Small world

That was the first ND game I ever attended as well. I was 10 years old. We lived in Ann Arbor, where my father (A ND undergraduate alumnus) and his family settled after attending UM Med School. Being a young doctor, my father was on call almost every weekend, meaning we could never take a trip to ND for a football game. My father often talked about how wonderful ND was, but since I had never been there, it might as well have been in a foreign country. My only experience with college football was attending numerous UM games. God help me, but until that September weekend in 1982, I was first and foremost a Michigan fan.

So that weekend, my Dad and uncle took me to that ND-Michigan night game. The spirit on the ND campus, despite the Faust malaise that was setting in, so vastly surpassed the feeling on the UM campus for any of its games, even an Ohio State game. It was then and there I became an ND fan for life and resolved to attend ND. I feel sorry that today's students haven't been able to witness that type of sustained spirit between the students and football team. ND is still a wonderful place, but it has been less than it can be over the last decade.