Me, cheering my head off at a sporting event? If you had put my name and sports in the same sentence three months ago, you would have been met with blank stares of confusion and peals of laughter.
In high school, I went to a grand total of four football games, three basketball games (Lawrence North Wildcats, Indiana state champs for the last three years) and a handful of other sporting events. When I was forced to attend these events, I went, sat down in the stands, ate my hot dog and went home. It just wasn't my thing.
All that changed the minute I walked into the Notre Dame Stadium before the Penn State game. Since that fateful day, I have had every weekend completely consumed by Notre Dame football. I have adorned myself in beads, covered my face in tattoos of leprechauns, cheered until I lost my voice and allowed myself to be pushed up into the air 31 times. Notre Dame football, what else is there to say?
It has been the most awesome thing I have experienced. It is a four-hour roller coaster ride, sometimes ending in sadness, but mostly ending in complete excitement and, once, with a little dancing in Clarke Memorial Fountain. It has given me the most exciting and thrilling first semester of college that I could have ever hoped for.
It is not just football that I have completely fallen in love with, but sports in general. I have spent my afternoons at the soccer field, my Friday night in the JACC, cheering on the hockey team, and Monday nights supporting my roommate's awesome dodgeball team, Barbie and Friends.
I have given my Sundays to standing out in the cold, rooting on the Morrissey Manorites as they climbed their way to the head of the pack, and next Sunday you will see me at the Stadium cheering them on to victory in the men's Interhall football championship.
As my friends look at pictures of me covered in beads and tattoos, wearing my Tradition shirt with pride, their faces filled with confusion, I only tell them one thing, "It is Notre Dame ... what can I say."
