Faith, football and fanaticism come together at Notre Dame
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Rob Oller
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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</IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=credit width=200>JOE RAYMOND | ASSOCIATED PRESS </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>A mosaic known as "Touchdown Jesus" can be seen from Notre Dame Stadium. </TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>
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Columbus orthodontist Victor Cook was making headway toward convincing his Irish Catholic mother to make room in her heart for his beloved Buckeyes.
When Ohio State played, Mary Cook watched on TV. When OSU won, she cheered.
The reprogramming was nearly complete. Then it happened.
"I told her Ohio State was playing in the Fiesta Bowl and she said, ‘I knew they would go to a good bowl game,’ " Victor Cook said, recalling the conversation that began well but ended with a whatcha-gonna-do shrug.
"When I told her they were playing Notre Dame, she said, ‘Oh, that’s too bad. I don’t know if the Buckeyes are good enough to beat Notre Dame.’ "
The 73-year-old Fighting Irish fan from the Catholic enclave of south Buffalo, N.Y., let her son know exactly where she stood.
"She tells me, ‘You know I have to be for Notre Dame.’ "
Jack Malone chuckled when Cook first related the story.
"His mom doesn’t know a thing about sports, but she’s so excited about the Irish," said Malone, president of the Notre Dame Club of Columbus. "She probably grew up hearing the pastor of her parish praise Notre Dame."
Such pep rallies undoubtedly play out across the country, which makes Notre Dame different from other college programs. While the Fighting Irish certainly have detractors, even among Catholics, the team benefits from attracting fans whose faith helps make them followers. Nowhere on a national level — it happens for Brigham Young on a regional level — do faith, football and fanaticism merge like at Notre Dame.
That combination helps explain why even Cook, who instantly fell in love with the Buckeyes in 1979 upon attending his first game in the Horseshoe as an OSU dental student, holds no hostility toward the Fighting Irish. While not conflicted as to allegiance — he will be pulling hard for Ohio State to defeat Notre Dame on Jan. 2 in the Fiesta Bowl — Cook concedes that ND is "a little in our hearts, too."
The Catholic connection also helps explain why four colors — scarlet, gray, blue and gold — and five letters — OSU & ND — shared space in the Mansfield home of David Heringhaus as he grew up attending parochial school.
"Growing up an Ohio State fan, you were taught to hate other schools," said Heringhaus, who received his master’s in education from OSU in 1989. "But with Notre Dame, it was like, ‘Oh, you can like Notre Dame as well.’ "
So he did, eventually choosing to attend Notre Dame as an undergraduate. Today, Heringhaus lives in Columbus and roots for the Irish. He knows not all Catholics share his love for the Golden Dome — "I attend Immaculate Conception and Monsignor (Anthony) Missimi typically references how the Buckeyes did but never mentions how Notre Dame did; I don’t know if he’s playing to the crowd," Heringhaus said, chuckling — and makes no demands that they should.
Notre Dame, after all, doesn’t need his help drumming up support. The school, with 8,332 undergraduates, has 214 alumni clubs across the country and another 64 around the world. Ohio State, with 44,307 undergrads, has 201 and 24, respectively.
The two main reasons Notre Dame draws more fans — and detractors — than any other college program both involve coach Knute Rockne.
Notre Dame football began in 1887, but it remained relatively unknown until 1913 when Rockne, who played end, and quarterback Gus Dorais unleashed upon Army a newfangled passing attack — developed during the summer on the Cedar Point beach in Sandusky, Ohio — that resulted in a stunning 35-13 win.
That David-defeats-Goliath victory got the Fighting Irish noticed, but what gained them national appeal among Catholics was when Rockne, as head coach during the 1920s, took the team to New York to play Army and to Los Angeles to play Southern California.
It was during the New York trips, when Notre Dame played Army in Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds, that the Fighting Irish gathered Catholic fans who came to be known as the subway alumni.
"Rockne would bring the team back to New York, where there were all the Irish Catholics . . . and people by the hundreds would be waiting for them at the train station," said Roger Valdiserri, who was an assistant athletics director at Notre Dame from 1966 to 1995. "They’d go west and the same thing would happen. We’d play Southern Cal in the Coliseum and half the stadium was in green."
The attraction wasn’t so much that Notre Dame represented Catholicism but that the Fighting Irish provided a rallying point for Catholics who felt persecuted by the prejudice of the day.
A sense of Catholic redemption permeated the nation because of Notre Dame’s success. In 1957, some non-Catholic agitators greeted Notre Dame players with signs that read "Rednecks go home" — a derogatory message meant to mock the red collars worn by priests — as the Fighting Irish checked into their hotel in Chickasha, Okla.
On Saturday morning, as Notre Dame players prepared for pregame Mass, a small group of Mexican-American children greeted their favorite team with cheers and a request: Beat Oklahoma and snap the Sooners’ 47-game winning streak.
Monty Stickles, an offensive end on the ’57 team, described the scene.
"There were these little Mexican kids just begging us to win so they wouldn’t have to take that crap for so long," he said. "If we beat Oklahoma, maybe that would make it easier on Catholics in the state."
The Fighting Irish, pegged as huge underdogs, stunned the Sooners 7-0, adding to the Notre Dame mystique among Catholics.
Former Notre Dame quarterback Joe Theismann recalled how in 1969 the Irish were pelted with fish while entering and leaving the field in Tulane Stadium, which was somewhat surprising considering New Orleans is something of a Catholic stronghold.
Ironically, while many fans go to Notre Dame because of its Catholic affiliation, a fair number of players aren’t Catholic. Last season, 84 percent were Catholic, about 10 percent less than 50 years ago.
"When we played the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and went to the cathedral before the game, there were more Catholics from Penn at Mass than there were from our team," said former Notre Dame halfback John Lattner, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1953.
In 1988, when Notre Dame played Miami in a regular-season game dubbed "Catholics vs. Convicts," the Hurricanes actually had more Catholic starters than the Fighting Irish.
Theismann, who is Methodist, said fans just assumed he was Catholic.
"I still get asked what Catholic church I go," he said, chuckling. "My wife is Baptist, so now I’ve got them really screwed up."
Likewise, current Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn, a graduate of Dublin Coffman, is not Catholic.
"But I’m a Christian . . . and I wanted to come to a place with high morals," he said.
Heringhaus knows that some Notre Dame fans can appear pompous and arrogant, but he also thinks the school and its team have mostly held true to the faith.
"You feel some sense of religious value when you walk by the grotto," he said, before pausing. "Of course, my cynical side wonders if they’re lighting up candles for a victory."
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--END Inline Ad-->"He checks. He's reading the defense. If something's not there, he's smart enough to dump it off to a running back. His offensive line gives him so much time to make plays. They're definitely not the same team."
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</IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>Gene Smith during his coaching days at Notre Dame. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--END Inline Ad-->"This will not be a welcome back, needless to say," said Weis, who will cram seven practices and numerous meetings into the next five days. "That will get the juices flowing."
