I took my first trip anywhere since the summer to Notre Dame for Jon and Halie’s wedding at the end of March. I was not totally sure this trip was happening until the night before. I had my doubts about being able to go, especially in January when the latest wave of the pandemic was peaking. After about 25 months, I took my first coronavirus test. We had to test negative on Friday and Saturday to attend the events. I didn’t want to get out there and then test positive so I took one on Thursday night and tested negative. That’s when I knew I was going. It was my first time back on campus since I was there for some outdoor hockey in 2019. I think the longest stretch I had without being back to campus before this one was two years between football games in 2014 and 2016.
I saw some friends for the first time in a long time. I hadn’t seen Jon since July 2019 in Syracuse. I hadn’t seen Kyle since October 2019 in the city. I thought it was March 2019, but as I was writing this I remembered getting dinner with Kyle at Clinton Hall. I remembered the Jets beat the Cowboys that day, but I didn’t remember what year it was so I looked it up. And I don’t know when the last time I saw Matt was. Unless he was at the Duke game in 2016 (I didn’t want to blog about that weekend), I think it was 2015 in Boston for the Shamrock Series at Fenway Park. I remember staying with Matt when I went out to Notre Dame for the Navy game in 2007. I didn’t see him again until the National Championship Game in 2013. Then I saw him a bunch for the next few years. There were two trips to Texas (for the Shamrock Series at Jerry World and a Rangers game at their old stadium), I think two trips to ND (I’m pretty sure we both stayed with Jon for the Navy game in 2013, but I didn’t blog about it, and we went to the Stanford game in 2014 together), and the Shamrock Series in Boston and then I didn’t see him again for a while (as far as I remember). I spent most of the weekend hanging out with Kyle and Matt so that was fun.
It started with meeting Kyle at the airport on Friday since we were on the same flights. Flying to South Bend is the way to go if it’s not a football weekend as long as it’s not significantly more expensive than flying to Chicago. If it’s a football weekend, flights are likely to be significantly more expensive and you’re probably not staying close to campus anyway. So our route was Laguardia to Chicago to South Bend and then we did the reverse on Sunday. Our flight to South Bend was delayed, but that worked out pretty well because it got us in right after Matt got there. It was cold and rainy when we got there. On the Monday before we got there, the high was 73°. On Friday, the high was 47°. We checked into the Embassy Suites and then hung out at the manager’s reception for a little bit. It stopped raining and the sun came out.
This was from Saturday, but I wanted it to be the first picture in this blog post.
I wanted to see the baseball team play since they were at home. They were hosting Virginia Tech for a three game series. At least it was supposed to be three games. The weather was looking questionable for all three games. They got the Friday game in, but the Saturday and Sunday games were both cancelled because of the weather. I didn’t need to see a whole game, but I wanted to get to at least one inning (I would have set my goal higher if the weather had been good) since it had been more than three years since I was at a Notre Dame sporting event on campus, the baseball team is good, and I didn’t really remember Frank Eck Stadium. I think the only game I ever went to there was when I was back on campus in 2009 to go to my first game at Wrigley Field and to go to the Blue-Gold Game. We went to see Golden Tate play baseball.
That’s Golden Tate at bat in 2009. Back then the field was natural grass and dirt.
I should have gone to games when I was a student because we were pretty good when I was there. We won the Big East in 2005 and 2006 and made it to the NCAA Tournament. We didn’t make it to the tournament again until 2015. And then last year, we made it to the tournament, advanced to the Super Regionals, and nearly beat the team that ended up winning the College World Series. I got to the game on Friday in the top of the eighth and we were ahead 5-4. We got out of a jam and then we got two runners on in the bottom of the eighth but couldn’t score. I didn’t stay for the ninth because I needed to get ready for the welcome reception that night. And the ninth went … not well. We ended up losing 10-5. Our season was off to a good start, but we were swept the previous weekend by Louisville. We had a non conference game scheduled that week against Northwestern, but it was cancelled because Northwestern didn’t have a bus driver (I’m not making that up), and then we lost the only game that we played against Virginia Tech. We won nine in a row after that, but now we’ve lost three in a row. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by Frank Eck Stadium. It felt closer to a minor league stadium and a high school field (I’ve been to two other college games since then where that wasn’t the case, I’ll get to those in an upcoming post). I would love to see the baseball team have some sustained success and upgrade the stadium. Much like the football stadium, they should go back to real grass. I didn’t see any food available, but supposedly there is a concession stand there. It’s quite possible that it was open earlier in the game, but then it was closed by the time I got there. It was the rare Lenten Meat Friday (for the Solemnity of the Annunciation) so I would have enjoyed a hot dog while watching the game.
Maybe next spring I’ll take a trip out there in April (perhaps as a stop on my way to a Major League game somewhere) and hope for better weather for a baseball game.
The welcome reception was in Corbett Family Hall, which is one of the buildings that was attached to the football stadium. It was a really cool setting with a good view of the field. This was the first time that Kyle, Matt, or I had met Halie. There were TVs going with the basketball games and we watched the end of St. Peter’s being Purdue. It was definitely a fun first night being back at Notre Dame.
I had to go outdoors to take this picture. It was really cold and windy. I wish they would get rid of Brian Kelly’s fake field and go back to grass. 
They’re lighting up Touchdown Jesus every weekend in blue and yellow every weekend until the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends. Hopefully they won’t still be lighting it up like that in 2034 or something.
After breakfast on Saturday morning, we walked around campus for a little bit. The weather was terrible. The high on Saturday was 35° and it was snowing. It wasn’t snowing hard, but it was windy and these little snowflakes would kind of hurt when they hit you in the face. The weather for late March at Notre Dame is pretty much a coin toss and we lost the coin toss. I didn’t mind the snow (campus looks nice with snow), but the wind was bad. Anyway, we checked out the bookstore and we were all pretty underwhelmed. They are in the process of changing the operator of the bookstore from Follett to Barnes and Noble and Fanatics so that might explain why it wasn’t impressive. At some point, Kyle and Matt went back to the hotel and I stayed on campus and stopped by the Grotto.
Usually I want to buy everything in the bookstore. This time, this shirt was the only thing I wanted to get (I didn’t buy it, but I wanted to). 
This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.
The wedding ceremony was in the basilica. I had been counting on Dennis and Courtney to get married on campus, but they got married in Minnesota (I’m not complaining, their wedding was a lot of fun and I enjoyed some excellent Minnesota beer). So this was the first wedding I went to on campus. After the ceremony, we had some time before the reception so we went to lunch at O’Rourke’s. Our service was pretty horrendous.
The reception was at the Armory in South Bend. Matt, Kyle, and I were at the St. Ed’s table with Kevin and his wife and Father Ralph (Father Ralph beat me to blogging about Jon and Halie’s wedding). There were two empty seats. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but I thought of them as Dennis and Courtney’s seats since they definitely would have been there if not for the fact that their daughter had just been born. Jon’s brother gave an excellent best man toast.
Kyle, me, Father Ralph, Jon, Kevin, and Matt
After the reception, we went back to St. Edward’s Hall. Fr. Ralph invited us over for a drink. He’s been the rector of St. Ed’s since my last semester. That seems like a really long time. I didn’t know Father Ralph well since I only had one semester with him, but it was good visiting with him. He was telling us how alcohol issues are down, but mental health issues are way up. He said that the kids seem much happier just staying in their rooms and not doing stuff. He took us on a tour of the dorm (there have definitely been some changes since we lived there) and it was really quiet for late on a Saturday night. I left St. Edward’s Hall in December 2006. I had friends living there until the spring of 2009. I definitely wouldn’t have expected to do any drinking in St. Ed’s after my friends all graduated. Then Jon was an assistant rector there in law school and I definitely enjoyed some beverages in his room in 2012 and 2013. And now, more than 15 years as I’ve graduated, I’ve probably had my last drink in St. Edward’s Hall. And that was the weekend. I would have gone to Mass on campus on Sunday, but Kyle and I had an early flight on Sunday morning. I ended up going to the 5:00 Mass back home.
I took this picture of St. Ed’s while I was walking around campus earlier in the day.
I’ll end this post with some football thoughts. Matt spotted new defensive coordinator Al Golden at the Embassy Suites. I didn’t notice him at first, but it definitely was Al Golden. He was having a drink at the bar. Matt also said that Jack Coan walked right by us. That weekend was pro day at Notre Dame. Perhaps Coan isn’t taking classes anymore and was just back on campus for pro day so maybe he was staying at the Embassy Suites. I’ve thought about getting back to a football game. My last football game was at Duke in 2019. I was supposed to go to the Virginia game at home that fall, but my flight got cancelled. So I haven’t been to a home football game since 2016 (the disastrous Duke game mentioned earlier). We’ll see about this season. A lot might depend on if any of my friends are going to games. If I go to a home game this fall, the possibilities are Cal in September, Stanford in October, or Clemson in November. Clemson will be expensive and it will be a night game in November. If Stanford ends up being a night game, I’d probably rule that one out. Stanford isn’t good, but our home schedule is pretty terrible other than Clemson so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a night game if we’re going to have two home night games. Cal isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s likely to be an afternoon game with good weather so it’s a possibility. We play at North Carolina in September. That’s a possibility for a road game. And we’re playing our Shamrock Series game in Las Vegas against BYU on October 8. I already got a hotel room. I don’t like Las Vegas, but there are a few reasons why I’d consider going to that game. Some of my friends might want to go. It’s early October so even if I miss a few playoff baseball games, hopefully the Dodgers will have a lot more playoff games after that. It’s Columbus Day weekend so I have an extra day to decompress before going back to school on Tuesday. And it’s just easier to get to Las Vegas from New York than it is to get to Notre Dame. Flights are easier and I got a hotel room less than two miles from the stadium. I’d put it at less than a 50% chance that I actually will go to Las Vegas for the game. I can cancel my hotel room and get refunded, but it was a cheap room close to the stadium so I figured I’d lock it in in case I do decide to go.
The other thing that Father Ralph told us was that he’ll talk to kids about why they chose Notre Dame and for a lot of them, it will be like they didn’t get into Harvard or wherever so they decided to come to Notre Dame. Kyle pointed out that if you don’t buy into what Notre Dame is all about, it seems like a pretty crazy place. While I agree with Kyle, that’s an interesting observation coming from the person who has become the biggest defender of Brian Kelly. Kelly did a good job. He was by far the best coach we’ve had since Lou Holtz. But he never understood Notre Dame. Marcus Freeman has been there for just over a year and he gets Notre Dame better than Kelly ever did. Marcus Freeman said, “Notre Dame will change you if you let it.” Brian Kelly’s attitude was “I will change Notre Dame as much as Jack Swarbrick will let me.” And Swarbrick let him change a lot, unfortunately. Kelly moved the pregame Mass from Saturday to Friday. Freeman is moving it back to Saturday. I hope Freeman will undo some other things that Kelly did. Freeman also works much harder in recruiting than Kelly did. Kelly has said a lot of weird/dumb things since he left and one of them was admitting that he didn’t want to put the effort into recruiting at Notre Dame. Kelly had reached his ceiling at Notre Dame. He was very good, but not great. He won a lot of games, but not enough big games (especially away from home). He was not winning a National Championship at Notre Dame. We have no idea what Freeman will be as a head coach. The floor is definitely lower than what it was for Kelly. But with Freeman’s recruiting and the way he embraces everything about Notre Dame, the ceiling is higher.
Bringing this back to Jon and Halie’s wedding, Halie has something in common with Marcus Freeman. They both went to Ohio State. And our first football game in the fall is against Ohio State. I hope Halie will embrace Notre Dame the way Marcus Freeman has and that Marcus Freeman will be Notre Dame’s first great coach since Lou Holtz. Go Irish!
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