This past Thursday, Mr. Benjamin Testani wrote a column entitled ‘Why you are so whiny about your own school’ in which he whined about people saying that he whines in his columns. Naturally, when presented the opportunity to write a response column to another columnist’s response column to his responses on his columns, I felt that it was my responsibility to write this. Failing to do so would be a disservice to everything I’ve ever written before.

In this column, Ben talked about the fact that he has loved Notre Dame since he was a child, and was probably the “only kid in New York not to display the Derek Jeter side of a Sports Illustrated poster in favor of Brady Quinn.” I mean, this fact right here alone should let you know how poor his decision-making is. You’re going to take Brady Quinn, a future Cleveland Browns quarterback, over the man with the sixth most hits in baseball history? I mean Brady Quinn was a great ND quarterback, but that’s Derek Jeter man. If you grew up within 100 miles of New York and didn’t make your what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up “Derek Jeter” or “future Yankees SS,” then we probably wouldn’t be friends.*

This is not my first time writing a response column to Beñ, and so long as Bën continues to consistently be wrong, it will not be the last.

If you need more proof that Bøn is incorrect, just listen to this “The South Quad snowball fight at the end of every fall semester was a great surprise.” I lived in Dillon Hall and have been to this event multiple times, and, no, this was always a bad time. Or, to be clear, it was really fun for like five minutes, until the snow gets packed into ice-balls and some kid who was probably the captain of the baseball team in high school decides that he would like to relive his glory days by aiming for your head. Then all of a sudden you realize that you’re 200 feet from your dorm and that 45% of Notre Dame kids were captains of a sport in high school, and that the ones still outside at this point are out for blood.

That, and the fact that he talked about all the good things at Notre Dame and did not once mention NDH Southwest Salad. I’ve done some fun things in my four years, but I truly believe that the addition of SWS to NDH is the best thing that has happened to myself or campus in my entire time here.** (If you think it is overrated, I am sorry, I don’t like you.)

Finally, Ben argued that not understanding hall of the year was something that identified you as a Notre Dame outsider, and just, no. Hall of the Year is something that my dorm has won in my four years here, and something that I have written about before, and it is still a complete mystery to me. I understand who gets picked for it about as well as everyone in Slytherin understood losing House of Year every year because Dumbledore was really impressed how Harry Potter saved somebody without using magic once. Those Slytherin kids got robbed every single year.

But, I’ll be honest, there were parts of Båns column that I liked. Primarily, the fact that I could make this a third level response column was pretty great. If anyone wants to be a hero and write a response column to this response column, that would be even better.

But also, Observer columns are typically not all that positive. Usually, you talk about the school’s problems, and not the things that go well. While students may not show their love for the school in these columns, they do so in different ways. I would like to leave Mr. Testani with a list of things that Notre Dame kids do to show the school they care about it, so that he can continue to whine with a clean conscience.

1. Caring about the Camping World Bowl. If you did not watch this game alone because your family did not care, you did not do it right (or you’re an ND family).
2. Failing to miss a single southwest salad on a Thursday. Since it started, I have missed approximately two southwest salads on campus. I once almost showed up late for a final so that I could fit in during exam week.
3. Seniors who give their SYR/Formal the courtesy half an hour before going somewhere else.

And that’s it. That’s the list. That is all you need to show the school you care about it. I hope you have learned something ßen, and I look forward to correcting you in the future.

*I myself went with future ‘MLB Baseball player,’ which while it is not one of those two options, it does include the word baseball twice, so I think it counts.

**Some of the things I put in my columns are sarcastic, but this is something that I wholeheartedly believe.

Danny McMaster is a senior business analytics major, and has never once been wrong in his entire life. He can be reached at [email protected] or @DanMcMaster14 on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Tags: Brady Quinn, campus community, school appreciation, Southwest Salad