You know, I never write these things right after they happen and now it’s gonna be harder than it should, but here is the long-anticipated (yet, never asked for) recap of the Notre Dame weekend. Yes, I know that Penn State got rocked during the game, but we rocked that town for the rest of the weekend. Here is our tale:
I worked overtime the week prior and worked on Labor Day to defer my holiday to the end of the week which allowed me to take off for Bob’s place in Pittsburgh after leaving work at 2:30 on Thursday. I taped a couple “GO STATE! BEAT THE IRISH” signs on the side of the car and I was off! Predictably, the worst traffic I encountered was about 10 minutes away from my apartment (I’ll spare you another rant). After getting out of Harford County, it was a pretty smooth ride until getting to Bob’s road, which branches out in about a dozen different directions, and instead of simply coming up with separate names for these roads, they decided instead to have all of these roads labeled identically. It took me a while to catch on to their ruse, but eventually I found my way to my destination. We watched the Steelers game and I went to sleep (during which I was shockingly not attacked by Bob’s cat).
After awaking the next morning, we had a beer and sandwich for breakfast and waited for Sortwell and Brian to get ready, which ended up being about 11:30 and we hit the road. On our way we saw a whole lot of nothing in Ohio, but did notice that we drove by two of our lesser opponents this year – Akron and Youngstown. We got a lot of positive feedback on the drive over for the 4-foot wide “Overrated” banner Bob printed out and taped to the back of his Jeep. However, we did have to do some emergency repairs to the sign when the original tape started to come off. Fortunately, Bob for some reason had many varieties of tape in his car and we were able to salvage it. It certainly made the trip entertaining as we Penn Staters were able to honk and wave to each other as we drove out.
We somehow managed to stop off at the one crappy rest stop in Ohio, but even there we met many Penn State fans (and yes, we blasted Zombie Nation as we were refueling). We even received wishes of good luck from Ohio State fans. Unfortunately, Sortwell and I also had pretty much the worst pizza ever made at this rest stop. It was literally sickening, but at that point anything would have tasted good. We also got flipped off by our first Notre Dame fan for no apparent reason. I’m guessing I’ve been to the ND campus more than he has.
We finally arrived in town around 5pm where we were greeted by some strange ringtone of the Notre Dame fight song coming from a neighboring car. We went to the hotel and while waiting for Brian to “pay” his guy for the hotel room, we started on the 7 cases of beer we had bought for the weekend (which included Yuengling Black & Tan, Porter, Miller Lite as well as 22oz bottles of Lager) and threw the football around in the parking lot.
Finally, Brian emerged, handed me the key, and told us to take our stuff to room 307. We entered the room to find two other guys already unpacked and chilling out. We introduced ourselves and dropped our luggage on the couch. They asked where the beer was and we said it was coming right up. Not knowing exactly what the deal was with the hotel we asked Brian who we were sharing a room with. He looked as confused as we were and we then realized that we had just dropped our luggage off in someone else’s room. Realizing our error (which was technically Brian’s for giving us the wrong room number), we went back to our new hospitable friends’ room and retrieved our belongings to move next door.
After moving our stuff into our real room, we hung out for a little while, drank some beer, and watched local coverage of the pep rally going on at Notre Dame Stadium. We headed out to check out the campus soon thereafter and were unfortunately greeted by post-pep rally traffic. Eventually, we made it relatively closely to where we imagined we might have to be to see the campus and parked in a highly illegal location.
Fortunately, we could see the stadium from where we parked and just walked in the exact opposite direction that everyone else was, expecting to be heckled as we were not exactly “flying under the radar” when it came to our garb and were surrounded by tens of thousands of fans leaving a rally for the team we were playing the day afterwards. Not a peep.
Thankfully because of the pep rally, the gates were still open to the stadium so we just walked right in. Once in the seating bowl, we were quickly told by an usher that the stadium was closed and that we had to leave but he took a couple of pictures of us first. We then walked around to the back of the stadium, which faces Touchdown Jesus and a large mall area. We went inside the library for a potty break and photocopied Sortwell’s
PSU hat to leave copies in strategic locations across the library. Hehehehehe. It would have been cooler if we won.
From the library we went to the only other place of interest – the Golden Dome, or the creatively named “Main Building” as it’s officially called (creative in that they didn’t just call it “Building”). It was there that we were engaged by a crazy old man with a toy duck that moved. He was apparently confused and thought we were ND fans even though we obviously were not (apparently the “Penn State Forever” on the back of my shirt wasn’t a give away). When he finally became aware of this, he said to me, “Well, at least you’re Italian Catholic, right?” I hated to break the old man’s heart since he was apparently confusing me for Joe Paterno, but I responded, “Irish Protestant.” I don’t remember how, but eventually we got rid of the old guy.
On our way to the car we also wandered into the Basilica of the Sacred Heart which, surprisingly, was much nicer than the Eisenhower Chapel.
You still there? Good. Because we’re not even close to game day yet. On the drive home we once again got caught in traffic so we rolled down all the windows and blasted the Penn State CD as we bellowed out the Alma Mater and rocked Sortwell’s Suburban back and forth for Zombie Nation.
After getting back to the hotel, it seems that Bob and I were the only ones who wanted to go out so we got a cab to Corby’s Sports Bar which is quite a distance (and apparently one of about 3 bars total in South Bend). We were told that it was the bar that they filmed Rudy at although that has yet to be confirmed. The line was long, but moved swiftly and it was while in line that the Penn State takeover of South Bend started to become evident to us. “WE ARE…PENN STATE!” chants filled the air inside of the bar and could still be heard by us while outside.
We got inside and I estimate it was about 60% Penn Staters. There was even about five people in Eagles jerseys inside (and yes, we did the E-A-G-L-E-S! chant with some of them). Bob and I got our traditional good luck Irish (ahem… Nittany) Car Bombs and had a couple Miller Lites. We met some old guy from Penn State at the bar who graduated mid-90s. That’s really all there is to that story. We also encountered an old lady who helped us out with all of our
PSU cheers. There was also a little bit of a argument from two South Bend toughs who’s big argument was “How many Super Bowl rings does Joe Paterno have?” Which is about as relevant as how many Kentucky Derbys the Beatles won.
We finally had enough after dominating Corby’s (not a single ND cheer in response that I heard). And hit the road (with 6 Miller cans for the walk back). We decided to walk into another bar, saw it was dead, walked out, and then walked back again as we are wont to do. We ordered a couple shots, but it ended up being about 6 shots total because the bar tender left the shaker for us.
Then came the ridiculous walk home. Keep in mind that we literally had no idea where we were let alone where our hotel was. All we had was a general direction to walk towards. Along the way there were some mishaps with the beer cans and a couple road signs. We somehow found our way back to the main road that our hotel was on, and stopped off at Denny’s. After that Bob injured his ankle on an ill-advised plot to lower an ND flag to half-mast. We then decided to call it a night after kicking South Bend’s ass only to find that in our absense the 9 foot long “Overrated” banner had already been hung and torn down. After all was said and done, the best
MapQuest estimates say that we walked about 3 miles (in the unlikely event that we took the most direct route).
We rose the next morning early in preparation of the game. Armed with only a backpack filled with Yuengling and our wits, he headed out walking towards campus. We were also happy to find that there are lenient laws pertaining to public drinking in South Bend. As we walked by those stuck in traffic, we greated all our fellow Lions with a “WE ARE. . . PENN STATE!” chant.
After maybe 45 minutes of walking, we found the parking lot that the Penn State pep rally was supposed to be in. However, there wasn’t a tent in sight so we asked some tailgaters who said that they moved the pep rally to another lot. While we were still a couple miles away from our destination (and the destination was still undetermined at this point), I was able to sell an extra t-shirt to a tailgater. That put my total profit for a week and a half of work at about $3.
We hopped a very crowded shuttle (which barely contained Henry’s hugeness) across campus and found our destination which was lined with blue and white balloons and the traditional pom-poms. Because of our shirts we were almost mini-celebrities (only with much less justification for our suddenly huge egos). Many people asked to get pictures of us and a couple even asked for my email address to buy some. Surprisingly, no one actually emailed me after we lost by over 20 points.
Spirits were high, and I think it’s fair to say that a vast majority of the people in attendance were convinced we would win the game. As for us, we did our part and started many cheers, and once we accidentally got Zombie Nation going in the tent while giving someone a phone message.
Filled with unwarrented confidence, we decided that we should go on the stage. We started a “We want the lion!” chant before Sortwell went on the stage and did the pre-game Lion routine of raising and lowering the noise level on either side of what was probably a crowd that was disappointed that we weren’t bringing in the actual lion.
We had a few shots from basters (the baking instrument, not the community in Namibia) out of a gin bucket which was offered to us from our new found best friends that we will never see again. It was probably among the lesser sanitary things we did that weekend.
On our way out, we saw remnants of the Blue Band behind the tent and talking to them was none other than President Graham Spanier in the flesh. We quickly got a picture with him and I told him it was the first time I had seen him in person outside of the Homecoming Parade. That wasn’t entirely true (I saw him once in front of Old Main and a couple times on the sidelines at football games), but I have a genuine disaffection for the guy and it was the meanest thing I could think of off the top of my head. I wish I had thought to ask him what JoePa said to him when they went to his house and asked him to retire a couple years back.
Having done all that we could at the Penn State pep rally (except actually stay and watch the pep rally), we started our trek across the Notre Dame campus headed towards the Linebacker Lounge, which was recommended to us as a good place to watch the game. Much to our chagrin, we were still having difficulties getting the Domers to hate us despite flaunting our shirts. Virtually all of them complimented our shirts and the nastiest comment hurled our way was, “That’s cute, guys.” I’m serial.
On our way to the Linebacker Lounge, we happened to come across the rest of the Blue Band walking towards the tent. We asked them to play something for us and they said that they already got in trouble for doing that. I don’t know what we said to coax them, but we eventually got a private show where they played Penn State Victory for us. Apart from getting to meet Joe Paterno himself, it’s hard to imagine the day to this point being any better.
We arrived at the Linebacker Lounge and were pretty disappointed in the ambiance (this coming from a crew that frequents The Darkhorse). We picked up a six pack of Miller Lite for the road and decided to hit up another on campus bar that we heard about called Legends. On our way there, we finally got booed! I don’t know what it takes to push the Domer’s buttons because it was hard to walk 10 feet in that town that weekend without hearing “WE ARE . . . PENN STATE!” and such hubris from opposing fans just wouldn’t stand in State College. South Benders are practically Canadian.
Now at the opposite side of the tailgating parking lot with a great view of Notre Dame Stadium, we arrived at Legends where we were lucky enough to find seating in an outdoor tent right in front of a wide screen TV. Short of being inside of the stadium, the view of the impending debacle could not have been better! The funny thing is that I don’t even think I thought about the possibility of us losing that game until about the 2nd quarter. I and pretty much every Penn Stater I encountered was almost certain of victory.
Among the irritants close by were the “down in front!” crowd that was behind us (yes, they have those at ND too), and a Domer who didn’t make a peep until they were up by 3 scores and then suddenly because the most obnoxious loud mouth imaginable. We also met a pretty decent ND fan who we got
on film admitting (or at least trying) that going for it on 4th down when they were already up by 20+ was a dick move. Either he had the stage fright, the beer hit him very quickly, or he had a sudden bout of dyslexia because he spoke pretty well up until that point.
At the conclusion of the game, we as a fan base were surprisingly upbeat. A lot of “WE ARE . . . PENN STATE”s and “We’ll get ‘em next year”s could be heard as well as the occasional “It could be worse – we could be staying in South Bend.” In contrast, the Domers seemed pretty downtrodden for such a huge victory. It was just . . . weird. At this point, I was expecting the taunting to begin, but again not even a peep. However, Bob was hit in the head with a thrown football. Nobody saw who did it, but it can be assumed that it was done on purpose.
We made the long trek back to our hotel and stopped at a Taco Bell on the way. We packed up our stuff, said goodbye to those that were staying an extra day (Bob and I left so we could see the Eagles’ opener) and headed out for Pittsburgh at about 10:30. This presented a problem since we were already pretty tired. We stopped off at a McDonald’s somewhere in Ohio (I think) and took a nap in the parking lot. Thankfully, we weren’t violated or murdered and we managed to make it to Bob’s house at about 5 a.m.
And so concludes my very long tale of our trip to South Bend, IN. My one regret (other than the score of the football game) was that we did not make it to the College Football Hall of Fame where Joe Paterno will be enshrined this coming December (apparently his plaque is already in place, however). And so we emerged from this weekend beaten and battered, but we still had an amazing and fun time. We’ll get ‘em next year in our house.
-MPAW
). While I told a select few about what’s going on, I had refrained from discussing my decisions here because potential employers have easy access to this forum. Now that I’ve made a decision, it’s time to let you guys in on it.