I am a HUGE Notre Dame fan.
Of course I am a die hard follower of Fighting Irish Football but I am really a huge fan of the school, what it stands for and all things Notre Dame. I love all Notre Dame sports from Baseball, Hockey, Soccer - I even watch live streaming of Lacrosse and Women's Softball on und.com.
My wife Jodie never quite understood my passion nor could she fully grasp just how different Notre Dame is from other schools on Saturday afternoon in the fall. That is until I took her to her first game in South Bend last year. She gets it now. Her words "There is just something special about this place - it's awesome and unlike any other college football experience!".
As it is Memorial Day weekend I thought I would mention that Irish Head Football Coach Charlie Weiss is in Iraq visiting US service men and women. He is keeping a diary of sorts and I thought I would share it with our readers here at BFC.
There was interesting story I will share here because it involved a young service man from Cleveland, Ohio which is where I am from originally. This excerpt courtesy of und.com courtesy of the South Bend Tribune.
I signed so much today. There were kids from South Bend. There were kids from Mishawaka, kids from Fort Wayne. There was one kid from Cleveland, Ohio. He came in fully garbed in all his Notre Dame deal. He was just going bananas and he was literally shaking. This was my highlight of the day. He said, "I'm the biggest Notre Dame fan. The only bigger Notre Dame fan than me is my father."
So I have this international cell phone. I made the kid call his dad up. It's 4 o'clock in the morning in Cleveland. His brother answers the phone. Now I'm a little concerned because of the hour we're calling that they're going to think something's wrong. He said, "Go get Dad. Tell him I need to talk to him." So I go on the phone and talk to the dad and I give the kid my international phone and said, "Hey, go talk to your dad for a while." Who knows whether these people can call or not?
This kid came back to me and said, "This is the best day of my life." A kid that's over here in this country from Cleveland, Ohio says this is the best day of his life. It's 115 degrees. The wind's blowing 50 miles an hour. It's oppressive. It feels like your whole body is getting blow-dried by a giant hair dryer. And this kid is telling me it's the greatest day of his life? Just imagine that. It was easily the best thing that happened today. Easily.
They're just so happy to see you that it makes you happy. They're trying to thank us, and we're the ones who should be saying, "Thank you." If you saw the enthusiasm of these people, you'd be shocked. It's infectious. You definitely feel something special here.
Go Irish!
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