Onward to say Goodbye...

Written November 18, 2012

The last stop on my college football tour for 2012 was the University of Notre Dame; and it doubled as a special opportunity for me to pay tribute to my father's life.  When I learned that my dad had chosen to be cremated several months before his passing, I thought of doing something special as a final "goodbye."  Initially, I was planning to go up to Maryland, where he and I once made a trip to his dad's hometown to spread my granddad's ashes.  That certainly would have sufficed, but that idea came to me before football season started.  During the 2012 opener against Navy, Notre Dame was in Dublin, Ireland giving the Midshipmen a shellacking when it hit me: I should take my dad's remains to South Bend.  I immediately booked a trip for the last home game of the season.  I believe there was an "f" bomb in the reactive sentence when I asked my dad what he thought of that, accentuating his enthusiasm.

Back then, dreams of an undefeated season were of the "pipe" variety.  I'm no betting man, but I probably would've taken you up on one if you had suggested the Irish would have a shot at 11-0 against Wake Forest on November 17.  When I last saw my dad a week before he passed, I read through his college football "Bible" (Lindy's pre-season magazine); he made notes about ND's potential 2012 record, predicting that they would finish 8-4.  I, personally, wasn't even sure that they'd do that well.  Now, as I sit here recapping my weekend as the Fighting Irish have just been named the #1 team in the land, it dawns on me that - no matter what happens the rest of the season - this has been one of the most memorable seasons of my fandom...and my dad would have LOVED it! 

It has been a long time since there was as much excitement about Notre Dame heading into the last weekend of the season as there was during the first.  Not since 1993 have the Irish won 11 games or been ranked #1 in the polls.  This is the first legitimate national title shot they've had since.  My dad was an easily jaded fan.  2006, the season where we attended our first live ND game, was the last year that the Irish evoked anything close to the kind of excitement that they have in 2012.  That is quite a drought by even modern Golden Domer standards.  This would have been just the type of season to get my dad's Scotch-Irish heart pumping the blue and gold again. 

My dad watched his last Notre Dame game with me on September 22, 2012, but ever since he passed (8 days later) I've felt like his presence in their games has been palpable.  It was as if he swooped down and forced air through the lungs of the official, who blew his whistle to stop Stanford running back Stepfan Taylor's last push over the goal line in overtime on October 13 and I'm fairly certain that he floated to one side of the goal post and blew out a subtle gust that carried Pittsburgh's field goal for the win in double overtime wide.  On November 17th, his spirit was in two places at once in Eugene, Oregon and Waco, Texas to aid Stanford and Baylor to shocking victories over #2 Oregon and #1 Kansas State that cleared the way for the #3 ranked Irish to ascend to the top spot in the polls. 

A few hours prior to the upsets, I discretely scattered his ashes on the Notre Dame campus as the Irish faithful prepared for kickoff.  My dad and I were actually supposed to go that game together.  For Christmas in 2010, my wife and I had bought season tickets for Wake Forest Football down the road in Winston-Salem because the Irish were on the schedule.  Our gift to my dad was to have him come up for the Wake-ND game in North Carolina in 2011 and then we'd all go up to South Bend, Indiana for the other half of the home-and-home in 2012.  He still accompanied me on that trip.  We flew to Chicago together, we drove a rental car east to Indiana together, and we walked toward the stadium together.

At a Chamber of Commerce banquet last week, the lead sponsor had given each attendee a coffee thermos.  A perfectly sized coffee thermos, at that.  With my wife and I each receiving one as a parting gift, I now had an answer to a question that had plagued me since I decided to spread my dad's ashes at Notre Dame: how was I going to get them onto campus?  At Notre Dame, it is not exactly legal to make their campus a person's final resting place in the form that my dad chose for his remains.  So, for the purpose of legality, this may or may not be a fictional story, kind policemen of South Bend, Indiana and representatives of the University of Notre Dame who may one day read this entry.  The pictures taken could be stock.  This could be a tale to get people to read a blog.  Maybe it is.  Maybe it isn't.  Like dust in the wind.  I found a huge tree with no one around about a hundred yards from a lake.  There my dad will stay.  A spice bottle carried a small part of him with me into the stadium, where I sprinkled a tiny piece of my father both in the stands and in the dirt surrounding the Knute Rockne statue.  Again, may or may not be true, authorities. 

It gave me closure.  Rest in Peace, Dad. 

The view from Dad's final resting place

Written November 6, 2013

Over a year has passed since my father died.  He often visits me in my dreams, encouraging me in the way that only he could when he was alive.  He was, as I've come to describe him recently, my biggest fan.  As jaded as he could be about Notre Dame Football, he was never jaded about me.  His brand of unwavering support can never be replaced.  

I have a game day ritual at the house during football season of flying our Notre Dame Fighting Irish flag and putting on my green Notre Dame jersey.  Not a day goes by, honestly, when I don't think of my dad, but I'm taken aback on Saturdays.  The excitement of the season is there, but added to it is the feeling that I always got when my flight would touch down in Orlando (where my dad lived for his final 13 years).  I was still a kid when my dad moved to Florida, so every time that I got there, I would think to myself, "Hey, dad" and then every time that my flight home took off, I would think, "Bye, dad...had a great time."  I managed to carry that into adulthood.  I actually said it out loud when I drove down to my dad's house in January (finally) to sort out his belongings.  The emotion behind that once unknown tradition has made Notre Dame Football more than just the biggest happening of the week at the McIntyre house - it's a constant reminder of my relationship with my dad, built (in part) on Irish gold and blue through and through (and I mean that in the best possible way).  

Those of you that follow the sport know how last season ended.  The Irish beat the pants off Wake, then defeated USC to earn a spot in the National Championship game.  They proceeded to get completely decimated by Alabama.  A patient of mine is a Crimson Tide fan and he razzed me about it a little bit.  I told him, "Hey, I would have loved to have won the national title, but there's nothing that can take away from 2012 regular season.  The entire thing felt like a tribute to my father."  Notre Dame may as well have won the national title, as far as I'm concerned.  I felt like they did.  12-0 in the season that my father passed and my daughter was born?  Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame....my dad was up there waking up the echoes Cheering Her Name.   

Boomer Sooner! Oklahoma University One of a Kind

When I moved to St. Louis, Missouri to attend chiropractic school, I found that the easiest way to connect with new people in a strange place was to seek out fellow diehards of college football.  It was actually pretty awesome.  By the second month of the 2005 season, I had surrounded myself with huge fans from Ohio State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Florida, and Oklahoma.  Among them, the Sooner became the other half of my dynamic sports-viewing duo.  Jeff and I racked up a lot of hours watching sports during our four years in St. Louis.  Five years removed from those days, we still talk about twice a month, with sports dominating the conversation more than healthcare or family most of the time.  The only talk that I can honestly recall from our eight years as friends that did not eventually veer to sports was the one right before my wedding when we were just idly chatting before the ceremony started.  We even managed to talk about football in the hospital before his son was born.

I went to visit Jeff in Oklahoma in 2010, spending a great weekend with him, his awesome wife, and his vacuum cleaner-loving son - yes, vacuum cleaner loving (they got the kid his own mini vacuum because, even at 18 months, he just wanted to vacuum the floor).  The trip served a dual purpose.  The obvious reason to go was to catch up with one of my closest friends.  The other obvious reason was that his home was 30-minutes from Norman, Oklahoma, where the Sooners were hosting the Florida State Seminoles in week 2 of the college football season.  Jeff scored us tickets through one of his patients.

I awoke that Saturday morning with great anticipation.  I was getting up to go to an OKLAHOMA FOOTBALL GAME.  OU is amongst the pantheon of college football destinations.  Their rich history includes 7 national championships, 5 Heisman trophy winners, a record 47-game winning streak back in the Bud Wilkinson era of the 1950s, and a post WWII era best winning percentage of .763.  Just in the BCS era alone, they've gone to three BCS title games, won the national title once, and produced two Heisman winners (plus freak of nature RB Adrian Peterson, who should have won it in 2004, in my opinion).  So, make no mistake about it, going to see the Sooners in their 82,000 seat stadium was a college football fan's dream.

Jeff's wife, Cassie, dropped us off a ways from the stadium so that we could get a feel for the atmosphere.  Much like the walk from an off campus apartment to Ohio Stadium in Columbus, our walk toward the OU campus provided the unique opportunity to take in the entirety of the Sooner Football experience.  I do not believe that you can merely take a cab to right outside of a stadium and truly get a sense of the culture.  Tens of thousands may attend the game itself, but to get the lay of the gridiron land, you've got to walk through the hundreds of thousands of tailgaters spanning a multi-mile radius.

The beautiful, albeit hot, Midwest day brought the people out in force.  This was the first place that I noticed the style of dresses and cowboy boots for women.  Apparently, it was sweeping the nation and I failed to realize it.  Allow me to reiterate the same words now that I said to my wife when I returned from my trip - the dress and cowboy boots look is 100% A-OKAY with this red blooded American male.  I told my wife it would be a good Christmas gift for me if she bought that country girl themed outfit for her. 

Anyhow, one of the nice things about attending an early season game is the dreamer's gleam in everyone's eyes.  OU is one of those programs that goes into nearly every season expecting to compete for the national title.  Realistic or not, the fans have that dream heading into Labor Day weekend each year.  With every win, the dream gets closer to becoming reality.  The Sooners had reason to be excited that day.  Carrying a #11 ranking with quiet expectations that they were underrated, OU fans seemed to relish the spotlight that came with 17th ranked, on-their-way-back-to-countrywide-respectability Florida State coming to town.  Each team looked at the game as a chance to gain big game experience (and hopefully a win in the process) before their conference schedules started.  Each fan base, though, saw it as an opportunity to validate and boost their national championship dreams.

People that believe their college football dreams are coming true are fun to be around.  They drink freely and happily; everybody is smiling. Oklahoma University has great accessibility to beer.  Easily the best of my tour stops to date in that department.  Beer is everywhere.  I like a school that embraces that beer and football go hand-in-hand.  One without the other is like KISS without the make up.  Bravo to Oklahoma University for having beer to the left, right, north, south, east, and west.

However...OU is the worst amongst my tour stops to date in the accessibility to bathrooms department.  Sure, there are some portables.  There's about 20 of them for 200,000 people.  Do the math.  Easy access to beer in all directions + 200,000 people + the (Chad's anger fueled) idiocy of restaurant owners not letting you use their bathrooms when you have to urinate like your life depends on it / 20 portable bathrooms = the single most sweat-inducing need to go to the bathroom in my adult life.  Jeff and I decided to go ahead and get in line to enter the stadium.  What seemed like an hour later, we then found the closest men's room, which of course had a line from there to Dallas, Texas.  Jeff kept talking to me about something, but I finally just had to tell him to be quiet.  And then immediately after he stopped talking, I realized that his talking was providing a tiny distraction, so I begged him to start talking about anything - his kid, his favorite movie, the theory of relativity - ANYTHING.  Well, you can guess what happened from there.  Think of Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own.

On my previously described scale of the three things I most desire at a college football site - place to watch football, beer, and bathrooms, OU ranks #1 in beer but dead last in bathrooms.

Me and Jeff at OU (9/11/10)

OU serves up an incredible in-stadium atmosphere.  On September 11, 2010, the fans took all of their early season enthusiasm and let it loose as the Sooner Schooner - a wagon pulled by two ponies - came dashing onto the field with crimson and cream colored muskets blasting small streams of smoke into the air.  A classy tribute to the fallen from 9/11/2001  preceded the raucous Sooner faithful getting hyped up for the opening kickoff.  Right as the game was about to get under way, the crowd erupted into a massively continuous chant of "OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!"  I remember looking up at the sky, smelling the air, and closing my eyes behind my Aviator sunglasses.  Amidst a wave of enthusiasm surely registering on the Richter scale, I said a little prayer and thanked God for putting me in that place at that time.  When the placekicker smashed the ball toward the opposite end, the quick conclusion to the "OH!" chant came booming from the throngs of Oklahomans.  In unison, they collectively said "U!"  OU was amazing.  One of my favorites on the tour... 

The Sooners emphatically made their case for being a national title contender, throttling FSU 47-17.  They rose to as high as #3 in the country that season before sputtering at Missouri in late October.  They finished the season as the Big 12 Champions with a 12-2 record.

The First Road Trip to see the National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes

2002 was the season that affirmed my status as a college football diehard.  I had been a fan for years, but it's difficult to give football its proper Saturday due when you've got chores to do at your parents' house or soccer games to play.  So, it took actually being in college to push my CFB passion to its current level bordering on the ridiculous.  I was a freshman at North Carolina State.  I'd never had so much free time to sit around and watch football all day.  Saturday was wide open.  My long-time friend and college roommate, Tommy, and I would order Gumby's pizza and we would just sit...ALL DAY.  If we weren't at the State game, we were watching football on our little 19-inch TV - or in our friend Sac's room watching on their slightly larger TV.  Every weekend was built around football.  The Wolfpack started the season 9-0.  That same year, Notre Dame started 8-0.

My buddy Garlow and I had decided to make a road trip to Ohio State on the first weekend of November to visit his cousin.  He had grown up a fan of the Buckeyes similar to how I had with Notre Dame.  As luck would have it, our plans to attend the Minnesota game on Nov. 2 were made twice as awesome by The Ohio State University's 9-0 start.  On the first day of November, we headed northwest to Columbus, Ohio, jamming out to 80s music and Dave Matthews Band.  That was my first of many times driving to the Midwest.  It's about as boring as watching NASCAR.  There is nothing to see for hundreds of miles on end.  I'm used to it, now, having lived out there, but you better have someone interesting to talk to (Garlow was) and some good tunes to listen to (we did) when you drive through the Midwest.  If not, you could easily fall asleep and wake up inside of a silo. 

We didn't arrive in Columbus until the early hours of Saturday morning, so we basically grabbed a solid few ours of sleep and got up to get ready for tailgaiting.   

The tailgating at Ohio State ten years ago remains the best that I've seen.  I like being outside to do a little pre-gaming, but I also want to watch all the other games leading up to the live kickoff for the game I'm attending.  At Ohio State, you get both.  On a giant, outdoor screen, you can watch all of the other games right outside of the stadium.  It has taken every bit of the last decade for the memory of watching NC State lose to an inferior Georgia Tech team on that massive screen to fade, but there's nothing better than being able to enjoy the crisp air, have a beer, and watch football with the knowledge that you're about see two ranked teams clash with conference and national title implications.

Every fan has their own set of expectations for tailgating experiences, but mine are about three things: 1) I need to be able to watch football somewhere and I'd prefer to do it without making friends with "Drunken" Chuck O'Callahan who brought a TV with him.  2) I want it to be easy to get a beer.  3) - I need easily accessible bathrooms.  Ohio State - you're #1 for the time being. 

Just walking to the stadium can be an interesting experience, as it gives you a taste of the town.  Buckeye fans are some of the most hardcore that I've ever known.  My buddy Tony, an OSU alum, once left a restaurant because the beef he wanted to order off the menu was brought in from Michigan.  They don't breed fair weather fans in Ohio.  If the scarlet and grey gets into your blood, then you're a diehard.  Weekends can be incredible or terrible based on a win or a loss.  I love that about college football.  Losing one game can mean no more national title shot or less of a chance at winning the conference.  One game!  You can't duplicate that in any other sport.

Ohio State is a big place - it's one of the biggest schools in the country.  It's historical vibe - that flood of feelings that you get when you walk on campus and get closer to the stadium, where you sense the spirit of legends - is about as palpable in Columbus as it is in South Bend.  I'm thankful that the a place that I'd definitively consider to be amongst college football's Holy Grail of game day experiences was the first stop on my tour.  Being one of 104,897 people in the Horseshoe...I may not even have become all that interested in traveling the country for CFB games if it weren't for The Shoe. 

There's a spine tingling moment when you realize that you've just experienced something special and you start wanting to experience it again.  When you're standing there watching an undefeated football team amidst over a hundred thousand rabid fans, getting goosebumps on top of your goosebumps on a mid-fall day in Ohio, it's what I can best describe as divine.  If life is broken down into a series of memories, then the roar of the crowds just prior to a kickoff - when the anticipation reaches a fever pitch - are going to be some of the things that I think about on my deathbed.

Stock photo - I didn't have a camera back then

Ohio State dominated a ranked Golden Gopher squad with Big 10 title dreams of its own.  They went on to gut out a few close ones down the stretch and set-up a Fiesta Bowl showdown with Miami in the national championship game.  Anywhere I go in any given season, I become kind of a de-facto fan of that team for the rest of the year.  Garlow and I watched the title game over at our friend Kevin's house during the holiday break from school.  Another of our friends, Chris, is a big Miami fan and his heavily favored 'Canes came in expected to potentially breeze their way to a second straight BCS title.  Chris holed up in one room of the house, while many of us were in another.  A lot of people were critical of Ohio State's inclusion in the game, citing their close wins against mediocre teams.  They played their hearts out, though, and won in double overtime.  Garlow jumped me in one of those perfectly acceptable man hugs.  He's kicking my rear end in national titles for his teams versus mine since we started and completed college - he's got three to my zero (two UNC basketball titles and one OSU football championship).

The fact that both the Irish and Wolfpack had their undefeated dreams die that day was disappointing, but the negativity from that day wore off and the lasting awesomeness of seeing the eventual national champions win 34-3 in the Shoe took over.