Because my son is a football monogram recipient, he gets invited each year to the festivities surrounding the spring game. This year, he is taking me and two close friends to the dinner tonight. It is billed as a "tailgate" dinner. They are setting up a huge tent next to Cartier Field, and the dinner is catered by Outback Steakhouse. The team, coaching staff, and former players serving as coaches tomorrow (Bettis, Ismael, Golic brothers) will be in attendance. As cool as that is, the neatest thing for me is that we will be able to take a tour of the Gug. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm also planning to corner Charlie for a one-to-one chat about the team's progress. It should not take more than 5-10 minutes of his time. I'll let all of you know how it goes. :wink: The dinner starts at 6:00. At 6:05, the Irish baseball team plays host to Rutgers, and Samardzija is scheduled to pitch. Unfortunately, I probably won't get to see any of the game
You're KILLIN' me, Sid ! Man, it must be great to have a son graduate from the University of Notre Dame. As Fortune said.... You're 5 foot nothin', 100 and nothin', and you have nearly a speck of athletic ability. And you hung in there with the best college football team in the land for 2 years. And you're gonna walk outta here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don't have to prove nothin' to nobody but yourself. I don't know your son and I'm not drawinga direct parallel to Rudy but the basic sentiment certainly has to be there. Tell Charlie next time he's in NJ the the Jersey Shore Chapter of the Subway Alumni Club will host him at a party in my backyard. JIFster is the entertainment chairman. I have a pool.
George, Thanks for the sentiments. Brian always has been very humble about his athletic ablilty and his intelligence (which he gets from his mother). But when people find out he played at ND as a walk-on and jokingly call him Rudy, he smiles but deep down it irks him because, as he says privately within the family, he was a much better athlete and much smarter than the real Rudy. I think that for him it hits too close to home because, 1) He knows too much of the negative about the real Rudy, more than 99.9% of the people know who saw the movie, and 2) his personal experiences as a walk-on were completely different from the real Rudy. He really has a great sense of humor, and someday when he is older, he will be able to look back and laugh at how sensitive he was as a young man. The truth, as I have observed, and as he gradually is learning, is that folks have a high level of respect for any young man who endures what he did solely for the love of the game. Sorry. Probably told you more than you ever wanted to know. I tend to ramble when talking about my kids. That'll teach you not to get me started.
Sid...I am very happy for you and know you must be so proud of your son. There were six children in our family and the resources weren't there to consider Notre Dame. One of my grand children was with me at the ND-USC game and is already in love with the school. He is a freshman, one of the few who made the JV basketball team. He may not play at the College level, but may get admitted as he is a 4.0 student. I know I would be ecstatic if he were admitted.
George, Of course I know that. Never thought otherwise. I just started typing and it was like a snowball rolling downhill. My verbosity grew and grew. I know I said too much. I guess with age I wear my feelings on my sleeve more than I did as a younger man. Vic, My oldest grandchildren, boys, are 9 and 7. I cannot imagine my daughter and her husband coming anywhere close to being able to afford ND 8-10 years from now. Keep us posted on your grandson. Wherever he decides to go to college, with a 4.0 in HS he is destined for great success. You must be very proud of him.
Unable to give up even a small portion of the fabulous Baker fortune huh Sid? Well at least you could teach them how to kick a football('')
Here is a commentary on my experience at Friday night’s dinner. I hope I can make it semi-interesting for the ND folks. I’m doing it in two parts. Here is part 1. We signed in upon arrival. Jerome Bettis’ name tag was below mine in alphabetical order. He never made it to the dinner. I immediately began to see former players, identifiable via their name tags. As you might surmise, most were younger than I, but there was a surprising number from my era (60’s). There were many names recognizable to me and I’m sure to most of you. The current student-athletes were easily identifiable by their distinctive and nice looking Adidas team shirts. The event was held inside a huge tent on the grass practice area at the south end of Cartier Field. The tent was roughly 40-50 yards long by about 30 yards wide and probably 25-30 feet high. There were tall propane area warmers spaced throughout the tent, but the weather was so nice they weren’t needed until much later in the evening. We went immediately to the dinner line. This might be the best large-group catered meal I’ve ever had. The Outback steaks were thick, lean, and very tasty. The sides were very good, and the dessert brownies were to die for. We sat at a large round table. There were student-athletes near us, most of whom I did not recognize without name tags. Boy, did some of them look young! I guess it’s because they are. After dinner, the female president of the Monogram Club opened the program and spoke way too long before introducing Coach Weiss. He gave a brief but interesting talk. He paid respects to the Guglielmino family by introducing the benefactor’s widow and saying that the Gug allows him to recruit on a whole new level vs. past coaches. He emphasized how important it was to have former players here and how from now on they are going to be an integral part of the program. The honorary captains who were there spoke briefly, the two Golic brothers and Rocket. I thought Mike Golic did an excellent job. He rose several notches in my estimation as a proponent of all that ND stands for. His brother needled Charlie as a peer and was pretty funny although not nearly as polished a speaker as Mike and Rocket. When he introduced Rocket, Coach said he had given a very moving talk to the players earlier in the evening. Rocket talked about how for years in the pros he heard guys from other programs talk about being invited back by their schools, but he never heard from ND. Then he met Charlie at the most recent PA Big 33 game, and Charlie immediately asked him to come back. He humbly talked about how honored and privileged he felt to once again be a part of the ND tradition. At this point, it had become clear to all, including me, that something very special is happening at ND that is going to redefine ND football for years to come, and it is because of Charlie Weiss. To be continued………………..
Part 2 The part of the program that really impressed me was the academic recognition. Summarizing, the team academic average (not sure if for full year or latest semester) was 3.04. I think it might be the first time it’s been over 3.0. There were numerous players who received recognition for having a 3.0 or better. It was indeed impressive. Charlie recognized Tommy Z’s academic progress by needling him. The current rule is if your average is below 2.5, you must attend study hall for the entire following semester. Tommy Z. has worked hard and finally has been liberated from study hall. Coach advised all the parents of young kids who may be attending ND in the future to consider Tommy Z’s major, which brought laughs. For me, the highlight of the evening was a tour of the 85,000 sq. ft. Gug. Believe me, it did not disappoint. The attendees broke into groups of 25-30. Jim Lynch, Tony Carey, and Red Mack were in our group. We started in the 180-seat tiered auditorium with 3-ft. wide walking aisles in every row and seats big enough and comfortable enough to be your living room easy chair. I noticed that the the rolled-up movie screen (obviously motorized) was as wide as the room. Dave Poulin gave the opening talk. He is a cool guy. He now is an associate AD. Behind the speaker, high up on the wall and spanning the entire width of the room is a huge logo with the interlocking ND between the words Notre and Dame. You have to see it to appreciate how impressive it is. Interesting facts: Every clock in the building is satellite controlled, so they all are on the exact same time. Because everything now is in one location (lockers, meeting rooms, weight facility), it saves the football players roughly 45 minutes per day in walking time. The locker room is immense. I mean IMMENSE. We were warned by Poulin that it would be messy and it was, in terms of each individual open locker space. We also were admonished not to touch anything. The only person ever allowed to touch something on a tour was Darius Walker’s mom, who spotted a brand new dress shirt she had given him crumpled at the bottom of his locker. So Poulin said to the group before the tour that if your son rushed for 1,000 yards last year and has a new blue shirt crumpled up in his locker, you can touch it. The recruiting lounge (2nd floor). After seeing it, I call this the “closing room”. Facing the west is a 3-story arched window (directly above the building entrance) with a clear view of the Dome. On the wall are six pictures of ND lore, the four horsemen, the list of Heisman winners, etc. There is a bust of Knute Rockne in a prominent location. There are 5 big round tables, each with a real ND helmet in the middle. As if this was not impressive enough, we learned that the pictures on the wall are interchangeable based on what type of player they are focusing on. For example if it’s a QB, they may mount pictures of past great ND QBs. Pretty clever, huh?. The suggestion came from one of Mr. Guglielmino’s daughters, who is in the public relations business. Just outside the recruiting room is a balcony with an overhead view of the weight facility. WOW! 28,000 square feet. To put this in perspective, the former weight facility, built along with the Loftus indoor field, was 9,000 sq. ft. and was considered state-of-the-art at the time. I won’t try to describe the weight facility in detail except to say that it is absolutely awesome. The final aspect of the building is that it is seamlessly attached to the Loftus facility, so you can move from meeting to lockers to a 100-yard indoor football field without ever going outside. That’s it, a truly memorable evening for me. I hope I’ve described it in a way that makes my ND friends smile with pride at how far we’ve come and how promising the future is for our football program.
Video Highlights of the Blue & Gold Game from BlueandGold.com. Three and a half minutes covering about a dozen plays inlcluding Sharpley's 40 yd pass to Bragg who beat the coverage, Thomas 83 yd romp up the middle (the longest run by an ND back in 30+ years), Quinn to Shark TD. Nice to see #5 back on the field and leaping for a ball in traffic.
:shock: Wow! What a great report! It was detailed and well written. I felt like I was on the tour too. Thank you Sid! .............JO'Co
Jack, The propane heaters were quite tall, I'd guess about 8-10 feet. Sorry I left that important detail out.
Wow I dont think I can wait a minute longer for football season to begin. I think your son is a chip off the old block there Sid.... Thanks for the inside trip ......Diane