Notre Dame vs. Navy Is About Tradition, Friendship and Loyalty

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Notre Dame vs. Navy Is About Tradition, Friendship and Loyalty

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Athens, GA (Nov 3, 2007) - After spending the day today as a statistician for the Comcast broadcast of the #10 University of Georgia Bulldogs 44-34 ho-hum win over Troy, I wanted to get home as fast as I could to catch the end of the Navy-Notre Dame game. Why? Because the game was close and Navy had a chance to end a 43-game losing streak to the Irish. Granted, Notre Dame had only one win this season, but a victory would be sweet for the Midshipman.

And so it was. Navy (5-4) defeated Notre Dame (1-8), 46-44 in triple overtime, for the first time since the great Roger Staubach led the Middies to a victory in 1963. After the game, though, was what mattered most. The entire Notre Dame team and coaches stood with the Navy football team as they Navy song was sung. This is part of the utmost tradition and respect these two schools have for each other. It was this tradition that led to my writing this blog entry on October 15, 2004:

[q
url="http://www.controlscaddy.com/A55A69/bccaddyblog.nsf/plinks/CBYE-65T3V5"]Earlier this week I promised myself that I would write about Notre Dame playing against Navy this weekend. For all practical purposes, I was being pragmatic because Vanderbilt at Georgia should be a yawner (we will find that out tomorrow). I knew what I wanted to write about, but after reading this morning's USA Today article about the history of this game, one that is scheduled every year to the curiosity of many people, I know now that what I wanted to write is right on the mark. Yes, if Navy wins they will have an easy path to finishing the season 11-0, though a BCS bowl bid is not likely. Navy has lost 40 straight times to the Fighting Irish. The Irish need to win to salvage an up and down season so far. But if you read the USA Today article, you will find that this game is not about winning and losing. It is about tradition, friendship and loyalty.

Back in the Winter of 2002 while crisscrossing the country as part of a nationwide Lotus Notes/Domino rollout, I was scheduled to spend a couple of days in South Bend, Indiana, the home of Notre Dame. The city itself is not the brightest spot in the world, especially in the winter with an ice storm approaching. But I was excited. For years, Notre Dame football had a certain mystique for me. So as soon as I saw South Bend on my travel schedule, I emailed my nephew Stephen to set up dinner and a tour of the campus. A senior at Notre Dame that year, he ended up going to school there after I suggested he look at the school when he really wanted to go to Duke. It was his campus visit there that sealed the deal.

Stephen met me at the hotel and took me to what is reputedly the best burger joint in the country. But not before he gave me a warning that I better not order anything but a burger because that is all they served and the owner would yell at me if I tried to order anything else. After dinner we hit the campus. We parked the car and started to walk across the campus. It is flat as a board, like much of the Midwestern United States. But there was no mistaking where you were as you could feel the tradition and history as you walked. New buildings are built to look old. Old buildings are kept in shape. The center of campus was the setting of a spontaneous mass in the aftermath of 9/11, put together with clockwork efficiency. Walking by the football stadium, you could here the echoes of the past as you see that when the stadium was expanded not so long ago, they retained the original walls and built around it, creating walkways for the fans

But the most stunning place on the campus was not the football stadium or the "Touchdown Jesus" mosaic  on the library (which is remarkable in and of itself). It is the cave grotto alongside the lake. In the night,  the votive candles are lit in a grotto that includes stone from Lourdes, France. There are kneelers there  where students stop to pray. In all my years of Catholic education, I had never seen anything like it and probably never will again (unless my daughters listen to me and go to Notre Dame).

The Grotto at the University of Notre Dame.
Photograph by Joe Gallagher. Licensed under Creative Commons.

When Stephen dropped me off at the hotel I had left the campus, I still had that sense of awe and wonder and a better understanding of how and why tradition and loyalty means so much at Notre Dame. It is this core belief that Notre Dame shares with Navy that makes tomorrow's game special, no matter who wins.[/q]