The Comeback of Notre Dame

They say it’s a lot easier for a sports columnist to rip someone in print than it is for them to write something positive. Personally, I have no idea. With the exception of a few glowing tributes to the Patriots’ championship teams (which write themselves), I’m not sure I’ve ever written a positive sentence about any team or any one. Until now.

A warning to the squeamish: the following is going to be a long, deep, sloppy, wet, open-mouth kiss to the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Reader discretion is advised.

I don’t understand why, but Notre Dame football is one of those controversial topics that starts an argument every time the subject is broached. Before you even brought it up, the battle lines were drawn. Everyone loves Notre Dame or hates them; is either fer ’em or agin ‘em. Admitting in polite company that you root for the Irish is like talking politics at work, or weighing in on abortion at a party, or discussing anything with my wife’s family: a fight waiting to happen.

Well screw everybody; I love the Irish and I’m not afraid to admit it. I love them for the same reason so many people hate them. Notre Dame makes itself a big target because it has higher standards than everybody else. UND is like that four-sport athlete in high school with the 3.8 GPA and the hot girlfriend who still makes time to organize the school fundraisers. You can either give the kid credit for what he’s able to do, or resent him and look forward to his inevitable nervous breakdown. I choose the former.

Notre Dame tries to do the impossible: compete for a national championship with actual student-athletes, attitude which breeds resentment. Lou Holtz wins a title with a couple of junior college transfers on the team and books are written about it the “scandal” like it’s the “Oil for Food” program. Meanwhile, Colorado‘s number one recruiting tool is the handjob, and every former Miami Hurricane is currently standing on a street corner holding a “Giant Furniture Liquidation Sale” sign, but no one looks sideways at those programs.

Growing up, I believe some of that anti-Notre Dame resentment rubbed off on me. They always won. They were always on TV. You always heard that they got bowl berths they didn’t deserve. Or how Paul Hornung was on a losing team in a year where he had like two TDs and 75 INTs, but he won the Heisman Trophy by beating the Red Zone defense of every co-ed in America.

All of that might be true. But living in this part of the country, there were no major teams, so I followed the Fighting Irish. Sure, BC had a good year every so often. But then the faculty would feel all guilty about it and cut back on scholarships, and they’d go right back to 3-8. Besides, BC plays in a city that draws more people to a rowing race than they do for a college football game. And not to cry poor mouth, but I had a better chance of going to Star Fleet Academy than going to a Division 1 school, so I had to adopt a team to root for. Like most sons of working-class Irish had done for the last 100 years before me, I chose Notre Dame.

Then as fate would have it, I married a St. Mary’s girl. St. Mary’s is Notre Dame’s sister school, the one where all the hetero women go. (It’s said that whenever a SMC girl loses her virginity, they plant a tree [there are thousands], and whenever a Notre Dame girl does, they build a golden dome [there is one]). She’s got hundreds of stories about watching games from the student section and tailgating on campus, until now I’ve moved “See a Game at Notre Dame Stadium” up on my list of “Things To Do Before I Die” ahead of “Go To Europe” and “Have a Threesome” and “Tell Off My In-Laws.”

The last several years have not been an easy time to root for the Irish. Going to the “Waffle House Bowl” might be great for some school’s, but when Notre Dame does it, they’re laughingstocks.. But a decade or so of eating crap sandwiches all went away when they hired Charlie Weis.

I like Weis for several reasons, not the least of which are the three Super Bowl rings he won with the Patriots. But even outside of football, he’s an easy guy to admire. First, when he had his stomach stapled a few years ago, and it looked like he wouldn’t survive the surgery, Bernard Cardinal Law happened to be in the hospital and offered to perform Weis’ last rites. According to reports, Mrs. Weis told the old pedophile enabler to go piss up a rope; that she wanted a real priest. I think even God appreciated the sentiment, because her husband made a full recovery.

Next, you have to admire Weis’ loyalty. In the Spring of 2004, his agent asked the Patriots for a contract extension and a raise, but the team said no. Late in the following season, the Irish offered him their Head Coaching job. To Weis, graduated from Notre Dame, this was his dream job, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But he told them if the school couldn’t wait until the Pats’ season was over, he wouldn’t take the job. How many of us would show that kind of integrity? A head’s up to my bosses: if I get a job offer from the Red Sox or Jenna Jameson, I’ll be out the door before they hang up the phone. There’s your two week notice.

When Weis took over the job, it took all of one set of downs before you could see that he’d turned the program around. The Irish didn’t just win games. They lived up to their own impossible legacy. When a kid named Montana Mazurkiewicz (named after Joe Montana, no less) was dying in a hospital, Weis told him he could call the team’s first play against Washington. The kid asked for “Pass Right,” but he died the night before the game. When the Irish recovered a fumble, and their first play was from their own 1-yard line, Weis decided to keep his promise to the kid. 14 yards, Notre Dame first down. With all due respect, these things just don’t happen to Boise State.

So now, the Fighting Irish are back in the BCS, and probably going to the Fiesta Bowl. Being Notre Dame, this has set off the usual caterwauling that they don’t deserve it. Oregon has one loss to the Irish two, and they’re complaining that it’s just a popularity contest. News flash: the Bowl Championship Series is neither a Championship nor is it a Series. But it does have Bowls, and Bowls are TV shows, which are popularity contests. No one outside of Eugene gives a tinker’s damn about Ducks football. But everyone will be watching the Irish. Me especially.