1) My family.

I am a third generation ND fan at age 63. I have two generations of ND fans after me.

(I made sure of that even living in Baton Rouge for 36 years.)

Everyone in my extended family from my paternal grandfather, to my Dad, to his 10 brothers/sisters, to my older brothers/sister, my many cousins, etc were all ND fans.

ND is the only game we watched in the Sixties.

If you didn't become a fan as a child, you risked being left on a hillside to die like a sickly Spartan baby.

(Think Rudy's family in the movie. Mine were all steelworkers and coal miners near Pittsburgh, so I could identify with the Ruettiger family)

Then, after you experience the campus, the stadium, the comebacks, the victories, the tradition and all, you are sold for life.

I have organized family trips to ND games where we traveled from multiple states, some 1,000 miles away.

Sometimes, we had up to 22 family members make the trip, not one an alumnus of ND.

We grew up viewing State U (Penn State) as the enemy and rooted against Pitt (35 miles away) and WVU (25 miles away).

I graduated from LSU Law School and root for the Tigers to lose every game in every sport.

My three kids graduated from LSU and root for ND and against LSU (you cannot be a fan of both)

We would drive 1,000 miles to South Bend for a game or 7 hours to San Antonio to watch ND football and baseball games, but would not go 8 miles to an LSU game.

It develops an "us vs. them" mindset, especially being an independent.

It doesn't lead to an easy acceptance of the idea of "conference brethren" when everyone is an adversary or potential one.



2) Irish-Catholic.

In my family's case, the Irish heritage was/is strong. My grandfather emigrated from Ireland, not several further generations removed.

I am a dual citizen. I hold Irish citizenship through my grandfather under the Irish Citizenship Act of 1956.

So, being of Irish descent and being Irish-American was and is a central tenet of my identity.

We enjoyed a small, private Catholic school with an Irish nickname beating all those non-Irish (or Irish) Protestants at those other schools.

It was a sense of great pride to us. It still is.

One of the joys of an ND victory is knowing how many ND haters that steams. It adds to the victory quite a bit.

This may come off as arrogant, but I don't think that ND will have many "down years" in the future.

Its "down years" were all self inflicted by horrible coaching hires.

Remember, four years after a national championship, ND hired a high school coach.

Then after Holtz got too big for the ND administration, they forced him out to de-emphasize football and hired three lousy coaches in a row.

They are not dumb. They will not do that again.

So, fear of "down years" doesn't factor in, as you claimed.

What I meant about "State U" and regional schedules is that we all grow up in "enemy territory" all of our lives.

I grew up in Pennsylvania hating Penn State and rooting against Pitt (even though I grew up a huge Pirates, Steelers and Penguins fan).

My 3 kids grew up in LSU country.

The peer pressure and feeling "outnumbered" is strong against staying an ND fan and hoping State U loses when surrounded by friends and neighbors who are the exact opposite.

I have been harassed by LSU fans just by wearing an ND t-shirt in public.

It would be the easiest thing to just go along, but ND fans choose not to do so.

That is what I meant. Why go through all of that hassle all your life just to become the fan of a team just like State U in a conference?















[Post edited by TerryD at 04/18/2021 11:42AM]