Dear Students,
I am a 1994 graduate of Notre Dame and will be attending the ND v. Southern Cal game on October 17. I will be bringing three residents of South Carolina who are respectively graduates of UNC-Chapel Hill, Davidson and Univ. of South Carolina. Two have never seen a Notre Dame game in South Bend, one has and loved it. I am writing you to make a request.
You have now experienced several historic games but not a game that is historic before the first kickoff. My senior year Charlie Ward and the ESPN-dubbed "NFL team" that was FSU came to South Bend ranked number 1 and supposedly "unbeatable by such a slow and less talented ND team." It was the first time that College Game Day had traveled to be on any campus for a game. We beat them, the team and the fans, with heart, desire and noise.
As you gear up for the game understand that the tone you set now will be the atmosphere that will permeate the stadium at kickoff. Talk to those attending the game that are not students and get them just as pumped as you are and ready to yell themselves hoarse. Tell them about how special this team is this year. It is moments like this that make ND what it is to so many graduates. It is opportunities like this game that make great ND teams. This game is your chance at history. But before a team can be great, its fans have to be great. The fans must believe that their participation in the game is the difference between winning and losing, from the moment the opposing teams gets off the bus; especially if they are acting like bone heads and rocking the bus as it pulls in.
My request is simple: sell out, leave nothing in reserve, start making noise to disrupt the opposing offense on Friday and don't stop until you are comatose sometime late Saturday night. Make this game one for the ages by making the House that Rockne Built reverberate with the ghosts of legends past. It is the fans that cheer loud enough to wake up the echoes while the players march to victory. Make it so that alumni like me walk away from the game saying "Wow." Make my buddies walk away from the game in awe of the University of Notre Dame.
Go Irish! Beat the Trojans!!
Chris Kelly
alumnus
class of 1994
Oct. 4
