After I graduated from college, I was able to get back on campus regularly. I had younger friends and friends who went to graduate school and law school for six out of seven years after I graduated so I had a place to stay. Southwest flew from Islip to Midway and Coach USA had a bus from the airport to campus. All of that has changed. Now it’s such a hassle to get to Notre Dame. My friend Jon was in his last year of law school during the 2013 football season. Since then, I’ve been to two football games on campus (the last one was now nine years ago). I wish I could get there more often. I went last year during Easter vacation and I was planning on going to baseball and softball games and everything was rained out. I planned a trip there this winter for basketball and hockey, but the forecast was very questionable and I didn’t want to get stranded out there when I was supposed to fly back on a Sunday and go to work the next day so I canceled that. So I decided to go out during Easter vacation for a baseball game after my trip to Portland. Once again, the forecast was looking questionable, but this time the weather actually turned out to be fantastic.
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| Last year I took dreary pictures on campus. The pictures this year were not dreary. |
Pope Francis died the day after Easter and this brought back lots of memories. The last time a reigning pope died was the Saturday after Easter 20 years ago when I was a student at Notre Dame. I remember finding out about the death of St. John Paul the Great on ESPN.com. I went to the vigil Mass in the basilica and it was packed. He was the best pope of my lifetime and I think that probably won’t change even if I live for another five decades.
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| I remember the same bunting on the basilica after Pope John Paul II died 20 years ago. |
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| I didn’t get to Mass in the basilica, but I stopped inside. |
I had a ridiculously early flight from Portland to Atlanta and then from Atlanta to South Bend. I got to my hotel near St. Mary’s and then went to Fat Cap Smoked Meats for lunch. I had a pulled pork sandwich and beans. It was really good. Then I took a nap before heading over to campus for a baseball game.
My hotel was just northwest of campus and the baseball stadium is on the southeast corner of campus so I had to walk all across campus to get there. I took my time and made a couple of stops and got to the game just in time for the first pitch. We were playing Purdue Fort Wayne. We scored a run in the first, but then gave up three in the third. The game started at 5:30 and I was planning on leaving to see the second half of the Celtics-Magic playoff game. I love Notre Dame, but I don’t care that much about our baseball team. If it was a regular season game for the Celtics, then I probably would have stayed for the whole baseball game, but I didn’t want to miss an entire playoff game. So as the baseball game progressed, I decided I would leave after five innings. We scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 5-3 lead. So I got to see more than half the game, I enjoyed a hot dog, and I got to leave with Notre Dame leading (we went on to win 8-6). It was in the 70s and sunny so it was a good experience. There are a couple of ways that it could have been better. First of all, they should play on grass and dirt. There’s no excuse to play baseball on artificial turf when it’s outdoors. The last time I got to a Notre Dame sporting event on campus (my only other one since before the pandemic) was an inning of a baseball game when Jon got married three years ago. I noticed this time that they had changed the turf. There used to be a shamrock design in the outfield. That’s not there anymore. So turf is bad enough to begin with, but they made it even worse. The other thing that would have made it better would have been beer. I knew they wouldn’t have beer and I’m not really complaining. The crowds at the baseball games are pretty small (it’s free admission, but I guess they counted people because the box score listed the attendance for this game as 349) so whatever. It’s not like they’re going to have a good craft beer program there. But they did just announce that they’re going to have beer at football, basketball, and hockey games so that’s a long overdue development.
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| This was my view for the first pitch. |
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| I moved so that I was sitting in the shade after I got a hot dog. Notre Dame has the bases loaded in this picture. |
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| The good thing about staying northwest of campus was that I had to walk past the Grotto on the way to or from campus. |
I had an early afternoon flight the next day so I had some more time on campus in the morning. I wanted to go to Mass on campus in the basilica, but on weekdays the Masses are at 11:30 in the morning (too early on my first day and too late on my second day) and at 5:15 in the evening (conflicted with the baseball game). I had two other options on the day I was leaving. There’s Mass in the basement of the basilica at 6:45 in the morning. That’s what I was leaning towards at first, but after getting up at a ridiculous hour to go to the airport, I wanted a little more sleep. So I went with the other option, an 8:00 Mass in the chapel of Stinson-Remick Hall (a building that didn’t exist when I was there). That worked out very well because the celebrant was Fr. Bill Miscamble, my favorite professor at Notre Dame. He’s Australian so he has a great accent. I took US Foreign Policy and Australian History with him (I’m pretty sure I got an A and an A-). His Australian History class solidified my desire to go to Australia. I wanted him to be the president of Notre Dame, but he was probably too old to be considered by the time Fr. Jenkins retired (it should have been him instead of Fr. Jenkins when Fr. Malloy retired). I said hello to him after Mass and then walked around campus for a while. The last two times I was on campus, it was spring, but the weather was pretty rough. I got some pretty glorious weather both days that I was there. So it was a good trip out to Notre Dame. I hope I’ll get back later this year for a football game and some fantastic fall weather.
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| I stopped in this chapel my first day on campus so that I would know where it was. It was full for Mass the next morning. |
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| I hope I’m back to see Touchdown Jesus and lots of touchdowns this fall. |
The first time that we got a new pope during my lifetime was when I was a student at Notre Dame. The second time was during my first year teaching at my current school. A student told me that the pope resigned and I didn’t believe him. I checked the internet and of course he was right. I’m pretty sure Pope Francis was elected on a half day for parent teacher conferences after the kids had left. I went to the Big East Tournament that night and saw Notre Dame win (it was our last Big East Tournament, I will never stop longing for the days of Notre Dame being in the Big East). This time, the kids were in school when the pope got elected and they were pretty excited about it. It’s a couple months after this year’s Big East Tournament, but we got a Big East pope. How many popes have come from the Big 10 and SEC? When I heard the name Robert Prevost, I looked him up because it wasn’t somebody who was talked about as a likely choice. I was surprised that he was American and then I saw he went to Villanova. If I had to make two predictions about the pope, I would have said that he would not be an American (wrong) and that he would not choose the name Clement XV. Clement XIV was the pope who suppressed the Jesuits so nobody was going to take Clement XV right after a Jesuit pope.
Having an American pope is pretty exciting. I went to Popeyes (Pope Yes) to celebrate. It was my first time having their spicy chicken sandwich. I remember a few years ago there was a big Chick-Fil-A vs Popeyes debate. It’s been a while since I had the Chick-Fil-A spicy chicken sandwich, but the one from Popeyes was really good. There was lots of good stuff on the internet, like the video of Pope Leo XIV being introduced with the 1990s Chicago Bulls music being played. There was controversy over which baseball team he was a fan of (it turns out he was in attendance to see the White Sox in the World Series in 2005). Obviously he went to Villanova, but there’s a chance that he was a Notre Dame football fan growing up in Chicago. And I saw somebody speculate that he’s eaten more hot dogs than the previous 266 popes combined. That is probably true. And being from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV would definitely not put ketchup on a hot dog. I would be in favor of him proclaiming that putting ketchup on a hot dog is a sin.
At his first Mass as pope the next day, Pope Leo XIV started his homily in English. It was very weird to hear the pope speak English with an American accent. When I went to the Vatican last summer, I figured Pope Francis would be the only pope I ever saw in person. But I definitely want to see Pope Leo XIV in person. Four out of the last five popes have visited the United States (the one who didn’t was John Paul I and he was only pope for 33 days). So I expect Leo XIV to visit at some point. I would definitely try to go see him, but I imagine it might be tough to get to see him. If I can’t see him here, I wouldn’t rule out going back to Rome at some point. Of all the foreign cities that I’ve been to, I think Rome was my favorite. London and Sydney are right up there also, but I would go back to Rome before I would go back to London. Going to Sydney again would be awesome but Australia is just so far away. So Rome is the non-North American city that I’m most likely to revisit (the Blue Jays have renovated their stadium and Toronto is easy to get to so I might go back to Toronto at some point). St. John Paul the Great will always be my favorite pope during my lifetime, but Leo XIV is already solidly in second place. I hope he turns out to be a great pope as well.
