Shortly after the end of the 2013 spring semester, former Irish standout midfielder Dillon Powers was in a quandary. As one of several recent Notre Dame men’s soccer players to graduate in three-and-a-half years, before transitioning directly into his MLS career, Powers still had hoped to attend the May 18 graduation ceremony back on campus. With the MLS schedule at its midseason fever pitch, Powers still was able to carve out a narrow window, catching an early-morning flight into Chicago on the day of commencement And who was there to pick him up? None other than Harry Shipp, more than willing to transport his former teammate to Notre Dame. Now, this story does have one wrinkle.
“But, at the end of the day, I owed everything to Harry for that. If not for him, I don’t know if I would have made it to graduation on time.”
EARLY PASSION FOR THE BEAUTIFUL GAME The first time that Harry Shipp ever played a soccer game, as a five-year-old, his interest was piqued and he quickly became hooked (with a boost from one two-hour, Spanish-language broadcast, see below). A year later, as a firstgrader, Shipp experienced another epiphany: kids were playing soccer inside, allowing for year-round participation. That revelation, ultimately, was it. Some kids specialize in a specific sport much later in life. By the time he was 10, and in some cases a couple years earlier, Harry had tossed aside the tennis racket, ditched the basketball and started wearing exclusively soccer cleats (no more baseball spikes for this youngster). It was all soccer, all the time. And he still was in elementary school.
While driving home from that first game, Harry began pestering his mom. He knew there had to be something more to this game of soccer - he had an initial inkling that a “beautiful game” existed beyond this amoeba-like pack of five- and six-year olds. And he soon would get an answer to his question, leading to great interest and appreciation. “Harry was asking me if soccer was ever played on TV, but all I could find was a Mexican League game on satellite,” recalls Kathleen Shipp. “He sat and watched it, in Spanish, not understanding a word, except of course I guess `goal,’ for the entire 90 minutes.” In later years, as soccer became more accessible on TV, the young Harry Shipp became an avid follower of the Premier League, Barcelona and the Champion’s League. Shipp’s second big “lightbulb” moment relative to soccer came while attending a first-grade birthday party that featured a novel activity: indoor soccer. “Harry came back from that party very excited but also incredulous, amazed that he was only now finding out that you could play soccer all year long,” says his still-amazed mother. “Over the next few years, he had begged off all the other sports, except soccer, and a little golf.” The Shipps signed up Harry for an indoor 4x4 league, submitting the paperwork as quickly as possible (no doubt to appease/pipe down their eager oldest child). “Harry would play in a game, but then other kids wanted him to play on their teams. It kept happening and would morph into hours of consecutive games,” adds Kathleen Shipp.
Harry’s quick progression within the sport continued, including two trips to Barcelona, Spain (as a nine- and 10-year old) to participate in a soccer camp and tournament, with younger brother Michael tagging along. Travel soccer earlier had become a way of life for Harry, starting in the second grade. He led several of his teams to tournament titles, including a national championship for the Illinois ODP (Olympic Development Program), and he traveled to Italy and Argentina with two regional ODP teams. Years later, as a 10th-grader, Shipp joined the U.S. Soccer Development Academy program at its inception, playing two years with the Chicago Magic and then spending his senior year with the Chicago Fire developmental program. That valuable experience with the Fire came with one caveat, requiring a roundtrip drive that often covered three total hours, in order to play the sport he loved and do so at the highest level available at that time.
HOME AWAY FROM HOME Harry Shipp had plenty of connections to Notre Dame, even before he first stepped foot on the campus. His mother, the former Kathleen Welsh, is a Notre Dame graduate (‘82), as is her father, two of her brothers, her sister and a sister-in-law. Terry Shipp, Harry’s father, has no direct family ties to Notre Dame … but he has the next best thing. Terry’s deceased father, Jack Shipp, can’t be explained as anything other than a classic member of the Notre Dame “subway alumni,” non-graduates who nonetheless feel a strong affinity to the school they never attended. Jack Shipp so loved Notre Dame that he named Terry after his favorite player, former Notre Dame quarterback and eventual Irish head coach Terry Brennan. Kathleen Welsh had been a finance major at Notre Dame and later worked in the banking industry in the Chicago area for 12 years. Terry Shipp graduated from the University of Colorado in 1980 as CU’s top undergraduate business student and, for good measure, went on to be the top 4Q MBA student at Northwestern (‘82).
THE 2013 FIGHTING IRISH
“Apparently, right after Harry dropped me off, he ran out of gas,” explains Powers. “The coaches always give Harry a hard time, wondering which Shipp brother is the smartest. So of course they could not resist, telling Harry things like `Michael would never have made that mistake.’
The initial spark was lit after Shipp’s first AYSO recreational soccer game, while playing alongside many of his kindergarten classmates. You know the scene: a pack of kids chasing a ball, some easily distracted by their parents in the crowd, or by something in their own nose. Not exactly the Premier League.
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