For my first Inside Column in over a year and a half, I would hate to make mine cliché and just reminisce about my college experience and how awesome football season is. Sorry. I read those and so will you.
Since I was in Spain last year and only had the opportunity to watch one Notre Dame football game total (thanks Lisa), I think I am easily more excited for Saturday than any year I have ever gone to Notre Dame football games. Which have been a lot.
I used to live in South Bend, and in grade school, my mom and dad would tote my two sisters and me to family tailgates every home game Saturday. From there they would force us to go around with our little box of candy bars to sell to all the over-served and overly enthusiastic ND fans.
This was the annual Candy Sale, the creative fundraising effort of my dear old Saint Joseph Grade School on Hill Street. Who could resist mediocre, overpriced candy from a sweet-faced kid in a school uniform? While I hated selling the candy and probably decided at that point on I would never be a marketing major, I did love the excitement of football Saturday and deep down vowed to never leave it completely.
High school rolled around and those Saturdays did not change, but now I was ditching my parents and rolling into tailgates with my friends after biking from our Wayne Street houses. After sipping Diet Cokes for a few hours with family and friends we would bike back and resume everyday life.
Notre Dame to me then was then still my comfortable background playground, but the prospect of actually belonging there did not really cross my mind. I thought of Notre Dame as a place for overachieving, out-of-state kids. I crossed it off my list.
And then, after a cross-country move and a change of heart, came freshman year. Suddenly I felt just like I did as a third grader, when everything was big, intimidating and exciting. As the games went on the novelty of it all faded only a little, and then suddenly I was gone and only hearing about football game three days after the fact, from people’s Facebook stati or from my frustrated dad.
To be back here again this year brings me back to those SJGS days. Everything to me now is big and foreign again. The novelty is back, but with the privilege of sitting in the senior section.
Keep the novelty alive. Study abroad and buy candy from a grade school kid. Go Irish.
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