I have generally found if I behave alright, people around

me at an away game enjoy having a conversation about Notre Dame and the game at hand. At Michigan State in 1990 I scalped tickets that turned out to be right in the middle of the Michigan State alumni area. My wife and I walked to our seats with sweatshirts saying "Irish" on them and got some friendly ribbing from the locals. Upon reaching my seat, I turned to the people behind us and held my arms above my head proclaiming "Notre Dame, Champions of the Big 10"...Holtz had won his last 10 games or so against the Big 10 so the people around me laughed a bit and sort of agreed. The assembled Spartans got a bit testy as the Irish rallied for a win in the last minute, but no real problems whatsoever.

At Purdue in 1979 during my senior year, I was walking around the Purdue campus before the game with around 7 fellow students when a similar sized group of Purdue students approached us and starting giving us a hard time. One of the smaller guys in our group was around 5'9" and 150 pounds but was a lefty Bengal Bouts champ in his weight class. He walked up to the biggest one of the Boilermaker loudmouths, asked the guy what the problem was and punched him in the jaw dropping the bigger guy to one knee. Cooler heads then prevailed and everybody went about their business though the Irish lost later that afternoon to Mark Hermann and Purdue.