The Grotto at the University of Notre Dame. (Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame)
The earth was under your feet in the Notre Dame Fieldhouse. That is where the Football Team held its pep rallies. Rockne. Gipp. Leahy. I believe they were all there. (I am not going to do an internet search for information about the Fieldhouse or about the pep rallies or who else was there at any given time. I am going to write this on the strength of my recollections, that's all.)
The pep rally I remember most is probably the first one I attended at Notre Dame. Bob Olson was a featured speaker. Bob Olson was the Fightin' Irish team captain and an All-American middle linebacker. He was revered.
That pep rally took place in 1969. Bob would distinguish himself even more months later, in the Cotton Bowl in January, 1970. (I did a little digging, but not sustained research, if you know what I mean.) I was a Freshman in 1969 and Bob Olson, pep rallies, and the Fieldhouse were as yet unknown to me; I had to ask a fellow student who was speaking when Olson took the stage.
I vividly recall the earth under my feet, the students stamping their feet, and the dust that filled the air in the Fieldhouse during pep rallies for the Notre Dame Football Team.
In later years, the pep rallies moved to the air-conditioned Athletic and Convocation Center; I assume that they still take place there. That was the same place where the Basketball Team played on the wooden parquet floors. If there was a speck of dust on those floors, I imagine that someone would roll out one of those Zumba machines (or whatever you call them) and vacuum the whole floor to get it shiny.
I have a simple thought in writing this piece: Before every football game, the pep rally was held in the Fieldhouse for almost as long as Notre Dame fielded a football team that was recognized across the nation, and moving it to a beautiful new bauble of a building changed the character of the thing. It went at least a little way from real to artificial, at least a little bit along the road from substance to pretense.
When the last pep rally was held in the Fieldhouse, Notre Dame had a University President named Theodore Hesburgh who inspired the student body with his many accomplishments in service to the University and to our country, including his resignation from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in protest of the policies of a president named Nixon.
When the last pep rally so far was held in the ACC (or wherever), Notre Dame had a different kind of University President, one who was a featured guest at a White House party thrown for a former teacher at Notre Dame by a president named Trump.
The Fieldhouse was always suited to rallies for a football team. That was always enough. It still is.
Please read the disclaimer. ©2023 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
Comments