Life, Family, Notre Dame

With the start of a season, it is natural to contemplate all that is possible in new beginnings. For Notre Dame and her fans, that feeling is heightened with the dawn of the Brian Kelly Era coming in a few short days. In the Brawling Hibernian household, however, my thoughts will be on what is ending, rather than beginning this season.

In late- May, my wife and I found out we are expecting a child. The Hiberna-baby will be joining us in February of 2011, meaning that this will be my last childless Notre Dame football season. Beyond simple matters of parental responsibility, this child will change everything about the manner in which I watch Notre Dame games for the remainder of my life. Beginning next season, I will begin the process of introducing Notre Dame football and all its joys (and, yes, agonies) to a new fan. The history, the games, the players, the traditions; all of it. It is a weighty task, but one which I look forward to with great anticipation.

My own Notre Dame fandom began over two decades ago. I was ten and began to take note of the way in which my own father spent several hours on Saturday afternoons in the fall. Once I took a small peak into the world of Notre Dame, I was hooked. With the zeal of a convert, I ate, slept and breathed Notre Dame football. Each game, I would join my father at a tavern, owned by one of his friends, to watch ND. It was located in a working class Irish Catholic community, and barely any of the cops, firemen and miscellaneous blue collar workers who packed the place to watch their beloved team had ever been to a game at Notre Dame, much less studied there. Still, theirs was an undeniable passion for the school which was irresistible to me.

Over the years, the relationship between my father and I grew tense, and then got worse. In spite of this, however, on a handful of Saturdays each year, we could still find common ground in rooting for the Irish. To this day, while there are a great many things about the relationship with my father I wish could have been different, the happiness of watching Notre Dame games together will never be one of them.

This autumn, as Kelly’s Heroes quicken the pulses of the Notre Dame faithful, I will be watching their games with one eye on the action and the other on the soon-to-be filled seat next to me on the couch. With a smile, I will think of Saturdays to come, lessons to be taught and memories to be made. Along the way, I will heartily bid welcome to a new start in South Bend while simultaneously saying farewell to the fandom I’ve come to know. Go Irish!