Coleman: Muffet and Niele

For as long as I can remember, I have been a n otre d ame fan. That’s just part of being from s outh b end. m y grandparents gave me n otre d ame onesies when I was a baby. At one point, I remember having a navy and gold cheer skirt when I was a toddler. As a child, I loved n otre d ame sports unconditionally and unquestioningly.

b ut the first Irish sport that I grew to love on my own was women’s basketball. For many years, my godparents bought season tickets and took me along to several home games a season. Purcell Pavilion was a short drive from their house on e . Angela b lvd. b ack then, n otre d ame seemed like an enormous, nebulous campus that I thought I would always feel small on.

As of the publication of this column, I’m just over two weeks from retiring as one of The o bserver’s assistant managing editors. s omehow, that smallness turned out to be not true. After I got over my initial culture shock, we’d stop at the h ammes b ookstore and grab some concessions — I always opted for a hot dog and popcorn — and found our seats. Those games, as the kids say, were like a movie. These were the early 2010s, so I got to watch future W nb A stars s kylar d iggins- s mith, n atalie Achonwa, m ichaela m abrey and Jewell Loyd at the start of their careers. Their grit and sheer talent always blew me away no matter how many times I saw them play in person or on T v n o matter who was on the team or how I watched them, the one constant I could count on was m uffet m cGraw. e ven though m uffet has no idea who I am, I feel like we have a special connection. s he won her first national championship in 2001, the year I was born.