Luck of the Irish

I am a diehard fan of the Notre Dame football team.

And why wouldn’t I be.

Notre Dame is one of the largest Catholic universities in the country.

I grew up in a house with an Orthodox Jewish father and an Italian-Catholic mother.

Who converted to Judaism.

It makes perfect sense to me.

Ok, here’s the rest of the story.

As an nine-year old boy living in San Francisco, I was always the first one up every Sunday morning.

Of course I was.

Especially since Sunday was my only day to sleep in, between going to all-day Hebrew school during the week and kicking and screaming my way to synagogue on Saturday.

So like the good book says, Sunday was my day to rest -- in front of the television.

Since I was the first one up, I was always the first one to turn on the TV.

Now for those of you 30 and older, you might remember a day where the TV had less than 100 channels on it.

Well back in 1976, we had only three channels, maybe four.

And in those dark ages, we had to walk up to the TV and actually “turn” the channel if we wanted to turn the channel.

Imagine the therapy kids today would go through today if that was still the case.

Every Sunday morning during that fall, I would get up and my TV options were pretty simple:  

•   church show, church show, church show or...

...Notre Dame Replay.

Believe it or not, Lindsey Nelson beat Oral Roberts.

Every time.

Now by many accounts, Notre Dame Football is a religion.

But for me it was just a really good option so I didn’t have to watch one of the church shows.

No matter the reason, I quickly took a huge liking to the team.

And why not.

That year we went 9-3.

We.... ha.

The next year some guy named Montana led us to the National Championship.

Us.... 

Well, over the years my passion for Notre Dame football has grown.

At times, to an obsession.

And unfortunately for my 11-year old son, I have passed along this obsession to him.

Like a disease.

Lets just say the last few years it has not been fun being a Notre Dame fan.

But that’s what being a fan is all about.

And that’s why I spent WAY too much money taking my son to the Notre Dame-Army game at Yankee Stadium last Saturday night.

Come on, six months worth of car payments or two tickets to THE 50TH MEETING OF NOTRE DAME AND ARMY.

Ok, it wasn’t quite six months, but....

It has become somewhat of a family tradition for me to surprise the kids when I am doing something special for them... and me.

And that was the same for the game on Saturday.

I’m big on surprises.

I told my son that I couldn’t get tickets for the game.

Instead we were going to a Notre Dame bar right next to the stadium to watch the game on TV.

He seemed fine with that.

So we got decked out in our Notre Dame gear, boarded the #4 train and headed uptown.

When we arrived at the stadium, my son pulled out his phone and started taking pictures of the outside of the shrine.

He got a great shot of the Gate 6 sign.

After a few kodak moments, I said it was time to head to the bar to get a good seat.

I told him we needed tickets to get in.

So I handed him his.

It took him all of a milli-second to realize that the ticket was not for a bar, but it was actually for the game.

Hug #1 = ten car payments.

Hug #7 = everything in the world.

Eventually I had to stop the hugs so we didn’t miss the game, although I could’ve remained there all night.

We got into the stadium early enough so we could walk around the stadium.

And visit Monument Park in center field.

And talk about the history of the Yankees.

And grab plenty of food with no nutritional value.

And catch up on life.

And sing the national anthem.

And high 5... a lot.

Oh and there was a game too.

Notre Dame-27, Army-3.

Not that it mattered.

I was the real winner on Saturday night.