R E D C L A D L O O N
Winging It, Vol. 5
It is widely believed by all the influential types in this country, such as
NBC, the major East Coast media outlets, Regis Philbin, etc., that Notre Dame
football is bigger than just about everything, including the Beatles. And
they were bigger than Jesus, so you do the math. Even though this year's team is not exactly the Irish of yesteryear, tickets
for Saturday's game in South Bend have still been violently difficult to
acquire. The only people who have been able to get them are either (1) loaded
rotten stinking rich or (2) connected with godlike beings like Pope John Paul
No. 2, or Bill Byrne. Suffice it to say I won't be in South Bend this weekend. But I'm not bitter. In fact, I hope all the Big Red fans who are making the
trip have a great time, despite the fact that they are spoiled, rotten,
overprivileged little ... ahem. Sorry. As I was saying, I do know that the
whole Notre Dame experience can be a bit overwhelming, and visits to the land
of the Fighting Irish can leave befuddled visitors with several burning
questions ("Hey -- isn't 'Notre Dame' a FRENCH word?") after everything is
said and done. But stick to these five very useful tips, and your time at
Notre Dame will be a much more enriching and rewarding encounter. VERY USEFUL TIP NO. 1:
But that's OK! Come game day, all that ND hokum will translate into an
on-field advantage for the Cornhuskers. For once, Nebraska is facing a
nemesis whose fans are even MORE religiously occupied with their team than we
Red Clad Loons are. This means that Domer backers put even more pressure on
their 18-, 19- and 20-year-old kids than Nebraska backers put on theirs. By
my estimation, this should force at least 1.2 extra Notre Dame fumbles this
coming Saturday. VERY USEFUL TIP NO. 2:
With their overblown TV deals, self-important alumni and cantankerous
leprechauns, the Fighting Irish have enjoyed decades upon decades of
pampering from the national media. But oddly enough, Irish fans still view
themselves as the same besieged minority as they were during the Great Potato
Famine over in the Old Country, when the Irish were running from starvation
and an oppressive British government. This act, of course, is more worn out than the Jenny McCarthy issue of
Playboy at Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary. Still, on Saturday the Big
Red might as well be those bloody old Redcoats, as far as Irish fans are
concerned. And don't think that they've forgotten the fact that Nixon carried
the state of Nebraska back in the '60 presidential election, either. VERY USEFUL TIP NO. 3:
Even some Husker fans I know have Domer paraphernalia, which is a very
disturbing trend in my red-clad book. When I was a kid you were taught, on
threat of eternal damnation, to wear your team's colors through thick and
thin, whether they wore red and white stripes or purple and yellow
polka-dots. But in mallrat-infested 21st-century America -- the age of sports
marketing run amok and Nike uniform designers on mescaline -- the thought of
living and dying with one's childhood idols is old-fashioned, particularly if
they don't have spiffy looking unies with silver or gold in them. So choose
your conversations wisely ... there are a lot of posers out there. VERY USEFUL TIP NO. 4:
VERY USEFUL TIP NO. 5:
From what I could gather, "Rudy" had one returning theme: Golly gee, if a guy
tries hard enough, even a small-town, whiny, talent-free scamp can suit up
for Notre Dame. If he knows the right people, such as that bald guy who
played "Roc" on TV, that lovable rascal can even wear a mothball-infested No.
45 jersey and make a garbage-time tackle against Georgia Tech! And if he
REALLY knows the right people, soon superbooster Kimberly Dunbar will be
providing this non-scholarship player with some much-needed financial aid.
Wink! Wink! *** Well, I hope this little tutorial has helped. And while it may not help the
Huskers win their second game over the Irish in as many tries (this just in:
Johnny Rodgers has just scored AGAIN for the Cornhuskers), it should help you
obtain some golden memories from lovely South Bend. Drive safely. ==STEVE==
DOME AND DOMER
9/6/00
STAY MODEST.
The sooner you realize that, in terms of sheer hokey traditions and football
mythos, that Notre Dame is superior to Nebraska, the better. Sure, NU has
some spiffy distractions -- the Blackshirts thing, the sellout streak and,
more recently, the McTunnel Walk Music. But in terms of pure history and
tradition, Notre Dame features the complete rah-rah combo plate: iconography,
ethnography, choreography, a Ronald Reagan movie. Let's face it, UNL's
Oldfather Hall is pretty snazzy, but it really doesn't measure up to the
stuff Notre Dame has adjacent to ITS stadium, like the Golden Dome and
Touchdown Jesus.
FORGET THE 'US vs. THE WORLD' STUFF.
Often, Nebraska pulls the We're-A-Small-State-So-Nobody-Respects-Us routine
to get jacked up for a big game. And sometimes, like against Colorado in '94,
it even works. But this week NU will battle a school that has elevated the
Poor Us Ploy into an art form.
DON'T ASSUME A THING.
By car, the drive from Lincoln, Neb., to South Bend, Ind., is approximately 7
bathroom breaks long. In the towns along the way, you'll most likely
encounter a plethora of inhabitants wearing Notre Dame paraphernalia and be
tempted to approach them and engage in some friendly pre-game banter. Aha! Be
careful! A darn good lot of them have no rooting interest in the Irish
whatsoever -- they're simply wearing the blue and gold of Notre Dame because
it's the fashionable thing to do now that Dame is 1-0.
AVOID DOWNTOWN SOUTH BEND.
Whereas downtown Lincoln has Theater Row, the Nebraska Bookstore and a
festive array of pubs and shops that create a flavor-filled Huskerville on
home football Saturdays, the downtown of South Bend, Indiana, is rivaled only
by the downtown of ... well, South Bend, Nebraska. The area around campus is
made up of deceased businesses, divey beer halls, decrepit flop houses and
junk-food establishments. It all adds up to one common opinion among visitors
-- this is one really underwhelming town. It's an odd sort of place for God
Almighty to select as the center of the college football universe, really,
sort of like an unexciting Hastings. My advice is to head straight to the
game.
DON'T BOTHER RENTING 'RUDY'.
Notre Dame fans have raved about this film for years, claiming it's what
Irish football is (and I am quoting here) "all about." So I picked up a copy.
After watching, I am confident in saying the only thing a reasonable person
really needs to know about "Rudy" is (A) it is about two hours long and (B)
it has Ned Beatty in it. Toward the end, Ned calls Notre Dame Stadium "the
most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen." Of course, the last time we
saw Ned he was in "Superman II," where he played a prisoner who worked in the
prison laundry room. So this really is not saying a whole heck of a lot.
Red. White. Loon. Show your true colors in THE POND,
Home of Nebraska's RED CLAD LOON.
http://www.redcladloon.com