The First Trip to Notre Dame was a Religious Experience

This weekend, I return to South Bend for another late November home game for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.  It's a bittersweet return this time around.  September 30, eleven days after the birth of my daughter, my father passed away after a six year off again, on again battle with cancer.  I'm going back to Notre Dame to get some closure.  I was able to see my dad the week before he passed, but I couldn't really say "goodbye" in person.  How do you do it?  I didn't figure it out.  So, to celebrate his life in my own way and to live the goodbye that I couldn't bring myself to say, I leave Saturday morning for a rapid fire day dedicated to Rich McIntyre.  Yet, as I sit here making the final arrangements for the trip, I am harkened back to six seasons ago...

During the spring of 2006, a few months after having the original tumor removed, my dad called me and we began talking about the upcoming season.  The Lindy's College Football preview magazine had just come out and we'd each gotten our respective copies of what we came to call from that season forward, "The Football Bible."  During our conversation, I suggested that the early year scare gave us no excuses to further postpone our first trip to see the Irish play live, in-person.  I was living in St. Louis, Missouri, at the time, and we were a mere 6 hour drive away. It was a no-brainer of a decision.

We chose an "easy" game.  The Irish were pre-season ranked #1 by many publications, returning Heisman-frontrunner, Brady Quinn, and the other key players of a high powered offense.  Charlie Weis had come back "home" to his alma mater from the New England Patriots, where he'd steered the offense as coordinator to three Super Bowls.  In 2005, Weis was one of the many different winners of the various Coach of the Year awards.  Year 2 brought about dreams of the glory days.  Nevertheless, my dad and I did not wish to make our first trip to Notre Dame on a day where there was much probability for a loss.  For instance, the Michigan game - which ND ended up losing 47-21.  Glad we didn't pick that one.  Lowly, at the time, Stanford, was our choice.  They entered the October 7, 2006 game winless on the season.

September 2006 was a rough time for me, personally.  It was as tumultuous as any time in my life.  The Irish were, as usual, a nice escape from the real world that I needed, then, more than ever.  The trip to South Bend was just what the doctor ordered to get my mind off everything else.  Dad flew into town on a Thursday and we proceeded to thoroughly enjoy several watering holes with my friends going through the wars, so to speak, in professional school.  The next morning, we got up and drove up through Illinois, hung a right at Chicago, and made the trek to Notre Dame.

Quick thing about South Bend, Indiana - not a very aesthetically pleasing place to be outside of the University campus.  That is all.

We actually made it to the campus just in time to catch the pep rally at the Joyce Center right near the football stadium.  Some guy was nice enough to give us one ticket, which we proceeded to pretend was two tickets and McIntyre charm our way past the female gatekeeper.  That was a cool experience.  Other than at NC State, I'd never been to another school's pre-game pep rally.  To this day, that remains one of the most unique experiences I've had with college sports; a memory that I will continue to cherish.

After the pep rally, we took the tour.  We traveled the lengths of campus, taking in the sights that I had first seen when my dad took me to see the movie, "Rudy," at the theaters during the '93 season.  The Grotto, where candles are lit and prayers are spoken, the Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus...if there is a university with more well-known, must-see landmarks, you'll have to enlighten me.  It was simply awesome to see all of it in person.  The one thing that we didn't see was the College Football Hall of Fame.  We got there too late on Friday and it isn't open on the weekends.  I digress.

You want to know how much money college football generates for major, top-ranked schools?  

$200 per night was our hotel fee...at the Econolodge.  I've been in nice Econolodges before, but this one was a dump.  I never stayed at a South Bend hotel again after that.  I've traveled 15 miles for a nicer, more reasonably priced hotel ever since.  It was worth it, though, for that trip.  We wanted to tailgate and not worry about having to drive, so the Econo-ripoff was close enough to campus to take a taxi to the stadium.

Dad and I started a trend.  I will continue it this weekend.  I have actually not done any tailgaiting outside at Notre Dame Stadium.  We thought about it on the first trip, but we needed to eat first.  So, we walked into a restaurant-bar right outside of the stadium called "Legends."  To me, "Legends" has become legendary.  That's the place to be, in my opinion, before a game.  You can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner there.  You can drink draft beer there.  You can watch every other game on the college football menu for that day on the several huge screen televisions there.  Ask anyone that has accompanied me to Notre Dame and they can tell you about "Legends."  Every time that I've been, it has been easy to get a seat.  You might have to wait a few minutes, but once you're in there, you're good to go (knock on wood for this weekend).

Dad at Legends in 2006

We spent the better part of the morning and early afternoon hanging out and watching College Gameday and other games.  When 2:30 rolled around, we made our way to the stadium and got our seats.  We had this picture taken on the unseasonably warm day as the players were warming up:

Our seats were in the end zone facing Touchdown Jesus.  That was not intentional, by my recollection, but it was one of those fateful moments that becomes the icing on the cake to a very memorable trip.  We did not know all of the traditions, yet.  We both knew the fight song forwards, backwards, and sideways, but the rest of the in-stadium, live traditions were lost on us.  There was that moment, though, where we both realized that the other was cheer, cheering for old Notre Dame and just kind of smiled at each other.  One of my favorite son-father moments.

The Irish romped to a fairly pedestrian 31-10 victory, but the result was never in question and their slim chances of a national title remained alive for another week.  After losing the third game of the season to Michigan, the Irish won 8 games in a row, rolled into the Los Angeles Coliseum 10-1 and proceeded to get their butts kicked by Southern Cal (again), dashing their BCS Championship dreams and ours.  That took nothing away from being there for the third of those eight consecutive victories, though.  I rank that amongst the top 5 weekends of my life, to this point.

When my dad and I both realized that his end was near in May of this year, we talked a lot about our Notre Dame trip.  This year was to be our second together.  For Christmas in 2010, my wife and I planned to take my dad to the Wake Forest game in Winston-Salem, NC for the 2011 season and then to the Wake game at Notre Dame this season.  We knew before the summer started that said trip was not going to happen.  He called me one day while he was in the hospital and said that a man stopped by to talk to him about making a bucket list; asked him if there were any places he wanted to go or things he wanted to do before his time on this earth expired.  My dad told the man, "I've traveled the world...and I've been to Notre Dame with my son.  I've done everything that I wanted to do."

So, tomorrow, I make my latest trip to South Bend.  I started to write that I'd be alone this time, but my dad actually will be with me.  He'll be there.  And that will be his final resting place.  I will creatively find a way to spread his remains where he and I had our greatest road trip. 

...And I'll say my final "Goodbye." 

  

South Carolina is the Most Underrated Atmosphere in CFB

As of Thanksgiving weekend 2011, my college football tour stops had included such hallowed halls as Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Oklahoma.  I walked out of Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina thinking that a Gamecocks home game was as rowdy and raucous as any place that I'd ever been...

For the second straight year, the opportunity to add a stop to my tour came about organically.  After my trip to OU in 2010, I figured that was it - I'd be (content) watching at home for the rest of the season.  Well, then NC State rolled through September undefeated, so I had to take my wife to see her first in-person game at my alma mater.  Then, my buddy, Dean, arranged for a few friends to go to South Bend for a November game; I certainly wasn't passing that up.

Repeat in 2011.  Blacksburg, Virginia to see the Hokies.  Check.  Back to football on the couch.  Yet, it was a day with a gray October sky in 2011 that I got a call from my stepdad, Mickey.  The Gamecock alum said he could get tickets for South Carolina football.  "Which games," I asked.  "Florida and Clemson," he later emailed.  Book it.  South Carolina vs. Clemson has incredible history.  Dare I call it the south's most heated rivalry that nobody talks about?  When I was applying to colleges back in the day, South Carolina was actually near the top of my list.  A visit to the campus yielded pleasant dreams of going to school out of state.  That never came to pass, but during the brief few months that I thought about attending the other USC, I learned enough about its sports lore to understand one thing above all else: beat Clemson and the season isn't a failure.

So, we made the trip down I-85 and I-77.  To our delight, it was actually a very pleasant evening for a late November night game.  I was comfortably able to shed my Notre Dame coat, allowing Mick and I to proudly display our matching Carolina shirts.  We had excellent seats.  Personally, I think the best seat in a college football stadium is right between the 10-20 yard line.  You can see everything that from that spot - a perfect view of the game, plus an easy panoramic view of the crowd.



South Carolina came into the game looking to notch a 10-win season for only the second time in school history.  Clemson was a week away from playing for their conference title in the ACC Championship game.  So, Mick and I lucked out in being there for what was, in historical context, one of the most highly touted games in the rivalry.  They both were 9-2.

I'm quite certain that the guy behind us had drank both team's combined win totals in Bud Lights while tailgaiting throughout the day.  Of the venues I've attended, thus far, that guy won the award for drunkest old man.  He was sitting right behind Mickey, who has a good amount of patience, but if it wears out and you're in his path, then that's not a good thing (trust me).  There was a part of me that wanted the old dude to stumble into Mickey one more time (he did it several times) just to see what my stepdad would do - most likely a verbal castration that either would have ignited a brawl or made the guy go crawl into a corner and suck his thumb.  Luckily, old guy's wife wisely decided to usher her inebriated husband out of the stands to sober up a bit.  Unfortunately, that was not before the guy got into it with the people sitting next to me.  When old drunk slammed into my seat neighbor's spouse, he was kindly asked to calm down.  That was like poking a gamecock with a hot branding iron.  Spoken bedlam briefly ensued.  The drunk returned after halftime and apologized...sort of.

The rest of the people sitting around us were as nice as could be.  The lady sitting next to the drunk behind us struck up a conversation with me.  I told her about my tour and Mick's graduate work he'd done at SC a few decades prior.  All in all, a good group of fans.  They were just a few of the 83,000 plus in attendance and just as crazy about their (game) cocks as the rest of them.  Awesome, awesome, awesome fan base, especially when you consider that their football tradition consists of, other than their Heisman winner and one ACC title, years of struggle and strife and a barely above .500 winning percentage.

I was blown away by how loud the place really was, as I'd heard from ESPN commentators over the years that they had a great home crowd but never could imagine it rivaling some of the other places that I'd been.  From the pregame school band rendition of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme, which to me will always be the music of "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, to the continual use of the late 90s techno-hit "Sandstorm" (a newer tradition that was easily the most memorable part of the experience - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErJo2CpAYps&feature=relmfu), South Carolina is one of the most entertaining home stadiums in college football.  Throw in the appearance of Sir Big Spur, the live gamecock, and you've got several sights to behold.

South Carolina took a 17-10 halftime and lead and wore down the eventual ACC Champions to the tune of a 34-13 victory.  The Cocks went onto win their school-record 11th game during bowl season, upending Nebraska on January 2nd.  We had a great time watching them put the finishing touch on their historic regular season.  Repeat stops on the tour might not be a regular thing outside of Notre Dame and NC State, but since SC is so close, I certainly wouldn't mind going back. 

On a parting note, it's better to exit a sea of garnet and black after a convincing victory.  Had the Tigers won, I'd have hated to see more people like the old drunk with a reason to be angry.  It was, after all, only seven years removed from the famous brawl between the Clemson and Carolina players.