdly ending just as he slaps the transmission into park, he sees them. His coordinators, Bobby “The Hair” Diaco and Chuck “Chuck” Martin. He embraces each of the men, discomforted by the concern on their faces.
Kelly breaks into a nervous smile. “I feel like the bartender in the fucking joke about the horse. Why the long faces?”
“EG’s done,” Martin holds up an email. Kelly sees the name of his starting QB and the phrase “poor academic judgment” leering out from among a lot of other words. He crumples the paper. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Diaco puts his arm around the coach to steady him as much as to guide him into the building. “Whatchya gonna do? Kid cheats on a paper or whateverthefuck. We gotta move on.”
“Jesus Christ, Bobby.” Kelly stops and bangs his fist against the entry wall. “Can’t I have a fucking minute to get my head around this? You had more time rinsing and repeating with your fucking conditioner this morning that I got to digest this.”
Martin opened the door to Kelly’s office as the men moved towards their usual seats. “We gotta do something, BK. I got a redshirt on Malik and Hendy’s clearly not the guy. I mean, I love the kid to death, but come on. He fucking fell against Air Force. Can’t get that out of my mind.”
Kelly considers the Green Spot whiskey he poured, neat, into the rock crystal glass for himself as Martin talked. “Guys. What’s done is done. We can’t control that. I’d love to have Saban’s situation in times like this. Make a few calls. Professor gets a visit, realizes he made a terrible mistake and must have been referring to another student and baddabing baddaboom EG’s back and in good graces. But I don’t got Saban’s situation. This is Notre Fucking Dame, boys, and we don’t roll like that. Get me Tommy. Now!”
Be sure to catch new episodes of “The Irish” every Sunday on HLS.
Hating Hurricanes Since 1990.
Bayou Irish is a Jersey boy and Double Domer who fell under New Orleans' spell in 1995. He's been through Katrina and fourteen years in the Coast Guard, so we cut him some slack, mostly in the form of HLS-subsidized sazeracs. But, when he's not face down on the bar and communing with the ghosts of Faulkner and Capote at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, he's our man in SEC-land, doing his best to convince everyone around him that Graduation Success Rate is a better indicator of success than the number of MNC's won in the last five years.
- Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense - December 17, 2018
- Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame - December 3, 2018
- Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0 - November 26, 2018
I’m not in tune with this post. It might be because it is too raw and ragged, with the coaches more exposed than I care to see. Or perhaps it is because I only watched the last five minutes of the Sopranos. I don’t know the reason, but I know I’m not feeling it.
Thanks for reading and for commenting, Alan. You won’t be troubled by this post, either for it’s rawness and raggedness or because you only watched the last five minutes of the Sopranos, because it’s moving to Sunday night. I hope you give it another shot, though.
Hey, I like it. Keep it going. Not too difficult to see Kelly as a guy who, if he had been born in Malden and had gotten on a truck rather than headed to college, could have been one of the crew in The Departed. And Bobby D … well, me being from Chicago, I think a nickname like “the Hair” would have fit in well with Big Jim, Bugs, Lucky Luciana, Big Tuna and, more recently, Joey the Clown.
Hi Mark. Thanks for reading and for commenting. We don’t have a set number of “episodes” planned — I think the length of the series will depend on feedback from readers like you. Tune in Sunday!
I never watched Sopranos and ive never really been interested in watching mob themed movies either. Im with Alan, this bit doesnt really do much for me
I liked it because it made Kelly real to me! Lol
I think this is hysterical. love it!! definitely hope to see more. 🙂
Thanks for reading and commenting, Trey, T-Bone, and Standingdomer. I appreciate it. I certainly don’t want to alienate anyone through The Irish series, but I never thought it would have universal appeal, either. I hope the fact that it’s meant to be humorous comes across, despite the rough language. There will be no killings, drugs, or crimes (unless crimes occur in the team). What I am trying to do is meld the coming season with The Sopranos format and we’ll see how it goes.
Wait, no one gets whacked?!
/throws away “The Commuter” epidsode