After Saturday night I noticed many people questioning - and rightly so - the direction our football team is headed in. I've also heard many people entertain thoughts of selling their tickets for Saturday's game against Michigan. Certainly the reasons for this are attractive. The first being the return on the investment. Let's just say you probably wouldn't be selling your ticket for less than you paid for it. The second reason is that some people have no desire to watch the same product on the field that was in Utah on Saturday. This is also understandable.
Saturday, we face an opponent that I can say confidently will be markedly better than Brigham Young University. That said, may I urge each and every student at this school to attend Saturday's game. First, you get 24 home games as a student. Cherish every one of them. This is time - no matter what the outcome - that will be spent with friends, family, alumni and can never be relived as a student. There are people all over the country, both alumni and the subway alumni who would give anything to be in your shoes. Secondly, Michigan-Notre Dame - regardless of the current standings - generates enormous national media coverage. No matter what happens on the field, we as students, have a reputation for creating the finest home field experience in the nation. Before I was a student here, I was in awe when I watched on TV as the Notre Dame student body clapped to drum cadences, sang the fight song until they were blue in the face and did countless pushups after a Notre Dame touchdown. The third and most important reason for attending Saturday's game deals with our opponent. I attended the game last year in Ann Arbor and experienced a culture that was so distasteful and so arrogant that I thanked my lucky stars for Notre Dame and the class we exhibit in both victory and defeat.
Whether we like it or not, Michigan fans will be here on Saturday, but we must do everything we can to keep them out of our house. The traditions we hold dear will be completely disregarded. We can't control what happens on the field, but we as students have an obligation to do our part. Our part is to show up, cheer loud, and support our classmates no matter what the outcome. So I urge all of you. Freshman this will be your first. Seniors this is the beginning of your final season. Give it everything you have, this is time you won't have back. And maybe, just maybe we can rekindle a little bit of the magic that drove the Four Horsemen, Knute Rockne and the 11 national championship teams that provide the foundation for the traditions we hold dear. Maybe, just maybe we can win this one. "Some time when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys - tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one ..."
Chris Tarnacki
sophomore
O'Neill
Sept. 6
