Players from the Notre Dame Fighting Irish walk to the field through the student section for warm-ups before a game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Notre Dame Stadium on September 4, 2010 in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame defeated Purdue 23-12. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Going home is all fun and games until you experience a Notre Dame football game away from your Home Under the Dome.
The biggest issue is that friends from home just DO NOT understand the seriousness of when Notre Dame plays. I must watch the game at home because – in true Notre Dame fashion – the team will most likely cause me great anxiety along with a heart attack (or two) during the game. Home-town friends also do not understand that if Notre Dame loses, I will not be hanging out after. I will sulk in my room and probably shed a tear, or a bunch (me post Stanford game). I cannot deal with happy people while I am in such a place of despair.
The other issue is: How can you solve all the team’s problems if you have no one to tell, i.e all the other Notre Dame head coaches (also known as your group of friends)? We students have to resort to texting in group messages, which is great until the seriousness and tone of your response does not transfer well enough over text. Texting in a group message with 15 of your closest friends can get a bit out of hand and distracts from watching the game while you are trying to keep up to date with all the new messages. Which, is actually the only plus of watching a game at home: You can actually sit comfortably and watch the game in its entirety with little distractions other than siblings or hometown friends. Besides texting, the student body communicates through “likes” and “re-tweets” of each other’s tweets. They serve as a sort of head nod in agreement with the other person. It’s like saying “I feel you dude, I understand your situation and I’m in the same position as you.”
Not sure if this is for everyone, but the game watches that I attend usually have the game on mute with music blaring from a stereo somewhere and people walking around getting food, getting drinks, etc. Everyone is talking over each other, yelling at the television and pretending they are coaching the team.
It is anything but peaceful.
Though, at home, you have the option to remove yourself from the rest of the world and focus your attention solely on Notre Dame football. At home, I can actually hear the analyst. If they are taking smack about Notre Dame, I also have the option to turn them off.
How you approach the whole day is different at school versus home. At school, your whole schedule is cleared. Whether the game is a 3:30 kick-off or a 7:30 kick-off, you spend your whole day preparing for the game. Where you are watching the game and what food will be enjoyed during the game is planned by 8 that morning. We students finally realize what all of our parents go through each week when they plan tailgates; it’s a hard gig. (Props to the parents, you guys are much appreciated.)
The day turns a tailgate minus the free food and booze from parents and we like to stay inside, especially with the unpredictable South Bend weather. At home, the world goes on in normal fashion as if Notre Dame playing a game that day isn’t the biggest deal in the world. Your mom will probably make you go grocery shopping or drive your siblings to practice, she will ask you to clean your room but you will most likely just shove everything into your laundry basket. That is just not the way I like to celebrate Notre Dame playing.
At school, when the game kicks-off, you would think you are in the midst of the student section at Notre Dame. The classic cheers are happening and the push-ups after each Notre Dame TD. The only thing you are missing is the announcer and the 3rd quarter traffic update from Sgt. Tim McCarthy.
At home though, you get none of that. Your mom will most likely not join in the cheers, unless she is like mine and is as nutty about Notre Dame football as I am. It’s just not as fun to have to do real push-ups when Notre Dame scores because there are not enough people to hold you up to do real push-ups. And just like the student section, when watching the game with fellow Domers, there is always a positive vibe. Whether we are up by 21 points or down by 14, we always have faith in our Irish. There will always be someone who comes up with genius play calling for the Irish to come back and gets the whole squad out of their state of utter anxiety.
But at home, the anxiety takes over as if the world is ending (which it basically does when Notre Dame losses). You feel have a few heart attacks and hide under the covers every time the ball gets snapped. No one likes that feeling. That is why we need our people from our Home Under the Dome to make it through a Notre Dame football game with.
The worst part about home is that there is no one to mourn a loss with or celebrate a cheer, because most people are Notre Dame Haters (with a capital H). At school you have people to celebrate a win or drown your sorrows from a loss.
Solution: Use that hefty endowment to send all Notre Dame students to Northern Cal over thanksgiving break. Forget a new library, give the students what they want and what they really need…a game ticket & a plane ticket!
- The Shirt 2016: A ND Student’s Perspective - April 21, 2016
- Thank you, DJ - April 4, 2016
- The Stages of Watching a Notre Dame Basketball Game - March 25, 2016
