Luck O’The Irish – or – I’m Seeing Green

As many of you know, I have a disease – a disease that some would label as serious in our culture today. I have been diagnosed with an illness that many athletic doctors refer to as “Sports Ability Deficiency Syndrome.” SADS usually rears its head at young ages when children are in the formative years. And once the child begins down the path of SADS, it continues with them throughout their adult life unless drastic intervention and hard work occurs. Many people have crossed my path over the years and have attempted to help me in curing SADS. My first memory is of Bob Ashley, who tried to teach me to play catch when I was a kid. Sadly, it didn’t take. I think fondly of Dave Pacheco, a true sports freak and good friend. Dave tried to teach me to throw and catch a baseball (again) and a frisbee. Dave also took me to see a Reds game in Cincy. We also had the joy of going to NCAA Fan Jam basketball exhibition in Indy. My good friend, Dave Carey, once attempted to teach me tennis. I kept hitting the ball out of the court. I never did figure out the scoring for that game. 5-Love? What is that!? I have attended a soccer game (Columbus Crew) with my friend Casey Morgan. I have gone to pro-hockey games many times. I’ve been to tennis matches, swim meets, track meets, volleyball, baseball, and soccer games and even fencing matches. I have been to more college and high school basketball games than I care to count. My good friend, Robert, and I often play basketball; and over the years I have learned at least to get the ball in the hoop (or goal, as I call it). One success story in my SADS career was the first time I attempted to waterski. Thanks to the wonderful advice of Summer Avey and Tom Dunn, I was able to stand up and ski the very first time I tried, and ever since, it’s been great fun.

In any event, one of my biggest challenges to SADS is keeping my interest. I can sit through an entire football game and watch it…and not have a clue what is going on or what happened. This brings me to yesterday. My friend Corey’s mom LuAnn got some tickets to the Notre Dame vs. Army game. So we decided it would be great fun to surprise him because he had never gone. Nor had I. We got free tickets and a nice free parking spot and off we went. It was a cold day, but the warmth of sitting close to thousands of fans (and a cup of hot chocolate) made it all bearable. I sat there for about 4.5 hours…and because of my SADS, I can’t say I knew much of what was going on. The cool things: 1. The band was amazing. You have not heard BonJovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name until you have heard it performed by a marching band. 2. The Army had a plane fly over and drop a bunch of paratroopers who came sailing in – red smoke and all – bringing the various flags and the game ball. Very cool. 3. The fans are nuts. The sounds of thousands of people on one side shouting “GO!” and the other side responding “IRISH!” was pretty awesome. Of course, seeing all the drunks was pretty laughable. 4. Hearing the announcer say “Braaaadyyyy Quinnnnnnn” about a hundred times during the game. I guess it was his last game as a senior, and from what I hear, he’s pretty good. I didn’t know who he was until almost the end of the first quarter. For those of you with SADS, he’s #10 and the quarterback. Also, Darius Walkers was another one who did lots of plays or runs or goals. I’m not sure. 4. Notre Dame won…hugely. It was like 41-3 or something. I forget. Oh yeah – and they wore their green jerseys, which for some reason was significant.

And that’s exactly the problem with SADS. Hard as I try, I can not figure out the game of football. It’s like a glazed look comes over my eyes and my brain refuses to operate. Interception, Field Goal, Touchback, Hail Mary, Hut, Hike, I don’t know much about these terms… but it certainly was a great deal of fun watching the whole thing yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I think Corey did too. It was fun for me to experience a huge part of this area’s passion. Going to a ND game for some is something that happens only once in a lifetime, so I am glad I got the chance to do it.

When I got home, I watched Rudy with Robert. It’s a great movie. Today I found out that Stan Dudka was actually at the game where Rudy got to play. How cool is that. Anyway… now you know a little more about SADS and hopefully you can understand when I get excited at a football game and starting yelling at the ump to give the player a corner kick or, at least 5 minutes in the penalty box. After all, how else will the team win the match and get the Pennant…or even better, the revered Stanley Cup!

Here are some pictures from the day.

Section 19, Row 31, Seats 9 & 10. Joshua and Corey…wearing red for some reason.

The Army partatroopers coming in for a landing.

I thought we had pretty nice seats. It was pretty cool once it got darker.