Strong Of Heart: Profiles Of Notre Dame Athletics 2010 by Chris Masters

Strong of Heart PROFILES OF NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS / 2010

PRODUCED BY

THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT EDITED BY

JOHN HEISLER

Contents 08 Tim Abromaitis

48 Ted Robinson

72 Laurie Wenger

B Y C R A I G C H VA L

B Y D A N M C G R AT H

B Y T im B O U R R E T

B Y J O H N W A LT E R S

He hits the daily double in combining athletics and academics at Notre Dame

She knows what sacrifice is all about

Once a WSND DJ, now NBC Sports’ tennis expert

“Play Like A Champion Today” — a simple phrase became big business

12 Steve Boda B Y M A R K F I T Z PAT R I C K

The ultimate Notre Dame football historian

16 Paul & Linda Demo B Y S o n ia G e r n e s

Parents of Irish softball player deal with tragedy in memorializing their daughter

20 Kevin Dugan B Y M ark L a F ra n c e

Sport and service combine to produce hit program in Africa

24 Pat Garrity B Y D e n n is B r o w n

From the NBA to an MBA

28 Danielle Green 32 Teddy Hodges

52 Adam Sargent

BY Al LESAR

B Y D I C K WE I S S

Heart of a champion

Former Irish lacrosse standout still contributing to Notre Dame programs

36 Joe Montana B Y D a n M c G rath

It’s hard to be anonymous when your name is Joe Montana

40 Skylard Owens B Y K e rr y T e mpl e

He’s come a long way, baby

44 Joe Piane B Y J o h n H e isl e r

The dean of Notre Dame head coaches has seen a million changes through the years

56 John Scully B Y J o h n H e isl e r

“Here Come the Irish” is his baby

60 Jen Sharron B Y B ill D w y r e

Ex-Irish softballer knows show business

64 Nicholas Sparks B Y J O H N W A LT E R S

From Irish track and field runner to best-selling author

76 Monty Williams B Y T im F ra n k

You know Phil Jackson and Doc Rivers, and now you know Monty Williams, too

80 Mariel Zagunis B Y M I L E S VA N C E

What would your life be like if you’d won two Olympic gold medals?

84 Jimmy Zannino BY MIKE COLLINS

Rudy without a helmet

88 Acknowledgments

68 Chris Stewart B Y M att H EW V. S t o ri n

He lays down the law on and off the field

In Memoriam

he University of Notre Dame lost two members of its 2010 football family with the passing of Matt James and Declan Sullivan. From Cincinnati, Ohio, Matt James would have enrolled at the University in August 2010 and been a freshman offensive lineman on the football roster. From Long Grove, Ill., Declan Sullivan was a junior at the University and a videographer for the Notre Dame football program. Strong of Heart: Profiles of Notre Dame Athletics 2010 is dedicated to their memories. Portions of the proceeds from this project will be donated to the Matt James Scholarship Fund and the Declan Drumm Sullivan Memorial Fund.

Introduction

t Notre Dame Athletics we have countless measures of progress.

We track earned-run averages, lap times, shooting percentages, yards per carry, grade-point averages and a host of other statistics that help evaluate performance. And, of course, we pay special attention to the broader measures of progress — degrees earned and championships won. But, at this place, this remarkable University that is dedicated to balancing equal commitments to the intellect and the soul, our ultimate measure of success is very different. It is the impact that we have on the lives of the young men and women who participate in athletics at the University of Notre Dame. Student-athletes who choose to come here are making a decision to challenge themselves at the highest level. They could go places where the demands on them as students might be fewer or where they would not be competing at the highest levels of intercollegiate athletics. And, certainly, they could go places that would demand much less in terms of personal accountability. But, they choose to come here because of, not in spite of, those challenges. They come to Notre Dame because they embrace the goal of growing intellectually, athletically and spiritually. It is not surprising then that, when I talk with seniors as they approach the conclusion of their time with us or with recent graduates as they reflect back on their experiences, the one phrase I hear more often than any other is: “I can’t believe how much I changed during my four years at Notre Dame.” That, not any narrow statistical measure of performance, is our ultimate measure of success.

Foreword

This book is intended, in some small way, to be a chronicle — to be a measure, if you will — of that growth. It offers stories that represent the way this University and its athletics program impact the lives of people. These are the stories of student-athletes, former student-athletes and individuals who contribute to the environment that allows student-athletes to flourish. Their stories offer testimony to the power of intercollegiate athletics to impact lives at the University of Notre Dame. The book’s title is borrowed from the lyrics of the “Notre Dame Victory March,” a line that in its entirety is, “We will fight in every game, strong of heart and true to her name.” Strong of heart and true to Notre Dame — that, as well as any description we might offer, describes the common characteristic of the 20 people profiled here. We hope you enjoy learning more about them and, through them, learn something more about the University of Notre Dame.

— Jack Swarbrick di r e c t or of at h l e t ic s u n i v e r s i t y of no t r e da m e

leven of them are former University of Notre Dame student-athletes.

A few of those went on to play professionally. A number did not, but excelled in other fields. Several of their stories are simply remarkable. Three of them are current Irish student-athletes.

Two are current or former athletics department employees. One is a set of parents who dealt with tragedy. One is a current Notre Dame head coach. Another a Notre Dame graduate who rose to the top of his field in sports broadcasting. One a South Bend product with a particular connection to Notre Dame sports. Some — like Joe Montana, Pat Garrity, Monty Williams, Mariel Zagunis — are names you likely recognize. Others you won’t. When Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick envisioned this annual book of profiles of people connected to Irish athletics, these are the sorts of stories he pictured. Some may make you laugh. Some may make you cry. Some may make you shake your head. Some of their stories will amaze you — based on their faith, their personal strength, their professional commitment, their singular academic and /or athletic prowess. If one of these doesn’t prompt at least a slight tug on the strings of your heart, then we haven’t done our job. As we considered the list of potential tales to tell, we looked for something out of the ordinary. We didn’t want to write feature stories on the best student-athletes on the current Irish teams. That would have been too easy — and you can probably find plenty of those elsewhere. We wanted something more compelling than that. We wanted to create an annual publication that conveys the emotion and power of the collegiate athletic experience. We wanted stories about the people who make Notre Dame athletics special. We wanted stories about personal triumph and sacrifice — each with its share of strong emotional content.

The authors of these pieces are a disparate group. Some are well-known sports journalists. They work for publications from the New York Daily News to the Los Angeles Times. A number are Notre Dame graduates. Some work for Web sites. Some are professors. Some work right here at Notre Dame. All are among the very best in their fields at crafting the written word. The photos you see on these pages are simple — and not by accident. The portraits are designed to tie together these 20 different stories. Most are the work of Matt Cashore, a 1994 Notre Dame graduate who now serves as the University’s official photographer. He shoots nearly every event at the University, and he’s been plying his trade at athletics events for us for years. We like his work; we think you will, too. We are convinced these 20 profiles will give you a better sense of what athletics at Notre Dame represents — whether you are a regular at Irish sports events or someone who has never set foot on campus. As noted earlier, this is the first of what we expect to be an annual production. A year from now, as 2011 closes, we plan to bring you another 20 portraits of people who have some connection to Notre Dame’s athletics program. As social media blossom and Web sites spring up seemingly everywhere, there are those who have predicted the end of (quality) print publications. We respectfully disagree. We think Strong of Heart: Profiles of Notre Dame Athletics 2010 proves otherwise. We hope you concur.

— John Heisler s e n ior a s s o c i at e at h l e t ic s di r e c t or u n i v e r s i t y of no t r e da m e

Tim Abromaitis He hits the daily double in combining

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athletics and academics at Notre Dame

ecades ago, before the Notre Dame basketball team was playing in the Purcell Pavilion, before the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center was even built, even before the longsince demolished Notre Dame Fieldhouse was erected, the University of Notre Dame made a name for itself by doing what others said couldn’t be done. It wasn’t just that Notre Dame’s basketball program was an underdog in the days before the Irish won Helms Foundation national championships in 1927 and 1936; the entire University’s identity and tradition was steeped in the role of the underdog. When the original administration building burned to the ground in April 1879, University founder Rev. Edward F. Sorin, C.S.C., boldly announced that a new and bigger replacement would be built; the current familiar landmark opened in time for the fall semester that same year. Of course, Notre Dame’s iconic football program carved out its unique place in sporting lore by knocking off the giants of the college football world in the first quarter of the 20th century. Indeed, Notre Dame became the world-renowned institution it is today because men and women figured out a way to accomplish things that nobody else thought possible. These days, Notre Dame is a marquee name. Whether world-class faculty and educational facilities, a first-of-its-kind contract with NBC Sports to broadcast every Notre Dame home football game for more than two decades, and championship-caliber teams in over two dozen sports, with state-of-the-art arenas and stadia to match, Notre Dame is rarely thought of as an underdog in the 21st century. So, perhaps, Tim Abromaitis is a throwback. Electing to accept a scholarship to play basketball at Notre Dame after weighing offers from Northwestern, Penn and William and Mary, Abromaitis saw just 40 minutes of playing time for Notre Dame as a freshman in 2007-08. That’s not what people usually mean when they refer to a “one-and-done” player in college basketball. When practice started the following October, Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey, mindful of a deep group of junior and senior forwards on his roster, asked the 6-foot-8 Abromaitis to consider sitting out the 2008-09 season. That would mean Abromaitis would completely forgo playing time that season, while preserving a season of eligibility for the future.

In making the case for taking the season off as the ’08-’09 opener approached, Brey told his young player, “If we played tonight, maybe you’d play seven minutes.” Those are hardly the kind of words a young competitor wants to hear. But Abromaitis sought the counsel of his mother Debra, his father Jim, who played at the University of Connecticut and in the NBA, and his brother Jason, who played varsity basketball at Yale. A few days later, Abromaitis told Brey that he would go along with the plan. There were 602 days between March 22, 2008, when Abromaitis played one minute in Notre Dame’s NCAA tournament loss to Washington State, and Nov. 14, 2009, when Abromaitis was the first man off the bench for the Irish in their season-opening victory over North Florida. A lesser man might have simply bided his time, marking off the days until he could inherit the playing time owned by the older players. Pragmatism may have led some student-athletes to devote themselves exclusively to studies, seeking more immediate victories than basketball would now provide. Abromaitis used every one of those days to prepare for his junior year, on and off the court — and what a year it was. In March 2010, he was named honorable mention all-BIG EAST after averaging 18.2 points per game, sixth best in the BIG EAST during conference play. In May 2010, he was awarded his bachelor’s degree in finance and also was recognized as the BIG EAST’s Men’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year on the strength of his 3.8 grade-point average. Abromaitis’ seemingly sudden emergence as one of the best players in one of the most competitive basketball conferences in the country likely came as a surprise to most casual basketball fans. “My parents and brother weren’t surprised, and my teammates and coaches weren’t surprised, but just about everybody else was,” says Abromaitis. But casual fans weren’t the only skeptics. Abromaitis had more than a few doubters while making his college choice. “It took an awful lot of guts for him to decide to go and play at Notre Dame,” says Jason Abromaitis, “when there were a lot of people that were telling him that he wasn’t that kind of player.” Of course, given Tim Abromaitis’ makeup, those skeptics were all but assuring his success with the Irish. “In a word, losing,” says Jason when asked what makes his younger brother tick. “We used to play everything in our front yard, and I was of the mindset that I would never let him beat me. “I didn’t just want to beat him, but I didn’t want to let him score. Of course, that’s come back to haunt me now,” he says, chuckling. Jim and Debra Abromaitis and both of their sons — in three separate conversations — all volunteer a story involving a hockey stick. “We were playing something and Tim got mad and started chasing me with a hockey stock,” relates Jason. “My father was just standing there, watching, laughing and thinking to himself, ‘Let’s see how this will end.’” Tim did catch Jason and got in a few harmless body blows with the stick. “We got rid of the hockey stick shortly thereafter,” reports Debra. That competitiveness isn’t limited to the basketball court. Instilling a desire on the part of their sons to compete academically was no accident on the part of Jim and Debra. “It’s more a credit to our parents,” says Jason, who earned his degree from Yale and is now a managerial consultant. “The boys looked at athletics the same as academics,” says Jim. “What do I need to do to be the best?” Already mindful that Jason, who is four years older than Tim, was in rarefied academic air, Debra recalls Tim’s mindset as he prepared to take a grade-school spelling test. “He turned to me and asked, ‘What did Jason get on this test?’” Debra remembers. “He just wanted to be sure that he did at least as well as Jason did.”

Abromaitis’ seemingly sudden emergence as one of the best players in one of the most competitive basketball conferences in the country likely came as a surprise to most casual basketball fans. At Notre Dame, where seven Academic All-American men’s basketball players preceded him, Tim nonetheless has distinguished himself even among such scholar-athletes. None before him graduated in three years and embarked upon the rigorous accelerated master’s of business administration program in which Abromaitis is currently enrolled. He never considered a more pedestrian academic path, even when Brey wondered whether Abromaitis might have been biting off more than he could chew. “This summer when it was getting pretty grueling I got him in my office and said, ‘I need to ask you something — is this too much for you? Because if it is, we’ll bag this right now,’” recalls Brey, who may as well have been waving a red flag in front of a bull. Abromaitis’ response to Brey’s concern was firm, but typically low-key —“No coach, I’ll be all right.” “And he’s handled it great. He’s amazingly competitive and he’s fearless,” says Brey, echoing the theme sounded by Jason. “When he is stuck or challenged, he always finds a way,” says Jim. Along with fearlessness and competitiveness, there is another quality in Tim Abromaitis that is impossible to miss — humility. Listening to his parents, it’s equally impossible to miss the source of that humility. As Jim and Debra speak with unmistakable pride about their two sons, they share credit with many others — including extended family, teachers, guidance counselors, youth sports coaches, neighbors, older teammates at Notre Dame, and Brey and his coaching staff. That humility has allowed Abromaitis to become even more than an incredibly rare academic and athletic superstar. Starting with his brother, he learned how to compete as hard as possible, and then leave the competition on the court or in the classroom. “As much as we fought, as competitive as we were, I remember my uncle telling us that he knew we were going to be close,” recalls Jason. “It sounded weird at the time, but he was right.” “My brother is my best friend,” says Tim. “He’s the smartest guy I know and we are competitive in everything.” And maybe because Abromaitis knows what it’s like to have people tell him he’s not good enough, he’s learned to be an encouragement to others. He does so quietly and without fanfare, as anyone who knows him would expect. He provides friendship and inspiration to a high school classmate struggling with special needs and helps a college roommate forge ahead after a promising athletic career was ended by a devastating high school injury that also resulted in permanent disability. Tim Abromaitis, who seemingly thrives on being told he can’t do something, makes a point of urging those less fortunate that they can succeed.

Steve Boda The ultimate Notre Dame football historian B Y M ark F itzpatrick

humble, split-level home on a quiet street in suburban Kansas City seems an unlikely site for a treasure chest of Notre Dame football history. But if you are looking for details of any Fighting Irish game since their debut in 1887, a small office on the second level of Steve Boda’s house has more information than anywhere west of, east of or maybe even in South Bend. Boda spent 40 years with the NCAA statistics bureau and its predecessor — the National Collegiate Athletic Bureau (NCAB) — before retiring in 1989. Juanita, his wife of 50 years, passed away almost a decade ago, but Boda remains in his Shawnee, Kan., home with his favorite companion, a butterscotch-colored cat named Duffy. Now 86, Boda has authored and contributed to numerous books and records publications, including three editions of the Ronald Encyclopedia of Football. He compiled the first NCAA Football Record Book in conjunction with the sport’s centennial celebration in 1969, and updated it annually for the next 20 years. More than a statistician, Boda is a historian, responsible for much of the information about the early days of the game. In three editions of the NCAA’s Football’s Finest, he helped recognize college football’s early stars, whose feats pre-dated the standardization of statistics. “Before 1937 there were no national guidelines for football statistics,” recalls Boda. “It was then that Homer Cooke devised a system of statistics, which was officially adopted by the Football Rules Committee in 1940.” Despite his unassuming demeanor, Boda’s work has not gone unrecognized. He has received two awards from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), one in 1983 for Meritorious Service and another in 1990 — the prestigious Arch Ward Award presented annually for outstanding contributions to the field of college sports information. In 1965 he was honored by Notre Dame with a plaque saluting “his many years of untiring, unselfish, painstaking and dedicated research and compilation of the countless number of Notre Dame football records. His contributions to Notre Dame football … must be considered the most earnest and significant historical documentation of any collegiate football team in the land.” Even in retirement, he continues his research of college football, particularly related to Notre Dame, as he meticulously recreates play charts and statistical sheets from games long ago. His office is lined with cabinets that overflow with hanging files, each one with news accounts and data for a

specific Notre Dame game, starting with its inaugural contest—an 8-0 loss to Michigan in 1887. Because of his work, the University has two sets of football statistics—one from 1917 through 1936 and the other from 1937 through the present day. Why 1917? “It represents the first year in which at least one play-by-play account is available for every game, and coincidentally it is George Gipp’s first season. He holds or shares 78 game, season and career statistical highs for the 1917-36 period.” Because of Boda’s research, players of that era are still recognized for their accomplishments, even though the numbers may be dwarfed by the high-octane offenses of the modern game. According to John Heisler, senior associate athletics director for broadcast and media relations, Boda “may have more historical records about Notre Dame football than we do.” Heisler tells the story of former sports information director Roger Valdiserri printing Boda’s home phone number backwards on the first page of the media guides from 1976 through 1979. “It looked like some random number,” says Heisler. “But we wanted to have it handy in case we had to call him in the middle of a game to ask a question.” And sometimes they did, although Boda modestly says it “was only once or twice a year.” Any college football fan would find Boda an engaging conversationalist, with a memory that bridges the decades. His quiet dedication has enhanced the knowledge and enjoyment of the game for generations of fans. His work has allowed comparisons of teams and players from different eras. Without him, it is fair to say that many sportswriters would be left with unfinished stories, and bar patrons with unsettled arguments. But it is his affinity for the Irish that makes Boda’s story so interesting. He sums it up in one short, powerful sentence. “Notre Dame saved my life.” A strong statement, but his personal history supports its authenticity. Boda is a consummate member of America’s “Greatest Generation,” and his life could serve as inspiration for a Charles Dickens novel in a 20th century setting. Born in 1924 in South Bend’s St. Joseph Hospital (where Gipp died four years earlier), Boda was the oldest of five children. His father, of Austrian-Hungarian descent, cared little for American football. At age 6, Boda grew interested in the game from hearing his friends talk about Notre Dame and coach Knute Rockne, and he pestered his father to take him to a game. “I had never seen a game before that day. It was the opener of the new stadium—Oct. 4, 1930, and Notre Dame beat SMU, 20-14.” For whatever reason, Boda took a pad of paper along and began charting plays. The exercise came naturally, and he had set himself on a path that would determine a career. His father took him to more games, and he would follow others on the radio—all the time charting statistics. His favorite player was Nick Lukats, a halfback in the early 1930s, who later served as a technical advisor for the film Knute Rockne: All-American. In 1933 tragedy struck the family when his mother died of complications from a goiter. Unable to care for five young children and financially support the family during the Depression, Boda’s father took them to the Indiana Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s Home in Knightstown, about 40 miles east of Indianapolis. Though their father occasionally would visit, the children became wards of the state. “There were about 600 kids in the orphanage, a state institution,” remembers Boda, who was 9 when he entered. “My siblings and I were separated into different buildings according to our age group. We didn’t get to see each other a lot.” Boda says they were well fed, clothed and educated in the orphanage, but it was “a sad place.” It was here that Notre Dame football sustained him. On Saturdays in the fall, when other residents were playing outside, Boda listened to the Irish games on an Indianapolis radio station and kept the statistics. 14

His work has allowed comparisons of teams and players from different eras. Without him, it is fair to say that many sportswriters would be left with unfinished stories, and bar patrons with unsettled arguments. “The only thing that I could hold on to from South Bend was Notre Dame. There was only one radio in the building, and every now and then the resident bully wanted to hear the hit songs and made me change the channel. But I still managed to follow the games. I learned much later that bully became a millionaire insurance executive.” By age 12, Boda convinced the high school coach to let him keep stats. A few years later, while working at a South Bend high school game, he attracted the attention of a tall visitor to the press box. “He told me he had never seen anyone chart a game like I did. It turned out to be Joe Petritz, sports information director at Notre Dame. He asked me to join his statistics crew for its next game against USC.” Unable to find a job after graduation, Boda in 1942 entered night school, where he learned the tool and die trade and then went to work at Bendix Aviation. Living again with his father, he worked all the overtime he could, and with their combined incomes they were able to demonstrate their ability to support the other four children and have them released from the Children’s Home. He served in Europe during World War II as a member of the infantry, and then returned to attend college at Indiana University under the G.I. Bill. He graduated in 1949 with a degree in English literature, and with a recommendation from Petritz he was hired by Cooke in the NCAB’s New York office. At that time the Official Football Guide had only one page of records, a far cry from the comprehensive guides Boda later compiled. The NCAB was partially supported by the NCAA, which took full control of the bureau in 1959 and moved it, along with Boda, to the Kansas City area in 1975. Boda’s trove includes more than 150 films of Irish games, some from the 1930s and ’40s. He has at least one newspaper account, and in some cases as many as 10, for every Notre Dame game played from 1887 through 1995, and has since used the Internet to assemble information. Among the most intriguing of his collectibles is a game program, dated Nov. 23, 1963, featuring Notre Dame at Iowa. “President Kennedy was assassinated the previous day. The game was cancelled and never played.” Boda is unpretentious and reserved, but he takes understandable pride in his career and what Notre Dame has meant to him. “After what I went through growing up, I have had such a good life. I got to do exactly what I wanted to do. Notre Dame was the reason why.” Boda has made plans in his will to bequeath his copious files to Notre Dame. “From whence it came,” he says, “although they might have to pay for a U-Haul.”

Paul & Linda Demo Parents of Irish softball player deal

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with tragedy in memorializing their daughter

ven for the Windy City, the swirling currents of air in Chicago were extreme on March 2, 2002, Linda Demo remembers. It was the day tragedy fell from the sky. Linda, her daughter Melissa Cook (a 1994 Notre Dame graduate), her niece Jill Nelson, and Jill’s mother were in high spirits despite the storm. The four had just completed a shopping expedition and were in the car headed to Melissa’s 30th birthday party where a hundred friends were waiting to celebrate. At the corner of Michigan and Chestnut, Melissa, who was driving, paused and waved a pedestrian across the street in front of the car. “Her last act was one of kindness” Linda says, “and it cost her life.” In the next instant, a massive piece of scaffolding tore from the John Hancock Center, whipped around the corner in the wind and landed on the car, killing both young women and injuring their mothers. That last act of kindness was typical of Melissa, Linda Demo, says. “She was everyone’s best friend.” Even as a girl, Melissa would help any friend who was in trouble, financially or otherwise. During high school, she regularly cut the grass for one of her elderly teachers and, as a young accountant, she gave a dollar every day to a homeless man who waited for her largesse on her route to work. At Lyons Hall, Melissa’s Notre Dame dorm, so many young women claimed her as their best friend that her dorm-mates used to call her “Besty.” Those best friends, along with other members of the Notre Dame community, gathered around in the agonized days after Melissa’s death. Her Notre Dame friends in Chicago “circled the wagons and took care of us,” Paul Demo, Melissa’s stepfather, says. With Linda hospitalized briefly following the accident, the Domers did whatever needed to be done, including cleaning out Melissa’s apartment. “It was like we got a bunch of new children,” Linda says. The first Mother’s Day after the accident was “amazing,” with cards and gifts arriving “from coast to coast.” Christmas was the same, Linda says. “They never forgot a holiday!” In the ensuing months, 10 of Melissa’s “best friends” from Lyons Hall planted a tree there in her honor. But once the immediate tragedy is past, how does one cope with the loss of an only child? Linda and Paul Demo use words like “dark” and “silent” to describe the days following Melissa’s burial. On a particularly dark day, a month or two after the event, the two found the strength to go to a cousin’s house and offer to put their three children through college. This generosity marked the

beginning of a pattern: by looking at Melissa’s life, her values and the things that enriched her, the Demos found a way to memorialize their daughter by enriching other young lives. Melissa’s time on earth was “jam-packed with everything you could do in 30 years,” Linda Demo, says. A bright, spirited child, Melissa grew up in Merrillville, Ind., and showed an early aptitude for both sports and the math that would lead her to a career in accountancy. In high school, Melissa was captain of not one but three sports: volleyball, softball and basketball. She quit the volleyball team in protest, however, when the coach would not allow her to also play Powder Puff football, a cause that represented for her the importance of women’s sports. Melissa’s first choice for college was Notre Dame, and a softball scholarship ensured that she would continue to play at third base and as catcher. Melissa led the team in triples as a freshman, and found herself filling in as catcher for the conference tournament, helping the team bring home a victory. Adventure called Melissa in her junior year, and she joined a group of 25 students heading to Fremantle in western Australia for Notre Dame’s brand new study-abroad program. Upon graduation a year and half later, Melissa was hired by a Chicago accounting firm that specialized in unions and frequently assigned her work with the Teamsters. Once there, Melissa proved so valuable to the Teamsters Union Local 786 that a position as comptroller of union benefits was created for her, a position she held until the time of her death. Following the accident in 2002, a lawsuit was inevitable, Paul Demo says; 10 people had been hurt or killed by the massive debris, including the pedestrian Melissa had waved across the street. This woman suffered a breakdown after she turned and saw young lives snuffed out while hers had been spared, and Linda Demo encouraged her to become part of the legal action. The Demos chose another member of the Notre Dame family, Thomas Demetrio (a ’69 graduate), to represent them, and as the trial approached, the Demos’ first concern was that the truth be told about the equipment and decisions that had resulted in their only child’s death. Once a settlement was reached with the owners of the skyscraper and other companies in 2006, the Demos’ prime concern was that the money be used to improve other young lives in a way that would preserve Melissa’s memory. “We never thought of this as our money,” the Demos say. “This is Melissa’s money; it’s sacred money.” And that money would result in two major initiatives. In July of 2006, Notre Dame announced a $3 million dollar gift from Paul and Linda Demo for the construction of the Melissa Cook Stadium. The brick softball stadium would feature locker rooms for home and visiting teams, heated dugouts, training rooms, office space and advanced technology in field drainage and lighting. Why a softball stadium? “Because we wanted to keep her spirit alive,” Linda Demo says, and participating in sports had been an integral part of that spirit. “She was passionate about women’s athletics,” Linda continues, and women’s teams in the early 1990s didn’t have the kind of locker rooms and changing areas that were available to the men. The Demos wanted to fund a facility that would give women equal access to equipment and amenities. The groundbreaking for the stadium coincided with celebration of the 35th anniversary of women at Notre Dame, and Linda was asked to speak at the celebratory luncheon. She remembers that former Notre Dame President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., was seated next to the podium and gave her a “thumbs up” when she stood to speak and a big hug after she finished. “You met Melissa,” Linda whispered to him. “She came to see you once.” “Yes, Linda,” he said, “I know.” Father Hesburgh subsequently said Mass and had dinner with the Demos, and Linda later went to him for spiritual advice. “He’s been a rock,” she says. The stadium, which bears Melissa’s name, was completed and opened for the Fighting Irish softball season of 2008. Reflecting on the importance of her college years in Melissa’s life, the Demos chose to use another portion of the settlement to fund the Melissa Cook Foundation, which each year seeks to lift one or two students out of the cycle of poverty that Linda Demo observed in her years as a teacher in northwest Indiana.

The Demos are convinced that campus life, as well as classroom instruction, is part of an education that is transformative. They remember that Melissa so enjoyed the totality of her Notre Dame experience that she frequently invited a friend who had commuted to her college classes to come visit and share campus life. “People in poor neighborhoods acted as if there was a fence around their neighborhood that they couldn’t climb,” she explains, and the Foundation aims to provide the necessary ladder. The Demos are convinced that campus life, as well as classroom instruction, is part of an education that is transformative. They remember that Melissa so enjoyed the totality of her Notre Dame experience that she frequently invited a friend who had commuted to her college classes to come visit and share campus life. Therefore, the Foundation scholarships include not just tuition, but also room and board, so that the students can live full time on an Indiana campus. In addition to the Demos and one of Melissa’s cousins, the board of the Foundation includes four of Melissa’s 1994 Notre Dame classmates: Julie McMahon, Lynne Hartzler, Kelly Dee and Andrea Callanen. The motto of the Melissa Cook Foundation expresses the way that Paul and Linda Demo believe their daughter lived: “Every little kindness counts.”

Kevin Dugan Sport and service combine to

B Y M ark L a F ra n c e

produce hit program in Africa

t’s been a whirlwind year for Kevin Dugan. Hired in January 2010 as the University of Notre Dame’s director of men’s lacrosse operations, the New Jersey native — less than six months later — found himself joining the Irish team in a Memorial Day berth in the NCAA lacrosse title game in Baltimore. Two days later, the Irish squad left for a 10-day tour of Japan. You might argue that Notre Dame’s 2010 NCAA success arguably ranked at the head of the list of his professional accomplishments. But, it was yet another trip, this one later that same summer to Uganda, that really jumps out for the 2001 Notre Dame graduate. Founder of Fields of Growth International, the 31-year-old Dugan has spent a significant portion of his adult life traveling to third-world countries, using lacrosse and football as teaching tools to foster friendships and deliver life skills education to children all over the world. As the conversation shifts to his humanitarian work, the soft-spoken Dugan starts to light up, speaking passionately about service in a way that could get even the most mild-mannered individual fired up about improving lives and inciting change. For Dugan, who begins scrolling through photos from his journeys, each image conjures up a unique anecdote or a special memory. A photo of one of his favorite children puts a grin on Dugan’s face, while another picture of a large group leads to a somber story about a family ridden with disease. No matter the tale, however, it is evident that Dugan’s best memories come from the trip he took last summer — a two-week journey with a fellow Notre Dame graduate — that made an incredible impact on his life. It was a mission of sorts, undertaken in a way that embodied what it means to be a Notre Dame graduate. United under a common message of action and a common mission of athletic ministry, Dugan and his partner, former Notre Dame and NFL Arizona Cardinals tight end Oscar McBride, took an unforgettable journey to the African country of Uganda this past August. Armed with a projector and a PowerPoint presentation, Dugan and McBride (he’s a 1994 Notre Dame graduate) developed a lecture centered around Notre Dame’s popular “Play Like A Champion Today” message that they would share with children at all the stops on their trip. At the conclusion of

each presentation, they would then apply the core values in the lecture to sports and use flag football as the primary method of teaching the concept of athletics ministry to the youth of Uganda. “It was just a ton of fun — and it was really encouraging to see how much the churches, parishes and communities appreciated it, because it’s ministry in a way that’s exciting for kids,” Dugan said. “It’s delivering the Catholic ministry and values through athletics and that became a really powerful platform that we were able to use.” With such an organized and persuasive teaching initiative, it may come as a shock to some that Dugan recruited McBride only a month or so before embarking on the trip to Africa. The two Monogram winners returned to Notre Dame in June to attend a conference sponsored by Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education. The organization sponsors the “Play Like A Champion Today” Educational Series, which aims to help youth and high school sports programs reflect gospel values and promote the moral and character development of young athletes. Dugan spoke about Fields of Growth International at the conference and McBride, like most who listen to Dugan describe his missions, was moved to volunteer immediately. The two individuals met up a few days later, and developed a curriculum that adapted the basic teachings of the “Play Like A Champion Today” message to reflect the unique dangers and societal concerns that children in Uganda face. “The ‘Play Like A Champion Today’ program is not just about winning and being a champion, but also about being a champion in life,” McBride said. “So what we did, given the fact that Uganda is so stricken with HIV, AIDS and poverty, was to use the message to minister in the cardinal virtues — good decision-making, abstinence and the value of continuing your education.” A month later, Dugan and McBride landed in Uganda and set off on their mission. They spent most of their time speaking with children in the Masaka district of the country, in the village of Kkindu — but they also traveled to a Holy Cross parish in Bugembe, Jinja, where they ministered to youth at three primary schools supported by Holy Cross Missions. The children were extremely attentive and receptive to the lessons, but what they and their American mentors enjoyed most about their interactions were the flag football games. The children learned the rules of American football easily enough, as rugby is very popular throughout East Africa. However, Dugan quickly found out that Ugandan football developed into a much different game than its American counterpart. “It was like lining up with 10 Rocket Ismails out on the field,” Dugan joked. “Every game was a total offensive shootout, and we had a really tough time playing defense. Oscar and I were just airing it out to these kids because they were super fast and had really good hands. Everyone wanted to be a wide receiver.” The children would often return re-energized after the football games, eager to learn more from the two Monogram winners. One of the most important concepts Dugan hoped to develop with the Ugandan youth was the need to respect women in all aspects of life. McBride and Dugan would often gather the boys and girls in the classroom or church hall and tell the boys to look around the room at their female counterparts, helping them realize that one day, many of them would become their wives in the village. “Women are always the most marginalized people in third-world communities,” Dugan said. “So trying to create something as a platform to build self-esteem and self-confidence in the young women is critical.” Dugan’s organization sent two women over this summer to work with young girls in the villages of Uganda. Kerry Hamill, a junior on the Yale University women’s lacrosse team, and Mara Trionfero, a drug and alcohol counselor at Notre Dame, spent their entire summers working with young girls through sport, music and education. “Seeing bright and confident women that are educated and independent was an incredible source of hope and encouragement to the young girls in the village,” Dugan said. 22

McBride and Dugan would often gather the boys and girls in the classroom or church hall and tell the boys to look around the room at their female counterparts, helping them realize that one day, many of them would become their wives in the village.

Dugan has also empowered several women’s groups in the country to begin weaving mats with the “Play Like A Champion Today” message on them. These mats are being sold in the United States, with the proceeds being sent back to Uganda to help support the women. Whether Dugan and McBride were playing quarterback with a group of Ugandan youth or spending time with the women of each village, the Notre Dame alumni were always grateful of the support they received from Church officials and priests living in the area. While in Jinja, Dugan and McBride lived in the Holy Cross community home, eating meals and partaking in Masses with priests and deacons of the faith. In addition, Holy Cross seminarians would help translate their lectures into the local language, and many of the schools they visited were of the Holy Cross affiliation. For two Notre Dame graduates, this direct affiliation with their faith and their alma mater was a truly fulfilling experience. Now, looking back on the trip, Dugan is eager to return to Uganda with McBride to continue raising awareness in youth about abstinence, disease and the need to become respectful, motivated adults. Dugan continues to work in the country because the poverty and suffering affecting such optimistic and special children remains fresh in his mind. Dugan has developed a phrase that he and McBride stand by: “Once you know, you can’t not know.” Through his work with Fields of Growth International, Dugan already has helped build eight homes and two athletic fields to positively influence the people he’s met in southwest Uganda. Ground has been broken on a new athletic field in the Masaka region as well, so the children that he and McBride mentored on the trip will be able to play flag football, lacrosse and soccer, and practice the lessons learned from the two Notre Dame alumni for the foreseeable future. Dugan will always be thankful to Notre Dame for giving him an education and strengthening his faith. Continuing to work in Uganda provides him with a way to share his knowledge and experiences with those in need, a direct affirmation of his Christian values and spirituality. He knows the importance of bringing those lessons learned back to his day job, to teach the concept of faith-based service to the next generation of Notre Dame student-athletes. And, with the way his message of hope and equality resonates soundly with all those around him, you can bet that Dugan won’t have a problem getting that concept to sink in. “When you’re sharing the things that bring you the most joy, you’re doing exactly what God created you to do,” Dugan tells his student-athletes. “And there’s no better feeling in the world than that.”

Pat Garrity From the NBA to an MBA B Y D ENN I S B R OWN

fter a stellar four-year career at Notre Dame and eight years in the NBA, Pat Garrity began to think about life after basketball. He had seen plenty of players in the league retire and either drift aimlessly or become involved in business ventures about which they had no experience or understanding. “I didn’t want to be one of those guys,” he said. In addition to earning second-team All-America honors on the court for the Irish, Garrity also was a star in the classroom as a two-time Academic All-American and the Academic All-American of the Year for men’s basketball in 1998. But his biology and pre-med major wasn’t exactly suited to his interests a decade later. So Garrity began to investigate the idea of going from the NBA to an MBA — enrolling after retirement in a master’s of business administration program. “There were two things that led me in that direction,” he said. “I thought getting an MBA would be a structured way to explore other things that I like, and to gain some technical skills — accounting, finance — that I never picked up while majoring in science at Notre Dame. I also thought an MBA would show that I was serious about what I was going to do next.” Born in Las Vegas in 1976, Garrity comes from an Air Force family. His father was a football player at the Air Force Academy and went on to a career in air traffic control in the military. The family settled in Monument, Colo., about 20 miles north of Colorado Springs on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, when Pat was in the fourth grade. His dad worked at the academy and Pat grew up playing football, basketball and baseball and cheering for the Falcons. “I actually liked football the most, but I was tall and really skinny,” Garrity said. “I couldn’t keep any weight on. After my freshman year in high school, I grew from around 6-foot to 6-6, but I don’t think I gained any weight, so I was taller and still lanky.” That’s when he began taking basketball more seriously. “I won some awards my sophomore year and played on an AAU team,” he said. “I started to have a goal of going to college and playing Division I basketball.” As the leading scorer on one of the top teams in the state, Garrity received initial interest from the University of Colorado and Colorado State. “I wasn’t real heavily recruited, at that point,” he remembers.

At an AAU tournament in Las Vegas in the spring of Garrity’s sophomore year, Notre Dame assistant coach Fran McCaffrey — now the head coach at Iowa — saw him play for the first time. “He asked me to send him some tapes, so I spliced some videotape together and sent it to him,” Garrity said. “He kept in touch during my junior year and invited me to make an unofficial visit to Notre Dame for the Blue-Gold football game in the spring of 1993.” With guard Brooks Boyer — now vice president and chief marketing officer of the Chicago White Sox — as his host, Garrity came away with positive feelings about the University. “I really liked the school and the guys on the team,” he said, “but it seemed that the program was in a state of flux with a number of guys transferring.” For that reason, Garrity kept his options open as a senior in high school and made visits to Missouri, Penn State and Stanford. “I had an amazing visit to Stanford the week before I was supposed to visit Notre Dame,” Garrity said. “At that point, I had my heart set on going to Stanford and was ready to cancel my visit to Notre Dame. But my dad convinced me to go ahead and make the visit. “What I ended up finding out on the visit was that the people at Notre Dame were more like me. That, and the fact that I would have a chance to play sooner at Notre Dame than at Stanford, changed my mind.” Garrity signed with Irish coach John MacLeod and came to South Bend in the fall of 1994, still tall and lanky — about 6-9 and 210 pounds. As evidenced by Stanford and Notre Dame being his top choices, the academic component of college life was, as he put it, “actually more important to me than basketball.” Garrity was a biology major his first three years, then shifted to pre-med, or what Notre Dame calls preprofessional studies, in the College of Science. His focus at the time was more on medical research rather than becoming a physician. But then his basketball career blossomed. “Toward the end of my sophomore year I began thinking that I could make some money playing basketball, either overseas or in the NBA,” he said. “I figured that even in a worst-case scenario I could play for a few years in Europe.” His junior year at Notre Dame changed that, putting him squarely on the radar of NBA coaches and general managers. In the 1996-97 season, Garrity averaged 21.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game for the Irish and was selected the BIG EAST Conference player of the year. He continued to impress during the summer between his junior and senior years, leading the United States team in scoring with 11.8 points per game in a fifth-place finish at the Under-22 World Championships in Australia. In addition to Garrity’s selection as player of the year, MacLeod was named BIG EAST coach of the year in ’97. Their presence, plus a strong finish at the end of the season, made for plenty of optimism going into 1997-98. It didn’t work out that way, however. Though Garrity improved his scoring average to 23.2 points per game and earned second-team All-America honors, the Irish fell to 13-14 on the season. “It seemed like we were ready to take a step forward,” he said, “but it just didn’t happen. We even took a step back. I still regret that we never made it to the NCAA Tournament. It was frustrating. It was nice getting individual recognition, but as a team we never did anything. We were a .500 basketball team. It just stunk losing.” In the 1998 NBA draft, Garrity was the 19th player selected, going to the Milwaukee Bucks, who immediately traded him and Dirk Nowitzki to the Dallas Mavericks for power forward Robert Traylor. The Mavs then sent Garrity and two others players and a first-round draft pick to the Phoenix Suns for guard Steve Nash. The 1998-99 NBA season was, in Pat’s words, “a terrible year to be a rookie.” Labor strife between the league and players led to a truncated 50-game season. “My development was really stymied,” he said. “I did get to play a lot toward the end of the year,

Garrity was a biology major his first three years, then shifted to pre-med, or what Notre Dame calls preprofessional studies, in the College of Science. His focus at the time was more on medical research rather than becoming a physician. But then his basketball career blossomed. though, and was able to develop some then. Going into my second season, I thought I would fight for and get a lot of minutes. But then I was traded to Orlando.” The Suns sent Garrity, veteran forward Danny Manning and two future draft picks to the Magic for guard Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway. “Orlando was completely revamping its lineup,” Garrity recalls. “They made an absurd number of transactions in the off-season and cut a lot of salary. But we ended up 41-41 and just missed making the playoffs. That was actually one of my most rewarding years.” Garrity went on to make substantial contributions to the Magic over the next several years, developing into an outstanding threepoint shooter and averaging between eight and 11 points per game. He missed most of 2003-04 due to a knee injury, but continued to play well in a back-up role over the next four years. Off the court, he served from 2000 to 2008 on the executive committee of the NBA Players Association as secretary and treasurer. At the end of the 2007-08 season, he came to a crossroads. “My contract was up and I wasn’t playing very much and didn’t like that,” he said. “I started thinking about what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to move my family (wife, Paula, and 5-year-old son Henry), and so I decided I had played 10 years and was ready to call it a career. It all worked out well for me.” He then put the MBA plans he had been contemplating for a couple of years into action, enrolling in Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. “I was looking for a really good school that was fairly close to Orlando,” he said. “Plus, the students at Duke are similar to those at Notre Dame.” He will finish his degree this spring with a concentration in investment finance and then move the family to Westport, Conn., to work with a hedge-fund firm that he worked for last summer. Given his achievements on the court and in the classroom, it would seem likely that Garrity’s past performance is a good indicator of future success.

Danielle Green She knows what sacrifice is all about B Y D a n M c G rath

he word “hero” is tossed around so casually in sports that its true meaning is inevitably diminished. Like much of sport itself, “hero” derives from the ancient Greeks. Webster’s defines a hero as “a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for brave deeds and noble qualities.” A game-winning hit, a last-minute touchdown or a buzzer-beating shot might well qualify as a brave deed under the right circumstances, embodying, perhaps, the noble qualities of the athlete responsible. “Hero” thus becomes a convenient label, easily understood. Yet it is so commonly used, so automatically applied, that it becomes an inadequate measure of the real deal. A real hero. A Danielle Green-Byrd. Green, 33, is a former Notre Dame basketball standout who lost her lower left arm and hand when she was wounded by a rocket-propelled enemy grenade while serving with the U.S. Army in the Iraq war in May 2004. Pity, though, is wasted energy. As she rebuilds her own life, she is putting her experience to work as a readjustment counselor for the Department of Veterans Affairs, helping fellow service vets cope with the physical and psychological trauma they have encountered on the battlefield. “I’m probably too new at this to say whether it’s a calling,” Green says during a break from a symposium on coping mechanisms she was attending at a suburban Chicago hotel. “But I’m finding some comfort in what I’m doing—it feels like the type of work I should be doing at this time in my life. I can relate to what these guys have been through. Hopefully, they see that in me.” Green read and heard of her on-court “heroics” while she was tearing up the Chicago Public League as a 5-foot-8 guard at Roosevelt High School, a high-scoring, left-handed dynamo. But she never paid much attention, lest her focus waver from her lifelong goal of earning a degree from Notre Dame, with basketball as the facilitator. “I used to watch the football games on television all the time,” Green recalls. “Notre Dame just seemed like a special place. I felt like I belonged there.” It was an unlikely destination for a disadvantaged teen who lived with her grandmother and practically raised herself on the meanest streets of Chicago’s South Side, the daughter of a distracted single mother who struggled with substance abuse. Green’s voice turns quiet and her strikingly lively eyes soften a bit as she remembers that girl, who may have been neglected but was hardly helpless. If Green was deprived of material things and

maternal nurturing as she grew up, she was blessed with a relentlessly strong will and a desperate determination to set goals and achieve them, her bridge from then to now. “I think the resiliency I learned growing up helps me deal with where I am now and in my work,” Green says. “I saw my mother self-destruct, and I wanted to break that cycle. A Notre Dame education was a way to do that.” Green entered an overwhelmingly white, Catholic, privileged world when she enrolled at Notre Dame. For a wary youngster hardened by the Chicago streets, it was not the easiest transition. “It was a welcoming place for the most part,” Green says, “but there was some self-doubt. I wondered if I was good enough.” Not for the basketball team, but for the Notre Dame environment. “Every other kid on the team had a mom and a dad,” Green says. “I felt like an oddball at times.” Dr. Mickey Franco, a sports psychologist, helped Green overcome her feelings of alienation—she has borrowed some of his methods in dealing with her own clients’ issues. Eventually, her toughness, drive and versatility won over coach Muffet McGraw, and Green became a productive contributor for the Irish, averaging 9.5 points and 4.5 rebounds for her career, which stretched over five years because of a ruptured Achilles tendon that cost Green her sophomore season. “Coach McGraw was very patient with me—I wasn’t the easiest kid to coach,” Green says. “I was moody, very stoic. Looking back, I wish I would have let myself have more fun playing. My approach was all business, like a job, and the product was winning games.” Green graduated with a degree in psychology in 1999. She moved back to Chicago and taught in grammar school, helped coach the Washington High School girls’ team, and took some graduate-level education courses, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing from her life, that one of her goals remained unfulfilled. “I always wanted to serve my country,” she says quietly. “That’s why I joined the Army.” Green had been involved in the ROTC program at Roosevelt and, with her Notre Dame degree, she was a natural for Officer Candidates School. But she chose to enter the service as an enlisted person in 2003. “I didn’t feel qualified to lead troops in war,” she says. “If I was going to be an officer, I wanted to work my up through the ranks. I felt the people under me would respect me and trust me more if I did it like that.” Green was attached to the 571st Military Police Company, which deployed to Iraq in January 2004, shortly after her marriage to Willie Byrd, a longtime teacher and coach in Chicago public schools. On a scorching hot May 25, Green’s unit came under enemy fire while guarding an Iraqi police station about five miles outside Baghdad’s International Zone. Green neither saw nor heard the rocket-propelled grenade that crashed into the wall behind her post on the building’s roof, close enough to tear off her left arm just below the elbow when it exploded. She suffered severe wounds to her upper left arm and left thigh as well. “If it had hit me directly, I wouldn’t be here,” she says quietly. “But it was close enough to do some damage. When I came to I had this terrible ringing in my ears, but I knew I wasn’t dead. And I could feel my legs, so I figured I wasn’t paralyzed. But I couldn’t really move, and the pain was terrible, unlike anything I had ever felt.” As Green’s comrades were preparing her evacuation, a sergeant returned to the roof to retrieve her wedding and engagement rings from her severed hand. He put them on her right hand just before she was placed aboard a helicopter and flown to a military hospital. Green smiles at the memory. “I didn’t want my husband to be paying for rings I wouldn’t be wearing,” she says. Green was evacuated to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, then transferred to Walter Reed Army Hospital for eight months of treatment and occupational therapy. She felt blessed to encounter some familiar faces in Germany, Notre Dame friends Dave and Eileen Woods, who happened to be there visiting their son Tim, an Air Force surgeon stationed at Landstuhl. They were a calming,

“I think the resiliency I learned growing up helps me deal with where I am now and in my work. I saw my mother self-destruct, and I wanted to break that cycle. A Notre Dame education was a way to do that.” —Danielle Green-Byrd reassuring presence as Green dealt with the reality of what had happened to her. “Mr. and Mrs. Woods were visiting their son, who was one of the doctors treating me,” Green recalls. “They were from South Bend, and I used to see them all the time—they were involved with Notre Dame through the Fast Break Club. They came to see me as soon as they heard I was there. They called my husband, they called Coach McGraw … what a blessing to have them there to help me. Notre Dame is everywhere.” Four months after arriving at Walter Reed, Green joined a group of fellow vets for the five-mile Hope and Possibility Run through New York City’s Central Park. The process of resuming a “normal” life was well under way when she left the service on Dec. 7, 2004. Returning to Chicago, she completed her master’s degree in counseling and worked in sports administration for Chicago Public Schools and at Malcolm X Community College, a natural career path given her background and interests. Helping anxious high school kids with class schedules and college choices wasn’t particularly easy, but it was important work Green felt comfortable doing. Helping 60-something Vietnam-era veterans deal with post-traumatic stress disorder and other war-related damage is more challenging, more heartbreaking … and ultimately more rewarding. “Vietnam was an unpopular war, and there were no services available for these men when they came back—post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t even diagnosed until 1983,” Green says. “A lot of them were boys when they went off to war—18, 19, 20 years old, and that’s where they still are from a developmental perspective. Some of them just want to be heard, listened to. They want to know somebody cares. I want to be a symbol for them. They don’t deserve to suffer.” Green had to deal with her own “why me?” issues before she could become an effective counselor. “I lost an arm. I saw a lot of people at Walter Reed who were much worse off than I am.” She is taking courses in family therapy and substance-abuse counseling in order to gain a better understanding of the people she is serving. “There’s no self-pity here,” she says. “God could have taken me, but he gave me a little more time to live, to fulfill the mission.” Away from her suburban Chicago office, Green bicycles, she runs, she plays golf, she’s learning to fish. She’d like to start a family. “That would complete the circle,” she says. Her wobbly right-handed writing and the challenges of previously simple tasks like getting dressed are reminders that “I’m a work in progress,” Green says, smiling. “I was probably a 95 percent left-handed person, so I’m reinventing myself. “I remember one conversation with Coach McGraw. ‘You always told me I needed to develop my off hand, use my right hand more,’” I said. “Guess what I’m doing?”

Teddy Hodges Heart of a champion B Y A l L e sar

ometime soon, Teddy Hodges may have a difficult letter to write. A senior English major at Notre Dame with a talent for debate, the 22-year-old fencer from Salina, Kan., isn’t used to being at a loss for words. This fall marked the one-year anniversary of Hodges’ heart transplant. “It’s a happy anniversary,” Hodges said. He knows that for someone it’s a sad marking of time. Someone lost a loved one to give him a second chance at life. Transplant protocol allows for no direct communication between the recipient and the donor’s family through the first year. If both parties agree, correspondence can then happen. “I’d want to give [the donor’s family] a great sense of thank you,” Hodges said, struggling for the right words. “God bless. It was a heart-wrenching moment in their lives. I hope they’d be able to look at me and see a little bit of happiness.” Hodges is happy. The 6-foot-2, 220-pounder walks around campus with a smile on his face. Like he’s seeing it for the first time in his life. “Every time I walk on campus, it’s even more beautiful than the last time,” Hodges said. “I feel older. Grown up. I enjoy things more. It’s important to enjoy life.” Ted, the son of a physician, always was an athlete growing up. His parents steered him toward fencing at seven years old, but never pushed. He gravitated toward football and played on a state championship high school team as a senior. He spent his freshman year as a walk-on defensive back with the University of Kansas football team. When he lost sight of a future in football, Hodges looked up his old fencing coach, Gia Kvaratskhelia, an assistant at Notre Dame. “Teddy’s certainly a special person,” Kvaratskhelia said. He transferred for the start of the 2007-08 school year, sat out that fencing season as per NCAA rules, then contributed in the foil competition the next season. The end of the 2008-09 school year was a blur. Still is. He watched some friends graduate, with President Barack Obama as the commencement speaker. Spent a day in Salina. Flew to Albany, N.Y., to judge a debate competition. Spent another day in Salina. Flew to Texas to hunt with some friends. Returned home to spend some time with his brother Grant, also a Notre Dame fencer. “I was beat physically,” Hodges said. “So much of that I don’t even remember.”

For good reason. High fever. Nausea. Lethargy. Fortunately for Hodges, a Salina doctor recognized the symptoms. Viral myocarditis, an infection targeted at the heart. This was serious. A 45-minute helicopter ride to Kansas City started with Hodges going into cardiac arrest and ended with a second episode. Life left his athletic frame. “Two big guys pounded on me (CPR) for 39 minutes,” Hodges said. “I’m thankful they refused to quit.” Hodges spent the next three months hooked up to a heart-lung machine the size of a small refrigerator, with two tubes inserted in him. A stroke during that time was a setback. “The stroke was one of the worst feelings,” Hodges said, the English major in him coming out. “I couldn’t conjugate nouns or verbs. Mentally, I could visualize what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t make it happen. “I kept the notes I made. I look at them now, it’s just chicken scratching.” Therapists—physical and speech—made a difference. He gradually gained strength and regained his speech skills. He was ready for a transplant. By early September 2009, circumstances made a candidate heart available. “My attitude was, ‘Let’s get this thing done,’” Hodges said. It happened on Sept. 16. The frequent trips to Notre Dame’s Grotto by fencers; the prayers from the entire Notre Dame community; the support of his hometown; the expertise of the hospital staff— it all came together for a positive outcome. “I’m so fortunate,” Hodges said. “I’ve had a lot of people pulling for me, a lot of different communities. So many people have become new friends through this.” Occasional visits to campus last year kept his spirit focused. “This is such a wonderful place,” Hodges said, glancing around at the tree-draped backdrop surrounding the Grotto. “This is one of the most spiritual places I know,” he said. “I love coming here.” Hodges has been medically cleared for competition. He still has a regimen of medication. Tests are frequent. Training is a bit different, but conditioning will come. Weight lifting. Sprints. Distance running. No restrictions. “My warm-up is slower than most people’s,” Hodges said. “Once I get my pulse up there, it’s no different than before. If I feel bad, I slow down.” The progress Hodges has made through the first couple months of conditioning has been impressive. The improvement, though, has come with a bit of reprogramming. An athlete good enough to play any sport at the college level is taught to push himself and test his limits. In Hodges’ case, he’s smarter than that. “I hold the trump card,” Hodges said. “I’m the one who realizes when it’s time to back off. I’ll push and push, then realize, hey, it’s time to rest a bit. I’ll just go off to the side and stretch.” Kvaratskhelia points toward the Notre Dame Duals in early February 2011 as Hodges’ likely coming-out party. “No doubt, Teddy’ll be ready,” Kvaratskhelia said. He’s already ready to start paying it forward. During his time in the Kansas City hospital, and in the period since the transplant, Hodges has had mentors. He’s gotten to be friends with a transplant patient who has resumed his activity as one of the country’s top handball players. He’s developed a relationship with a former banker who retired and has embarked on a second life by moving to an exotic island and opening a business. Make the most of the second chance. The tables have turned on Hodges. Just recently, he’s become the mentor.

“I plan to live a long time,” he said. “I want to be an example. Keep battling. Keep a positive outlook. Just don’t live in fear.” —Teddy Hodges “I got a message on Facebook from a guy in his mid-30s,” Hodges said. “He’s got long-term heart failure. He’s scared. He’s worried. He’s married and has kids. At least for me, I’ve had this at a decent time in my life.” In reality, there’s no “decent” time for such a traumatic event. However, if it did have to happen, his obligations are limited. After a couple correspondences with this new acquaintance, Hodges, by chance, met the man and his wife over fall break when they were both at the hospital for testing. He had an opportunity to go to the next level—from mentee to mentor. “I didn’t want to sugarcoat anything,” Hodges said. “This is a dire situation. There’s no way to get around it. As I was talking, the editing was pretty important.” Words are Hodges’ friends. His mile-a-minute delivery, reflecting the energy he’s come to have, molded and caressed the ideas he was trying to get across. “I told him that ‘You’re gonna get your butt kicked,’” Hodges said. “That just happens. ‘But, in the long run, you’re gonna be all right.’ “‘Once you have the transplant, you should be vigilant. You should worry about it. But, you can’t live your life in perpetual fear. You need to learn to trust other people. Rely on your support system.’” Hodges’ support system: His family, the medical team that saved his life, teammates on the fencing team and fellow students have been there for him. They’ve taught him a new meaning for trust. “It’s just amazing that you don’t realize how sick you were until you start to feel better,” Hodges said. “You just got the gift of life. It gives you a new energy that was never there. “There might be a rough year, maybe two, but once things level out and all the variables are taken care of, life can be pretty good.” Hodges, actually, is living proof. “I plan to live a long time,” he said. “I want to be an example. Keep battling. Keep a positive outlook. Just don’t live in fear.” What scares Hodges? “I don’t want to sound over the top bravado, but I’m not gonna live in fear,” he said. “I have goals in fencing, my degree. I’m not gonna let my health get in the way.” Graduation should happen in May 2011. After that? “I want to give something back to the University,” said Hodges, not really sure what that could be. “It’s like my dad would say about borrowing a car: ‘Leave it in better shape than when you got it; leave it with a full tank of gas; make sure it’s clean.’ I want to leave this University a little better than when I got here.” Odds are that might already be the case. Courage. The smile. The attitude. The love for Notre Dame. Should give him plenty to write about in that letter. A version of this story originally appeared in the South Bend Tribune. Reprinted with permission.

Joe Montana It’s hard to be anonymous when

B Y D A N M C G R AT H

your name is Joe Montana

oe Montana won a national championship at Notre Dame and four Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers, playing quarterback with an imperturbable élan that personified grace under pressure and made him synonymous with big-game excellence. If he’s not the best ever at football’s centerpiece position, he’s certainly in a highly selective team picture of the all-time greats. The name alone carries a tinge of something mystical … a Western movie hero, perhaps. “If you had one game you had to win, Joe Montana is your quarterback,” 49ers teammate Randy Cross said. Hard to believe a man who seemed born to do what he did so well was once a scared, skinny, homesick freshman, not sure if he fit at Notre Dame and wondering if he’d be better off someplace else. “I was one of about seven freshman quarterbacks, and I played my way down to seventh string,” Montana recalled of his 1974 arrival. “I didn’t doubt my ability, but I wondered whether I was ready for a place like Notre Dame. Everybody else was good, and really big — especially the defensive guys.” Ara Parseghian had recruited Montana out of western Pennsylvania quarterback country. When Ara’s retirement brought Dan Devine to South Bend, Montana’s future seemed less promising than a Chicago Republican’s — coaches like to go with their own guy at the game’s most important position. “Devine probably wondered why I was recruited,” Montana said. It was Irish fencing coach Mike DeCicco, an academic advisor to Notre Dame athletes and the father of Joe’s teammate/roommate Nick DeCicco, who convinced Montana to stick around, that his day would come. And it did — as a sophomore in 1975, he directed the Irish to comeback victories over North Carolina and Air Force. He had planted the seeds of the Joe Montana legend, only to encounter another setback. A shoulder injury cost him the 1976 season and his place in Devine’s heart — Montana was number three on the depth chart going into 1977. Called upon with the Irish facing a 24-14 deficit against Purdue in week three, he delivered 154 passing yards and 17 points in the final 11 minutes for a 31-24 victory. “The players were practically jumping up and down when Joe came into the game. They started slapping him on the back before he had taken a snap,” recalled Roger Valdiserri, Notre Dame’s longtime media relations director. “I was sitting next to my Purdue counterpart, and he asked me what was going on. I said, ‘That’s Joe Montana, and you guys are in trouble.’” 36

The Irish would not lose again that season, nailing down the national championship with a 38-10 thumping of top-ranked Texas in the Cotton Bowl. The scared, skinny, homesick freshman was now a poised, accomplished star, partly because Mike DeCicco’s belief in him overcame Montana’s self-doubt. “Notre Dame is a hard place to leave, fortunately,” he said. “It’s not really big, but it’s sort of overwhelming because it’s Notre Dame, and you’re always mindful of what that means. You want to be the best, and you want to prove it by playing against the best.” An early-season loss to Missouri derailed Notre Dame’s hopes of repeating as national champion in 1978, but two more vintage comebacks enhanced the Montana legend. The Irish trailed a great USC team 24-6 in their season finale when Montana got busy, completing 11 of 15 passes for 196 yards and producing three scores for a 25-24 lead. But a bad call on a fumble went against the Irish on the Trojans’ final possession, and USC kicked a field goal with two seconds left for a 27-25 victory. Then there was the 1979 Cotton Bowl against Houston, played in the aftermath of a freak ice storm. Before he hooked up with Dwight Clark on “The Catch” three years later, this was Montana’s signature moment. The Irish trailed 34-12 when a weak and wobbly Montana came out of the locker room, fortified by chicken soup to ward off flu-induced hypothermia. In the last game of his college career, he produced 23 points in the final 7:37, rallying the Irish to a 35-34 victory that still gets ND fans tingling. “Joe had a gift, an aura,” Valdiserri said, “and his teammates fed off it. But he was a tough interview because he didn’t like to talk about himself. “The only time I ever saw Joe nervous was on a flight we were taking back to Pennsylvania for a banquet. We hit a rough patch, the plane dropped about 10,000 feet and our heads banged into the overhead compartment. I looked at Joe and he was whiter than I was.” Turbulence in mid-air was a scary proposition. On the ground it didn’t seem to exist, no matter the stakes. “I was a competitor. I hated to lose, and I think that drove my confidence and my concentration to where I played better in those situations,” Montana said. “I wish I could have played like that all the time.” The pros probably wished he had, too. While big-armed flingers like Jack Thompson, Phil Simms and Steve Fuller were first-round picks in the 1979 NFL draft, Montana lasted until the third round, going to the 49ers as the fourth quarterback and 82nd player taken. It was the best thing that could have happened to him. With his nimble feet, deft touch and uncanny poise and vision, Montana became the ideal triggerman for the controlled passing game Bill Walsh used to transform football. “I knew he was really smart, and an excellent teacher,” Montana recalled of his first meeting with the cerebral 49ers coach. “And you had to love that offense. If you couldn’t go downfield, you stayed underneath. Somebody was always open.” It was Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone against Dallas in January 1982, “The Catch” sending the 49ers on to Super Bowl XVI and a 26-21 victory over Cincinnati. Three years later Montana won a shootout with the heralded Dan Marino as the 49ers buried Miami 38-16 in Super Bowl XIX. Four years after that he directed a last-minute, length-of-the-field drive to beat Cincinnati again, strengthening his case as the best ever with the game on the line. The following year he looked like the best ever, period, with a 297-yard, five-touchdown strafing of Denver. Montana was four for four in Super Bowls and MVP in three of them, with 11 TD passes, no interceptions and a 127.8 passer rating. The great Willie Mays notwithstanding, he might be the most popular athlete in San Francisco history — the 49ers occupy a special place in the city’s heart because they were born and bred there, not transplanted from elsewhere like the region’s other pro teams. As he’d done at Notre Dame, Montana did his best to remain a regular Joe. “He’s the most normal famous person I’ve ever been around,” said Jerry Walker, the 49ers’ former media relations director and now a team historian. “By the second Super Bowl, we were getting two of those post office bins full of fan mail every

“He’s the most normal famous person I’ve ever been around.” —Jerry Walker

Team historian, former director of media relations San Francisco 49ers

week. My wife was on a maternity leave from her job coaching gymnastics at Stanford, so she came in to help. A lot of guys couldn’t be bothered with answering fan mail. Joe was very conscientious. “We got a follow-up letter from a girl one time thanking Joe because the birthday card he’d signed for her sister showed up on her birthday. We couldn’t worry about being timely because there was so much mail to go through, but Joe took it on himself to make sure this card got there on time.” As the 49ers became the dominant team in pro football, Walsh stressed that no one man was above the team. Montana bought into that belief. His one-of-the-guys persona helped account for his popularity, along with his cold-blooded fearlessness in the tightest situations. Before embarking on the 92-yard drive that beat Cincinnati in Super Bowl XXIII, Montana pointed out a celebrity in the stands to teammate Harris Barton—comedy actor John Candy. “Harris was a people-watcher, and all week he was talking about who he’d run into,” Montana said. “He hadn’t mentioned John Candy, so I was just letting him know he was there.” Then it was time to go to work. “Joe had that look in his eye,” Cross said. Since retiring from the Kansas City Chiefs after the 1994 season, Montana has been as busy as he cares to be with product endorsements, speaking engagements and a variety of business ventures. He has tried to provide as normal a life as possible for Jennifer, his wife of 25 years, and their four children: Alexandra, Elizabeth, Nathaniel and Nicholas. “I missed a lot when the girls were growing up because I was still playing,” he said. Montana insists he never found the demands of fame all that stifling, in part because most Bay Area residents aren’t obsessed with celebrity. A conversation with Magic Johnson was a useful public relations primer. “He told me he was out with his son one time, and he started signing autographs and talking to people like he always did,” Montana said. “His son finally pulled on his sleeve and said, ‘Dad, are you with all these people or are you with me?’ From that point on, when he was out with his family he was with his family, and the public just had to accept it. I tried to do the same thing. I was a football player, but I’m also a dad. When we were at Disneyland, I stopped holding the bags and went on the rides with my kids.” Ali and Elizabeth Montana are Notre Dame graduates. Nate is a junior backup quarterback for the Irish, and Nick is a redshirt freshman quarterback at the University of Washington. Broadcaster Ted Robinson, the 49ers’ radio voice, has known Montana for more than 30 years — they were classmates at Notre Dame — and he says Montana has managed nicely as a family man. “He and Jennifer have been together 25 years, they’ve raised four really good kids … I think Joe is really comfortable with who he is right now, really happy with where he is,” Robinson said. “And he should be. He’s handled it all very well.”

Skylard Owens He’s come a long way, baby BY KERRY TEMPLE

ere’s the part of the story you haven’t heard. It’s the best part. It’s about Skylard Owens who came to Notre Dame in 1996 from Shreveport, La., as an aspiring 6-foot-2 power forward. He just might also have been the quietest freshman who enrolled that fall, arriving alone in South Bend and so shy that he had virtually nothing to say when a friend of a hometown friend met him at the airport and took him to lunch. He was a long way from home, both literally and figuratively. An earnest, hard-working walk-on, Owens played three seasons under Irish men’s basketball coach John MacLeod, saw action in all 31 games as a junior and even started a few Big East Conference contests that year. A hustling 6-foot-4 forward, he was one of three captains his senior year when Matt Doherty became head coach and was on scholarship that year. “Getting the scholarship was the crowning achievement of my athletic career,” Owens says today. Despite that individual accomplishment, Owens’ career as a Notre Dame basketball player is a minor footnote in the school’s hoop history. The narrative of his life, however, is a story that deserves attention. But getting him to recount that story runs you into his quiet nature and reticent ways. Ask him about his life’s path and Owens will tell you about the people whose tough love and guidance pushed him out of the cauldron of poverty into a better life. Ask those whose goodwill lifted Owens and they will tell you that he has, in turn, become their inspiration and role model. “I count my blessings every day,” says Owens, who saw blessings where others confronted troubles that engulfed them. Skylard Owens was born April 21, 1978, the son of Leo Taylor and Celeste Owens. Taylor was then a 21-year-old in the U.S. Navy. “My father had absolutely no part in my upbringing,” he says of the man he first met when he was 10. His father had been at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, one of the toughest places in America to do time. As a fifth-grader, Owens had gotten his father’s address from his paternal grandmother. “I wrote my father a letter for the first time just to try to learn some basic facts about him since I knew absolutely nothing,” he says. “A few months later, I remember he came over to my grandmother’s house, and he shot basketball with me. That’s a moment I have never forgotten. I saw him once more about a week later, and then he was gone again. I assumed he violated parole and that was the reason he went back to prison.” It would not be until 2008 that Owens would try to find his father again.

“I honestly have the most difficult time talking about my mother,” Owens continues. His mother was 18 when she gave birth to Skylard and had already arranged for her mother to raise the boy. “My mother had her own personal demons,” Owens explains today. “She had an on-again, off-again relationship with drugs. I wasn’t exposed to this on a daily basis since I never lived with her. But it explains why she was around sometimes and wasn’t around at other times. I did have contact with her when I was young, but it wasn’t always very enriching.” Owens has tried in recent years to span the distance between them. “My mother has made tremendous strides in her life,” he says. “Until her recent stroke, she had been able to maintain employment for the past three years and keep the same permanent address.” His mother had two younger children, says Owens, adding, “but their paths in life were completely divergent from my own.” The truth is, his life journey has been decidedly different from most growing up in the poor, volatile pockets of Shreveport—a prosperous city whose backsides suffer from poverty, drug play, violence and other embedded injustices. The primary difference in Owens’ exodus from this world was Bernice James, his maternal grandmother whom, he says, “would become affectionately known to me as ‘Mama.’” “My grandmother raised me with rules and discipline,” Owens explains. “After raising six children, Mama had a wealth of knowledge that she was determined to share with me. From day one, she took to instilling a strong work ethic and strong set of morals and values in me through discipline and positive reinforcement. Mama always said, ‘You will go to college and you will succeed in all you do.’ She specifically stated failure wasn’t an option and that the word ‘can’t’ should be removed from my vocabulary. Never at any point in my life did I ever think I wouldn’t attend college due to Mama ingraining the message in my head at a very early age.” Books, not sports, would provide the road to brighter horizons. “I never saw basketball as a way to get an education. I always knew I was going to get an education somehow,” Owens says. “Playing basketball has always been my escape. Whenever I needed to find myself, I would always go out and shoot basketball.” Owens had been introduced to the game by Mama’s youngest son, Russell Lott, who was 16 years older than Sky. Lott, says Owens, “served as a vital male presence in my life. In a sense, he was the big brother that I never had. He was instrumental in getting me to believe in myself and my abilities.” He was also as stubborn a taskmaster as Mama. The relationship could be contentious as Lott pushed his nephew to excel. When Owens’ initial eighth-grade report card boasted six As and a B, Lott told his nephew he could do better. Owens did, and also became the school’s student of the year. Lott and his girlfriend moved in with Owens and his grandmother when Mama became seriously ill. When Owens was a junior in high school, Mama died. “At the time of her death,” he says, “I was a bit shell-shocked. In my 16 years of life, there had been one constant in my life and now she was gone. I wasn’t really sure what I should do, but that’s when all the knowledge Mama had shared with me intervened. I knew there were things for me to accomplish and that I needed to make sure I wore my work boots.” Owens lived with his uncle and—aided by those who saw the rare qualities in him—attended Loyola College Preparatory in Shreveport, a Catholic private school where he played football and basketball, was voted senior class president and named student of the year as a graduating senior. Chip Naus, a Notre Dame alumnus, and the Kantrow family—Mike and Jill, Byron and Brock—were influential in Owens’ development. “They helped open my eyes to the world,” he explains. “The only things I knew life offered was what I was exposed to in my neighborhood. I had no idea how shortsighted I was.” In 1995, Owens and a half dozen Loyola teammates had the chance to attend Notre Dame’s summer basketball camp, and Owens took the opportunity not only to test his court skills but also to visit the admissions office and University administrators. “Being accepted into Notre Dame was a dream come true,” he says today. “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would happen.”

Books, not sports, would provide the road to brighter horizons. “I never saw basketball as a way to get an education. I always knew I was going to get an education somehow,” Owens says. “Playing basketball has always been my escape. Whenever I needed to find myself, I would always go out and shoot basketball.” Since graduating in 2000, Owens has been a tax accountant at Deloitte & Touche, LLP, in California. He and Kristy Butts have two daughters, with a third due in January. But the story doesn’t end here. There’s a bit of an epilogue. Owens explains: “The natural tendency for anyone in my position is to wonder why their parents aren’t involved in their life, but Mama wouldn’t have any part of me feeling sorry for myself. She repeatedly told me that everything happens for a reason and that I am only given one father and one mother and I should love them unconditionally. To this day, regardless of the frustrations I have had with my parents, I have tried to adhere to what Mama instilled in me.” So in 2008, Owens sought his father in prison and eventually tracked him down. The two finally met in July 2010, in Shreveport, where his father was working at a fast-food place and living in his mother’s old house. The two spent an hour talking. His father said he had dreamed of the moment for years. “I contacted my father,” Owens explains, “because I thought it would be good for him to know I harbored no ill will toward him. I wanted to let him know about some of the wonderful things that had occurred in my life and that he had two beautiful granddaughters. I didn’t want him to go through life with regrets or anything like that. If he wanted to get to know me, I was going to give him the opportunity. It’s what my grandmother had instilled in me.”

Joe Piane The dean of Notre Dame head coaches

BY JOHN HEISLER

has seen a million changes through the years

kylab 4 returned to earth after 84 days in orbit. Stephen King published his first novel. The Universal Product Code was scanned for the first time to sell a pack of Wrigley’s gum at a Marsh Supermarket store in Troy, Ohio. President Richard Nixon announced his resignation amidst the Watergate scandal. Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in Zaire to regain the heavyweight title. A Hungarian architecture professor invented Rubik’s Cube. Derek Jeter and Leonardo DiCaprio were born. And Joe Piane, now the veteran in the University of Notre Dame head coaching ranks, joined the Irish athletic staff as an assistant track coach. The year was 1974. Piane left Western Illinois to join up with Irish head track coach Don Faley, who had been Piane’s college cross country and track coach at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. The two had stayed in touch, and Faley suggested to Piane he might have an opportunity available at Notre Dame once Piane finished his master’s degree. A year later (May 1975), Piane replaced Faley as the Notre Dame head track and field and cross country coach — and the rest, as they say, is history. Piane’s appointment that year came as part of a three-way announcement that included the naming of Ray Sepeta as the new Irish wrestling coach and Astrid Hotvedt as coordinator of women’s sports (as Notre Dame’s first female athletics administrator). At the time, Piane was 28 years old. He had coached internationally in North Africa while in the Peace Corps for two years. Even as Irish head coach, he served as an instructor in the Notre Dame physical education department for years to come. Check out the printed Notre Dame football game programs from 1974, and you’ll see a full page of 20 photos of Notre Dame athletic administrators, led by athletics director Moose Krause. None of those individuals remains at Notre Dame today — and half are no longer alive. There were no departments in athletics for promotions or compliance or human resources when Piane came to South Bend — but a check of the employment ranks suggests that among the very few

athletics employees remaining from the time Piane started are former hockey coach Lefty Smith (now director of the Loftus Center) and current associate athletics director (and longtime Joyce Center director) Mike Danch. In those early days, if Krause wanted to call a staff meeting, he simply had to holler down the hall to a handful of senior-level managers. It’s not so easy now with 250 full time athletics employees. Piane’s original office was situated a floor below the administrative level — as were all the coaching offices — right next to Digger Phelps’ men’s basketball staff. Life was demonstrably simpler back then. Piane had one part-time assistant coach in Ed Kelly, who also taught full time at Niles (Mich.) High School. The Irish had 10 scholarships, but the scope of the department was so much smaller and facilities were nothing like they are today. Piane and other athletics department members played memorable, afterwork, summer softball games against University employees who worked in the Main Building. In those days, you knew just about everybody on campus. Piane measures the growth of athletics on the Notre Dame campus by thinking about the six athletics directors for whom he has worked: 1. Moose Krause — “He was like your grandfather.” 2. Gene Corrigan — “Gene started building buildings. He really pushed for facility improvements. He’s the reason we built the Loftus Center which has been a tremendous indoor home for our track teams.” 3. Dick Rosenthal — “Dick opened the wallet a little bit and we really began to expand the Olympic sport programs in terms of our departmental commitment.” 4. Mike Wadsworth — “Mike emphasized the elevation of the quality of our student-athletes in terms of academics.” 5. Kevin White — “He expanded even more in terms of building projects and made every program more national in scope. His idea was to give every program a chance to compete for a national championship.” 6. Jack Swarbrick — “He’s continued the facility improvement Kevin began, and his goal is to create a fantastic four-year experience for every student-athlete.” If there was a watershed moment for Piane’s program in terms of growth, it came in 1981 when Chuck Aragon became the first Notre Dame runner to record a sub-four-minute mile time. “That will always stick in my mind. That’s the biggest thing that’s happened since I’ve been coaching here,” says Piane. “Chuck came to Notre Dame as the state cross country champion from New Mexico, but he saw himself as a half-miler. “We went round and round on that subject for three years. Then our best miler, Kevin Kenny, got hurt, and I told Chuck we needed him to run the mile. He said, ‘How do I do it?’ “We were running in a dual meet against Iowa, and I told him to just follow the best runner from Iowa and I’d see him at the top of the backstretch and tell him what to do next. As it turned out, he was winning the race easily, so I told him to back off because we needed him to run the 1,000 meters in a little while. “He had never run better than 4:27 until he ran a 4:12 that day. I told him, if he was serious, he could run a four-minute mile. Six weeks later he ran a 3:59 in a meet at the University of Illinois. “And that really changed our fortunes.” Thirty years later that personal relationship hasn’t changed, either. Piane and his wife Mimi (they met at the 1982 NCAA track championships in Provo, Utah, and were married three years later) remain good friends with the Aragons, and, in fact, are godparents to Alexa Aragon, a current freshman on the Irish track squad. That’s coming full circle. Considering there were only a few women in the student body when Piane first came to campus, he can’t help but recall the birth and growth of the women’s track program. “Being around Molly Huddle (10-time All-American and seven-time BIG EAST champion from 2003-07) every day was amazing, given the things she could do,” he says. “And Liz Grow? She may have been the best female athlete we’ve had at Notre Dame, maybe in any

A longtime, ardent Chicago Cubs fan from Westchester, Ill., Piane laughs when he realizes he’s 63 years old. Actually, 63 years young. He fondly remembers being one of the young pups in the athletics department — and it seems like just yesterday. sport. One year at the BIG EAST meet (she was the 2002 BIG EAST outdoor outstanding women’s performer), she won the 400 meters and then 20 minutes later she ran the 200 and then the 4x400 relay. She was awfully impressive.” Piane isn’t particularly into reminiscing, but he enjoyed the track program’s most recent reunion last March. “Sometimes I’m the worst at names, but I’ll see someone and I’ll think, ‘He ran a 1:53.6 split.’ But I may not remember his name from 25 years ago.” Piane’s legacy translates easily when it comes to numbers: — He has coached 117 men’s cross country Monogram winners, 157 women’s track and field Monogram winners since that program went varsity in 1991, 367 men’s track and field Monogram winners — and probably just as many other athletes who practiced and competed but never earned a letter. A distance specialist, Piane’s area of expertise has overlapped to the women’s cross country program, even though Tim Connelly has been directing that team since 1988. — His men’s cross country teams have finished in the top 10 at the NCAA meet on 11 occasions, including third-place finishes in 1990 and 2005. His profession has allowed him to travel the world in terms of international coaching opportunities — a number of them with U.S. Olympic Development or other national teams. Piane twice has been named national cross country coach of the year. He and his staff have won 29 conference coaching staff-of-the-year plaques in some combination of men’s and women’s cross country and track and field — including two from the BIG EAST in 2010 after the Irish men won both the BIG EAST men’s indoor and outdoor track and field titles. There have been individual AllAmericans and conference champions galore, including some of the greatest names in Irish track and cross country history — such as Aragon, Huddle, nine-time All-American (and 2001 NCAA 10,000 meter champion) Ryan Shay and eight-time All-American Luke Watson. Piane also founded three of the longest-running events on the Irish schedules — the National Catholic Cross Country Championships, along with the Meyo Invitational and the Alex Wilson Invitational (both indoor track meets). The only Notre Dame coach in history to stick around campus longer was Hall of Fame baseball coach Jake Kline, who lasted 42 seasons — from 1934-75. A longtime, ardent Chicago Cubs fan from Westchester, Ill., Piane laughs when he realizes he’s 63 years old. Actually, 63 years young. He fondly remembers being one of the young pups in the athletics department — and it seems like just yesterday. “I’m sure I’m ancient to the kids on my team. Social security and all that stuff … But, when you were young, can you remember what you thought of people in their 60s?” Piane doesn’t worry much about it. He doesn’t have time. He’s too busy doing all the things he’s been doing now at Notre Dame for 36 years.

Ted Robinson Once a WSND DJ, now NBC Sports’ tennis expert BY TIM BOURRET

f you were a fan of the 1978 Chicago White Sox, you might have been attracted to Comiskey Park by Bill Veeck’s innovative promotions and left-field discount tickets. There, you might have overheard a small group of Notre Dame undergraduates “’broadcasting” the baseball game into a cassette recorder. More than 30 years later, one of those aspiring announcers is among the most versatile broadcasters on sports television. Ted Robinson is a veteran of seven Olympics, three years of PGA Tour golf, more than two decades of college football and basketball with Stanford, Notre Dame, the BIG EAST and Pacific-10 conferences and three years in the NBA. He is the current radio voice of the San Francisco 49ers, and he has 22 years experience in the major leagues with the Giants, Twins, Mets and A’s. Yet, he is most renowned as the voice of grand slam . . . tennis, not baseball. Since 1992, he has called 36 grand slam tennis tournaments for NBC Sports, USA Network and the Tennis Channel. It all started with the work experience he gained during his days as a Notre Dame undergrad. “Whenever I had a free afternoon, I drove to Comiskey Park with my cassette recorder,” said Robinson. “The best way to learn your craft is by experience, so I recreated as many games as I could, live.” Robinson was usually accompanied by fellow WSND broadcaster John Stenson, or he would kidnap a young fellow student assistant in the Notre Dame sports information office. “We got a few strange looks from fans and I remember one night a vendor selling beer stopped in front of us and said, ‘Looks like you guys have had enough already.’” This was not the first unorthodox means Robinson used to gain experience in his chosen field. As a youth he sat in his bedroom of his parents’ Rockville Centre, N.Y., home, and watched the Mets games with the sound turned off. “I sat in that room and broadcast the game by myself. When our relatives came over they could hear me downstairs. ‘Ted sure likes to talk to himself.’” Joe Montana entered Notre Dame in August 1974 to get a quality education and further his football career, and Ted Robinson entered Notre Dame the same year to enhance his education and his broadcasting career. “North Carolina had a strong broadcasting school and there was a pipeline of kids who went from my area of New York to North Carolina. But, my dad was adamant about me visiting Notre Dame. I had two uncles who had gone to Notre Dame. So we flew to South Bend in the spring of my senior year of high school. 48

“On my visit I met Ron Weber (director of the American Studies program) in O’Shaugnessy Hall. I will never forget him telling me that I could be on the air at WSND as a freshman. All the other schools I looked into, including North Carolina, said you had to stand in line to get on the air.” Later that day, Robinson made his decision. “My dad and I walked by Notre Dame Stadium and the gate at the north end was open. Standing in the end zone, I told my dad, ‘This is where I want to go to school.’” Robinson made the most of his Notre Dame years and gained as much experience in all facets of athletics as he could. In addition to working at WSND from day one, he became a student manager. In the fall of his sophomore year (1975), one of the games he worked was the Georgia Tech game. “I ran game balls from the Georgia Tech sideline during the Rudy game,” said Robinson, whose wife Mary is a ’78 Notre Dame graduate (daughter Annie is an ’05 grad and son Patrick is a member of the ’08 class). Robinson also wrote for Scholastic magazine and The Observer, was a student assistant for three years in the sports information office under Roger Valdiserri, and was Jeff Jeffers’ first intern at WNDU-TV. “The great thing about my Notre Dame experience is that I got a great education, but I was able to pursue my vocation. “Working for Roger Valdiserri was a great learning experience because I got the opportunity to meet some great broadcasters.” But, the training behind the microphone during his undergraduate days covering games for WSND was the most beneficial. “What an era! My senior year (1977-78) I broadcast football games during a national championship season and basketball games during a run to the Final Four.” Robinson’s first big break in broadcasting took place the winter of his junior year. “Pete Weber left WNDU at midseason to take a job in Buffalo, N.Y., and there was no one to broadcast Notre Dame hockey games (on radio). “Roger Valdiserri recommended me as a replacement, so I went to Minneapolis to broadcast the Notre Dame-Minnesota hockey series over a weekend. When I got back, they said I did a good job and would handle the games for the rest of the year. “They paid me $25 a game, but the experience was worth much more.” Ironically, Minnesota would also play a part in his first professional break following graduation. Two weeks before his Notre Dame graduation he got a call from Ron Norick, general manager of the Minnesota North Stars’ farm team in Oklahoma City. “I was sitting in my Campus View apartment and got the call. The job description included serving as travel director and public relations director. I sold tickets, edited the game program, updated stats, hired the bus drivers and picked up the Wendy’s hamburgers for the press box. In the leftover time, I could broadcast the games.” He handled all those duties well enough, especially the broadcasting, that two years later he became the color commentator for the Minnesota North Stars. Robinson’s career took him to many cities and teams over the next few years, but 1986 was a benchmark year on his resumé. That year he broadcast his first tennis match. “Tennis just fell in my lap,” said Robinson. “I got a call from my agent who told me USA Network was looking for a host for its tennis coverage. But, I didn’t know much about tennis. I knew the scoring system, and I knew the names of the prominent players, but that was about it. USA said they just needed a good traffic cop for the broadcast.” Robinson’s first assignment was a professional tournament at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. He was joined on the broadcast by Donald Dell and Mary Carillo, two experienced professionals in the tennis broadcasting world. “Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe played in the finals, and it was a terrific match. All the tennis people laughed that I had such a classic matchup in my first tournament on television.” Robinson had no idea that one of the players involved in that match would have such a positive impact on his career. 50

Robinson understands the value of practical experience and he gives back to Notre Dame students pursuing his profession. Today, he funds a summer internship for a Notre Dame student through the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics and Democracy. Last summer, thanks to Robinson, a Notre Dame student served as an intern at CNN in New York. Robinson’s relationship with USA Network flourished. He continued with tennis the next year and started a three-year run as the host of USA Network’s golf coverage, including the 1989 Masters. The Twins won the 1991 World Series and he co-authored a book on the season with Twins’ manager Tom Kelly. His role covering the NCAA basketball tournament for CBS (both radio and television) expanded, and he has now covered the tournament for nearly 25 years. His voice will be forever in the minds of Valparaiso fans, as his call of Bryce Drew’s game-winning shot against Mississippi in 1998 is a buzzer-beater classic. He even found time to broadcast Notre Dame football games during the 1989 and 1990 seasons with Paul Hornung. He was at the Big House the day Rocket Ismail took two kickoffs to the end zone in the 24-19 win over Michigan. In 1992, McEnroe retired as a player and moved to the broadcast booth with USA Network. He was paired with Robinson and the team became an instant hit. “USA broadcast the U.S. Open in prime time and we had some great matches. John brought so much to the broadcast and we developed a strong following.” In 1999 Dick Enberg left NBC Sports and that created an opening for the lead tennis announcer position. McEnroe went to bat for Robinson with the executives at NBC, in particular Dick Ebersol. Robinson got the job and has since broadcast every French Open and Wimbledon. In July 2008, Robinson had the good fortune to broadcast perhaps the greatest tennis match in history when Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer in an epic Wimbledon final. “John called it the ‘greatest match ever played,’ quite the compliment coming from the man willing to concede his own 1980 classic with Bjorn Borg to this spectacle. We were in the NBC broadcast booth for seven hours with no break, yet never did we notice the time until the telecast ended. Then exhaustion consumed us as we realized how lucky we had been to witness history.” While Robinson can give a snap answer when asked about the top sporting event he has broadcast, he is equally quick to issue a qualifier. “The biggest event I did was the Papal Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II at Candlestick Park in April 1987. I convinced the local CBS affiliate (where he was sports director) that I would be an asset to the broadcast. My Notre Dame degree gave me some credibility. “So, I did play by play of a Mass with a pair of bishops from the Archdiocese of San Francisco. There were 75,000 people in Candlestick Park. When the Pope entered the stadium it was just electric. What a spectacle.” Robinson understands the value of practical experience and he gives back to Notre Dame students pursuing his profession. Today, he funds a summer internship for a Notre Dame student through the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics and Democracy. Last summer, thanks to Robinson, a Notre Dame student served as an intern at CNN in New York. Now one of the most recognized broadcasters in the industry, he has continued an amazing legacy of Notre Dame graduates in broadcasting. “When you think that Notre Dame does not have a true broadcasting major, it is stunning that Tim Ryan, Don Criqui, Hannah Storm, Phil Donahue, Regis Philbin and dozens of others all got their start at Notre Dame.” And in the left-field bleachers at Comiskey Park. 51

Adam Sargent Former Irish lacrosse standout still

B Y D I C K WE I S S

contributing to Notre Dame programs

hen Adam Sargent arrived at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 1993 from Brighton High School in Rochester, N.Y., he envisioned not only working with his teammates to achieve success on the lacrosse field but also looking forward to the day when he received his diploma in the shadows of the Golden Dome. He could not have foreseen how this education would prepare him for the challenges ahead. Sargent’s life was changed forever 13 years ago. At 8:30 on the morning of May 29, 1997, the 21-year-old senior, who had distinguished himself on a team that qualified for three straight appearances in the NCAA lacrosse tournament, was on his way to nearby Saint Mary’s College to take an exam when he was involved in a two-car accident at the intersection of Notre Dame Avenue and Angela Boulevard. The accident separated Sargent’s neck at the C-7 vertebrae and left him paralyzed from the chest down with somewhat limited use of his arms. Sargent’s focus soon changed from winning games to learning how to live again. He not only graduated from Notre Dame with a double major in history and anthropology in 1999, but also matriculated to become a valued member of the University’s Academic Services for Student-Athletes, counseling members of the football, ice hockey and women’s golf teams. “I have developed a unique relationship with Adam over the years and he has often heard me say, ‘The Lord works in funny ways,’” Pat Holmes, Notre Dame’s director of academic services, said. “I have never said this in describing Adam’s situation, but in reality, Adam would not have chosen this path had he not been hurt. Having worked with him and watched him interact with others, I can honestly say that there is not a day that goes by that Adam does not impact someone’s life in a positive way.” All too often, teachers say, “Do what I say, not as I do.” What could have been a tragic tale about a fall from greatness has turned into a lesson in how to give back to those who helped him at a time when he needed them most. Sargent’s disciplined sensibility to understand what others may perceive an injustice that could have burdened his life has given him an ability to help others on the Notre Dame campus. “I think I’ve always been a pretty empathetic person,” he said. “I was raised that way. My parents stressed an appreciation of what we have, not only in our family, but also in the American culture. Obviously, there is a lot of poverty and difficulties, but we were in the upper middle class and they were always good about making sure I had a social conscience with what was going on not only in our country, but around the world. 52

“I say this because a large part of my ability to cope with this devastating injury is I didn’t spend a lot of time asking why it happened. I didn’t spend a lot of time having to absorb the shock, the realization that I was mortal, the realization that bad things happen. “I think a lot of people are insulated in this country and it’s a beautiful thing to live in a relatively safe culture. So when it happened, it was a completely devastating thing and I was grief stricken with my loss at that age, being a student-athlete and having not only so many of the activities that I valued taken from me, but also in some way having to reshape my identity as to who I am and how I define myself. “That part was hard. When you hear stories of civil war in Rwanda and genocide in Chechnya, all these things are very real and happen to people like me all over the world. But I don’t think people here take it to heart because it’s happening to someone else. Then when it happens to them, it’s, ‘How could this happen to me?’ I was in a car accident and that was unfortunate. But that’s all it was. A car accident. “Now, the result was very difficult for me. But I think I had an appreciation for the fact that we’re not guaranteed anything in this life and when these things happen — even when they’re dramatic — you have the ability — if you choose and if you’re graced with the support network I had, not only my family, but the Notre Dame family, the athletics family — to respond in two ways. You can either have a pity party and find the reasons you won’t be successful or you can grieve, mourn and work toward healing. “I firmly believe it is each individual’s responsibility to do their part to make as much meaning of their life as possible. With the support and the great people around me, I was afraid of failure. And that was a hell of a motivating factor. I wanted to be independent again, wanted to pursue something that not only gave meaning to my life but also gave meaning to others.” Sargent once was a healthy, vibrant young man who loved the outdoors and sports such as skiing. But he was forced to start his life over when he was confined to a wheelchair. His lacrosse coach, Kevin Corrigan, was the first one there at the hospital. “I was the only one there with him,” Corrigan said. “It was just horrific, looking at this vivacious young man, laying there on the table unable to move, scared to death and feeling completely illequipped to know what to do or how to handle the situation.’’ After Sargent was initially stabilized, he was transferred from South Bend to the rehabilitation center at Northwestern University, where he learned how to function on a daily basis. In the fall of 1997, following three months of rehabilitation, Sargent returned to Rochester but lived independently in an apartment near his family’s home. Adam’s mother spent nights with him, but during the day, he began learning the process of living on his own. With the encouragement of the Rev. Al D’Alonzo, C.S.C. (he served as a counselor and worked as the men’s lacrosse team advisor in the academic services department), Sargent returned to campus to complete his studies. He lived in nearby Mishawaka in a customized apartment that was adapted to meet his needs. He commuted to classes in a wheelchair accessible minivan purchased with money raised by a fund started by Corrigan (to date it has raised more than $210,000). Corrigan has been instrumental in ensuring that Sargent and his family could handle his difficult situation as best as possible. He met Sargent’s parents, Walter and Roberta, at the South Bend airport when they flew into South Bend that night. He later accompanied them to a dorm fund-raiser that raised $5,000 and helped, along with his players, set up a “Meet the Irish” function in which fans could interact with every athlete on campus for the price of $5. “That’s what a community is all about,” Corrigan said. “Helping each other. There was no hesitation from anyone within the Notre Dame community and the lacrosse program to do what we could. We just tried to take the outpouring of love and concern that was coming in for Adam. People just kept saying ‘What can I do? What can I do?’ So we decided to start a fund because, no matter what the result

“I firmly believe it is each individual’s responsibility to do their part to make as much meaning of their life as possible. With the support and the great people around me, I was afraid of failure. And that was a hell of a motivating factor.”

—Adam Sargent

of this was, there were going to be extraordinary expenses involved with his recovery. “It was traumatic watching him go through that, but it was also one of the most triumphant things I’ve ever been around. There were some painful moments for him, but I’ve been continually and constantly amazed at him and his ability to move on and maintain the same kind of vitality he always had and the same enthusiasm he always had. “I talked to a recruit we signed recently and I asked him, ‘Why Notre Dame over other great schools?’ “And he said, ‘Notre Dame has a soul.’ “Notre Dame is people like Adam Sargent.” After graduating from Notre Dame, Sargent was offered a chance to attend the University of Virginia and work on a master’s degree in counseling, but chose to stay close to the people who were there for him, accepting an internship in academic services that morphed into a full-time job offer 10 years ago. “I think if I was not independent, it would be a very different situation,” he said. “That element is something that allows me to deal with all the other frustrations in a very constructive way. Part of it’s luck. I have an injury between the fifth and sixth vertebrae that’s pretty high up. I think technically, that’s quadriplegic, not paraplegic. A couple centimeters north and I probably would not be independent. “At this point, I have the mobility in my biceps, triceps and shoulders. I can transport myself and I can get dressed. I can drive and do all this stuff. I’ve worked hard to make sure I maintain strength and maintain my body, but I just have to say I’m lucky the injury wasn’t a centimeter or two higher. I’ve worked hard in the rehab center to understand how to take care of my body, how to transfer, how to get the most strength and condition out of what I have.” On a personal note, he also found someone to share his life. He and Chenn, a graphic designer and artist from Purdue, were married in 2008. She is currently working for the local YMCA, teaching art to children from a charter school in South Bend and doubling as a nanny to twins born to assistant basketball coach Martin Ingelsby and his wife Colleen (she works with Sargent in academic services). “I think we do a great job at this University,” Sargent said. “We have an athletics program that is admired for respecting the importance of young people in both education and degree. If we’re not doing that — the people who work with college athletes — it’s nothing short of exploitation. “We provide them with opportunity for a free education for those on scholarship. But that really can’t be quantified in terms of empowering them to make a living for the rest of their life, empowering them to have a rich experience educationally that helps them grow as a person, but also come back to their communities and make a great, great impact.”

John Scully “Here Come the Irish” is his baby B Y J o h n H e isl e r

t started innocently enough. The year was 1997. John Scully, six years removed from a National Football League career, had been working in and around the music business since his retirement from football. Once he was done with the Atlanta Falcons, Scully and his wife Annette (she’s a sister of former Notre Dame offensive lineman Tom Thayer) moved to Joliet, Ill., to raise their two girls. He’d been collaborating with writer and Grammy Award-winning producer Jim Tullio on a variety of musical projects, including corporate videos and national commercials. Scully worked out of a home music studio, did some volunteer work around Joliet and enjoyed the casual lifestyle that allowed him to take his girls to and from school most days. As Scully describes it, the ’90s were his Peace Corps years, “like an old Pepsi commercial.” Scully and Tullio had finished a successful project for the NBA, and they were looking for a next venture. Scully suggested doing something for Notre Dame — but Tullio was a little skeptical. After all, it’s not like the music at Notre Dame wasn’t already well established. Still, they forged ahead with the Notre Dame angle. Typically, their collaborations involved Tullio working more closely with the music and Scully adding the lyrics. “In the beginning the song started completely differently, it was more of an Irish reel. But we wanted something more emotional — something that would be a little bit semi-religious or almost spiritual to the Notre Dame community,” said Scully. Their direction set, Tullio and Scully needed 20 minutes to write the music. That same night, Scully decided to call it “Here Come the Irish.” Remembers Scully, “That phrase was kind of a Notre Dame chant at that time, but it wasn’t really attributed to anything.” The next day he wrote the chorus, then the following morning he jumped in his car to drive the hour and 15 minutes from Joliet to Tullio’s Winnetka, Ill., studio. He put a pad and a pen on the seat next to him, and by the time he arrived he had written the rest of the lyrics. “I finished it somewhere along I-294 and I-55,” says Scully with a laugh.

Well I remember the leaves a fallin’ And far off music like pipes a callin’ And I remember the golden morning I saw the long ranks as they were forming And there’s a magic in the sound of their name Here come the Irish of Notre Dame The pilgrims follow by the sacred waters And arm in arm go the sons and daughters The drums are rolling and forward bound They’re calling spirits up from the ground And there’s a magic in the sound of their name Here come the Irish of Notre Dame If this doesn’t yet strike a chord with you, the introduction of Cathy Richardson to the project might. Scully and Tullio had done plenty of studio work with Richardson — now the lead singer for Jefferson Starship — and once they had her record the song, a Notre Dame hit was hatched. They’d done it from beginning to end in just a few days. The marketing process began more slowly. Scully sent copies to Notre Dame athletics director Mike Wadsworth and longtime Irish football assistant coach and administrator George Kelly. “Here Come the Irish” slowly made the rounds of the Notre Dame campus. Scully and Tullio had 10,000 commercial CDs pressed with their 15-song collection, highlighted by their trademark Notre Dame song. Scully remembers playing the Richardson-sung rendition for people and “it blew their hair back.” That same year, adidas used the cinematic introduction to the song in a series of Notre Damerelated commercials. By 2001, Scully decided to pull back from his full-time commitment to the music business. His daughters had grown, and he decided it was time to get on with his life. He sold insurance for a while, became a national executive with corporate AIG — and he’s now involved with a member firm of the M Group (in the high-end insurance business). His song hadn’t exactly taken the airwaves by storm, but new technology changed that. “At some point people started sharing it, and the MP3 phenomenon didn’t hurt,” says Scully. The Notre Dame women’s basketball marketing staff started using the song for pre-game introductions, and Richardson wowed the crowd as she sang it live to start an Irish football pep rally. In 2003 Notre Dame licensing director Larry Williams (also a former Irish football offensive lineman) called Scully to tell him students on campus wanted to use the lyrics from the song on “The Shirt” (a longtime Notre Dame charitable fund-raising project). The next year the track ended up on an O’Neill Brothers (two Notre Dame graduates) CD, which confused the public in terms of whose song it was, but didn’t hurt promotional efforts. All the sudden, at least around the Notre Dame campus, “Here Come the Irish” seemed to be everywhere. For Scully, who had been playing the piano since age eight, it proved a labor of love. He and his five siblings all took piano lessons (“Not a bad thing in retrospect,” says Scully, “although that’s not exactly what you want to be doing when you’re eight”), and Scully began listening to Elton John and fellow Long Islander Billy Joel and taught himself to play by ear. 58

“I still get notes from people telling me they are so thankful I wrote the song. I like to think it’s become part of the culture. It really belongs to Notre Dame.” —John Scully At Notre Dame, he would play during team dinners at bowl games. His piano expertise even helped him academically, as on more than one occasion he traded in the assignment of writing a report in a seminar class for providing a musical interpretation instead. In Atlanta during his NFL days, he would play at clubs in the offseason because he had plenty of free time and he loved doing it. Have Scully and Tullio and Co. made millions from their musical venture? Not exactly, but Scully could care less. “The payoff was to see how much it meant to people, not for me personally,” he says. “I still get notes from people telling me they are so thankful I wrote the song. I like to think it’s become part of the culture. It really belongs to Notre Dame.” These days it’s not unusual to see Scully playing the piano at one Notre Dame event or another. He’s entertained at the Rockne Dinner in Chicago (the annual spring affair sponsored by the Notre Dame Alumni Club of Chicago), the Wall Street Forum in New York (a Notre Dame business alumni event), plus plenty of development and other functions in between. Lots of times he plays piano for older daughter — and 2010 Notre Dame graduate — Britt, who sings (younger Scully daughter Annie will graduate from Notre Dame in 2011). In addition, Scully and Tullio are promoting a new Notre Dame-connected offering titled “Our Lady of the Lake.” “I was walking around the lakes last fall, and it was still warm but steam was rising off the water. I was in front of Moreau Seminary, taking a picture back toward the Dome. There was a guy jogging and he looks at me and says, ‘That worth another song?’ And, I thought, maybe it is,” says Scully. “The lyrics came first and then Jim reworked the music. It’s a nice ballad — a little more ‘alma mater-ish.’” Both “Here Come the Irish” and “Our Lady of the Lake” will be part of what Scully is calling a Here Come the Irish collection CD that will be issued in the spring. Included will be several different interpretations of “Here Come the Irish,” including one by Ken Dye and the Notre Dame band. Originally from Huntington, N.Y., Scully almost looks at his football career as another whole life in a rather distant past. He was good enough to start at center for Notre Dame in 1979 and ’80, serving as tri-captain for the 1980 squad that played in the Sugar Bowl and earning consensus All-America honors that season. He owns an Irish national championship ring from the ’77 title campaign. A fourth-round draft pick of the Falcons, he played 10 seasons in Atlanta. Drafted as a center, he started seven seasons for the Falcons at guard. He had a football career most current Irish players would sign up for right now. Talk to Scully these days, and football seems a million miles in his rear-view mirror — and that doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Yet, somewhere hidden behind his low-key personality, you sense the emergence of his Notre Dame “theme song” — if you call it that — is a sincere personal point of pride. Do we know the “Notre Dame Victory March”? Check. How about the alma mater, “Notre Dame, Our Mother”? Check. Throw in “Hike, Notre Dame,” “As Irish Backs Go Marching By” and “Down the Line.” You’d recognize them, too. Check. Check. Check. Now add “Here Come the Irish” to the list. Check. And that finally brings just a hint of a grin to the face of John Scully.

Jen Sharron Ex-Irish softballer knows show business B Y B I L L D WY R E

f you happen to be talking to Jen Sharron and you really don’t like Notre Dame, by the end of the conversation, you will. When it comes to Notre Dame, she is the perfect winning play being drawn on the chalkboard. Only you might imagine Father Hesburgh (the former University President) doing the Xs and Os, rather than Lou Holtz. She was a star pitcher at Notre Dame. But her athletic success is only part of her emotional connection to her school. “Going to Notre Dame is not like a four-year decision,” she says. “It is a lifetime decision.” She also says, “Notre Dame shapes people. There are two typical kinds of college graduates. The kind that take and the kind that want to give back. The majority of Notre Dame grads want to give back.” Sharron, a 2001 graduate, is a living recruitment poster, a lady who is unabashedly positive about the University of Our Lady. She is also, as you might imagine, a fast-rising success story in that big world that so quickly confronts graduates. At age 31, she is a field producer for ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. Her life is as fast-moving as the medium she works in. Others shy away from such high pressure. Sharron never did when it was time for her to take the mound for the Fighting Irish softball team, nor does she now. “I want them to give me the ball,” she says. “They give me the chaos and I organize it.” At Notre Dame, the lefty pitcher was the first, and the only, player to be named BIG EAST Conference pitcher of the year four straight years. Her statistics attest to an excellence that also got her Academic All-American honors, as well as a second-team and third-team spot on overall All-American teams. When Sharron was playing, Notre Dame won four straight BIG EAST titles and made trips to the NCAA tournament her last three years. Individually, she was 88-29 as a pitcher, hit .314 and drove in 37 runs, had 76 complete games and struck out 728. She also pitched a no-hitter and after college, threw a perfect game for Team USA against Brazil in the Pan Am Games in Caracas. But it is the statistic they don’t keep, and one she badly wants, that indicates the further personality traits — beyond competitive to feisty. “Hit by pitch,” she says. “I must have led in that. I hit a lot of them. Why wouldn’t they keep that? I’d like to know.”

The chances of Sharron attending Notre Dame were somewhat nonexistent when the call came that day to her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills. It was Irish softball coach Liz Miller. Sharron’s father Matt, who answered the phone, had long been inflicted with that dreaded Southern California disease known as I-Am-A-USC-Football-Fan. Almost always, it is incurable. Matt Sharron wasn’t interested. But when he heard there might be a scholarship offer forthcoming, he decided to go along for the fun of it, make the trip, humor his oldest daughter and get back home in time for the next playing of “Conquest.” But then, in September of 1996, the family went to a pep rally. It was the night before an unbeaten Irish team was to play Ohio State. A leprechaun named Lou Holtz electrified the place, the Golden Dome glowed in the distant light and somewhere along the way, Matt Sharron turned to his wife Joan, and said, “She’s going here.” “Before we took that trip,” Jen Sharron says, “my father always said that we root for USC and anybody who plays Notre Dame. Now, of course, we root for Notre Dame and anybody who plays USC.” She got good grades, had snowball fights on the quad, ordered lots of late-night pizza, never missed a home Notre Dame football game and did all the normal things that Notre Dame students do. But her graduation ceremony was far from normal. While President George W. Bush made the commencement speech in South Bend, Sharron and her softball team were in Iowa City, where they would fall just one game shy of getting to the College World Series. They had lost to Iowa, 6-2, in a game that started with Sharron hitting a home run over the fence. Graduation took place at the Hampton Inn in Iowa City. Full caps and gowns. Alumni Association executive director Chuck Lennon did the presentations. Each graduate spoke. Many would think of a remote graduation ceremony as a downer. Not Sharron. “It was intimate,” she says. “My family was all there. I was so close to the girls on the team. It is a wonderful memory.” She spent some time after graduation as an intern in the Irish athletics department. But eventually, it was time to head back to California and face the tough task that every graduate must face: finding a real job. For most, even in good economic times, this can be a nightmare. But Sharron, an FTT (film, television and theatre) major, isn’t like most and probably never will be. This is how it went for her: She had a friend who knew somebody in high places at Fox Sports and called ahead. Sharron called, identified herself and was soon greeted on the other end by senior vice president Jack Simmons and the following: “While her loyal sons are marching, onward to victory.” She got the job, obviously. Sharron became a production assistant on the NFL’s pregame show, the one featuring Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson. “Later, I bought Simmons a Notre Dame cap,” she says, “and he still wears it.” An on-air guest prognosticator in those days was Jimmy Kimmel, with whom Sharron worked. Later, when he got his own network late-night comedy/variety show, Kimmel asked her to come along. She did, and remains an integral part of the show today. She had taken her shot at Olympic softball, made some preliminary cuts, played alongside the likes of Jeannie Finch, Crystal Bustos and Lisa Fernandez — all eventually part of the U.S. gold-medal team in Athens in 2004. But she quickly understood that the pre-Athens commitment, with no guarantee of making the final team, would mean extended stays in either Italy or Japan. Sharron decided to get on with her life. And now, that life includes daily spontaneity, which is the very definition of live television. One day, she showed up at work in a skirt and sandals and was told to get on a plane and head to Boston for a remote shot for that night’s show. “It was St. Patrick’s Day, warm and sunny in Los Angeles,” she says. “In Boston, it was 40 degrees and freezing.”

… in September of 1996, the family went to a pep rally. It was the night before an unbeaten Irish team was to play Ohio State. A leprechaun named Lou Holtz electrified the place, the Golden Dome glowed in the distant light and somewhere along the way, Matt Sharron turned to his wife Joan, and said, “She’s going here.” She found a bar named Sully’s in Charlestown, Mass., paraded on in, set it all up and there they were, crowds of Boston Irish, celebrating for Kimmel’s audience. She got sent back to Boston again in the fall of 2004, when the Red Sox were rallying from 3-0 down against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. “I waited at LAX for the end of the sixth game,” she says. “If the Red Sox won and tied it at 3-3, I was to get on a plane. If not, I would just go back home.” The Red Sox won, she flew in again, it was freezing cold again — at least to Sharron’s California thermostat — and she went to work. “I went to Radio Shack and bought a big television,” she says. “Then I put it up in a street near the Fenway parking lots (the game was in New York) and got electricity strung to it. Some fans came and watched with me, and we had our shot, right there from Boston.” Like so many Notre Dame graduates, Sharron has departed the premises. But she will never really totally leave. “I met Jerome Bettis one time,” she says. “I introduced myself, told him I went to Notre Dame and the first question he asked was what dorm I had been in. There is so much common ground. Notre Dame is just a huge family network.” She lives in Sherman Oaks in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, in a condominium she shares with her sister Jessica, 29, also a former Notre Dame pitcher. She commutes into Hollywood every day, except those when she is sent off to parts unknown for remote television shots as yet organized. And she couldn’t be happier, while never forgetting how grateful she is about the decision she made back in 1996 about her school of choice. “Every day that I get up, I am fired up to get to work,” she says. “After I finished with school, I knew that I needed to find that feeling again, the one that puts fire in your stomach every day. “Well, I did.”

Nicholas Sparks From Irish track and field runner to

B Y J O H N WA LT E R S

best-selling author

Author’s note: On May 15, 1988, I took part in the commencement ceremonies at the University of Notre Dame. That afternoon I made an effort to have my photo taken with classmate Tim Brown, the 1987 Heisman Trophy winner and a future NFL Hall of Famer. Surely, I thought, Brown will be the most famous member of our graduating class. Boy, was I wrong.

hen did Nicholas Sparks realize that The Notebook was about to change his life? “Page one,” says the best-selling novelist of his debut work, which he wrote when he was 28. “At least, I hoped so. I thought to myself, I have this story. I know it’s going to work. All I have to do is write it well.” When did Theresa Park realize that Winter for Two, the manuscript’s original title, was about to change her life? “I’m the least romantic person,” says Park, then 27 and a low-level literary agent. “I got married at city hall. But when I was two-thirds of the way through Nick’s manuscript, which I read in bed in one night, I was bawling. I turned to my boyfriend, who’s now my husband, and said, ‘This book is going to be a huge best-seller.’” Seventeen books and 60 million copies translated into 34 languages later, Nicholas Sparks is an international publishing phenomenon. He is in the same company as John Grisham and Stephen King. And Park, who put aside a Harvard law degree to pursue a career as a literary agent, has been with him every step of the way. It is an unlikely and serendipitous relationship that would make for a great Nicholas Sparks novel. “Oh my God,” gushes Park about her best client who is also one of her best friends. “Do you realize how many times I think about how my life would’ve been different if I hadn’t met Nick Sparks?” His story, at least chapters of it, you may already know. In 1994 Sparks, a 1988 Notre Dame graduate who had attended the school on a track scholarship, was a pharmaceutical sales rep. His wife Cathy, whom Sparks had met during spring break of their respective senior years at college (she attended the University of New Hampshire), had given birth to their second child.

Settling down was fine with Sparks. But settling? “‘Where did all those dreams go?’ I thought,” Sparks says. He pledged to himself that he would write three novels, give “three 100 percent efforts,” and then and only then would he stop chasing that dream. “At the time Ryan wasn’t sleeping well and Cathy was going to bed at nine o’clock,” he says. “I could either stay up to watch TV or write a novel.” That first one sprang from a visit Sparks and his wife made to an elderly couple on the day after their wedding in July 1989. “Cathy’s grandparents couldn’t attend the wedding (in Manchester, N.H.) because they were both ill,” Sparks recalls. “So we dressed up the next day and brought the wedding to them.” Touched by the affection the elderly couple retained for one another after 60 years of marriage, and determined to be in control of his own financial future, Sparks set out to pen a tale similar to theirs. “I knew that I had the right story and the right structure,” he says. “I just wasn’t sure if I could pull off the writing style that it needed.” Sparks is a dreamer, but he is also a pragmatist. “I wrote the final chapter first,” he says of The Notebook, a love story whose surprise twist at the end has enthralled millions of (mostly female) readers. “I’m not going to waste my time with the first two-thirds of the book if I can’t pull off the final third.” Once he’d finished the manuscript, Sparks sent out 25 query letters to literary agents. One such letter was sent to Diane Cleaver who, unbeknownst to him, had passed away a few months earlier. An assistant charged with sorting through her mail passed on the letter to Park, a junior associate at Sanford J. Greenburger & Associates who to that point had sold only four books, none of them novels. Park and Sparks, two neophytes in publishing and strangers to one another, forged a partnership. After a few edits, and a title change (“That was the first thing that had to go,” says Park), Park sent the letter to 20 publishers. Jamie Raab, then an editor at Warner Books, phoned the next day. “We would like to offer $500,000,” Raab said. “I told her, without batting an eye, ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t think that’s enough money’,” Park replied. “When I told my boss about it, she told me that she’d never sold a book for that much.” Raab called back. “How about a million?” “Seventeen books later, every one of them a best-seller, Nicholas and I are still together,” beams Park. “And Jamie Raab is the publisher at Warner Books, which is now known as Grand Central Publishing.” All he had to do was work. Sparks and recreation do not go hand in hand. He has always been a tireless worker, be it on the track, where he still is part of a record-holding 4 x 800 relay team for the Irish, or in front of a keyboard. “I’m very driven to this day,” says Sparks, a father of five who lives in New Bern, N.C. “That’s just the nature of who I am.” All he has to do is work, but work is not all Sparks has to do. His numerous best-sellers, among them The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, A Walk To Remember, Nights in Rodanthe and Dear John (all of which have been made into films), have afforded Sparks the capacity to, well, afford most anything he desires. What he most covets is to achieve more. In his adopted home of New Bern, Sparks and his wife founded and are the major benefactors of a college preparatory school, The Epiphany School. In 2006 he became the track coach at New Bern High School and, besides donating $900,000 for a new track, led the team to six indoor or outdoor state championships in the next four years (Sparks speaks with equal, if not more, zeal about New Bern’s track titles as he does his book titles). Under his direction, New Bern athletes won 17 individual and relay national championships and set three U.S. high school records. He also reads 100 books each year.

When he is not reading books, he still writes one every year or so. Sparks slaves four or five months over each manuscript, even though his name is veritably its own section in any Borders you visit. “At least that many,” Sparks reports. When he is not reading books, he still writes one every year or so. Sparks slaves four or five months over each manuscript, even though his name is veritably its own section in any Borders you visit. “Life without goals is no fun,” says Sparks. “In the present time, it’s still challenging to write novel after novel that you’re consistently proud of. I’ll write three to seven hours a day, and I’m always thinking about it. I’ve stopped because I don’t know what’s next.” Ambivalence and doubt have never ridden shotgun alongside Sparks. As a high school freshman in Fair Oaks, Calif., Sparks, nudged on by an older teammate who won a state championship in the two-mile event, dedicated himself to running. As a senior he finished fourth in the state meet in the 800 (at 1:52; he ran a 4:11 mile), earning a track scholarship to Notre Dame. As a freshman residing in Flanner Hall, Sparks was part of a foursome that set a school record in the 4 x 800 at the Drake Relays (7:20), a mark that still stands. But then injuries began to rack his feet, from bone spurs to Achilles tendonitis to plantar fasciitis. “It was an up-and-down four years, mostly down,” says Sparks, who no longer runs. “I think I took 40 cortisone shots in the bottom of my foot. It was incredibly frustrating. My joints would squeak like a rusty hinge. Even squeaked when I broke the school record.” After his freshman year, doctors prescribed eight weeks of Sparks staying off his feet, in the hopes of staving off surgery (though he would eventually have surgery the following spring). “I was going a little bit crazy at home and my mom said, ‘Don’t just pout. Do something,’” Sparks remembers. “What?” “I don’t know. Write a book.” The difference between Nicholas Sparks and most people is not that he began work on The Passing. The difference is that he finished it. “When I sat down to write that novel, it never entered my mind that I wouldn’t finish,” says Sparks. But why did he sit down in the first place? “To see if I could do it.” “It’s like when I became coach of the track team at New Bern,” says Sparks. “It wasn’t about, ‘We’re going to do some jumping jacks and run some intervals and go to dual meets.’ It was about, ‘We’re going to make history.’ It’s like, what do I want on my tombstone?” It is that trait in Sparks that Park, a child of Asian immigrants, finds so awe-inspiring. “To me, Nick is everything that’s best about the United States,” she says. “It’s a world full of possibilities. Just because it’s never been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done. “That’s Nick Sparks.”

Chris Stewart He lays down the law on and off the field B Y M AT T H EW V. S T O R I N

n the early hours of Sept. 27, 2007, the Notre Dame campus was shrouded in darkness, but the lights from Room 229 cast brightness on the inner courtyard of Keenan Hall. Sophomore Chris Stewart, a prized football recruit, was packing up and going home to Texas. Frustrated by lack of playing time four games into what was becoming a miserable season, Stewart had seen enough. His roommate, Mike Rieder, recalls, “He didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want to go through the goodbye process.” Rieder recalls the tears he had in his own eyes. And Stewart’s too. “He cried like a baby. We had to go tell the rector, Rev. Mark Thesing, C.S.C., who was very consoling. We stayed up till six in the morning.” Then Stewart went home. “For two or three days, he cut everyone off.” That weekend Notre Dame lost to Purdue, with Stewart watching on television. Then late Sunday night, Rieder’s phone rang. “He said, ‘Hey, what are you doing next Friday? Want to have dinner? I’m coming back.’” Three years later, Christopher Don Stewart, 23, is literally and figuratively a Big Man on Campus. The only Division 1 football player enrolled in law school, he is—at 6-feet-5, 351 pounds—a formidable performer on the field and outstanding presence in the classroom. He is in his third year of starting every game. Stew, as he’s known to his friends and teammates, completed his undergraduate degree in three and a half years with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.54. He entered the Notre Dame Law School for the 2010 fall semester. In October, the National Football Foundation announced Stewart would receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship as one of 16 National Scholar-Athletes. The Chris Stewart receiving all these accolades embodies what Notre Dame aspires to achieve with all its student-athletes, yet by birthplace and culture, it’s hard to envision a less likely place for him to be. “I did not grow up dreaming of going to Notre Dame,” he says. He was oriented toward Ole Miss, Texas and Texas A&M. His sister Crystal, 25, says, “Chris is really a Mississippi boy, born in the Delta, stereotypically one of the poorest parts of the United States.” And he is, by his own description, “very Protestant.” So how did he wind up in South Bend? George Stewart, Chris’ father, recalls hearing from a relative while visiting A&M in 2005 that Mike Haywood, one of head coach Charlie Weis’ assistants at Notre Dame, had an interest in Chris. A short time later, they were contacted directly. According to

Chris, “It was sort of weird. You know sometimes you feel you’re supposed to do something? The most interesting thing is that when I set foot on campus for the Notre Dame-Michigan State game in 2005, I felt I was supposed to go here. And that was it.” But that did not make the transition easy when he arrived in January 2006, having graduated early from Klein High School in Klein, Texas. George Stewart remembers those first phone calls. “He said, ‘Dad, as much as I love Notre Dame… goodness, if I had known it was this cold, I don’t know if I would have made that choice.’” The football wasn’t coming so easily either. Weis famously referred to Chris as “two cheeseburgers short of 400 pounds” and set out to get his star prospect slimmed down a bit. (Chris is very comfortable with his enormous size; he just doesn’t want to look “sloppy.” So he pledges to eat smartly and work out the rest of his life.) By September 2007, Chris felt he had not been properly evaluated. During this period he credits his roommate Rieder and a former girlfriend with “keeping me sane.” Rieder recalls, “He was definitely struggling. There was no easy way. He fought it. He was coming from a totally different culture, and he had left high school early.” In that early season of 2007, Rieder had known for weeks that Chris was thinking of bolting, but “I couldn’t tell anyone.” Chris’ mom and dad had divorced years before, and he was raised in Greenwood, Miss., for most of his earlier years by his mom, Lucia Harris-Stewart, now a retired school teacher and a star basketball player in her collegiate days. His dad has a car dealership in Texas, where Chris went to high school. He was always competitive in his studies, particularly with two of his six siblings — his sisters, Crystal and Christina — who are twins. “Our parents didn’t have to push us to do anything. We were all high performers in school. But when it came to his frustrations at Notre Dame in 2007, it was all about the football. “He was very unhappy because he wasn’t getting a chance to play. I told him to take a break and really decide,” his mom says. This is where Charlie Weis goes from foe to friend in the Stewart saga. Chris had already filed his paperwork to officially leave Notre Dame, but Weis put the process on hold for the weekend, while Chris flew home. According to both Chris and George Stewart, Weis reached out to his player and told him, in George’s words, “This is the kind of person that we want on our campus.” He adds, “To me, Charlie, and what happened to Chris, brought out the best in Chris. It toughened him up.” The son adds, “He told me I was a Notre Dame kind of person and he would hate for me to leave. I saw a side of him I hadn’t seen before.” So he returned the following Monday and was back at practice the next day. Later that year he registered 47 minutes of playing time. He started 10 games in 2008, and 12 games the following year and was clearly a team leader in the 2010 season. But there is obviously much more to the Stewart story at Notre Dame. Though he’s been buried in law books from dawn till midnight most days of his final season, he was a familiar presence on campus the previous four years. “Chris should have run for mayor of Notre Dame, if he could have.” says Rieder. “He made friends with guys who didn’t care that he was a football player.” He also picked up on Notre Dame’s tradition of service. He visited Haiti during spring break of 2009 with the legendary retired professor and dean, Emil T. Hofman, who organizes platoons of Notre Dame alums, particularly physicians, to aid the Notre Dame program in that struggling nation. Though raised in conditions that were far from comfortable, Chris said nothing prepared him for Haiti. “Seeing an entire country below the poverty line… ,” he recalls, his voice trailing off. Many of the children he met there, and who marveled at his size, were later killed in the earthquake of January 2010. “It was heartbreaking,” he says. “I think service will always be a part of my life after experiencing that.” Crystal Stewart predicted that 20 years from now her brother will be working in some underdeveloped country. Stewart talks often of being the “old man” of the team at age 23. Rieder, now an investment banker in New York City, graduated two years ago, and nearly all the teammates he began with have moved on. He credits Ryan Harris, now an offensive tackle with the Denver Broncos, with being his

“Chris should have run for mayor of Notre Dame, if he could have.” says Rieder. “He made friends with guys who didn’t care that he was a football player.” —Mike Rieder

Roommate of Chris Stewart

mentor in the early years. Though he doesn’t keep in touch regularly with Weis, now offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs in the National Football League, he hopes “he’s going to need some linemen” next year, as Chris hopes for a career in the NFL. His plan was to finish the fall semester at the Notre Dame Law School, then pick up his legal career after the NFL. “I guess a whole bunch of people don’t realize that football is my thing. Everything else (like law school) is kind of extra. I just happen to be good at it.” Sitting in the Commons Room of the Notre Dame Law School late one night, he laughs. “That sounds kind of funny right now, sitting here doing my homework.” Mike Golic Jr., one of his understudies on the offensive line, says the one word to describe Stewart is “passionate.” He says this includes law school as well as “everything that goes with football.” Like Rieder, who describes Stewart as the brother he never had, Golic says, “I feel myself fortunate that he’s a person I’ve gotten close to.” It is common on campus to hear someone brag about his or her relationship “with Stew.” Friends and family also mention Stewart’s spiritual side, as does he. He may be a Southern Baptist, but the Grotto is his favorite place on campus. He jokes about having “dated mostly Catholic girls.” (He is in a serious relationship with Brittany Payne, a Saint Mary’s College junior from Plymouth, Ind.) Ultimately Stewart sees his Notre Dame story in spiritual terms: “I was supposed to go here. I was supposed to leave here, and I was supposed to come back. To this day, I believe that.”

Laurie Wenger “Play Like A Champion Today” —

B Y J O H N WA LT E R S

a simple phrase became big business

here are those who spend a lifetime searching for a sign that will change their lives. And then there’s Laurie Wenger, who painted hers. “It was just another job for me,” says Wenger of the five simple words that she first brush-stroked in blue paint upon a gold background in the winter of 1986. “Looking back, I should have made it more formal.” PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY. The five-word phrase has become as inextricably linked to the University of Notre Dame as “Win One For The Gipper.” Browse the two levels of the immaculate on-campus bookstore and you will find “PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY” embossed on dozens of items: T-shirts and towels, lanyards and license plates, magnets and mousepads, keychains and koozies. Hoodies, Frisbees, beer glasses, ball caps, coffee mugs, playing cards and, of course, exact replicas of the original sign in its original dimensions, four feet by three feet, all are available for purchase. And who owns the trademark on that phrase and thus earns royalties on the sale of every item? Laurie Wenger and her husband Ron. “I couldn’t even imagine at the time that it would turn into a business,” she says. It all began soon after Notre Dame hired Lou Holtz to replace Gerry Faust as football coach in November of 1985. Wenger, a South Bend native whose job was to paint signs for functions at what was then the Athletic and Convocation Center (ACC), was in the maintenance shop when linebackers coach George Stewart approached. “This coach (Stewart) handed me a piece of paper,” she recalls. “He said that the new coach (Holtz) wanted a sign made with these words on it.” According to Holtz, he had been foraging through books on Notre Dame’s storied past when he spotted the sign in a photo. The sign was posted at the bottom of the stairs that lead from the locker room to the tunnel inside Notre Dame Stadium. “I asked everybody, ‘Who took it down?’” Holtz has said. “Nobody remembered it even being up.” Nor does anyone at Notre Dame even know which book Holtz might have been perusing. No matter. Wenger quickly set to work. Her maintenance shop co-workers sawed a piece of plywood, which she primed twice, each time waiting for the primer to dry overnight. Another day was spent painting the sign gold. Finally, she added the blue lettering in the signature ALL-CAPS style she had

first adopted in high school commercial art class. “People ask what font she used,” says Ron Wenger. “We’ve trademarked that. It’s actually called ‘Laurie.’” And that was that. Wenger, who was born blind in her right eye, returned to painting signs for athletic banquets, for graduation dinners for Junior Parents’ Weekend (“that was hell,” she says), etc. She even painted game balls, including one that was given to President Ronald Reagan during his 1988 campus visit. “Laurie’s work is on display in the Ronald Reagan Library in California,” says Ron. Then one day serendipity and opportunity crossed paths. In 1991 NBC mounted an unmanned camera at the top of the locker room steps to show the Irish players slapping the sign as they prepared to take the field. A few weeks later Ron Wenger received a phone call. “This salesman at Coral Nissan Dodge wanted a replica of the sign for his house,” Ron recalls. “I think we charged him, like, $200.” Ron delivered the sign to the Wenger’s first customer, a local who told him that he had actually been a walk-on football player for the Irish. “When I went down to his basement,” Ron says, “I had never seen so much Notre Dame memorabilia. He had a helmet, a jersey, even a church pew.” The customer? Rudy Ruettiger. “But he wasn’t ‘Rudy’ yet,” says Laurie. “This was a few years before the movie came out.” At the time Laurie, Ron and Ron’s brother-in-law, Don Padgett, were scrambling for ways to augment their incomes. “I was a third-shift CT technician with days and weekends off,” says Ron. “We were shooting wedding videos and had a company called Lifetime Video Productions.” It was Padgett who suggested they place an ad in the Notre Dame football weekly Blue & Gold Illustrated, marketing hand-painted replicas for $49.95. Chuck Lennon, the school’s vice president of University Relations and a popular figure on campus, ceded all licensing rights to the phrase to the Wengers since there is no direct mention of Notre Dame in the wording. Ron and Laurie then went about obtaining a trademark for it. Soon, with the popularity of a football program that at the time perennially finished in the top 10 and the visibility afforded the sign by NBC’s cameras, Laurie Wenger was the most prolific painter since Picasso. “That was the fall I never got to see daylight,” says Laurie, who would paint in her basement, of the autumn of ’91. “We didn’t even put up a Christmas tree that year, we were so busy,” says Ron. The following summer Ron and Laurie took their PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY (or, PLACT) idea to the old Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore on the South Quad. They received a polite rejection letter in return. Still, the business grew. Orders kept filtering in via the magazine ad—to this day they still run an ad in Blue & Gold Illustrated—and the product line began to expand. When alumnus Regis Philbin, who had received a Wenger original as a gift for hosting the 1991 football banquet, appeared on The Apprentice, the contestants were shown slapping the sign as they left his office. Time to buy more paint. On New Year’s Day 2003, late in the 28-6 Gator Bowl blowout by North Carolina State, the announcers noted that Notre Dame had brought a PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY sign with them. Time to buy more paint. In truth Laurie, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1995, only personally hand-painted approximately 600 signs before partnering with a local imaging company. Curiously enough that company, AP Image, is owned by Jim Humbert, a former Notre Dame football lineman and son-in-law of legendary Irish coach Ara Parseghian. The original sign, which still is mounted at the bottom of the stairs leading out from the Irish locker room, has been repainted only once, by Laurie. The others are all numbered, with Lennon receiving No. 1 and Holtz No. 2. The last sign Laurie hand-painted hangs at the bottom of the stairs of the Wengers’ basement. 74

Soon, with the popularity of a football program that at the time perennially finished in the top 10 and the visibility afforded the sign by NBC’s cameras, Laurie Wenger was the most prolific painter since Picasso. “People would ask, ‘How can you do all of those signs?’” Laurie says. “One letter at a time.” The business evolved. Lifetime Video Productions became PLACT, which also happens to be the license plate number on the family SUV. The Notre Dame bookstore moved into its new digs under new ownership that welcomed PLACT products. Laurie and Ron entered into a licensing agreement with Notre Dame so that the revenue is no longer solely theirs. “It’s better this way,” says Laurie, who continued to work full time at Notre Dame as its Joyce Center sign painter until retiring in May 2010. “We’ve met so many neat people and had so many great experiences because of those five words. We feel blessed.” An example: When Rudy was being filmed in 1992, Laurie was called in to paint props. She painted the “Practice in Session” sign that appears on the fence outside Cartier Field as well as all the game balls that appear in coach Dan Devine’s office. Another: When Tyrone Willingham was hired as Notre Dame’s coach in 2002, he could not wait to meet Laurie. “He already had a sign when we met,” Laurie says. “He wanted me to sign it so that he could hang it in his son’s bedroom.” The Wengers are reticent to reveal the financial harvest that they’ve reaped through PLACT other than to say that they have sold “tens of thousands” of items bearing the phrase. Ron claims that more subway alums than actual alumni buy the products though, of course, subway alums also greatly outnumber Notre Dame graduates. “I used to wonder when we first began advertising, ‘Who would want this?’” says Laurie. “Boy, did I find out.” But why? “Because it’s universal,” says Ron. “Everything I do at work, I do my best. Every time I slap that sign, that’s what I’m saying.” “His job, your job, whatever you do,” says Laurie. “You do your best. Play like a champion today.” Five years ago Laurie went in for a CT scan. Ron, who really does do his best at his job, administered the test. He knew, before the doctor even met with his wife, that Laurie had a brain tumor. “When he told me I said, ‘You’re full of (manure),’” Laurie recalls. Fortunately, it was benign but in the past year Laurie needed to undergo brain surgery to have it removed. Between her advancing MS and the brain tumor surgery (Laurie has never been able to drive), the ancillary income from the PLACT proceeds has been a godsend. “It’s allowed Laurie to retire and defrayed all the medical expenses,” says Ron. “Notre Dame has blessed us in so many ways.” And what about the man whose request, made a quarter-century ago, inspired the company that led to the enriched lives of Laurie and Ron Wenger? “My nephew, Don’s son, Brian Padgett, took a sign to a luncheon where Lou Holtz was speaking to have him sign it,” says Ron. “Lou took one look at the sign and said, ‘I wish I had trademarked that.’” 75

Monty W illiams You know Phil Jackson and Doc Rivers,

BY TIM FRANK

and now you know Monty Williams, too

oc Rivers remembers the conversation well. While coaching the Orlando Magic, Rivers approached one of his veteran leaders, Monty Williams, and told him what everyone on the team already knew. Well, everyone except Williams himself. The former Notre Dame star was going to be an NBA coach someday and he was powerless to stop it. “He denied it … said there was no way,” remembers Rivers, now in his seventh season as head coach of the Boston Celtics. “I told him I had the same conversation with Pat Riley when I was playing and I told (Riley) ‘There is no way I’m doing that.’ With Monty, he said to me, ‘Yeah, but you always kind of wanted to coach and I have no interest and it will never happen.’ I love that he’s a head coach now.” Williams, who was named the ninth head coach of the New Orleans Hornets on June 7, 2010, chuckles when he recalls the story. At that time, Williams was enjoying a fruitful NBA playing career and never once considered coaching, certainly not at the NBA level. “I thought Doc was nuts. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I’m going to take my money and you guys will never hear from me again,” Williams says recalling his thoughts. “Now, looking back on it, (coaching) just seemed like something that I would love to do.” For Rivers, the idea of Williams coaching seemed obvious because of how his teammates reacted to him. “The biggest thing for me was that he has this ability for people to follow him,” Rivers says. “On our team, Monty was the sixth or seventh best player, yet everybody followed him and that is a trait you either have or you don’t. Monty has it.” Williams’ leadership skills are ingrained from a deep maturity that he developed following a trying personal experience during his time at Notre Dame. After a solid freshman season and with signs the sky was the limit, Williams discovered a dark cloud hovering close at hand—one that carried the potential for serious harm. During his annual physical, doctors discovered he suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a potentially life-threatening affliction featuring a thickened muscle between chambers of the heart. A stunned Williams had no idea how to even react. “When you’re 18 years old, you can’t process that kind of information. One day, I’m playing on the team. I’m bench pressing 300 and whatever pounds and jumping 40 inches off the ground and the

next day, they tell me I can’t play basketball anymore,” Williams says. “To hear that news, it was devastating. It was something I never want to feel again. It was no emotion at all. You can’t even muster any emotion because you don’t know where to go.” Despite seemingly having his playing career ended, Williams, sparked by his then-girlfriend and now wife Ingrid, turned to his faith to guide him through this unforeseen challenge. “It was probably the most important time in my life because that’s when my girlfriend, who was such an example of faith and Christian living, told me that I had to get things together in my life,” Williams recalls. “God was trying to get my attention . . . that he didn’t put this on me but this was my shot to get my life together because where I was headed probably wasn’t going to be a good place.” As one would expect, when word surfaced that Williams could not play at Notre Dame, other universities began to inquire about his desire to transfer. In what some might find to be a surprising decision, Williams recognized the need to take advantage of his other opportunities at Notre Dame while parking his basketball dreams. “If I left Notre Dame, I knew I was going to leave something special,” Williams says. “Schools were telling me, ‘Come on down and we’ll take care of it.’ Right away, I knew they didn’t care about me. They just wanted someone to come down and help their program.” For a guy that came to Notre Dame with dreams of playing in the NBA, Williams’ ability to keep perspective was unique for someone facing so much adversity at such a young age. “I went to Notre Dame to get a job, whether it was in sports or the corporate world,” Williams says. “I knew if I stayed there long enough, I was going to get a job doing something. My biggest thing was that I never wanted to go home and be a burden to my mother. People don’t realize how special of a place Notre Dame is. I knew that being there was going to mean something someday. Thank God, I stuck it out.” Of course, basketball could never completely leave his thoughts. Despite doctors telling him to stay away from competitive basketball, Williams played often on campus—which led to fellow students wondering why he would put himself at risk. “I believed everything that the Bible said about healing. We prayed the prayer of faith and I just rested in that,” Williams said. “Even though the doctor said that there is a chance I could still die, the reality was that all I had was my faith and if I couldn’t lean on that, what else did I have? I kept playing with the idea that someday I was going to get to play somewhere, whether it was the CBA or overseas. I enjoyed basketball so much that I couldn’t picture my life without having basketball in it.” In the summer of 1992, Williams no longer needed to imagine life without basketball. The 6-foot-8, 225 pound forward was cleared by doctors after his condition improved to the point that it no longer posed a threat to his life. “When the doctor came in and told me that I was going to be able to play again, all I could do was thank God. My mom was crying and I called Ingrid and told her, ‘I’m going to play ball again,’ and she started crying. This time, I was able to garner some emotions. I just felt thankful. I never felt that thankful again until I had my own kids.” Williams returned to the floor and played two seasons at Notre Dame, averaging over 20 points per game after his return. His success prepared him to achieve his childhood dream when he was drafted by the New York Knicks in the first round of the 1994 NBA draft. Williams went on to have a successful nine-year NBA career, playing with six teams, including the San Antonio Spurs. Upon his retirement, Williams talked to his former coach with the Spurs, Gregg Popovich, about life after basketball. Popovich encouraged him to spend time with the Spurs and see if coaching interested him. The four-time NBA champion coach almost immediately knew Williams was a fit for the profession. “He just dove right in and was a sponge,” Popovich remembers. “You have the whole range with former players. Some who think they can just walk in and coach and others who realize you’re going to watch some film and take some notes and you’re going to learn. Monty turned himself into a student and I thought that was impressive.” 78

As Williams looks back at the trials and tribulations in his last 20 years, it’s hard for him to even imagine where he is at 39 years old. He laughs when thinking what his reaction would have been if someone during his time at Notre Dame told him he’d be an NBA head coach before he was 40. “To have somebody like Gregg Popovich pick me and want to mold me and mentor me, just gave me that much more confidence,” Williams says. After helping the Spurs to a championship in 2005, Williams was offered an opportunity to join Nate McMillan’s staff with the Portland Trail Blazers. Williams loved San Antonio and the Spurs organization and wasn’t looking to leave but he got a friendly push from an unlikely source. “I kicked his (butt) right out,” Popovich jokes when remembering the conversation. “First, he had done enough with us. Second, I thought that would be a great experience for him. And, third, because I knew Nate was who he was, I knew Monty would be going to a guy who was really going to do things right. For that reason and because I thought Monty was ready, I thought it was a wonderful opportunity.” The Portland opportunity was a built-in challenge. The Blazers franchise had come upon hard times and a culture change was needed. By season four, Portland became a playoff team in the rugged Western Conference. Through that climb, McMillan and Williams developed a strong working relationship but one that McMillan knew would be short lived. As Rivers envisioned several years before, a head coaching opportunity was going to come quickly for Williams. “Shortly after meeting him, I knew that one day he would be coaching in the league if he wanted to pursue that,” McMillan says. “He really prepared himself for the opportunity. He was always studying and learning from other people, observing other coaches, other teams. He does things right and he’s a very smart guy. I have a great deal of respect for him because what he says is how he walks.” Last summer, the opportunity that so many had foreseen finally arrived. Williams now finds himself as the league’s youngest head coach in New Orleans. Despite his youth and his inexperience as a head coach, he has settled in nicely to his new digs. “It’s a lot more work than I ever thought about. At the same time, there is so much reward from building this thing from where it was to where it is,” Williams says. “We can already see growth in the culture. My goal as a coach is to create an atmosphere where guys can get better and give us a chance to win big some day. We have a bunch of great guys who are tough and work hard and are really excited about some of the changes we’ve made.” As Williams looks back at the trials and tribulations in his last 20 years, it’s hard for him to even imagine where he is at 39 years old. He laughs when thinking what his reaction would have been if someone during his time at Notre Dame told him he’d be an NBA head coach before he was 40. But, he turns very serious when talking about the role the University has played in his life and for his family as he and Ingrid have their own starting five, with three daughters and two sons. “Notre Dame was the perfect place for me if I was going to go through all the stuff I went through. It was a sanctuary,” Williams says. “I’m thankful that the Lord sent me there because I met my wife. I reestablished my faith in God. I met so many wonderful people at Notre Dame. Not only that, I got a degree that most people would die for. Notre Dame’s been really good to me.”

Mariel Zagunis What would your life be like

B Y M I L E S VA N C E

if you’d won two gold medals?

ppearances can be deceiving. Just look at two-time Olympic gold-medal fencing champion Mariel Zagunis. To the casual observer, Zagunis is all sweetness and light. Tall and fit from years of arduous training, Zagunis showed up for her interview in a stylish gray T-shirt with orange logo, form-fitting blue jeans, a Notre Dame national championship ring on her right hand, and a delicate gold necklace—a necklace sporting a small medal emblematic of her two Olympic golds—around her neck. Along with her blue-gray eyes and megawatt smile, Zagunis’ entire look was capped, as always, by her signature long blond hair, this day trailing in gentle curls to the middle of her back. It’s a look that can sell Cheerios, lead parades, grace magazine covers or greet young admirers. But looks can, indeed, be deceiving. Oh sure, Zagunis is all the things listed above. But she’s also more than her appearance suggests. Much, much more. Beneath her angelic exterior and calm “I can handle any situation” demeanor, Zagunis is a stone-cold killer on the fencing strip. She’s the ultimate sleeper agent, soft, sweet and beautiful on the outside, ready to share quality time with friends back home, work through classes at Notre Dame or shake hands with dignitaries. But when competition begins and it’s time for action, Zagunis is as focused as a tiger stalking her ultimately doomed prey. “There can only be one number one,” she says. “I’m always trying to improve on myself. I’m always trying to get better. There’s always something to work on.” It makes sense, too, when you think about it, because Zagunis, now 25, has been one of the world’s best female sabre fencers for a very long time. She started winning Cadet and Junior World Championships almost a decade ago, and set records for success at that level. She then carried that momentum into open competition and dominated again, winning every women’s sabre title that fencing has to offer. Further, she won an NCAA individual title for Notre Dame in 2006 and helped lead the Fighting Irish to an NCAA team championship in 2005. But all that success comes at a price. Zagunis’ life is not that of your average twenty-something. Currently on hiatus from her senior year at Notre Dame — where’s she’s nearing a degree in anthropology — while training for yet another 80

appearance at the World Championships, Zagunis shares a house with a roommate in her hometown of Beaverton, Ore., a suburb-heavy bedroom community of 100,000 located west of Portland. But unlike many of her peers, Zagunis isn’t involved in any serious romantic relationships, rarely has time for clubs and dancing and certainly doesn’t have what would be considered a traditional full-time job or college life. “It’s challenging on many levels,” she says of trying to establish relationships in a life filled with world travel and time away from home. “But it’s something I’m sure other elite athletes can relate to.” So what about it? What’s it like to walk a mile in Zagunis’ shoes? On a normal day between competitions, Zagunis starts each weekday with a one-on-one practice with longtime coach Ed Korfanty of the Oregon Fencing Alliance, then follows that with a lengthy cross-training session. Early afternoons are spent on interviews, errands and other moments of ordinary life, but after that, it’s off to physical therapy to care for the bumps, bruises, aches and tweaks that come with top-level physical performance. And finally, she’s back for yet another practice session before returning home for a late dinner at 8:00 p.m. “It’s very regimented,” Zagunis says. “It’s three very intense workouts a day, but I can’t complain about it. I love it. I’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to do what I love to do, and do it at a high level for a long time. And I’m going to do it as long as I can. I hope I can keep doing it for a long, long time.” There are moments, however few, for rest and relaxation, and Zagunis says she likes to get outside as much as possible on weekends and enjoys hiking in and around Portland. When stuck indoors during northwest Oregon’s copious rainy season, Zagunis has taken to cooking as a new passion. Through all of it, though, it is Zagunis’ full-fledged dedication to, and love for, her chosen sport of sabre fencing that has kept her on top for so long. “It takes a lot of sacrifice, not having a normal high school or college experience,” she admits, “but I’m okay with that. Like I said, there can only be one number one.” And part of being the world’s best woman sabre fencer, Zagunis has learned, is that she lives her competitive life with a bull’s-eye painted squarely on her back. She never enters a competition as the underdog. She never flies under the radar. There is no tournament, nor even a single bout, where she doesn’t see an opponent’s best effort. That situation leads even the world’s best sabre fencer to sometimes fall short. “You can’t win them all. I’ve learned that. You can’t be perfect all the time,” Zagunis says. “But it’s not all about winning. I want to feel like I fenced well, and I’ve learned a lot more from the tournaments I haven’t won than from those I’ve won.” That said, Zagunis is — like any elite athlete — extremely focused on winning. It shows in her tournament record. It shows in her workouts and dedicated schedule, and it shows in the ever-growing award collection that already includes two Summer Olympic gold medals, a World Championship trophy, and a host of other medals and baubles. Along the way, she’s learned the necessities of extreme dedication and commitment, mental toughness and the ability to focus on minute details. “People don’t understand that (fencing is) so mental,” she says. “With my opponents, it’s all about who can outthink the other one. A lot of my training goes into being physically prepared, but a lot of it goes toward being mentally prepared, too. “Our game is a game of millimeters and milliseconds. That’s how you learn and grow, and it carries over into life.” There are, however, some perks to being a two-time Olympic champion, and Zagunis tries to relish and appreciate them when they happen. While the extraordinary moments that have come with Olympic gold have been too many to count, she particularly remembers her appearance with other U.S. gold medal winners on the Oprah Winfrey Show (“It was just amazing to meet her,” Zagunis says) after

She never enters a competition as the underdog. She never flies under the radar. There is no tournament, nor even a single bout, where she doesn’t see an opponent’s best effort. the Beijing Olympics, her two appearances on the Today show, and her chance to light the flame at the Montana State Games, memorable because she’d had to forgo the opening ceremonies in Beijing to prepare for competition. Further, her own celebrity has given her insight into America’s fascination with celebrity, and at the same time, helped keep her own experience in perspective. “My notion of celebrity has changed. Now I feel different when I meet a celebrity,” she says, mentioning Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone as two of the most famous people her own star status has allowed her to meet. “I don’t get starstruck. I know they’re a person just like me.” Keeping her own sense of self, a sense of self based on who she was before she struck Olympic gold, has become an increasingly important part of Zagunis’ life. “I never got recognized before the Olympics,” she says. “Now I get recognized more and I have to talk about fencing more, but I’m still me. I feel like I’m still the same person. “Sure I think about the Olympics sometimes because I get asked about it a lot, but I don’t think about the medals. I don’t take them out and look at them. I’ve learned how to deal with it over the past six years.” Having a close core of friends who’ve known her since well before her Olympic glories plays a key role in that process, too. “I have my fencing life and I have my personal life,” she says. “I have friends who I’ve known for so long, and that’s who I hang out with. That’s who I vacation with, and we don’t talk about fencing and that’s something I’m grateful for.” With all she’s accomplished, though, Zagunis remains far from satisfied, and far, far away from the end of her competitive career. While she’s given some thought to post-fencing life — she may make use of her anthropology degree, or she may move into media or athlete relations — she remains as focused as ever on setting the bar high every day and then leaping clear over it. “Even though I’ve already won everything, I can still win Worlds again. I can win the Olympics again. I can set new goals,” Zagunis says. “Nothing is out of my reach.” And if she loses? “Sometimes it’s okay to lose,” she adds. “That gives them a chance to think they can be number one, and that’s when I step back in and win again.”

Jimmy Zannino Rudy without a helmet BY MIKE COLLINS

immy Zannino is of sound mind and body. Still, even he admits a jury of his peers would be deliberating quite some time before he was acquitted of any charges to the contrary. The biggest problem for the prosecution would be finding Zannino’s peers. As for the defense, exhibit number one would be the defendant himself who hereby will testify on his own behalf. Things don’t get off to a good start when Zannino says, “You might think I’m whacked when I tell you my story.” So Zannino tells me his story and I know when he is finished he is not whacked, he is simply Rudy without a helmet or a movie. Jimmy Z., as everyone has called him since he was a kid, grew up in Lewistown, Pa., dead in the middle of Happy Valley. Yes, that Happy Valley, festooned in Penn State blue and white and said to be surrounded in the long ago by mountain lions. In Lewistown you were a Penn State fan or you better find a sanctuary in which to hide your insidious loyalty to another school. Zannino found that sanctuary early on and—I swear, Your Honor, this is true — it was Sacred Heart Church and School. At Sacred Heart, you could be a Notre Dame fan and be protected by the nuns from any local bullies wearing the blue and white. From the time he was five years old, Zannino wanted to be at Notre Dame and nothing was going to stop him. But his trail to Notre Dame is littered with obstacles that would have stopped nearly everybody else and left them with nothing but the dream. The conventional route was blocked early on when his dad Alphonso (“he looked just like Dean Martin”) died when Zannino was 14. The family was close to broke, an experience that toughened Zannino for the road ahead, and he was a marginal athlete. So going to Notre Dame as a student was out of the question. In fact, going to any college was out of the question, just like it was for a lot of kids from those small, often dying, Pennsylvania towns in the ’60s and ’70s. So Zannino did what he had to do — he went to work and liked his job managing a department at a local supermarket. But, you know what they say about dreams, they die hard, and Zannino already had lost the only thing that meant more to him than his dream, his dad. And he had told Alphonso he was going to get to Notre Dame one way or another, and so he goes for a football game. Not just any game, mind you, but maybe the greatest game ever played at Notre Dame Stadium, the Notre DameMiami clash in 1988. 84

Typical of Zannino and everything he did in the years ahead, he came without a ticket but with $125 in his pocket. Make of this what you will, but after a stop for prayers at the Grotto, Zannino finds a guy holding up one ticket. He offers him the $125, then does the math and lowers the offer just enough to have money left for gas to make the trip back to Lewistown. That trip, that day, that game proved to Zannino what he always knew, Notre Dame was his real home, and he was going to get there and work there and stay there for the rest of his life. Furthermore, he tells himself, he is going to work at Notre Dame Stadium. So Zannino did what any good Catholic boy would do, he went to church every day and prayed for guidance. For three years he prays for the sign that he must leave right now for Notre Dame. Then one day early in 1991 that sign came to him. No, the sky did not part with light shining down on him with a silent message, “Jimmy you must come, you must come now.” Actually, what happened is a copy of a Notre Dame fan magazine came in the mail with an article that said spring football practice would begin on April 10. So Zannino packs everything he has in the world in his car, puts his savings of $300 in his wallet and heads off to South Bend. His last stop is his sanctuary, Sacred Heart, and a final round of prayer. As he leaves the church the miracle occurs, or so Jimmy Z. thinks. He runs into a guy he had met a couple of times, a Lewistown guy who went to Penn State and Notre Dame. Zannino is happy to tell him his story, and the guy asks, “Do you have a job; do you have a place to stay?” This is where it gets interesting because Zannino has neither. So Mr. Important makes a couple of calls to old acquaintances in South Bend, and the next thing Zannino knows he has both a job and a place to stay in town. He leaves April 9, 1991, because spring practice starts on the 10th — and when he pulls off at the South Bend/Notre Dame exit on the Toll Road he stops his car, climbs on the roof, stares at the Golden Dome and begins to cry. Life is good! Life is also real as Jimmy Z. finds out the next day. That job he was promised tending bar at Gipper’s Lounge was given to someone else hours before he arrived. That room he had locked up in a house on Howard Street within view of the campus would not be available until the current students were finished in a month. So, Zannino has no job, no place to live — he only has his dream, and he has followed it this far and nothing is going to stop him. Instead of the job at the Gipper’s bar he agrees to work on the house-cleaning crew at the connected Holiday Inn for minimum wage and looks in the classifieds for a place to stay and finds one. It is a local motel called the Wooden Indian. I will try to be nice about this, but the Wooden Indian has a reputation in South Bend, mostly with the police. Zannino discovers right away that this is a nightmare, and not a dream, and so he does what many other patrons of the Wooden Indian have done through the years; he keeps a baseball bat and a Bible near his bed. At this point his original stash of $300 is dwindling and dwindling fast. To make ends meet, his new friends on the hotel cleaning crew let him take showers in rooms they have yet to clean, and they collect uneaten room-service food for him to eat. At one point he is literally down to his last dollar and it is time to make a decision — does he get a fresh sandwich or a pack of cigarettes? He opts for the cigarettes (he gave them up years ago) because if he gets the sandwich he will want a cigarette anyway. That might be rock bottom for the rest of us, but not for Zannino. All the while he is meeting people at Notre Dame and telling them about the dream and that he would do anything for the University. He escapes the Wooden Indian, sleeps in his car and then finds a room above a bar in South Bend — if that was good enough once for Joe Montana, then it would be good enough for Jimmy Z. He tells the owner he will pay him soon. People he met at Notre Dame get him a job as a short-order, late-shift cook at the South Dining Hall. Eventually, he moves on up and gets a job making deliveries for General Services. He goes back to

That trip, that day, that game proved to Zannino what he always knew, Notre Dame was his real home and he was going to get there and work there and stay there for the rest of his life. Furthermore, he tells himself, he is going to work at Notre Dame Stadium.

Lewistown and meets a girl, Aliana, and proposes. She says yes if Jimmy Z. gets a really good job, one they could count on so they can be wife and husband forever at Notre Dame. One of those people Zannino met hanging around campus was another Notre Dame veteran, Robert “T” Thomas, who oversees the Notre Dame Stadium grounds crew. “T” went to bat for Jimmy time after time, but what Jimmy Z. finds out is that there are only 12 full-time jobs at his beloved Notre Dame Stadium. In 1997 he finally gets one of those jobs. He cries in front of his wife. He cries when he tells me this story. He cries when Notre Dame loses a football game—and he cries when the Irish win. It is 2010 and Jimmy Zannino is living the dream, and it’s not a miracle because he made it happen. Case closed.

Acknowledgments

Edit o rial C o n tributi o n s

Tim Bourret, a 1977 Notre Dame graduate (he also earned a master’s degree from Notre Dame in 1978), is the assistant athletics director/sports information director at Clemson University. He assisted Digger Phelps in authoring Basketball for Dummies. He’s a former student assistant in the Notre Dame athletics media relations department. Dennis Brown is the official spokesman for the University of Notre Dame as well as assistant vice president for public information and communications. He has been with the University since 1991. A 1976 Washington University (St. Louis) graduate, Brown previously spent 15 years working for the Phoenix Gazette, San Diego Union-Tribune and Colorado Springs Sun. Craig Chval, a 1981 Notre Dame graduate, heads up the Chval Law Group, P.C., in Columbia, Mo. He previously served as chief of the high tech and computer crime unit for the Office of the Missouri Attorney General. He’s a former student assistant in the Notre Dame athletics media relations department and is a frequent editorial contributor to Notre Dame’s gameday football programs. Mike Collins, a 1967 Notre Dame graduate, spent 38 years as a reporter, producer, news director and news anchor for both WNDU-TV and WSBT-TV in South Bend. He has been the public address announcer at Notre Dame Stadium since 1981. He is the co-author of May I Have Your Attention Please? with Tim McCarthy. Bill Dwyre, a 1966 Notre Dame graduate, is a member of the sports staff at the Los Angeles Times. He served as sports editor at the Los Angeles Times from 1981-2006 and also worked for the Des Moines Register and Milwaukee Journal. He is a member of the advisory board for the University of Notre Dame’s John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics and Democracy. Mark Fitzpatrick, a 1977 University of Missouri journalism graduate, previously served as assistant sports information director at both Stanford and Missouri, as well as director of athletic business affairs at Missouri from 1994-96. Now living in Kansas City, Mo., he’s president and chief executive officer of Heartland Bank in Leawood, Kan. He has served as public address announcer for the Big 8 and Big 12 Conference men’s basketball tournaments since 1982. Tim Frank, a 1993 Notre Dame graduate, is senior vice president for basketball communications for the National Basketball Association. He’s a former student assistant in the Notre Dame athletics media relations department. Sonia Gernes is a professor emerita of English at the University of Notre Dame. She has authored a novel, The Way to St. Ives, and four books of poetry, most recently What You Hear in the Dark in 2006. She joined the University’s English department in 1975 and taught courses in creative writing, American literature and gender studies.

Mark La France is the communications associate for the Notre Dame Monogram Club. He’s a 2008 Syracuse graduate who also earned an MBA from Providence. He worked in athletic media relations at both Syracuse and Providence. Al Lesar is the assistant sports editor/columnist for the South Bend Tribune. He started covering Notre Dame football in 1991. He is a 1978 Ball State University graduate. Dan McGrath previously spent 12 years as sports editor, associate managing editor and senior writer at the Chicago Tribune and also worked on the sports staff for newspapers in New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia. He is the author of five books on Chicago sports teams. He currently serves as president of Leo High School in Chicago and is a contributor to the Chicago News Cooperative. Matthew V. Storin, a 1964 Notre Dame graduate, served as editor of the Boston Globe from 1992-2001. He also has worked at the New York Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and U.S. News and World Report. He previously served as associate vice president for news and information at the University of Notre Dame and currently teaches courses at the University in journalism and ethics. Kerry Temple, a 1974 Notre Dame graduate (he also earned a master’s degree in journalism from LSU), is the editor of Notre Dame Magazine and, like Skylard Owens, a native of Shreveport, La. He has been a member of the Notre Dame Magazine staff since 1981 and has been editor since 1995. Miles Vance is the longtime sports editor of the Beaverton Valley Times newspaper. In addition to his work as an award-winning journalist covering high school sports, Vance is also the most prolific sports photographer in the area. John Walters, a 1988 Notre Dame graduate, covers college athletics for AOL Fanhouse. Originally from Red Bank, N.J., he has previously worked for Sports Illustrated, TV Guide and MSNBC.com — and is the author of Notre Dame Golden Moments: 20 Memorable Events That Shaped Notre Dame Football and The Same River Twice. He also assisted Digger Phelps in authoring Basketball for Dummies. Dick Weiss covers college athletics for the New York Daily News. Better known as “Hoops,” he has been covering college basketball for 40 years, and since 1993 for the Daily News. He is a past president of the college football and basketball writers’ associations and is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Association college basketball writers hall of fame. He is the author of four books with Dick Vitale, as well as book projects with Rick Pitino, Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari.

John Heisler has been a member of the University of Notre Dame athletics administration since 1978, currently as senior associate athletics director for broadcast and media relations. He has written or edited seven books on Notre Dame football, most recently 100 Things Notre Dame Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s a 1976 graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism program.

Acknowledgments

imag e c o n tribut o rs

Matt Cashore, a 1994 Notre Dame graduate, is the official photographer for the University of Notre Dame. He has been shooting photos on the Notre Dame campus since 1990 and has been a regular at Irish sporting events for years. He has contributed extensively to Notre Dame Magazine and has had his sports photos published in Sports Illustrated, the New York Times and ESPN The Magazine. He teamed with Notre Dame Magazine editor Kerry Temple to produce the 2007 book Celebrating Notre Dame. Cashore coordinated the art for Strong of Heart: Profiles of Notre Dame Athletics 2010 and personally shot the images of Tim Abromaitis, Paul and Linda Demo, Kevin Dugan, Danielle Green, Teddy Hodges, Joe Montana, Joe Piane, Adam Sargent, John Scully, Jen Sharron, Chris Stewart, Laurie Wenger and Jimmy Zannino. Other photographic contributors include Bill Artman of Bill Artman Photography Inc. in Shawnee, Kan. (Steve Boda), Chris Hildreth of Duke Photography in Durham, N.C. (Pat Garrity), Robert Bruni of Ambience Photography in San Diego (Skylard Owens), Terrell Lloyd of RTL Photography in Foster City, Calif. (Ted Robinson), Rick Hopkins of Life Reflections Photography in New Bern, N.C. (Nicholas Sparks), Layne Murdoch/NBA Photos (Monty Williams) and Miles Vance of Miles Vance Photography in Beaverton, Ore. (Mariel Zagunis).

S p e cial T ha n ks

Strong of Heart: Profiles of Notre Dame Athletics 2010 would not have been possible without the design expertise of AgencyND. Printing by Mossberg & Company Inc. Executive proofreading by Karen Heisler.