25 Seconds - Great Sporting Events That Shaped My Life by Tony Talarico

25 SECONDS Great Sporting Events That Shaped My Life

TONY TALARICO

HALONG BAY PRESS

HALONG BAY PRESS This work is a memoir of the author’s current memories of his experiences over several years. People, dates and activities are intended to be accurate as presented. To facilitate flow, dialogue has been created in some sections.

Copyright © 2009 by Tony Talarico Second printing Copyright © 2015 by Tony Talarico Cover design by the author Cover art memorabilia, tickets and programs are copyrighted objects owned by the respective event promoters and publishers Cover photo by Dianne Talarico Book design by the author All rights reserved.

The Library of Congress has not catalogued any version of this book.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

To Phuong, all my love, every day – not sấo, not even a little bit.

To my parents and sisters, thanks for being there for me, for sharing life’s lessons, and for helping me up each time I fell down.

To Yvonne, the next twenty five seconds belong to you.

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. ARMY – NAVY 1979 II. McKINLEY - MOELLER 1981

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III. OHIO STATE – FLORIDA STATE 1981

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IV. NOTRE DAME - MICHIGAN 1982

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V. McKINLEY – CENTRAL HOWER 1984

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VI. McKINLEY – DAYTON DUNBAR 1984

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VII. NOTRE DAME – PENN STATE 1984 VIII. CAVS – CELTICS 1985 IX. McKINLEY – GLENOAK 1985 X. TODD FERKOL 1986 XI. NOTRE DAME – MICHIGAN 1986 XII. NOTRE DAME – NORTH CAROLINA 1987

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XIII. NOTRE DAME – MICHIGAN STATE 1988

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XIV. NOTRE DAME – MIAMI 1988

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XV. NOTRE DAME – USC 1988 XVI. NOTRE DAME – WEST VIRGINIA 1989 XVII. NOTRE DAME – KENT STATE 1990 XVIII. NOTRE DAME – OHIO STATE 1995-96 XIX. KENTUCKY DERBY 123 XX. NOTRE DAME – OKLAHOMA 1999 XXI. SUPER BOWL XXXVII XXII. DUBAI WORLD CUP 2004

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XXIII. ROLAND GARROS 2004

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XXIV. TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL 2005

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XXV. NOTRE DAME – STANFORD 2007 EPILOGUE PHOTO CREDITS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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PROLOGUE The idea for this book came to me on New Year’s Day 2009. I was showing my wife a scrapbook of ticket stubs and sports memorabilia that I had accumulated over forty years.

Ever the pragmatist, my wife said that these scrapbooks were just taking up precious space in our home, and that if I left it up to her, she would “throw it in the garbage, all of it!” To me, each one of those ticket stubs carried a unique story, and I proceeded to tell her about wonderful experiences that I had at football games and jai-alai frontons and horse races and cricket matches. My reminiscing caused my wife to spare my scrapbooks from the garbage bin, and they triggered a thought in my mind. Why not take some of my favorite experiences from my years of attending sporting events, and use them as the backdrop for telling the story of my life? The idea circled around in my head, and quickly gained momentum to the point where a writing project was born.

Fully aware that I would be living a lyric from a Jimmy Buffett song, the obvious challenges of a 40-year old writing his memoirs involved figuring out what to write, and what not to write. I had to select a manageable sample from a scrapbook containing more than 3,000 objects. Some of the choices were very easy, covering defining moments in my life. Other events were more obscure, selected because they show a special memory, a side of me that some people may not know, or a person in my family who is particularly special to me. As with any editing exercise, one always wishes that many more great events and memories could have made the final cut. But alas, here you find the twenty five sporting events that shaped my life. I eagerly anticipated each of these events before they happened, sometimes long before they happened. I celebrated them as they were happening. And now, long after the final whistles have blown, I fondly recall these events and the life I lived in between them. As Jimmy Buffett said, some of it was magic. Some of it was tragic. But I’ve had a good life all the way.

The games and events described represent just twenty five seconds of my life, but they are the glue that joins the pieces of my life together. As you relive these events with me, I hope that you gain a better understanding of who I am, and why I am the way I am.

Some readers will know me from only one or two of these events, while others will have watched me as I lived through all of them. In my mind, these events seem to have passed just as quickly as the twenty five seconds on a play clock wind down to the next play.

Lifetimes, like football games, seem to go by so quickly.

Tony Talarico San Francisco October 2009

I. ARMY vs. NAVY 1979 In early winter 1979 my parents and I made our first of many road trips to a college football game. Through some connection at the American Legion Post 44 in my hometown of Canton, Ohio, my father had secured four tickets to the Army–Navy game in Philadelphia. I was in the sixth grade at Woodland Elementary school, and Philadelphia seemed about as far from home as I could ever imagine. Actually, it was only about a six-hour drive from Canton to Philadelphia. In addition to my mom and dad, my mom’s brother Anthony joined us for the trip. My father made sure we arrived in Philly with plenty of time to see more than just the game. He took us to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. He took us to see a bust of Benjamin Franklin that was covered in pennies. He took us to a very large museum which housed a locomotive steam engine. We saw the steps that led up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, made famous (to us at least) by the film Rocky that had won an Oscar for Best Picture a few years before. I am not sure if we went to South Street for cheese steaks, but I can tell you that I ate very well for the entire weekend.

I cannot remember which hotel we stayed in, but I do remember that it had many floors, and ice machines were located on every other floor. The frequent pursuit of ice would keep me on the move, very happily roaming the floors of the hotel. Why so much ice?

As she would do on each of our subsequent road trips, my mother packed a cooler with many provisions – sandwiches, fruit, and drinks, and we always needed fresh ice to keep the cooler cold. So it was that an eleven year-old boy was wandering about the hotel, riding the elevators with ice bucket in hand, meeting what seemed like a ton of Naval Academy Midshipmen. I can’t remember encountering any West Point Cadets in the hotel or at the game, but I know that if we had, my father and uncle would have made a point to make sure we met them.

Dad and Uncle Anthony had both served our country in their early twenties. My father was an Army paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne during the Korean Conflict. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower did not send any 82nd airborne troops to Korea, because they felt

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that they needed the unit to be ready at home in the event of a Russian attack elsewhere.

So my dad jumped out of airplanes, and he trained other jumpers at Fort Benning, Georgia. Uncle Anthony served in the Navy, but he would always joke that his only service time overseas was when he was sent across the Ohio River into Kentucky. As veterans, Dad and Anthony held the appointed students of the US Naval Academy and the US Military Academy in the highest regard.

We arrived at John F. Kennedy stadium more than two hours before kickoff. It was important to my father that we all witness the parade of Cadets and Midshipmen onto the field as part of the pre-game ceremonies. I can tell you that I was impressed with the discipline with which the students carried themselves. They looked so good marching onto the field, and I bet their parents were very proud to see them. It must have been so exciting for them to march on the field, and be recognized by their families and the crowd of spectators.

Let me tell you a little of what I know about life at the service academies. Students don’t simply apply for admission to the academies, they must be accepted for admission and be nominated for appointment, typically by their local congressman. Student life at the service academies has a structure unlike that at any other US college or university: you rise early, you eat, attend class, study, exercise, worship, and sleep at strictly prescribed times. The Naval Academy calls its first year students plebes, and the plebe year is especially focused on instilling discipline and respect. Plebes are forced to show incredible respect for the students who have gone before them, and I’m told that they must ask upperclassmen for permission to sit down in the cafeteria, to enter or leave a room, etc. After four years of study at the academy, graduates become commissioned officers who then have a five-year obligation to the US government to that branch of service. Many academy graduates remain in the service for much longer than five years, however, and some go on to become generals and admirals.

I was so excited about the parade that when I returned to Canton I told my mother’s sister Joanne how impressed I was with the pre-game procession, and how I might like to be part of that some day. I even contacted my congressman Ralph Regula to gather more information about an appointment to Annapolis. Aunt Joanne tempered my excitement about the academies. “There is a lot more involved with going to the academies than marching onto the field before a game” she said. I would realize over the years that she was correct, and marching onto the field before the Army-Navy game was just a small reward for all of the hard work that the Cadets and Midshipmen put in throughout each day of their school year.

Given the political appointments that lead to student admissions, the service academies have a truly national composition. As a result, the Army-Navy game sparks interest in every part of our country, and at US military and naval bases around the world. Game telecasts feature recorded messages from Army graduates stationed in the Middle East, Navy graduates stationed in the South Pacific, and often graduates from both schools standing side-by-side on active duty in an exotic location. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are regular attendees at 2

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the game. Every so often the President makes an appearance. In recent years the rivalry has been billed as “America’s Game” and this moniker was as true on that chilly day in December 1979 as it is today.

Navy dominated the game pretty much from the start, and won 31-7. I cannot name a single star player on either team whom you’d remember. There were no NFL careers awaiting these guys. But the raw competitive spirit that exists in the Army-Navy game is special. The 1979 Navy Midshipmen and the Army Black Knights were competitors who showed character, heart and grit, traits that would help them on the field of play and in the field of battle. In the years since that first Army-Navy game, every time I have watched any service academy compete in any athletic event – hockey, football, or basketball, male or female – I have never seen them give less than their best effort. I’m always humbled, inspired and thankful that these are the next generation of young men and women who will defend and protect our country.

With Navy’s victory in 1979, the series was tied 37-37-6 over 80 games. 1979 was the final time the game was played at JFK Stadium, as the following year it moved to nearby Veterans Stadium. Philadelphia – which is nearly equal distance between the USNA in Annapolis, Maryland and the USMA in West Point, New York – has hosted the game more times than any other US city, but this historic rivalry game has also been played at Yankee Stadium in New York, Soldier Field in Chicago, and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Although they take pride in everything that they do, Army and Navy place great importance on winning this game. Army-Navy is more special and more intense than any other game on either team’s schedule.

My family’s first road trip to a college football game was quite a success. Dad was proud to show me the historic sites of Philadelphia and the pageantry of the pre-game parade, Mom and Uncle Anthony were happy to enjoy a weekend away from home, and we all enjoyed the football game. The trip did end on a funny note, however. As I said earlier, I ate very well the entire weekend. On Saturday morning before the game, my father took me to a diner near the hotel that served silver dollar pancakes with maple syrup. I enjoyed them so much that we went back again on Sunday. I think I ate about twelve pancakes each day, and I loaded them with maple syrup. During the drive home, someone frequently created wind inside the car, or as Uncle Anthony would say whenever we reminisced about that Army-Navy game, “Tony left farts all the way across the state of Pennsylvania!” I cannot remember if I actually was the guilty party, but Anthony told that story so consistently for so many years that it must be true. Perhaps my own actions betray me, for to this day I tread lightly around maple syrup. ♦♦♦ After 114 meetings, including a 34-7 win in 2013, Navy now leads the series 58-49-7.

Navy has currently won twelve straight games and fourteen out of the past sixteen games, but in the eleven games before that, Army won nine, including a streak of six in a row.

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Game Program Cover

Game photo from USNA website

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II. McKINLEY vs. MOELLER 1981 I was born June 9, 1968 in Canton, a rust-belt city of about 90,000 inhabitants located in Northeastern Ohio, one hour south of Cleveland, two hours north of Columbus and four hours north of Cincinnati. Parenthetically I do not find it strange that I would choose to describe Canton based on its proximity to larger cities, because to me Canton was always a fairly small city. Mostly everyone I encountered knew my father, who was a custodian in the Canton City Schools or my mother, who was a loan officer in the Canton Schools Credit Union. I found Canton to be an easy place to grow up. I always felt safe, I had many relatives who lived close to me, and my schools and teachers were always very good.

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My sisters, Dianne and Lori, were cheerleaders in high school – they attended Lehman High at a time when there were four high schools in Canton – so from my earliest days I was attending games and practices with them. Dianne is eleven years older than I am, and Lori is one year younger than Dianne. One year they had me sing at a school pep rally. Another time while they were practicing, I was running around the field at Lehman, just running around the track, and by the time they finished practice I had completed ten laps. I couldn’t have been more than seven years old. They took me to Woody’s Root Beer stand for a nice frosty mug after that! By 1981 they had both grown up and moved out of our home on Case Place, so that left me alone with Mom and Dad, raised as a bit of an only child with Dad and three mother figures…I was spoiled! The girls were so good to me, and they are still, but they often remind me that times had been very different when they were growing up.

People who grow up in Canton are exposed to football at a very early age. By virtue of being the site where the first American professional football league was organized somewhere around 1920, Canton is the home of the Professional Football Hall of Fame.

Each August a new set of enshrinees is immortalized at the museum, and the city throws a very big festival to celebrate the sport and its heroes.

But even if the museum were located elsewhere, football would still be central to the fabric of life in Northeastern Ohio. Little league football prospers, both in non-contact flag football and in full-contact formats. The local Catholic grade schools have football teams, the public middle and junior high schools have teams. The high schools don’t have teams, they have football programs. The football program at Canton’s McKinley High School operates with the structure and resources that many colleges would admire and envy. McKinley is not alone. Several other schools throughout Ohio have great programs which year-in and year-out produce fine results on the football field. A legion of loyal fans attaches themselves to each program, closely watching every play, every game, and every practice. McKinley has about 15,000 season ticket holders, who attend games at Fawcett Stadium, located adjacent to the Hall of Fame.

As proud as I am that the Hall of Fame is in Canton, I must point out in clarification that Fawcett Stadium existed and McKinley drew huge crowds before the museum was ever built. Recently Fawcett Stadium was renamed “Pro Football Hall of Fame Field at Fawcett Stadium” as a result of some very generous renovation funding provided by the National Football League, but to me it will always be Fawcett Stadium. At least they didn’t sell naming rights.

McKinley’s arch-rival is Massillon Washington High School, located eight miles east of Canton. People in Massillon are equally avid about their football, and they make sure their athletes have the resources to compete with McKinley and any other opponent. In fact they start grooming their athletes very early, as a tiny football is placed in the crib of every boy born in Massillon. Paul Brown Tiger Stadium has a capacity of 17,000 fans, features an artificial turf surface with a giant orange and black “M” at midfield, and a state of the art scoreboard. As of the end of 2013 McKinley and Massillon have played 6

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124 times, with Massillon holding the edge 67-52-5. In 2001 Kenneth Carlson made a documentary film titled Go Tigers! which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of a year in the life of Massillon football. Realistic and a little frightening to outsiders, the film gives testimony to how intensely the people of Massillon follow their hometown Tigers.

For many people in Canton, autumn weekends have a natural progression of McKinley on Friday night, the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday afternoon, and the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. Even though so many residents attend the games in person, local radio and television stations provide extensive coverage of the games at all levels of play.

McKinley’s adult booster club even meets midweek to review highlights of game film with the coaching staff. For those of us who grow up in Canton – and to some extent to people who come from anywhere in Ohio – football is not part of what we do as much as it is part of who we are.

In 1981 McKinley had a fine football team. They started the season by beating GlenOak 14-0 at Fawcett. In fact they shut out their first four opponents, and would only be scored on once during the first seven games. In the closest matchup of the regular season, they beat Massillon 9-6 before 22,000+ at Fawcett, with standing room only spectators covering the hill in the West corner. In the state playoffs, they beat Parma Normandy 316 and Cleveland Villa Angela-Saint Joseph 24-0, to set up a Championship game meeting with Cincinnati Moeller.

Cincinnati’s Archbishop Moeller High School is a Catholic school for boys. It opened in 1960 and was named as a living tribute to honor the Most Reverend Henry Moeller, the fourth Archbishop of Cincinnati. The school is associated with the Marianist order of Catholics – the Society of Mary – which was founded in 1817 by Father William Chaminade in Bordeaux France. The high school has an enrollment of around 900 students, all boys of course, so it competes at the highest divisions of athletics in the OHSAA, the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

In the mid-1970’s Moeller gained national prominence as a high school football power, winning Ohio state championships in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979 and 1980. They beat McKinley 14-2 in the 1977 title game, and 34-14 during the 1980 season. From 1975 to 1980, Moeller football teams had 80 wins and only one loss. On the heels of such success, after the 1980 season Moeller’s great head coach Gerry Faust left the school, and succeeded Dan Devine as head coach at the University of Notre Dame. Ted Bacigalupo took over as head coach at Moeller at the start of the 1981 season, and he brought his team into the state title game looking every bit as strong as Faust’s teams had been. The Crusaders had won all ten of their regular season games and both playoff games. The Moeller Senior players had only lost once, back when they were freshman. The Juniors, Sophomores and Freshmen had never known football defeat as Moeller Crusaders.

The 1981 OHSAA Division I state championship game was played at the Akron Rubber Bowl, a stadium twenty miles north of Canton where the University of Akron Zips played their home games. (The Rubber Bowl is adjacent to the site where the championship 7

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races of the International Soap Box Derby are held each year.) If distance traveled would provide any advantage, that edge would go to McKinley, and going into the game, most people in Canton thought that our Bulldogs could use any help that they could get against Moeller. McKinley had a great defense, shutting out eight of its first twelve opponents, but Moeller had soundly beaten McKinley the previous year, and the Moeller kids didn’t think that traveling on a bus for four hours or four days was a factor that should cause them to lose this ball game.

Although my ticket stub indicates a kickoff time of 7:30PM, the game was actually played in the afternoon. I traveled to Akron with Richard Van Voorhis and his parents.

Richard and I were classmates and teammates as eighth-graders at Crenshaw Junior High School. Richard’s sister Carla was a sophomore at McKinley, and a majorette in the “Canton McKinley Marching 100” as the band is known. It was a very cold November day, and Richard, who was active in the Boy Scouts, had brought along metal hand warmers that we could hold to keep our hands warm. (Richard stayed active in scouting, and during high school he earned the honor of being named an Eagle Scout.) I sat in the stands with Rich and his parents. My father helped drive McKinley’s equipment from Canton to Akron, and he watched part of the game from the sidelines, and the rest from a warm van situated close to the field. Along with the ticket stub that I used, the field pass that my Dad brought home from the game, originally meant for McKinley assistant coach (and Crenshaw health teacher) Craig Kessler, is displayed at the beginning of this chapter.

Later than night after the game, my dad would say that it looked like “the McKinley kids were walking on air.” The McKinley defense turned in another great performance, stifling the Moeller offense. I remember several three-and-outs, and after each thirddown stop, when McKinley’s great nose tackle Stan Jackson would run off the field, the McKinley boosters would applaud louder and louder. McKinley’s defense also featured Garland Rivers, who was a great defensive back. McKinley won 13-0, adding a ninth shutout to its impressive season and giving the Moeller Junior class the only loss that they would ever experience as high school football players.

The win earned McKinley its eighth state championship in school history, but this title was its first in the modern era playoff format. Canton celebrated the title with a parade.

The stars of the 1981 Bulldogs enjoyed big success in college. Garland Rivers played defensive back for Bo Schembechler at the University of Michigan. Dale Jackson played defensive line for Don Nehlen at West Virginia. Stan Jackson went to Central State University, a historically black university in Wilberforce Ohio, where he continued to be a menace on defense. Head coach Terry Forbes left McKinley after 1981 and became a college assistant coach. (Terry’s younger brother Tom was my sophomore English teacher and my high school debate coach. I would reconnect with Terry a few years later when he was the defensive backs coach on Lou Holtz’s staff at Notre Dame.) Moeller’s Ted Bacigalupo resigned after his lone 12-1 season. When Steve Klonne took over in 1982, Moeller regained the state championship. In the fall of 1985, my senior year at McKinley, we had a rematch with Moeller in the state title game, this time at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. As rainfall soaked the field in 1985, Moeller won 35-11. But on 8

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that chilly day at the Rubber Bowl in Akron in 1981, the world of high school football in Ohio was owned by Terry Forbes and the Canton McKinley Bulldogs. ♦♦♦ Garland Rivers attended college at the University of Michigan, where he was an exceptional defensive back. In the 1986 Fiesta Bowl, he intercepted a pass to secure a 27-23 victory over Nebraska. His final college game was the 1987 Rose Bowl, which the Wolverines lost to Arizona State. He played one season in the National Football League, in 1987 for the Chicago Bears. He also played for several seasons in the Arena Football League.

Terry Forbes coached in college at Akron, Kent State, and Notre Dame. He is the founder and owner of the Forbes Report (www.TheForbesReport.com) a recruiting evaluation service that provides college football programs with information and video highlights of high school prospects.

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III. OHIO STATE vs. FLORIDA STATE 1981 About seven weeks before McKinley defeated Moeller, Uncle Anthony and I traveled to Columbus to see the Buckeyes play the Florida State Seminoles. It was my first game in Ohio Stadium, the colossal stone structure shaped like a horseshoe, and I was very excited. Anthony and I left his home in New Philadelphia early Saturday morning, stayed overnight in Columbus after the game, then returned home on Sunday. I remember that we met a man who handed us the tickets early Saturday after we drove to Columbus, but I do not remember how we knew this man or if he was an acquaintance of my dad or my uncle. My dad did not join us, for this game it was just Uncle Anthony and me, so I think the ticket contact was probably a friend of Anthony.

The 1981 football season was only one month old, and both teams held high hopes for this game and their seasons. Florida State had finished 10-2 in 1980, and had been to the Orange Bowl the previous two years, losing to Oklahoma each time. 1981 was head coach Bobby Bowden’s sixth season at the school, after a successful stint at West Virginia. Two weeks before the game in Columbus, Nebraska handed Florida State its first loss of the year, 34-14. The Ohio State game was the second of five consecutive road games against strong opponents, a brutal stretch that Seminole fans recall as one of the toughest scheduling challenges that its team has ever faced. Rick Stockstill was the quarterback and leader of the Seminoles.

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For the Buckeyes, 1981 was Earle Bruce’s third year as head coach. In his first year after taking over from Woody Hayes, Ohio State had gone to the Rose Bowl and finished 11-1.

In 1980, they finished 9-3, losing to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. The Buckeye leaders were quarterback Art Schlichter and linebackers Glenn Cobb and Marcus Marek. Ohio State had won all three of its September games – over Duke, Michigan State and Stanford – and entered the Florida State game ranked #7 in the country. It was the first meeting ever between the two schools, and it looked like it might be a great college football game. ♦♦♦ As I mentioned in the previous chapter, in the autumn of 1981 I was an eighth grade student at Walter C. Crenshaw Junior High School in Canton. I was a member of the football team, coached by Richard Gambone, but I was not a starter, a second team player, or even a third team player. In fact I probably never entered Coach Gambone’s mind during game planning and preparation. This was not because I was a bad football player, for in situations against people my own size I played fairly well. But eighth grade is the time that boys enter puberty. In addition to deeper voices and facial hair, many boys grow taller and become physically much stronger than they were as fifth, sixth or seventh graders. I grew and my body changed along with my classmates, but from the very first day of practice I was the smallest player on the field. I complemented my short stature with low agility, a general lack of speed, and an underlying fear of being dissected by the rapidly evolving adolescents across the line of scrimmage. If I hoped to find a game against people my own size, I would have had to return to Woodland and confront the sixth-graders at recess. So I did not play much, but I did learn the game from a player’s perspective. I survived two-a-day practices in August when my hay fever was bad. I struggled to balance midseason practices with preparation for midterm exams. I learned Crenshaw’s offense, which was McKinley’s offense, and Crenshaw’s defense, which was the defense used at Timken, the other public high school in Canton. (This was no coincidence, for the junior high coaches emulated the schemes of McKinley and Timken to make it easier for players to assimilate once they reached high school. In ninth grade we reversed it, and learned Timken’s offense and McKinley’s defense.) Even though I was physically unprepared to play, I really enjoyed being on the team, I enjoyed reading the playbook, and I enjoyed wearing my bright orange jersey to school on game days.

While I did not see much action in any games as an eighth-grader, I stayed on the team for my ninth-grade year. Our freshman team was coached by Alan Stinson and John Ifantides, and midway through the year they arranged a “B” team game with Lehman, another junior high school in Canton. I played nearly every down in this game, because I was playing beside and against people who were considerably closer to my size than the starting players. My dad’s good friend Paul Guidone was a bus driver for our school district, and after he drove us to Lehman that day, he reported to my dad that “Little Tee handled himself pretty well out on that field.” After our B team experience, Coach Stinson found a way for us to get into a regular game, late in the season during a blowout road win against New Philadelphia. While I would have been excited to play in a game anywhere, this game had special significance for me. New Philly’s Quaker Stadium is 11

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located in Tuscora Park, within walking distance from the homes where my Uncle Anthony lived with my grandmother, and where my Aunt Ruby and Uncle Stan Massarelli lived with their family.

Uncle Stan was in the stadium that afternoon. In fact Stan never missed a sporting event that I played in New Philly or its neighboring town, Dover. I once played a high school tennis match in Tuscora Park against Jim Amick, one of my big personal rivals.

Meanwhile at the other side of the park, New Philly’s baseball team was playing and their star pitcher, a major league prospect, was on the mound. As that kid struck out one opposing hitter after another, the baseball fans roared, but Stan stayed to support me throughout my entire match, even though the baseball game would have been more exciting for him. As our football game with New Philadelphia wound down and we were in mop-up time, my B team peers and I were given the chance to enter the game. I remember that on offense we were facing third down and eight yards to go, and we ran “Ram 38 Right” and Curt Werren gained about fifteen yards on the sweep, more than enough to pick up a first down, except that as a pulling guard I jumped too early and was called for false start. Curt was angry, but for me the penalty was a blessing in disguise.

After we punted the ball away, I stayed in on defense, and on a third-and-long the Philly quarterback nearly knocked me over with his pass, which I intercepted and ran back two or three yards before being tackled from behind. Later in my life I would have many great football experiences on the sidelines and in the stands – you’ll read about most of them in this book – but that interception in New Philadelphia and that B game at Lehman were the greatest memories I would ever have as a football player.

All three of my junior high football coaches were great. Richard Gambone also taught me world history, and several years later when he taught my nephew at Crenshaw, he told Joshua that I was one of the finest students he ever had. Alan Stinson taught me science and he was as brilliant and energetic in the classroom as he was on the football field. I never was fortunate enough to have been a student in Coach Ifantides’ class, but I have two memories of him that stand out. Shortly after I left Crenshaw and moved on to McKinley, he spoke with my father and told him that he knew I was a fine student and that I loved football, but he did not want to put me into games for fear that I would get injured. Looking back now, I can appreciate his concern for my safety. Many years later when John Ifantides walked up to me at my father’s funeral, we embraced and cried together. I was deeply touched by his presence, and I won’t ever forget that moment. ♦♦♦ Saturday October 3, 1981 was a pleasant autumn day in Columbus. The weather threatened rain, but it only sprinkled a few times throughout the day, nothing hard enough to bother either team or affect the outcome of the game.

I remember that Anthony and I sat on the field level at the closed end of the stadium, around the goal line just to the left of what is now the block O section. The seats were great. Ohio State has great traditions, and the experience of a home game in Ohio Stadium is unforgettable. The players wear scarlet and gray, but the fans mostly wear 12

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scarlet. Before the game, the band enters the field playing the Buckeye Battle Cry, then plays Le Regiment and marches an intricate weave to form a Script Ohio. During breaks in the action, the four corners of the stadium alternatively shout O! H! I! O! Brutus Buckeye, the student mascot, entertains the younger fans and those who might only be casually interested in football. But in Ohio Stadium, which seated more than 90,000 in 1981 and seats over 100,000 today, there aren’t many “casual” fans. Buckeye fans know football, and they support their team with passion.

Despite being a thirteen-hour drive or a 90-minute plane flight away, Florida State fans traveled very well to Columbus. This was a few years before Deion Sanders, the tomahawk chop and war chant craze took hold in Tallahassee, but the trademark chants of “Go Seminoles! Fight Team Fight! Scalp ‘Em!” and the spellout chant “F-L-O-R-I-DA S-T-A-T-E Florida State! Florida State! Florida State!” were chanted regularly by those who wore garnet and gold.

Ohio State senior quarterback Art Schlichter was from the southern Ohio town of Bloomingburg, and he had a monster arm. Two years earlier he had led Ohio State over Michigan and earned a berth in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. Such accomplishments made Schlichter a hero in Ohio. He was a local celebrity who attracted the attention of the national media as well. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He was the face of the squad. The fate of the Buckeyes was in his hands.

The game was a shootout, with action all over the field. Ohio State scored first, but Florida State rallied to take a 10-7 lead into the second quarter, after returning a blocked punt for a touchdown. Art Schlichter connected with Gary Williams for a 52-yard touchdown pass before halftime, but Florida State quarterback Rick Stockstill (who finished 25 of 41 for 299 passing yards) threw two touchdown passes in the second half to put Florida State up 30-21. Ohio State mounted a fourth-quarter comeback, but Florida State held on to win 36-27.

Art Schlichter made fifty-two pass attempts during this game, completing 31 of them for 458 yards. Fifty-two pass attempts might have been a seasonal total on some of Woody Hayes teams at Ohio State during the 1960s and 1970s, but Earle Bruce felt that his best chance to win in 1981 was to have Schlichter toss the ball around the field. The loss would not set the Buckeyes back too much, as they would finish the regular season with a win over Michigan, then beat Navy in the Liberty Bowl to finish 9-3. 1981 would be the second of six consecutive years where the Buckeyes finished with a record of 9-3. In the later years of that streak, “nine-and-three” became a bit of a scarlet letter for Coach Bruce, whose teams were good enough to win big games and even conference titles but not quite good enough to win a national title, the standard set by Woody Hayes.

The week after beating the Buckeyes, coach Bobby Bowden and Florida State traveled to South Bend and beat Gerry Faust’s Notre Dame team 19-13, but they would struggle the rest of the year, losing three games in November, including two to their in-state rivals Miami and Florida. The Seminoles finished 6-5 and did not make a bowl appearance.

1981 was the only time in the past thirty years that Florida State did not attend a bowl 13

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game at the end of the season. The Seminoles’ consecutive bowl streak is the longest of any school in major college football. The 2009 football season was Coach Bobby Bowden’s 34th and final year at Florida State. His 377 wins make him the winningest coach of all time in college football.

Anthony and I had a great time in Columbus, probably as much fun as we had in Philadelphia a few years earlier. Our enduring memory of this trip took place late in the fourth quarter, as fans were starting to leave the stadium. A few rows behind us was a Florida State supporter who looked a little like Jimmie Walker from the “Good Times” television show, except his voice was much deeper than Walker’s. As people filed out of the stands, this man chanted melodically “Ohio State, bye bye! Bye bye Ohio State!”

And as I turned around to look at him and laugh, he made a birdie-like gesture to wave goodbye as he chanted his chorus. Uncle Anthony and I laughed about that guy the whole drive home. We would still recall that and laugh years later when my cousins Mark and Ben enrolled as students at Florida State. All anybody would have to say was “Florida State” or “Mark and Ben” and Anthony would shout the Florida State spellout or say “Bye bye! Ohio State, Bye bye!” and we would laugh.

Art Schlichter was selected by the Baltimore Colts with the fourth overall pick in the 1982 Draft. His professional football career was cut short by compulsive gambling. His life took a downward spiral, and he eventually served prison time for forgery and fraud.

Today he works to help other troubled gamblers.

Rick Stockstill is currently the head coach at Middle Tennessee State University.

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IV. NOTRE DAME vs. MICHIGAN 1982 In the fall of 1982, we traveled to Notre Dame for the first time. Through some connection in Canton, we were able to get four tickets for the opening game of the season, against Michigan. My parents and I made the trip, along with my cousin Sally Massarelli, the daughter of Aunt Ruby and Uncle Stan.

I was just starting ninth grade, and I was excited to make a road trip and see a new place and a great football game. Aside from my quixotic research into gaining an appointment to Annapolis after the Army-Navy game, I had not thought in great detail about college up to that point in my life. During the 1980s in the Canton City Schools, freshmen attend junior high school, so I was still at Crenshaw. I don’t even think I had been inside of McKinley or Timken yet. High school pre-empted college on my personal horizon. In that sense, the trip to Notre Dame was purely focused on football, and I was able to simply relax and enjoy the weekend.

Sally and I rode in the back seat on the trip. As she did on all of our trips, my mother packed a cooler full of food and drinks. Aunt Ruby had also sent goody bags with us, so we had chips and pretzels and candies to keep us occupied during the ride. Unlike today, Sally and I didn’t have musical headsets or personal gaming devices to enable us to withdraw into our own worlds during the trip. My mother was strapped into the front passenger seat, so she had no kitchen sink, paperwork, laundry, cooking or cleaning to withdraw into either. Dad, of course, was driving. For entertainment we had to talk to each other. I know that’s not a novel concept, but as I look back I cherish those car conversations, especially now when I look into some minivans on the road and see the father driving, the mother reading a book, the son listening to his iPod and the daughter watching a DVD. Before all of the modern gadgetry, the simplicity of a family conversation was enough to satisfy all of us.

Sally and I had always been close. She is two years older, and she was already a junior in high school at Tuscarawas Central Catholic in New Philadelphia. Of all the first cousins who lived in Ohio, Sally and I were the closest in age, so we were always together, or as I joke with her now, she was always stuck with me. When we were very young, I’m sure

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that Aunt Ruby and Uncle Stan told her to give me my way and let me do what I wanted, but I also joke that she didn’t think she’d have to do that forever! All kidding aside, Sally is a wonderful person, and growing up with her was a joyful treasure.

As with my parents and me, the Michigan trip was Sally’s first visit to Notre Dame. Her parents had been there before, and they would travel to the Arizona game later in the 1982 season. Stan was a huge Notre Dame fan. When he would visit with his buddies in New Philly, the conversation regularly centered on sports, the Central Catholic Saints, the Ohio State Buckeyes, or the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They seemed to have endless memories of the games that they witnessed. One summer night on Stan’s porch I watched him talk in deep detail with his friend Bill Dillon about a timeout in a basketball game that had happened thirty years earlier. Given that you’re reading this book, where I am reminiscing about games that happened thirty years ago, you can understand that Stan had a profound influence on me.

My earliest memories of walking into Stan’s house on Fair Avenue include seeing him sitting in the lounge chair watching the Irish play football or basketball. The same was true at Anthony’s house. What I remember there is that next to Anthony’s reclining chair there was a collection of magazines and programs from sporting events in faraway places – the Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four, the Indianapolis 500, etc. – as well as programs from everyday games held closer to home. Whenever my family members traveled to an event without Anthony or Stan, we would bring home a program for them, and they always did the same for us.

We left Ohio after school on Friday, and arrived in Indiana too late to do anything except eat and get ready for our big day Saturday. Mom was able to get us reservations at the Holiday Inn hotel in South Bend, located just over a mile from campus on route 31. I don’t know how she got the reservations, because it is extremely difficult to find hotels in South Bend on football weekends. She was determined, persistent, and probably a little lucky, and as a result we had a nice hotel room close to campus for the weekend.

In a historic act to accommodate a national television audience, the administrators from Notre Dame and Michigan changed the 1:30PM kickoff time to 8PM. To illuminate the field, portable lights with a million watts of power were brought in on six giant trucks from an Oklahoma company called MUSCO. It would be the first night game ever held at Notre Dame Stadium.

After relaxing at the hotel in the morning, Mom, Sally and I planned to drive to campus for sightseeing and an afternoon mass, then return to the hotel and pick up my father, so we could all go to campus together for the game. That was what we thought we would do, but it didn’t quite work out that way. We may have slept too late, or relaxed a little too long after breakfast, or we may have just been naïve, but once we left the hotel and drove toward campus, the Indiana State Police had already started to control the flow of traffic into the stadium. Mom felt that if we went forward we could get to campus for mass, but we might not be able to get back to the hotel after the service. So shortly after we started out, Mother, Sally and I turned back. But we had gone far enough and turned 16

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off the main road, and now we were on a strange road, being directed one-way by traffic police, while we wanted to reverse course and go back to the hotel. So we drove around and drove around and drove around…it seemed like no left turns were allowed anywhere, there was no hotel anywhere in sight, there was no map in the car. We were lost!

Now this was before cell phones existed, so we couldn’t call my dad from the car and tell him (A) we were late, (B) we were lost and (C) we hoped he would enjoy watching the game on television in the hotel room! We could have called from a pay phone, if there had been one on any of the barren one-way streets that we were inching along. We felt badly for my dad because even though we were lost in the car, we were together, while he was alone in the hotel. There were more one-way streets and more traffic officers, and I’m sure that a few of them helped us make some turns here and there, and lo and behold, as Mom approached one intersection Sally shouted, “There’s the hotel!” My mother breathed a sigh of relief. We made it back to our room, calmed ourselves down, and relayed the story to my father. We handed him the car keys for the rest of the weekend!

So even though we had left the hotel earlier with the best intentions of sightseeing and worship, we didn’t see any of the Notre Dame campus that weekend, except for the Stadium and its immediate surroundings. Dad was able to navigate through the pregame traffic and we settled into our seats in time for kickoff. We were seated in the South endzone, with a perfect view of the field, directly facing the Word of Life mosaic commonly known as “Touchdown Jesus” that adorns the university library.

I was wearing a Michigan hat during the game. It seems strange now, but before the game I knew about Michigan’s star receiver Anthony Carter. I knew all about their great coach Bo Schembechler and his rivalry with Woody Hayes. As far as Notre Dame was concerned, I knew that Gerry Faust was their head coach, and I knew that Mark Fischer (a Canton Central Catholic graduate) was on the team. Mark’s family lived in Massillon, and when he was not at Notre Dame, Mark would attend the youth basketball games at the CYC Community center, where I worked part-time as an official scorer. Whenever he walked into the gymnasium wearing his blue letterman’s jacket, people would say “That’s Mark Fischer. He plays center on the football team at Notre Dame.” Going into the game I definitely knew more about Michigan than about Notre Dame. So I wore a Michigan hat, probably more to get a rise out of others than out of any love for the Wolverines. My dad would do that a lot too. He’d wear a Massillon hat around McKinley fans, just to provoke a reaction. After we traveled to a game at Purdue, he wore a musical Purdue hat the next time he saw his friend John Brideweiser, the former McKinley football coach who had attended the school. So I wore a Michigan hat to my first game at Notre Dame Stadium.

Michigan had beaten Wisconsin the week before in their opener, but Notre Dame had not yet played a game. Michigan was ranked 9th in the Associated Press poll, and Notre Dame was ranked 19th, even though that had finished a disappointing 6-5 the previous year. To win this game, Notre Dame needed to show improvement on their 1981 season, especially if Michigan could unleash the multiple weapons of its great receiver/kick returner, Anthony Carter. While I hadn’t known of many Notre Dame players before the 17

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game, it wouldn’t take me long to figure out that they had some stars too. Quarterback Blair Kiel and Tight End Tony Hunter were the leaders on offense, and linebackers Mark Zavagnin and Mike Larkin, cornerback Stacey Toran, and safety Dave Duerson were the leaders on defense. The two teams matched up very well. Before the game, Gerry Faust wondered if Notre Dame’s defense could stop Anthony Carter, and Bo Schembechler wondered if Michigan’s defense could stop Notre Dame’s running game.

Notre Dame kicked off, and its defense started the game with great intensity. On the game’s opening series, Michigan quarterback Steve Smith fumbled and the Irish recovered, then Mike Johnston kicked a field goal to make it 3-0. In one of the final plays of the first quarter, Michigan fumbled again, and after the team switched sides to start the second quarter, Notre Dame fullback Larry Moriarty rushed 24 yards to put the Irish up 10-0.

Thanks to its attacking defense, Notre Dame completely dominated the first two quarters.

Midway through the second quarter, Notre Dame had the chance to score again, when Greg Bell rushed to set up a first down and goal at the Michigan four yard line. But on the next play Bell fumbled at the goal line and Michigan recovered. The Irish defense held again after the fumble, forcing a punt. Michigan punted six times in the first half, and its offense only crossed midfield once. Notre Dame scored shortly before halftime, when Mike Johnston kicked a field goal. Johnston was playing in his first game, and it would not be the first or the last time that an untested Notre Dame kicker would have an impact on this game. Two years earlier, Harry Oliver kicked a 51-yard field goal to beat Michigan. And in 1988 a diminutive premed student named Reggie Ho would kick four field goals to beat Michigan 19-17. After Johnston’s second field goal, Notre Dame went into the locker room leading 13-0 at halftime.

The game was far from over. On the opening possession of the half, Michigan held Notre Dame to a three-and-out. Blair Kiel booted a fine punt, which Anthony Carter returned 73 yards for a touchdown. Notre Dame would answer, with another Johnston field goal and a Greg Bell touchdown run. Entering the fourth quarter, the first time I ever heard the Notre Dame Band play Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Notre Dame led Michigan 23-7.

The fourth quarter belonged to the Wolverines. Michigan’s offensive line made adjustments during the course of the game, and even though Notre Dame sacked Steve Smith nine times that night, by the fourth quarter the linemen had found a way to protect Smith and he was beginning to find his rhythm. Unfortunately, his star receiver Anthony Carter was out of the game, having been injured during the third quarter. But even with Carter out of the lineup, Michigan would make a comeback. Ali Haji-Sheikh kicked a 42-yard field goal, then Rick Rogers scored on a freak play, where he peeled the ball off Dave Duerson’s shoulder (while Duerson was tackling the originally intended receiver) and raced into the end zone. With seven and a half minutes to play, the score was Notre Dame 23, Michigan 17.

Voices began to make noise inside the heads of fans throughout the stadium.

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Wait a minute. 23-17, in a game that Notre Dame has controlled from the opening kickoff? The defense has owned Steve Smith, contained Anthony Carter, and they only have a six point lead? Is it possible that Notre Dame could lose this game?

Starting from the 30-yard line, Irish fullback Larry Moriarty broke free for a 30-yard gain on first down. The Irish continued to run, and with the game clock passing the five minute mark, they faced 4th down and three from the Michigan 36. Mike Johnston was red hot, but a 53 yard field goal was a bit much to expect. And while the running game had been stellar all night, three yards was a big risk too, especially given that Moriarty had been stuffed on third down. So Coach Faust sent Blair Kiel in to punt. Of course, Kiel was also the Irish quarterback, and that helped the Irish in the event of a bad snap, or if they wanted to run a fake. Kiel executed a nice pooch punt. The Irish punt coverage team could have caught the ball cleanly at the two yard line, but they mishandled the ball and it was a touchback. So Michigan took over with 4:12 to play at their own 20 yard line.

Again, the voices murmured, this time making an audible buzz throughout the stadium.

Wait a minute. Six points down. Eighty yards to go. But plenty of time on the clock. It is possible that Notre Dame could lose this game!

Anthony Carter must have suffered a serious injury, because once again he did not take the field with Steve Smith and the rest of the offense. Michigan continued to throw the ball well, eight yards here, eleven yards there, a pass interference penalty here, and pretty soon the Wolverines were threatening to score. They advanced to the Irish 32-yard line, before Dave Duerson stripped the ball away from a Michigan receiver to end the drive and seal the 23-17 win for the Irish.

Notre Dame finished with a total of 293 rushing yards, including 113 for Larry Moriarty.

Michigan rushed for 53 yards. I mentioned the nine sacks by the Notre Dame defense, and it was their intensity in the first half that ultimately caused Notre Dame to win the game. The game might have been different if Michigan had accomplished anything in the first half, or if Anthony Carter had been able to play in the fourth quarter.

Despite the pre-game traffic jam, our first trip to Notre Dame was a big success. Mom is still happy that her prayers were answered and she found the hotel in time for Dad to see the kickoff. All four of us had a wonderful time, and I’m fairly certain that once we returned home to Canton on Sunday, Mom and Dad were already plotting how they could get tickets and hotel rooms for our next trip, our next game, our next adventure. ♦♦♦ After graduation, Anthony Carter signed a huge contract to play for the Michigan Panthers in the upstart United States Football League. He would also play in the NFL for the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings, but he is best remembered for graduating as the all-time leading receiver at Michigan.

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Ali Haji-Sheikh played for the New York Giants and Washington Redskins. He made the Pro Bowl in 1984.

Dave Duerson won a Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears. After his pro career, he owned and operated a sausage company called Fair Oaks Farms, until he sold the company in 2002. He also served as president of Notre Dame’s National Monogram Club. After suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy resulting from repeated football collisions, Duerson committed suicide in 2011. He donated his brain for medical research.

Stacey Toran played many years in Oakland and Los Angeles for the Raiders. He died of a car accident in 1989.

Larry Moriarty played six seasons as running back for the Houston Oilers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Mark Zavagnin was drafted by the Chicago Bears, but was injured in training camp and never played in an NFL game. He is now a high school coach in one of the Chicago suburbs.

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V. McKINLEY vs. CENTRAL HOWER 1984 1983 was a transitional year at the Talarico house. As a family we were quite busy at home, so we did not travel to many games or events that year. Mom was working at the Canton School Employees Federal Credit Union during the day, and going to Stark Technical College at night, working toward her Associates degree. I had moved from Crenshaw Junior High to McKinley Senior High in the fall of 1983 and I was adjusting to life in high school. Dad was nearing retirement, so he and my mother did a great deal of financial planning and projection to determine if they could keep operating the household after Dad retired. They met with government analysts and determined that his military service time could be used to allow him to retire by the spring of 1984. Dad’s state employee pension would be calculated based on his three highest years of income, so in 1983 and 1984 Dad volunteered for a great deal of overtime so that he could increase his overall earnings and his pension.

In the various overtime roles, Dad would relieve a vacationing custodian at one of Canton’s elementary schools, or help a grounds crew line and paint athletic fields at the junior high, or serve as custodian on duty for McKinley or Timken athletic events. That meant that even though my dad was working, I saw him, because I attended many of those high school contests. And the 1983-84 school year turned out to be a special one for Canton McKinley. ♦♦♦

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My first day at McKinley was also the first day for our new Principal, Fred Blosser. Mr. Blosser was a very tall gentleman who dressed well and spoke so softly that some students might have been fooled into thinking that he was too meek to run an urban school like McKinley. Beneath that composed surface, however, was a fiery competitor and a strict disciplinarian. We would later learn that Mr. Blosser had played college football at Kent State, and in fact he had been voted by his teammates as a team captain in 1971, and was considered the toughest player on the team. That distinction becomes more outstanding when one considers that the great Pittsburgh Steelers middle linebacker Jack Lambert was also on that Kent team. At our opening assembly, Mr. Blosser welcomed us and clearly communicated his commitment to us to set the course for McKinley and enable each of us to achieve excellence at the school.

As a sophomore in the balcony of Umstattd Hall that day, I too was determined to succeed at this big new school. The previous Spring I had graduated from Crenshaw, and they sent me off with the school’s highest honor, the Walter Crenshaw Student Leadership Award. Principal Everett Daniels had secretly invited my mother to the awards ceremony, and he was halfway through his speech to introduce the award before I realized that he was talking about me! Mom had also had been surprised, not realizing that I would be the recipient until Mr. Daniels mentioned that I “not only exercised regularly at the CYC community center, I also found time to work there.” I was deeply honored to receive the award. When I got home I was so excited and I showed my father the plaque that Crenshaw had given me. He told me that I had done a fine job at Crenshaw, and I could be proud of myself, but that in August McKinley would await, a new mountain to climb. It was the first of many occasions that he and I would talk about mountains, and goals and plans.

I received direction, inspiration, and support from everyone at McKinley as soon as I walked in the door. During our first meeting, my guidance counselor, Florence Balca, said two things that I took to heart. She told me that if I wanted to get into college, I should try to earn National Honor Society distinction as a junior, so that I could put it on my college applications. In order to earn that distinction, she told me that I would need to have at least three extracurricular activities, and I should think about what they would be. Her advice was simple, pragmatic and helpful – you’re here now, kid, so get involved, make your mark, and you’ll get what you want.

It didn’t take me long to figure out where I wanted to be involved. One of the first people whom I sought out at McKinley was the tennis coach Dick Myser. The first student I reached out to was Chris Ramos, a senior tennis player who was president of McKinley’s speech and debate organization. He suggested that I join the speech team. A few weeks into the school year, Yeona Hales, who was the coach of the Girls’ Gymnastics team, contacted me about helping with their matches. Yeona was friends with my sister Lori and knew that I had been a scoreboard operator at the CYC, so she thought I’d be a great fit as public address announcer at the gymnastics meets. So in almost an instant I knew the three items that would satisfy the requirement for National Honor Society.

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My sophomore year course load was full, and I had a great set of teachers. I had Mr. Tom Forbes for English, Mr. Terry Rife for Pre-Calculus, Dr. Sam Vasbinder for Biology, and Dr. Don Greenham for French. I had French (although it often morphed into a philosophy class) with Doc Greenham for all three years at McKinley, Mr. Forbes served double duty as my debate coach, and Mr. Rife and Dr. Vasbinder taught me different subjects my senior year. These four men, along with Mr. Tom Love, whom I had for mathematics my junior year, all had a deep and enduring impact on my education, and I reaped the benefits of their wisdom long after I left the halls of McKinley. The courses were challenging but manageable, and that eased my transition into life at McKinley. With academics under control, I was able to immerse myself in the school social and sporting activities. ♦♦♦ McKinley’s football team in 1983 was good but not great, and they faced a vicious schedule. After beating GlenOak in the opener, the Bulldogs lost to Moeller, Youngstown Ursuline and Cincinnati Elder. They were 6-3 going into the Massillon game, but that year the Tigers had a two-way weapon named Chris Spielman. Chris played tailback on offense and linebacker on defense. I had seen him play basketball in our summer leagues at the CYC, and while he was a nice guy, given our size differential, I knew enough to stay out of his way on any athletic field.

Led by Chris Spielman, Massillon beat McKinley 18-7 at Fawcett Stadium. My outstanding memory of the game is a shot captured by WOAC-TV, the Canton station which broadcast the game. In the shot, Spielman had returned a punt into McKinley territory, and had one man to beat before reaching the end zone. That man happened to be Rich Van Voorhis, my old friend from Crenshaw, who had made the varsity as a punter. Despite being outsized, Rich took the proper angle and forced Chris out of bounds. In the television shot, they froze the action immediately before Chris stepped out of bounds, so he and Rich are face-to-face, black jersey to white jersey, Canton to Massillon. It was a great shot to fade into a commercial with, and a big thrill for Rich.

After being named as one of the first national high school players of the year, Chris Spielman appeared on the cover a Wheaties box. He went on to Ohio State, where it seemed like he made or assisted in every tackle for four years. He had a long career in the NFL, and he currently is a college football analyst for ESPN. To this day Chris remains the greatest Massillon Tiger, the greatest Ohio State Buckeye, and one of the toughest overall athletes that I ever saw.

A 6-4 football season might normally have had the people of Canton stewing all winter long, but as soon as the Massillon game ended, thoughts turned to the hardwood floors of the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse. McKinley’s basketball team was regarded as one of the top teams in nation going into that year. Football requires eleven men to operate simultaneously, so it is more difficult for a superstar player to dominate and singlehandedly determine the outcome of a game. In basketball, on the other hand, a single superstar can have a much greater impact on a team’s success. And in 1983-84 23

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McKinley not only had a superstar, Gary Grant, they also had a dominant big man, Anthony Robinson.

To people outside of Canton, the excitement about McKinley basketball was a bunch of hot air. On the basketball floor, McKinley had a reputation as a place where talented teams under-performed. Indeed, the skeptics had facts to back up their case. McKinley had two prominent players, Nick Weatherspoon and Phil Hubbard, who played basketball in the Big Ten (“Spoon” at Illinois, “Hub” at Michigan) and in the NBA. Troy Taylor and Ron Stokes, both recent McKinley alumni, were backcourt starters on Eldon Miller’s team at Ohio State. None of these men had won a state title at McKinley. Over the years McKinley had advanced to the state tournament nineteen times, reaching the final game eight times, but McKinley had never won a state basketball championship. No matter how good Gary Grant and Anthony Robinson were, no matter how many games they won, they would only be judged by one standard, the state title.

As juniors Grant and Robinson had finished 24-2. After oddly losing their first game to Alliance, they ran off twenty-four wins in a row to reach the Regional final. One team stood between McKinley and a trip to the state tournament in Columbus, Akron Central Hower. Central had a superstar of its own, a 7’ big man named Grady Mateen. In that 1983 regional, Central beat McKinley 56-54, and went on to win the State Championship.

McKinley started its season in December and cruised through its first thirteen games, none by a margin fewer than ten points. On Saturday January 21, before a crowd of 4,100 at the Canton Civic Center, McKinley did not play well against Canton South, trailing 30-22 at the half before winning 54-47. It was good that the Pups had found a way to squeak out a win, but three days later they had the biggest game of the regular season, a midweek meeting with Central Hower.

To that point, the Eagles were 12-1, to McKinley’s 14-0. Fan interest in the game was enormous, so the venue was changed from Central’s school gym to the brand-new 7500seat James Rhodes arena at the University of Akron.

I went with to the game with Frank and Sandy Forchione, close family friends. Frank was one of the groomsmen at my parents’ wedding, and they had always been very good to me. Frank and Sandy were both big sports fans, but Sandy was about the most avid McKinley fan alive. I’m glad that they took me to Akron, because I had not turned sixteen yet so I could not drive myself, and my parents knew that even in a big crowd, I’d be safe with the Forchiones.

The Bulldogs had been flat against Canton South, and their struggles continued early on against Central Hower. McKinley only scored seven points in the first quarter, and trailed 22-16 at halftime. Coach Riley must have given a fiery pep talk in the locker room, because McKinley dominated the third quarter to take a five-point lead into the fourth. But this was a back-and-forth battle. Central Hower rallied to go up 8 with 1:50 to play. McKinley did not panic, and in three quick possessions they chipped away the lead. In the final twenty seconds, still trailing by a point, Gary Grant dribbled around at 24

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the top of the key for what seemed like an eternity, before he made his move into the lane. Mateen expected Grant to take the final shot, so he and another Central defender collapsed on Grant in the paint, which freed up Anthony Robinson under the basket. In a flash, Grant made a quick pass to Robinson, who made an easy layup. With only a few seconds left Central called a timeout that they did not have, and McKinley iced the game on those technical foul shots, to win, 51-48.

It was the most exciting basketball game McKinley played that year. The next day’s Akron Beacon Journal showed a picture of the two stars, Grant and Mateen, shaking hands at midcourt after the game.

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My statistics sheet from the regular season game

Eight weeks later, the two teams met again in the regional tournament, with another trip to Columbus on the line. The game was held downtown at the Canton Civic Center, and 4,586 crammed in to see the rematch. Although it was a close game throughout, McKinley never trailed at any point in the regional final, winning 65-62.

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McKinley enjoyed a nice celebration in front of the hometown fans. They spoke to reporters and looked forward to the trip to Columbus. When he cut down the nets at the Civic Center, Gary shared in the spoils, and threw me a piece of the twine. I did not have a ticket stub from the game, but I had found a photographer pass, so I attached it to that.

By winning in the regional final, they had surpassed their performance of the previous year. But the standard, of course, was the long-elusive State Championship. Would this McKinley team be able to bring home the top prize? After nearly four months and twenty-six games, we would only have to wait one more week to find out.

My statistics sheet from the regional title game

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VI. McKINLEY vs. DAYTON DUNBAR 1984 My mother used to mockingly joke that not much studying was ever done during Massillon-McKinley week. People from both schools were too excited about the game.

While I wouldn’t admit it to my mother, I don’t think much studying took place the week before the 1984 state tournament either. The four days of classes between the regional final and the state finals could not pass quickly enough, because everyone wanted to get down to Columbus and see what would happen there.

I traveled to Columbus with my dad, his friend Paul Guidone, who drove a bus in the Canton City Schools, Paul’s son Joe and Joe’s friend Pete. Joe and Pete were in their mid-twenties, already out of school. We had a hotel room downtown – again, thanks to the persistence and determination of my mother.

I’m not sure how I ended up first in line, but I received the first student ticket for Friday night’s semifinal, row 1 seat 1 on the East side of the floor at St. John Arena. In that semifinal game, McKinley played Columbus Marion-Franklin. McKinley was dominant in every way, winning 72-47, led by 22 points from Charles Zollicoffer, a 6’3” junior, the youngest of McKinley’s starting five. In addition to Gary Grant, Anthony Robinson and Zollicoffer, McKinley started Dale Jackson, another big man who had played defensive line during that 1981 football victory over Cincinnati Moeller, and guard Mark Riley, the

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son of Coach Riley. Each of the starting five had versatility. Riley could play point guard, shooting guard or small forward. The greatest man alive, Grant could play guard or forward. Robinson, Zollicoffer and Jackson could play forward or center. As sixth man, strong guard Marvin Winn could come in and give anyone a rest, and the players who remained in the game could adjust. McKinley regularly stayed out of foul trouble – they only had players foul out of games seven times all year – so they rarely had to look farther down the bench than Marvin Winn.

So after the semifinal blowout, McKinley was set to face Dayton Dunbar, who snuck by Toledo Scott 69-68, to win the late game Friday night. They were clearly the two best teams in Ohio. Dunbar was 24-3, McKinley was 26-1.

McKinley’s only loss had come February 3 at home in the Fieldhouse against Cleveland St. Joseph. Led by 21 points from Wilbur Hawkins, including a crushing breakaway dunk that closed out the win, St. Joseph had beaten McKinley 80-73. Grant was held to 15 points in the game, and that was the one time all year that more than one McKinley player fouled out, with Robinson and Grant each getting five personals. The day after that loss, Dad told me that a regular season loss might have been the best thing that could have happened to those kids. The loss at home was a dose of humility that might have stung a little, but it did not break their spirit, and it taught the team a valuable lesson.

They had lost a game, and they didn’t like it very much.

On Saturday we stayed at the hotel most of the day, and watched the smaller schools play their championship games. The afternoon AA game was won by Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, led by a forward named Jerome Lane, who would go onto play at the University of Pittsburgh, and Frank Stams, a gritty forward who had led St. Vincent-St. Mary in scoring when they played McKinley during the regular season. When Jerome Lane sealed the victory from the free throw line, I remember that he repeatedly jumped for joy, as coach Joe Suboticki looked on. At halftime of my championship game, I went to visit my cousin Sally and her sister Cindy, who were seated in a different part of the floor, and on the way back I ran into Frank Stams and I was able to congratulate him on winning the championship. Our paths would cross again later in life.

The AAA game was scheduled for an 8:10 tipoff, and with only three divisions playing, the OHSAA was able to operate on schedule. (Some states now play five divisions, and it’s nearly impossible to get those later games off on time.) There was an electricity in St. John Arena that night. I was seated on the West end of the floor, four rows up.

Legendary public address announcer Ron Althoff introduced the starting lineups, and the game was underway.

Before we left the hotel, Dad told Joe and Pete, “Watch closely tonight. If McKinley wins, you’ll see some grown men crying.” They had gone to high school in Louisville, Ohio, a few miles east of Canton, and although Joe knew how sports-crazed McKinley fans were, I think it was a shock for Pete.

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Dunbar took an early lead, but in the second quarter McKinley took control. At halftime, the Pups were ahead 37-31, and they teams played evenly through the third quarter, so McKinley was still ahead by six going into the fourth quarter But Dunbar made its run at the right time, and trailing by only two with only six seconds to play in the game, they called a timeout to set up a play. That timeout seemed like it took forever. I was snapping pictures of the scoreboard, feeling that with one more defensive stop, McKinley would win. The crowd was cheering and screaming.

During the timeout, Dunbar had called a very simple play. Their star shooting guard would take the inbound pass, dribble quickly up the court, and launch a jump shot. He took the shot as soon as he crossed mid-court. It happened so fast no McKinley player put a hand up. 13,918 fans just watched the missile arc nicely and hit nothing but net.

At the end of regulation, the score was tied at 72.

I felt as though someone had stepped on my chest and deflated the air from my lungs.

Some McKinley fans groaned. Others screamed. Others just stood there in silence. At the start of the season, I had meticulously kept a log book of statistics for this McKinley team. I recorded the score by quarter for each game, the full box scores, the attendance, etc. That was what I was paid to do during my part-time job at the CYC, but this I did for fun and to support my team. Were all those pages of notes going to be incinerated because the kid from Dunbar just swished one from 25 feet? Would this game end badly, and relegate Gary Grant into another Nick Weatherspoon, Phil Hubbard, or Troy and Ronnie? In one little overtime period, a season of hard work and a season of fans’ dreams could all be lost.

Gary Grant, Anthony Robinson, Dale Jackson, Mark Riley and Charles Zollicoffer would not let that happen. The overtime was controlled by McKinley, mostly by Grant, who finished the game with 25 points. McKinley won 79-75 in overtime, finally earning its long-coveted state basketball championship.

The next afternoon, when everyone assembled back in Canton at the Memorial Fieldhouse, Superintendent Dave Kaiser greeted the fans and the team by saying “After sixty years, what’s another three minutes!”

As soon as the game went final, above my left shoulder in the front row of the mezzanine level, Sandy Forchione unfurled a red and black banner with a giant number 1. Behind her, grown men were crying. My father had been right about that! Some old people felt that after sixty years of falling short, McKinley had finally won, and now they could die and go to heaven. Some people thought they were already there.

As we left the arena and returned to the hotel, our celebration was just starting. Back at the hotel, my dad and Paul went out with Joe and Pete, while I ran off with some school friends. I was with Lori Stoker and her little sister. I remember that Phil Hubbard’s father was staying in the same hotel that we were, and we went to his room to talk with

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him and try to see Phil. We went looking for other friends too, and we heard about some classmates at another hotel, so we walked to that hotel to see them.

The game had started at 8:10PM, went into overtime, and there had been a big post-game celebration in the arena. By the time we left the arena to resume our celebration downtown, it was late. It turned out that it was very late. When we walked into the hotel where we thought we would meet our friends, hotel security and Columbus police confronted us, asked us where we were staying and why we out in violation of the local curfew for unaccompanied minors. They asked us for ID. The girls had none. I remember the police looking at my bus pass and the pictures of my nephew Joshua in my wallet. It makes sense now, but I was a little alarmed at the time. The police escorted us back to our hotel in a paddy wagon, the only time I have ever taken a ride in such a vehicle.

So we got back to the hotel, and I went up to the room, put the key in the door, and opened it to find silence and emptiness. The adults were still out. I could forever keep this secret, and completely get away with it! But what fun would that have been? Within minutes, my father had arrived. I was still on an adrenaline rush from the state championship and the entire evening affair, so I told him about the girls and our ride in the paddy wagon. He listened intently, took in all of the information, then said “Your mother can never know.”

And so it was. After that night, every time Lori Stoker walked past me after communion at Sunday mass, she would always giggle, and my mother would elbow me. I never told her the story, so I hope she is only paying half-attention when she reaches this chapter!

A few minutes after my little conversation with Dad, I was getting ready for bed, when we heard a knock at the door. This time it was security from our hotel. They mentioned that there had been complaints, and that we should keep the noise level down. Dad and Paul spoke to the men politely and nodded in agreement. Dad and Paul waited until the security staff had walked away and reached the elevators, then they pulled Joe and Pete out into the hallway. On my dad’s count of three, all four of them shouted BULLDOGS! BULLDOGS! BULLDOGS! Just about as loudly as they could. With that, they shut the door and went to bed. “After sixty years, what’s another three minutes?” ♦♦♦

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My ticket stub from the State semifinal game ♦♦♦ Gary Grant played at Michigan, then went on to a long career with several NBA teams, mostly with the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers. Since his retirement as a player, he has worked in player development and scouting.

While he was heavily sought after by many major colleges, Grady Mateen from Central Hower really struggled with his college decision. When I met him at the state all-star game at the end of the season, he still had not decided. Well spoken and intelligent, Grady opted for Georgetown, an excellent school with a great basketball program led by John Thompson. While he may have been a great fit in the Georgetown classroom, he was not a good fit on the basketball team, and he later transferred to Ohio State, where he was a successful student athlete. Today he is an information technology professional for a large company.

Anthony Robinson played college basketball at Bowling Green State University. Today he is a religious minister in Ohio.

Anthony Robinson

Gary Grant

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My final statistics sheet for 1983-84 season

33

VII. NOTRE DAME vs. PENN STATE 1984 By the time my father and I returned to Notre Dame in 1984 for a late-season game against Penn State, I was pretty sure that I wanted to become a student at Notre Dame after high school. Since that first trip we made for the Michigan game, I had done a lot of research about colleges, and all of the new information that I received reinforced Notre Dame as my top choice.

Five years earlier, my sister Dianne had become the first in our family to graduate from college. She had gone to Bowling Green State University, studied education, and was a special education administrator. My sister Lori, who is one year younger than Dianne, had also gone to college at Bowling Green. Lori had worked during high school. As a customer service representative, she spoke English and Spanish to her company’s customers and helped them resolve problems. College wasn’t going to do much to improve Lori’s career options – she already had a good job. After one year, Lori left Bowling Green. While I was in high school, in addition to her duties at the credit union, my mother was also actively attending college, first at Stark Tech, then at Walsh College and ultimately at Malone College, where she completed her four-year degree in 1987.

My family valued education, and in the master plan that my parents and I had laid out for me, it was absolute certainty that I would attend college.

During my sophomore year I began to get exposure to the college admissions process. I watched closely as the seniors took their SAT exams, completed their applications, received their responses, and made their decisions. I knew that in the very near future I would be in their shoes.

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Wherever we traveled during my high school years, we sought to educate ourselves about my college options. When we went to a Michigan game in Ann Arbor, before the game I met with admissions officers. When I went to summer tennis camp at the College of Wooster, I spent some off time one day meeting with the admissions officers there. I told my guidance counselor that I was most interested in Notre Dame, and I was especially thrilled when in September 1984, two university representatives came to McKinley to talk about the school.

Michael James, who was an admissions officer, and Michael Huth, who was the liaison for the local alumni club, met with me and a few other students in a conference room adjacent to Principal Blosser’s office. They had opened the session to all students, and I think one or two others joined me, but once we sat down I had the clear impression that they were speaking to me. They talked about the various fields of study, about life in the residence halls, about non-varsity athletics, and about the spiritual life at the university.

Their closing points were things that I already knew – Notre Dame is a prestigious institution, a Catholic school, and it’s fairly close to home. I thanked the gentlemen for visiting McKinley and told Mr. James that I would see him again in November when I visited for the Penn State game.

In November, one can still find traces of outdoor life in South Bend, Indiana. The leaves have changed colors, but there are a few leaves in trees or on the ground. The streams of the Saint Joseph River flow softly through the town. The two lakes on the Notre Dame campus are beginning to form a glassy winter stillness, but the water has not yet turned to ice. The November weather in South Bend provides the backdrop for Notre Dame at its busiest – in the classroom, the students are working their way through the final weeks of the Fall Semester; outside the classroom, the fall sports teams are working to wrap up their seasons. The football team had only two games remaining, a home game with Penn State, followed by a road game at Southern California.

As they had every year during the 1980s, Notre Dame entered the season with great expectations. They were ranked number 8 in the Associated Press preseason poll, but lost their opening game to Purdue. In October they lost three consecutive rainy home games, to Miami, Air Force and South Carolina. They even needed to score in the final minute to beat Navy. After a bye week, an unranked 5-4 Notre Dame prepared to face an unranked 6-3 Penn State. The Nittany Lions had defeated Notre Dame in close games in each of the three previous years, so the Irish seniors had something to prove in their final game in Notre Dame Stadium.

That morning, my meeting with Mike James went well. I joined several other prospective students for a nice information/Q&A session in the Administration building.

We watched a short video, some current students spoke to us, then some admissions officers discussed the application process that we would go through during our senior year of high school. They told us the hard facts about how selective the admissions process was, and how there are several students turned away for every one who is accepted for admission. At the end of my sophomore year, the first time class rankings had been published, I was ranked number one in my class. Due to advanced placement 35

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courses, which earned five points instead of four, my cumulative grade point average was well above 4.0. I was elected Junior Class President, was a varsity tennis player, and a member of the speech team. I had done everything that anyone had asked me to do. But as I sat there that morning under the Dome, doubt filled my head. Sure I’m ranked number one in my class, but I bet each of these kids is number one, too. Will my SAT scores be good enough for Notre Dame? Will they be impressed by my extracurricular activities? When the information session was over, I met my dad who was waiting outside, admiring the murals of the cupola under the Dome. Dad had one question circling around his own mind: If Tony gets into this place, how on earth are we going to pay for it? Since football would always be our great diversion, we moved the questions to the back of our minds and headed to the Stadium.

The weather was nice for the game. My mother had arranged for us to buy the game tickets from a prominent alumnus in Canton, and the man also gave us a VIP parking pass. Our seats were in section 16, in the south end zone close to where we had been for the Michigan game in 1982. We were high enough up that we could see the entire field, but watching from the end zone you have to count footsteps to determine how much yardage is gained on a play. We had to count a lot of footsteps, because Irish running back Allen Pinkett ran all day long. By the end of the game Pinkett had rushed for three touchdowns, including one on a 65-yard carry.

Notre Dame won big, 44-7. The blowout win enabled Notre Dame to get all of its players on the field, including Frank Stams, who had helped Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary win a state basketball title in Ohio the previous year. In the fourth quarter, when Stams carried the ball for a short gain, the gentleman behind me said “Frank Stams, who is that?” I turned around and said “He’s from Akron Ohio!” as if the man should have known better than to ask such a question. The man simply said “Oh” and turned back to the game.

That victory was Gerry Faust’s only win over Penn State. The Irish finished 7-5 after losing to SMU in the Aloha Bowl. Penn State lost its next game to Pittsburgh and did not attend a bowl game.

Although my mind still hedged its bets with alternatives, by the time we left campus that Saturday, my heart stopped giving serious consideration to any other college or university. Notre Dame was where I wanted to be. Now I just had to keep making grades and doing the right things in high school, and hope that once they reviewed my application, Notre Dame would accept and admit me as a student. ♦♦♦

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Allen Pinkett finished his college career as the leading scorer in Notre Dame history with 53 touchdowns. He went on to play for the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints in the NFL. Today he provides color commentary on Notre Dame football broadcasts on Westwood One radio.

Allen Pinkett vs. Penn State

Game Program

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VIII. CAVS vs. CELTICS 1985 Even though I was getting very excited about college, I still had to finish high school.

The Spring Semester of my junior year was particularly busy. If I were going to make my mark on McKinley, as Ms. Balca and I had discussed, now was the time for me to make it. The winter debate season had gone well, albeit with some ups and downs. I struggled in January debates, but in February I won the District championship and earned a trip to State. My junior tennis season held great promise, for I had been training all winter at the Hall of Fame Tennis Center in Canton. As class president I was responsible for organizing the senior prom. And that was just after school. During the day I had a full load of subjects: Pre-calculus, Chemistry, French, American History, and Literature.

No matter how busy I was during the week, Friday night was reserved for relaxation, and one Friday in mid-March, several of my friends and I made a trip to the Richfield Coliseum to see our local Cavaliers play the Boston Celtics.

Roger Gordon drove his station wagon. I piled in the car, along with Alan Abes, Michael Wander, Jeff Rubinstein and Scott Cady. We had all known each other for a few years.

With the exception of Michael, who attended GlenOak, each of us was a McKinley student and a tennis team member. Roger was the number one player on our team. Along with Roger, Scott was the team co-captain. Jeff and Alan played doubles in the lineup, and I played number two singles behind Roger. Michael was Alan’s best friend, and we had met a few years earlier through Samantha Meltzer, another mutual friend. I had competed with him during debate season in my sophomore and junior years, and I was always very comfortable around him. We left Canton and drove to the Richfield Coliseum, where the Cavs played their games. It was easy to convince our parents to allow a bunch of unsupervised sixteen and seventeen-year olds to go on such a trip, because Richfield was located nearly half way between Akron and Cleveland, so we wouldn’t really be anywhere near Cleveland. (Nowadays kids would meet tougher parental resistance - the Coliseum has since been demolished and the Cavs now play in downtown Cleveland at a place called Quicken Loans Arena.)

The evening began with some cardiovascular exercise. A self-proclaimed excellent driver, Roger believed that the double yellow lines on the road were helpful for centering the car, so those of us who sat directly behind him arrived at the Coliseum with elevated heart rates! I know that if you asked Roger or any of the other guys about my driving,

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they’d describe me the same way I described Roger! Looking back I think we all exaggerated. While we were all inexperienced drivers, we were all responsible kids.

And the other cars on Interstates 77 and 271 must have known that we were kids, because they kept a safe distance from us, and we made into the Coliseum for the game.

The Boston Celtics were in the middle of their dynasty years, so this game was the toughest ticket on the Cavs schedule. Somehow we had managed to get six standing room only tickets, for five dollars each, which was fine with us. We were young and we knew we’d probably do as much people watching as game watching that evening. At the start of the game, we found some standing room space at the top corner of the arena, close to the refreshments stand and the restrooms. We settled in there for the game. The sold-out Coliseum was hot and stuffy. We had a bird’s eye view of the action.

Led by World B. Free, Mel Turpin and McKinley-grad Phil Hubbard, the Cavs’ game plan seemed to involve sending the Celtics to the free-throw line and forcing them to score points one at a time. The game plan failed miserably. While we were sweating it out atop the arena, down on the court the Celtics did not seem to miss a free throw. That Celtics team was very disciplined. They played good defense, and they were all good shooters. Not just Larry Bird who (along with Laker Magic Johnson) was the biggest star in the league at the time, but also Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge, and Cedric Maxwell. All of the Celtics were strong.

If five-dollar tickets are not enough of an indication of NBA economics in the mid-1980s, consider the player salaries. In 1985 Larry Bird earned $1.8 Million as one of the league’s highest paid players. The last player on the Celtics’ bench, Rick Carlisle, earned $65,000 for the entire season, roughly the hourly rate for some NBA stars today. There may be a few five-dollar standing room only seats today, but there aren’t many.

The game was not close, which gave us the opportunity to chat about other topics. Roger would ask Alan and Michael many hypothetical sports questions, such as “If you were given the choice to have the Buckeyes beat Michigan but lose to USC in the Rose Bowl, or lose to Michigan and beat Florida State in the Gator Bowl, which would you choose?”

Or he’d ask me and Scott about tennis “If you could be the best player in the world but only for one match and only one day, who would you beat and where would you play?”

It was carefree, harmless and fun, and Roger’s questions provoked all sorts of conversation.

Thanks to all of those free throws, the Celtics won 119-96, improving their record to 5314. The Cavs dropped to 26-40, and they would finish the season 36-46 and lose to the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. The Celtics lost in the NBA Finals to Magic and the Lakers.

Even though the outcome was decided well before the clock ran out, Roger refused to let us leave early, firmly arguing that although the chance was remote, the Cavs still might come back to win. So we stayed to the end, and we even made a stop at Arlington Road (near Firestone Country Club, site of the annual PGA World Series of Golf) on the way 39

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home, to have a late snack and continue to explore the hypotheticals. Would the Browns fans exchange one Super Bowl win for fifteen bad seasons? How about ten?” We could easily answer some of the questions; others we could not. We didn’t solve any of the world’s problems that night, but we didn’t cause any new ones, either. We all had a good time. The trip to that Celtics game was one of the most enjoyable and relaxing nights I had ever had. ♦♦♦ Back at school, our McKinley tennis season was a good one. Roger and I won more matches than we lost, and the overall team results weren’t bad. At the end of the season, Roger gave me a tremendous honor, when he asked Coach Myser to name me the team’s Most Valuable Player. It was a selfless thing to do, but Roger felt I had deserved it because I had improved so much and won so many matches over the year. Everyone on the team knew that Roger was our star and our best player. By sharing his limelight with me, Roger showed Coach Myser, our team and our school that he was a true champion.

Other Spring activities were successful too. The prom that I had helped organize went off without a hitch. My classmates had elected me as leader of the speech and debate team for the following year. And I was named to the National Honor Society, one of the honors that my guidance counselor had urged me to pursue in our very first meeting.

Things were taking shape for me socially and academically. Through it all I kept making good grades, remaining the top-ranked student in the class at the end of junior year.

Summer would not be as intense as the school year had been, but many activities awaited me during my vacation. I would take the SAT exam, attend American Legion Boys State, play several junior tennis tournaments, and apply to college. ♦♦♦ World B. Free averaged 20.3 points per game over a 13-season NBA career. He currently serves as the Community Ambassador of 76ers Basketball for the Philadelphia 76ers.

Larry Bird led his Celtics teams to the NBA Championship in 1981, 1984 and 1986. He was a 12-time NBA All-Star and a three-time league MVP. He currently serves as Team President of the Indiana Pacers.

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IX. McKINLEY vs. GLENOAK 1985 My dad and I spent a lot of time together in the summer of 1985. He had retired the previous year and was enjoying himself. After one works as hard as my father had worked for as long as my father had worked, one deserves a relaxing retirement. And my father enjoyed his early days as a pensioner. He drove me to junior tennis tournaments, wherever I played and regardless of how early he had to get up. Three consecutive Saturdays in June, he drove me to Cleveland for 8AM matches. I was trying to become as good a player as I could be, and he and my mom did everything in their power to help me. Through those trips to tennis tournaments my dad and I grew much closer than we had been when I was a younger child.

One trip to Cleveland, I had advanced to the later rounds of a tournament, and found myself matched against a big local player. When the match started my dad took a seat on a hillside behind the court to watch the match. Many people soon joined him, most of them were there to see my highly ranked opponent. I was overmatched, but I put up a fight and we had some good exchanges during the match. On one very long point, we had a back-and-forth up-and-back rally, which included a couple lobs for each of us. The crowd was “oohing” and “ahhing” during the exchange, and when I finally hit a passing shot to win the point, they broke into applause. It was a big thrill for me, but a bigger one for my dad, who was startled by the crowd’s response. Overmatched, I lost 6-0 6-1. In the car on the ride home, I said “I was really happy I won that one game.” Without missing a beat, my dad replied “I was really happy you won that one point!”

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♦♦♦ Dad and I had tickets together for McKinley football my senior year. I would run off from time to time and join my friends in the student section, but over the last few years my dad and I had watched a lot of football together. We’d been to games at Purdue and Michigan. In those days Notre Dame games were broadcast by TCS/Metrosports, and we watched live on the weekends and the replays multiple times during the week. We’d even gone to Cleveland for a Browns game. It just made sense that we would sit together for the McKinley games too.

In the first game of the 1985 season. McKinley played GlenOak at Fawcett Stadium.

GlenOak had a fine team. Their coach Bob Commings had been very successful at Massillon High, winning a state championship in 1970. He had also been a college head coach at the University of Iowa, from 1974-78. As a player at Iowa, Commings had helped his team win a Big Ten title and the 1957 Rose Bowl. He was a great leader of men. GlenOak quarterback Kent Smith was recognized in the preseason as one of the finer players in Stark County. Running back Michael Moore, though only 5’8” and 160 pounds, was considered one of the finer players in the state of Ohio. McKinley had some stars too. Percy Snow was a two-way threat at tailback and middle linebacker. Dean Brown was a force on the offensive line. Brian Chaney ran the offense as quarterback.

The previous year, GlenOak had won 14-12, and McKinley finished 7-3. The Pups did not want to start the year with another loss to GlenOak. Both schools worked through their first-game jitters, and the game was fairly close throughout. The game was decided in the middle of the fourth quarter, when GlenOak was facing a 3rd down and 14 around midfield. McKinley blitzed, and the Eagles ran a draw play, handing the ball to Moore. The great tailback sprinted into the secondary.

Instead of getting into a football position to give himself a base for leverage, McKinley’s free safety, a junior named Mark Smith, took three steps directly toward Moore. The men never collided, as Moore easily sidestepped Smith and raced into the end zone for a touchdown.

GlenOak won that game 21-18, beating McKinley for a second-consecutive year. Those were the only two times that GlenOak had ever beaten McKinley. Michael Moore rushed for 176 yards and two touchdowns in the win. While I was disappointed to see my classmates lose, I was happy for my friend Michael Wander, who was a defensive lineman on that GlenOak team.

Both teams went on to have good regular seasons. McKinley won the rest of its regular season games, beating Massillon 21-6 at home to set up a rematch with GlenOak in the first round of the state playoffs. McKinley avenged the regular season loss, 14-7, and advanced all the way to the state final before losing to Moeller 35-11. I’m told the playoff game was very close, decided by a single play here or there, but I cannot recall any details of that rematch. I only remember that great run by Moore and GlenOak’s win on that hot night in August.

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♦♦♦

In three games against McKinley, Michael Moore had 391 rushing yards and four touchdowns. He still holds every major rushing record at GlenOak. In 2007, in his late thirties, as a member of the Army National Guard, he was deployed to serve in Iraq.

After compiling a 76-44-1 record in twelve years at GlenOak, Coach Bob Commings died of cancer in 1992. GlenOak renamed its home field in his honor.

Mark Smith went on to play football at the Ohio State University, but his first love was baseball. He was a decent minor league prospect, but by the end of his college days, too many curve balls severely damaged his elbow.

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X. TODD FERKOL 1986 "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt "Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

While every other chapter in this book takes place with me on the sidelines or in the stands or along the rail, for this one I am the man in the arena, on court for a tennis match with Todd Ferkol from GlenOak. We met April 2, 1986 in Canton.

When I started school at McKinley two years earlier, Coach Dick Myser was one of the first people whom I had sought out. He was retired from teaching, but he still coached tennis, girls in the Fall and boys in the Spring. He also helped the big men on our basketball teams with their footwork, the way Pete Newell helped college and pro big men. As a sophomore I was largely an unfinished product on court, but Coach Myser worked with me tirelessly. He knew I understood basketball, so he used a lot of parallel terms to help me improve my footwork. Coach also had our older players, Chris Ramos and Roger Gordon, help me with match strategy, to make better decisions about when to approach the net, and just as important, when not to. I have been around some great coaches in my lifetime, but no coach ever did more to help me grow as an athlete or as a person than Coach Dick Myser.

I’ve already talked about what a great player Roger Gordon was, but he was a year ahead of me, and by my senior season I stood alone as the team leader. We had nobody who could replace Roger, but we did have a new team member, an exchange student from Brazil. At the start of the season, the new guy and I alternated at number 1. When he set

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the lineup for the GlenOak, our toughest opponent and the top tennis team in our area, Coach Myser placed me at number two, against Todd Ferkol.

I saw the Ferkol matchup as a good opportunity. In our five previous matches, I had never beaten GlenOak’s number one player, Matt Diamond. Just like me, Matt was not the tallest guy in the world, but he could work magic on a tennis court. He would tease opponents into approaching the net, then he would hit a nice lob or a great passing shot to win the point. Todd was a year younger, and while I had trained with him during the offseason at the Hall of Fame Tennis Center, I hadn’t ever played a match against him. I knew I would be an underdog against either player, but I thought my chances were better against Todd than Matt.

McKinley played its home matches at the public park on 25th street, just eight blocks from my house. The 25th street park had six courts, two sets of three, and I always played on the middle court on the south side. At the start of the match, Todd and I exchanged pleasantries and walked out onto the court. During the warm-up, I felt relaxed and a little optimistic.

I would go through the same routine before every match. Before going to the baseline, I would stretch my arms, then my neck, then my hips, then my legs. While we were warming up, I would let my opponent come into the net first, then I would approach and practice my volleys and overheads. Finally I would hit four serves to each side, then return a few serves, then walk to the side of the court to gather myself before the start of the match.

The weather was awful for some of our matches early in the season, but the day we played GlenOak it was clear and cool with only a little wind. I was able to wear our team uniform, red and black shirt and red shorts, without any jacket or sweater. Todd wore his jacket for the early part of the match.

Once the match started, everything went in my favor. I held serve, then I broke serve.

Then I held serve again, then I broke serve again. After only a few minutes I was ahead 4-0, already up two breaks. Todd has taken his jacket off by now, but I almost dared not look at him during the changeovers. I had a good thing going, and I didn’t want to ruin it.

I closed out the first set 6-0, and continued my run into the second set. Before I knew it I was up 2-0 then 3-0, then 5-0. I hadn’t noticed if anyone was watching me. Coach may have had the same superstitions working, because he and I did not talk much during that point of the match. On the changeover at 5-0, I wondered, “What is wrong with Todd?

Did he not sleep last night? Has he been drinking?” He seemed a little frustrated, but he was not yelling at himself or throwing tantrums the way some guys do. But he was just getting blown off the court.

I was excited, but I was just trying to stay “in the now” and close out the match. I needed one more game and I would have one of the biggest wins of my life. The previous summer I had pulled a big upset over an out-of-towner in a tournament at the Hall of 45

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Fame. But nobody was watching then, and I hadn’t ever beaten any of the good players from GlenOak or North Canton, so beating Todd would have dwarfed that upset. Step by step, I put myself in position to win. I went up 30-love, then 30-15 then 40-15 to give myself two match points. On the point at 40-15 Todd hit an approach shot and came into the net. On my first passing shot, he mis-hit the volley, and the ball bounced high to my backhand side. I charged the net to hit the backhand directly at Todd. Certainly I would not get a better chance at match point than this one! As I approached the net, maybe I visualized shaking Todd’s hand, or high-fiving Coach Myser after the match, or reading about the victory in the next day’s Canton Repository. Whatever I was doing, I allowed the ball to drop a little too low and instead of hitting the winner my backhand went crashing into the net. 40-30.

Now I didn’t lose the match right there. But because I didn’t win the match right there, when I had it served up on a silver platter, I took the first step toward losing the match.

Hold on, I told myself. I was still up one set and 5-0, and it was still match point! Focus and finish. But I can’t believe I just missed that backhand!

Todd fought his way back from the deepest depths, and forced a tiebreaker at 6-all. By now he had shed whatever dust had covered him during the early part of the match. His serve was beginning to heat up and his groundstrokes were more reliable than they were in the first set. He won the tiebreaker 7-4. A third set would decide the match.

When he gave me new balls for the third, Coach Myser offered some words of encouragement. But the momentum had shifted and Todd quickly went up five games to one. At that point, I noticed that Coach slowly walked away from my court, looking at me the whole time. It was a tactic that he would often employ, to send the message “You’re not worth my time any more today, kid. You’ve lost this one. You’re beat.” He had done that to me the previous year at Perry, when I was down 3-1 in the third. At Perry, I was so angry that I won the next five games to close out the match 6-3. His method may have hurt my pride, but it was effective. It worked again this time. Down 51, I picked myself up and started winning games. I held for 5-2, then broke for 5-3, then held again and broke again. All of the other matches had been decided. Todd and I were the only players on court, tied at one set apiece, and 5-all in the third set.

This is a true story, not a fairy tale, so I did not win the match. In the next day’s Repository, the two-hour struggle would be succinctly reduced to one line: Todd Ferkol (GlenOak) d. Tony Talarico (McKinley) 0-6 7-6 (7-4) 7-5 None of the other matches had been close, and GlenOak won the team contest 5-0. In fact, with the match decided, the GlenOak players sadly did not even stay to support Todd. My teammates had stayed until the end, but as soon as we shook hands they quickly scattered too. When we walked off the court, only Coach Myser and Todd’s father were there to meet us. In greeting me after the match, Mr. Ferkol brought his hands to his throat, to indicate that I had choked away the match. I wasn’t sure what to say. I think I smiled at him and walked away. I don’t remember why my father was 46

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unable to attend that match, but after Mr. Ferkol made his unsportsmanlike gesture, I was happy that my father had not been there. If my dad had seen that, the 25th Street courts might have to had to be renamed later as a memorial to Mr. Ferkol!

Coach Myser spoke words of consolation after the match. He said he admired my effort that day, and even though he knew I was disappointed to lose the match, he was proud of how I had fought back in the third set. At home that night after I relived the match with my dad, I was still beating myself up about the loss. I called Alan Abes, my friend and teammate. He had been there to witness the entire match, and on the phone that night he helped me put the match behind me.

I never knew why Todd played so badly at the start of that match. Looking back I can say now that the match happened the way it did for a reason. I think that the world order for Todd Ferkol and Tony Talarico would have been irreversibly altered if any other outcome had occurred. Winning that match was more important for Todd than it was for me. Had he lost that match, he might have made some knee-jerk decisions that radically affected him later in life. The same holds true for me. Had I pulled that upset, I might have tried to pursue more as a tennis player in later stages of my life, at the expense of other things that I ultimately chose to do.

About a week after the GlenOak match, Coach Myser pulled me aside and told me that I would be playing number one for the rest of the year. At our Spring Banquet I was named our team’s Most Valuable Player for the second straight season. I taught tennis for several years after high school, and I still occasionally enjoy a nice doubles match, but the 1986 season essentially marked the end of my days as a competitive tennis player.

Even if I had lost every tennis match my senior year, I still would have been sitting on top of the world in the Spring of 1986. Going into the final semester, I was almost mathematically guaranteed to be our class valedictorian. And just before the tennis season started, on March 17 – Saint Patrick’s Day – I returned home from tennis practice to find an envelope from the Notre Dame Admissions Office. The letter was alone on the dinner table. Dad was sitting on the couch. Mom had left work early and was standing over the kitchen sink. They were both waiting anxiously for me to come home from practice. The envelope was thick, so I knew right away that my dream had come true. It was an acceptance letter, and in the fall of 1986 I would be an incoming freshman at the University of Notre Dame. ♦♦♦ Coach Richard Myser had over 400 wins as a high school tennis coach. He taught and coached for more than 40 years. In October 2006, he died at the age of 83. Alice, his wife of 56 years, still lives in Ohio, close to their three children and five grandchildren.

As recently as 2007, Todd Ferkol was working as a teaching pro at a tennis club near Cleveland.

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On the courts at 25th and Harvard

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XI. NOTRE DAME vs. MICHIGAN 1986 The five-hour drive to South Bend in August 1986 was considerably different from our previous family road trips. The passengers were the same, the road was the same, and origin and destination were the same. But for me this would be a one-way trip. After orientation, Mom and Dad would return home, and I would settle into my dorm at Grace Hall for my freshman year at Notre Dame.

I was excited to start a new phase of my life. I knew that there would be times that I might long for the comforts of home, but I didn’t think that I’d have the opportunity to be homesick. The football season would start just a few weeks into the semester, and my parents would come to as many games as they could. While many of my classmates would be away from their parents for the entire four-month semester, I was able to say “Bye Mom, Bye Dad. I’ll miss you. I’ll see you in two weeks!” I’m sure that my departure to college was most difficult for my mother, who had taken such good care of our entire family for so long. She would still be taking care of me, of course, just from a distance. My parents’ ability and willingness to attend the football games made the transition much easier for all of us.

My classes in the first year were largely a review of the courses I had taken as a senior in high school. As a prospective Science or Engineering major, I took Calculus, Chemistry, Physics, French, all courses that I had taken at McKinley. I also took a Freshman Seminar course. Seminar was a special part of Notre Dame’s Freshman Year of Studies, a course in which students and professors from all backgrounds are randomly grouped.

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While the course curriculum follows general guidelines, the subject matter varies significantly based on the interests of the teacher and students. The major course requirements involved writing essays and making presentations to the class. During one seminar meeting, I was in the front of the room talking when I saw Dean Brown in the hallway. Dean had gone to McKinley with me, and that day he gave me a big smile as if to say “Look at you! We’ve only been at Notre Dame a few weeks, and you’re already in charge!” I gave Dean a quick smile back and returned to my presentation. Dean and I were adjusting comfortably to life at Notre Dame. Dean was a fine student, but his biggest challenge that fall came on the football field, where he was trying to crack the starting lineup as an offensive lineman for our new coach Lou Holtz.

Coach Holtz had left Minnesota the previous November, when Gerry Faust resigned after five years in South Bend. I knew Coach Holtz had been successful everywhere he had been, but going into the 1986 season, I wasn’t sure what kind of coach he would be at Notre Dame. The 1986 schedule was pretty brutal, composed of tough home games with Michigan, Pittsburgh and Penn State, and tough road games at Alabama, LSU and USC. The expectations were high for Coach Holtz’s first year, as they had been for all of Coach Faust’s years. And while everyone was optimistic, nobody really knew what the unranked Irish would do when third-ranked Michigan came to town in early September.

I sat in the stands with Chris Horton, one of my roommates. In addition to Chris, I had two other roommates in Grace Hall that year, Jim Rojas from Chicago and Pat O’Connor from Long Island. Chris was from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and knew of Coach Holtz from his days as Razorbacks coach in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Our first home game as students would be Chris’ first Notre Dame game ever, and as shocked and excited as he might have been about the entire experience, I was equally excited to take in a game from the student section. Sitting, or rather, standing in the student section is a different experience than viewing a game from other areas of Notre Dame Stadium. With the exception of halftime, when everyone sits, you remain on your feet for the entire game.

The students make a lot of noise to disrupt the opposing team, and there are other diversions, such as the synchronized cheers, jiggling keys to signify a “key” play, and doing push ups after the team scores, that give the student section a circus-like atmosphere. Even though standing meant that it would be tougher for a diminutive person like me to see the game, I was still excited to occupy the student section my freshman year.

From the opening kickoff, even though Michigan had the better team, it felt like the kind of game that Notre Dame would win. It was Coach Holtz’s first game, against one of our biggest opponents. It was in Notre Dame Stadium, so 95% of the fans were Notre Dame fans. How could Notre Dame possibly lose? The Irish scored first, when Tim Brown carried for a three-yard run. Coach Holtz had immediately realized that Tim Brown was the finest athlete on the 1986 team, and he had said more than once that he would find as many ways as possible to get the ball in the hands of number 81. Tim returned punts, ran end-arounds, and reverses, he caught screen passes, middle passes and long passes. He did it all. After Tim’s early touchdown, Michigan answered with an 80-yard drive of its own, and the score was tied 7-7 at the end of the first quarter.

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In the second quarter, Notre Dame had two nice drives, but came away with only one touchdown, after losing a fumble at the Michigan 7 yard line. Just before halftime, Michigan added a field goal to make it Notre Dame 14, Michigan 10 at the break.

Bo Schembechler must have given a colorful pep talk at halftime, because the Wolverines took the second-half kickoff and efficiently operated a twelve-play 78-yard drive to take a 17-14 lead. Adding to the maize and blue momentum, Notre Dame failed to handle the kickoff, and Michigan recovered at the Notre Dame 27. One play later, Jim Harbaugh then hit Jamie Morris for a touchdown pass, and Michigan was up 24-14.

At this point, my classmates and I began to feel the pressure of college football. And we were only in the stands, we could only imagine how Dean Brown, Tim Brown, and the players felt. Even though the crowd was nervous, Coach Holtz would not allow his players to flinch. In fact, they drove 66-yards, and scored a touchdown when Steve Beuerlein hit Joel Williams for a three-yard score. However, John’s Carney’s missed the point after touchdown kick, so ND was down 24-20. Instead of feeling great about themselves for a nice scoring drive, the players felt badly for having scored six instead of seven.

During their next possession, the Irish would tease themselves and their fans, driving into the red zone, but coming up short when the Wolverines intercepted a Beuerlein pass in the end zone. In the Notre Dame - Michigan series, points are too precious, and on this opening day in South Bend, Notre Dame was a little too careless about protecting the ball and securing points when opportunities arose. In all, the Irish made six big mistakes during the game, but in their final two drives they still had a chance to win.

With under five minutes to play, Beuerlein drove the team down the field, and on third down and goal, hit Joel Williams in the back of the end zone. When Joel caught the ball, his left foot was clearly in bounds. It happened right in front of me, I saw it, all of my classmates saw it, and we started to celebrate. But we didn’t see what had happened with Joel’s right foot an instant before he made the catch. Joel’s left foot was inbounds, that was indisputable. His right foot, however, had been out of bounds. The official took a long look at the play, then ruled the pass incomplete. John Carney kicked a field goal to cut the Michigan lead to one. On the final drive, Carney again had the chance to give Notre Dame the win, but his 45-yard attempt failed with 18 seconds to play, and Michigan won 24-23.

“I’ve never seen so many things go wrong on close little things in my life.” Coach Holtz said after the game. The Irish fans were very disappointed. I was crushed. Once the outcome was known, I walked out of the stadium on my own, leaving my roommate Chris to fend for himself in the stands. All summer long, and all winter long before that, I hadn’t imagined that Notre Dame would lose that game.

After the initial disappointment, the loss of such an emotional game left me with mixed feelings. The Irish had not played well enough to win, but they had shown a great

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competitive spirit. Even after that first game, I knew that Coach Holtz could turn the program around. Let’s remember that these were the same players who had been beaten 58-7 by Miami in their final game of 1985. “We had the same guys here last year and we never did any of this stuff” Tim Brown said after the Michigan loss. Keeping it close against Michigan wasn’t as good as beating Michigan, but it was progress.

The rest of the 1986 season was a lot like the Michigan game. The Irish were solid at times but erratic at others. They were blown out by Alabama at Legion Field, in a game that is memorable because of one single play. In the first quarter, All-American linebacker Cornelius Bennett blitzed from the left side and delivered a vicious hit on Steve Beuerlein, which the quarterback never saw coming. It was the most ferocious sack I have ever seen. Alabama’s win was emphatic, but ND’s other five losses were all decided by five points or fewer.

After beating the Irish, Michigan went on to a record of 11-2, losing to Arizona State in the Rose Bowl.

The Irish didn’t really turn the corner until their final game of the season, in Los Angeles against the University of Southern California. Notre Dame fell behind by seventeen points in the fourth quarter, but came back to win 38-37, on a John Carney field goal in the final seconds. That win over USC was Holtz’s first big win, and it was a great sendoff for Carney and the other seniors, captain Mike Kovaleski, defensive lineman Wally Kleine, quarterback Steve Beuerlein, and receivers Joel Williams and Alvin Harper.

The returning players also got a big boost out of the win. Rather than moping around with the general disappointment of a 5-6 season, they carried the excitement of having beaten USC through their off-season workouts. ♦♦♦ The 1986 Michigan game was my first game as a student, and it is really the only game from my freshman year that I remember watching from the student section. I would return to the bedlam of the student section in my senior year, but during my sophomore and junior seasons, I had a unique vantage point for games. I was on the sidelines.

During Spring Football my freshman year, I volunteered as a student manager, performing various jobs for the players and coaches of our football and basketball teams.

Two of my neighbors in Grace Hall, Andrew Higney and Dan Smith, were sophomore managers, and from what they had told me about their work, it looked like something that might interest me. At Notre Dame the student managers have a very structured organization, in which freshman and sophomores volunteer their time, then 16 juniors are selected from the volunteer ranks and these managers receive scholarship assistance in return for a full-time commitment for their junior and senior years. My mother and father were working miracles at home to pay for my Notre Dame education, so the chance for a potential scholarship – which at the time would have been worth more than $10,000 –

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was very enticing. (At the end of Spring football, both Dan and Andrew were among the 16 selected to receive scholarships as juniors.)

I loved being at practice for Spring football. As a freshman I was assisting other managers as much as other coaches, so I would have a pocket full of chin straps, shoelaces, extra cleats and an air pump for the helmets. And we were very traditional in our manager uniforms – freshman wore green mesh jerseys (sophomores wore blue, juniors white, and seniors gold) and we taped our names on the chest. Of course you always jumped whenever anyone said “Manager!” but it was nice to have the name taped on the jersey the same way the young players had their names taped on their helmets.

That spring I did reconnect with Terry Forbes, the coach who had led McKinley over Moeller in that 1981 state championship game. Coach Forbes was our defensive backfield coach. We also had Foge Fazio, who had been head coach at Pittsburgh, and many other fine assistant coaches. By the time we finished spring practice, I knew I wanted to be as involved as I could be with the student manager’s organization.

The night before the 1987 Spring game, the managers did the same things that they do for a regular season game: each player’s locker is prepared in exquisite detail. His uniform is hung in the locker, along with clean gray shirts, shorts and socks. Three pairs of shoes are polished for each player, so he’ll be ready no matter what the game day weather brings.

And each player’s helmet is covered with plastic wrap and spray painted with paint that contains the same gold leaf that covers the university administration building.

I was assigned along with six other guys to paint the helmets. Since the spring game was our first time painting, it took us a long time. We did finish and the players looked great on that late April-day, one of the first nice days on campus after a typically brutal winter.

My parents came into town for the game, and I went to dinner with them that night. I explained to my parents that I felt a little dizzy, as if I was walking on air. My father made the connection right away, that it was the paint thinner we had used the night before. We had worn surgical masks, but the thinner still had made me dizzy.

During the 1987 season, Notre Dame celebrated the 100th anniversary of its football team.

Students proudly wore shirts that said “A century of unparalleled tradition.” Tim Brown had a historic year, returning kickoffs, making great catches, and winning the Heisman Trophy. We had big wins over Alabama and USC at home that season. During both of those games, my game day assignment was visiting team locker room. I had to stand outside the locker room doors, tend to anything the visiting managers might request, reopen the room at halftime, and clean up after the game. But during the game, I simply had to stand on the sidelines and watch. After painting helmets the previous night, visitor’s locker room was a fairly relaxing game day assignment.

I had fun during my sophomore year on the sidelines, and the team showed improvement.

Our hopes for a perfect season were dashed during the fourth week at Pittsburgh. Senior quarterback Terry Andrysiak suffered a broken collarbone right before halftime, so in the second half Coach Holtz put Tony Rice into the game. Trailing 27-0, Tony led the team

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on three second-half touchdown drives, but Pittsburgh prevailed, 30-22. Although Notre Dame had its heart broken that night, it had found its quarterback of the future, a young man who was ideally suited for Coach Holtz and his triple option offense.

The 1987 Irish finished the regular season 8-3, and lost to Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl. Along with Tim Brown, co-captains Chuck Lanza and Byron Spruell, two offensive linemen, also graduated in 1987. But other than those three, the bulk of the Irish offense and the entire defense would return for the 1988 season. 1988 looked like it would be a promising year. ♦♦♦

1986 Michigan Game Program

SI Cover after the 1986 Game

SI 1987 College Football Cover

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♦♦♦

John Carney played in the National Football League for more than twenty years. He scored 2062 points as a kicker for seven different teams, retiring in third place on the alltime NFL scoring list.

Steve Beuerlein played sixteen seasons in the NFL. He played for six different teams, including the Super XXVII champion Dallas Cowboys, where he was a backup to Troy Aikman. Sports artist Daniel Moore painted “The Sack” to memorialize Cornelius Bennett’s hit on Beuerlein during the 1986 Alabama game.

Joel Williams played one NFL season and appeared in three games for the Miami Dolphins.

Tim Brown was the sixth overall pick of the Los Angeles Raiders in the 1988 NFL draft.

He played sixteen seasons for the Raiders, and one for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tim holds Raiders records for games played, receptions, receiving yards and punt return yards. He currently lives in DeSoto, Texas.

Michigan Quarterback Jim Harbaugh played fourteen seasons in the NFL. After coaching stints at Stanford University and with the San Francisco 49ers, in early 2015 he returned to Ann Arbor as head football coach at the University of Michigan.

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XII. NOTRE DAME vs. NORTH CAROLINA 1987 I survived my first semester of college life without too many crises. Academically, I did a pretty good job that first term, earning a 3.7 grade point average. That was lower than the straight A’s that I had earned during high school, but I still made the Dean’s Honor List.

In early January, Father Theodore Hesburgh, the president of the university, invited all of the freshman honorees to a special reception at the University Club. In his remarks, Father Ted told us he was proud of our achievement, and he highlighted three C’s that he hoped we would aggressively strive to pursue at Notre Dame and in our lifetimes. He challenged us to become competent in our chosen fields, to be compassionate toward our fellow citizens, and to be committed to take action in support of our beliefs. It was a simple speech with a universal message, and it was obviously effective, because I still recall it more than twenty years later.

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There was one course that tested my patience as a freshman: Physics. I just couldn’t get my hands around the course material, or at least I wasn’t grasping it nearly as well as some of my classmates. In the Fall I had taken Physics with about 500 other students.

Students at Notre Dame do not declare majors until the end of the freshman year. I knew that I still needed a full year of Physics to pursue a technical major, but I did not want to get lost in the crowd again. So I took Physics II “out of sequence” in the fall of 1987.

Delaying one semester enabled me to take the course with a smaller class population, which resulted in more individual instruction. The move was successful, and I had a much better experience with the out-of-sequence class.

I did well in the other core freshman courses, even though some of those had very large class sizes. About 900 freshmen took Chemistry, taught by Dr. Emil T Hofman, the Dean of the Freshman Year of Studies. At 8AM each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 450 students would gather in a large auditorium in Cushing Hall. At 9AM, 450 more students would attend. There was assigned seating and an assistant took attendance at each session. Professor Hofman would begin each lecture by saying “OK” which was our signal to recite the “Our Father.” Before Friday’s lecture, we would have a sevenquestion quiz that formed the bulk of our course grade. On Thursday nights freshmen all over campus would review their notes and try to guess what the next day’s questions would be. There was a final exam at the end of the semester, but I scored well enough on the weekly quizzes that I was exempted from taking the final, on one condition. To earn my “A” without taking the test, I had to provide tutoring to a student who was required to take the test. Dr. Hofman paired me with another resident of Grace Hall, and we met two or three times before the exam. I think that I prepared more for those tutoring sessions than I would have if I had been taking the exam myself! My study partner made it through the test just fine. I found the experience to be a unique opportunity to share knowledge and help a fellow classmate.

The Spring course load was full once again, with French, Theology, Chemistry, Composition/Literature, and Calculus. I enrolled in a special Calculus course, which required some additional work and had a few additional sessions to provide insight into advanced concepts for prospective mathematics majors. I really enjoyed that course, and even though the mathematical concepts were just as complex as the Physics concepts had been, I seemed to have a much more natural grasp of mathematics. My math teachers at McKinley, Terry Rife and Tom Love, are outstanding educators. They deserve the credit for my strong foundation in math. By the end of my freshman year, I was pretty sure that I would major in mathematics, as part of the College of Science. At that point, I was not sure what I might do after college with such a degree, but there would be time to explore that later. I still had three years to enjoy at Notre Dame! ♦♦♦ Once football season ends, students at Notre Dame are forced to find new ways to socialize. The weather in Northern Indiana gets bad in November, worse in January, and reaches its extreme low in February. There aren’t many outdoor events during those months, but students find indoor activities to occupy themselves. I’m sure that some

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students hibernate during the winter, and only leave their dorms to go to meals, classes, or to the library. But generally Notre Dame students are an active and involved group.

Statistics from a recently admitted class indicate that as high school students, nearly half of the class participated in performing arts and nearly two-thirds participated in varsity athletics. This was true of my class as well. (In my day, cultural and arts events were housed in the cozy Washington Hall. Now students are lucky to have the spacious DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.) For the sports enthusiasts, the winter sports teams provide a nice diversion from studies during the cold months.

The Notre Dame basketball teams of the mid-1980s were nationally strong. By 1986 Richard “Digger” Phelps had already been head coach for fifteen seasons and had amassed 300 wins. Ten of his fifteen teams had made the NCAA tournament, and the 1978 team played in the Final Four. Digger was a confident man. He wore a green carnation in his lapel for each game. He flamboyantly roamed the courtside, relentlessly working the officials, and passionately barking out orders to his team. Digger would proudly proclaim “Nobody leaves Notre Dame number one.” Notre Dame teams had actually beaten the top-ranked team in the country on six previous occasions, five of them at home inside the Athletic and Convocation Center Arena. On February 1, 1987, two weeks into the second semester of my freshman year, another top-ranked team would come to town for a Sunday afternoon contest with the Irish.

The North Carolina Tar Heels were 18-1. Coached by Dean Smith, they had AllAmerican Kenny Smith, guard Jeff Lebo, and a great freshman named J.R. Reid. Notre Dame was 11-5. The Irish featured point guard David Rivers, center Gary Voce, and cocaptains Scott Hicks and Donald Royal at forward.

Digger was a master at game planning. He would say “Give me three days, and I can prepare my team to beat anybody.” Digger’s practices were structured in minute detail.

He would plan every part of practice, and assign a number of minutes for each activity.

While three freshman managers roamed the bleachers of the ACC to keep out visitors, a sophomore manager was assigned to follow the coach around and make sure the practice stayed on time. I did crowd control a few times as a freshman, but during my sophomore year I loved having the “Digger Duty” assignment. (The two senior basketball managers tended to the more important details such as equipment, uniforms, meals and travel itineraries.) When I had the timer, I would say “That’s time coach” and he would say “What’s next?” I’d check the list and say “Kentucky” an inbound play or “Five to Post” an offensive set. Digger was quite methodical at practice, and his assistants were perfectly synchronized. When Digger would yell “Kentucky – Matty!” Coach Matt Kilkullen would walk each player through what his role was, then Jim Baron or Jeff Nix would discuss what the opponent would typically do in response. John Shumate would work with the centers.

In contrast to football, where the plays and schemes are complex and the terminology is often cryptic, basketball terms, plays and concepts are considerably more straightforward.

The point guard brings the ball up the court and calls the play, which in Notre Dame’s case, generally meant some variation play to the post man, or center. The center would

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establish position somewhere on the floor to receive the ball from the point guard. Once he received the ball, he could either kick the ball to an outside shooter, pass to a power forward for an isolation play, pass to a cutter who was moving toward the basket, keep the ball himself and execute a drop-step toward the basket, or pass the ball back to the point guard and reset. Just like in football, each player has a specific role to play, and if the post-man thinks he is a point guard or an outside shooter thinks he is the post-man, the entire offense breaks down. Digger relied on the role-based offense extensively, and he used it quite effectively at Notre Dame for twenty years.

Digger’s practice schedule was quite structured, but he was also flexible enough to adjust the plan when the team needed more time to grasp a concept. I’d say, “Coach you’re going over time on this” and he would reply “Just relax.” Then a few minutes later he would tell me what changes to make on the schedule in order to make up the time.

Digger would sometimes make big speeches at practice, but at other times he kept things simple. His practices often ended with a full court scrimmage, using the timer, shot clock and the scoreboard. At the end of one practice before a big game, when the horn sounded to end the scrimmage, the scoreboard indicated that Notre Dame was up by one point.

Digger looked at the scoreboard, said “We won” and walked off the court.

I did not work any practices the week before the North Carolina game, but I’m sure coach Phelps reminded the players of his mantra “Nobody leaves Notre Dame number one!” In 1974, Digger had engineered a 71-70 upset to end UCLA’s incredible 88-game winning streak. John Shumate, our assistant coach in 1986, was a player on court for that great victory. Digger’s teams found ways to upset big teams. So with North Carolina coming in, even though the Irish players were big underdogs, they had the confidence to make things happen and get a win if things went their way.

Early in the game, things did not go Notre Dame’s way. North Carolina ran and pressed and scored often, building a 32-16 lead in the first half. Notre Dame did not panic, kept to its plan, and slowly chipped away at the lead, closing to 32-23 at halftime. Also, the Irish stayed out of foul trouble, and everyone could play aggressively the entire game.

In the second-half, both teams kept trying to control the tempo, with Carolina running hard, and Notre Dame playing a slower half-court game. David Rivers was a great floor general, and he protected the ball very well. Momentum can change several times in a basketball game, and often the winner of a game is the team that makes its move at the right time.

With under five-minutes to play, Notre Dame had the ball, but was still behind, 53-44.

At that point, the Irish found a higher gear, and promptly switched from a half-court approach to an up-tempo offense. David Rivers hit one jumper from the key, then another 15-footer about a minute later. UNC 53-ND 48. On the next possession, Reid fouled Voce in the paint, and Gary made both free throws. Carolina was stopped again on their side, and after a foul on forward Steve Bucknall, Donald Royal hit two free throws.

UNC 53-ND 52. It was beginning to get hot – and loud – inside the ACC!

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The next time down court, Carolina was able to feed the ball to center Joe Wolf, who scored to put the Heels up three. Keeping the pressure on, Rivers rushed the ball up the court and found Voce, who drove from the right baseline, scored and was fouled by Wolf.

At that point, Coach Dean Smith called a timeout.

Before the game, 10,000 yellow cardboard placards emblazoned with a monogram ND had been distributed. During the timeout, the placards were visible all around the ACC. Early in the game, some students had chucked their placards toward the floor, and the officials issued a warning to Notre Dame. Announcements were made, and the students tried hard to stay on their best behavior...

After the timeout, Voce missed on his free throw to convert the three-point play, so the Irish were still down one. The Irish defense held again, and the next time down the floor, Rivers again forced the issue, and hit a jumper from ten feet. ND 56-UNC 55.

Carolina had two more chances to score, and even though they had used timeouts to set up plays and calm down, they could not convert either time. On the second possession, Rivers grabbed a loose ball and broke into open space. Carolina had to foul intentionally.

Rivers made both free throws. After pulling down another key rebound a few seconds later, Voce went to line and sealed the game, putting the Irish up 60-55 with five seconds to play.

Then things got crazy. The ecstatic students were getting ready to rush onto the floor.

They showered the court with toilet paper and yellow placards, so many placards that referee Joe Forte had no choice. He had already issued a warning to the sellout crowd of 11,418, so this time he had to call a technical foul on Notre Dame.

Jeff Lebo made the technical foul shot, and hit a meaningless jumper as the final horn sounded. Notre Dame 60, North Carolina 58.

“It would have been a tough situation to have your students lose the game for you” said Digger. The overzealous fans had affected the final score, but not the outcome of the game. Digger would later show his appreciation for the students’ support by posting an open thank you letter in the campus newspaper, The Observer.

Gary Voce had played a career game, scoring 15 points and pulling down ten rebounds.

David Rivers had 14 points and four assists. For North Carolina, Joe Wolf had 14 points and seven rebounds. Lebo and Reid had also scored in double figures, but Donald Royal had effectively contained Kenny Smith, holding the All-American to only eight points.

I was so excited to witness this great victory. I rushed on to the court after the game and sang the victory march with my fellow students. Once again, I left my roommate Chris in the stands to fend for himself. While I was guilty of abandoning my roommate, I did not cost my team a technical foul. The yellow placard I was given that day now rests in my trophy case at my parents’ home in Canton!

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Digger had been right all along. “Nobody leaves Notre Dame number one!”

After the game I remember running home to call Michael Wander, who was a freshman at Ohio State. I was so excited about the win. In addition to sharing the thrill of victory, we had a nice visit and talked about how our classes looked for the winter term. Mike lived with Alan Abes, my good friend from McKinley, so I got to talk to Al a little that day too. I was so fired up about beating the Tar Heels.

Coach Phelps and the basketball team made it easier for me to survive my first cold February in South Bend. Two weeks after the North Carolina victory, the Irish beat 15th ranked Duke 70-66 in overtime. Ten days after that, they beat 6th ranked DePaul 73-62.

Three big wins, all in February, all at home in the ACC Arena.

North Carolina and Notre Dame would meet for a rematch in the NCAA East Regional semifinals at the Meadowlands Arena. The second time around, North Carolina won 7468. The Irish finished the season with a 24-8 record. North Carolina lost the East Regional final to Rony Seikaly and Syracuse, 79-75, and finished with a 32-4 record.

The following week at the Final Four, Keith Smart of Indiana hit a jump shot in the final seconds to help the Hoosiers beat Syracuse 74-73, and give Indiana its fifth national championship, ♦♦♦

The game program covers from the three big wins in February 1987

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♦♦♦ Father Theodore M. Hesburgh CSC retired as President of the University of Notre Dame at the end of the 1986-87 academic year. Immediately after his retirement, he traveled the US in a motor home with his longtime friend Father Edmund Joyce CSC, who had also retired as Executive Vice-President of the university. Upon their retirement, the university library was renamed in honor of Father Hesburgh, and the Athletic and Convocation Center was renamed in honor of Father Joyce.

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Dean Emil T. Hofman, served Notre Dame for 37 years as a professor in the College of Science. My freshman chemistry class was his last. University officials estimate that he taught more than 32,000 students in his career. He continued as Dean of the Freshman Year of Studies until he retired in 1990. He still visits campus regularly to attend mass and see friends. If you’re lucky, you’ll find him sitting on a bench near the Golden Dome.

Digger Phelps coached at Notre Dame from 1971 until 1991. He co-holds the NCAA record (with Gary Williams of Maryland) for the most wins over a number one-ranked team, with seven. Until 2014 he worked as a color commentator for the popular highlight show College Gameday on ESPN. On television, Digger’s pen always matched his tie.

Donald Royal was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the third round of the 1987 NBA Draft, the 52nd overall pick. He played for five different teams over eight NBA seasons.

David Rivers was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers as the 25th overall pick in the 1988 NBA Draft. After a few years in the NBA, he moved to the Euroleague, where he helped a Greek team, Olympiacos Piraeus, win the league championship in 1997.

Gary Voce played in only one NBA game, for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1989.

Dean Smith won two national championships and made eleven Final Four appearances as coach of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. He retired from coaching in 1997 with 897 wins, which was at the time the most ever for a college coach.

Kenny Smith was selected by the Sacramento Kings as the sixth overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft. He played nine NBA seasons for six different teams. He is currently a color analyst for the Inside the NBA on TNT. J.R. Reid was selected by the Charlotte Hornets as the fifth overall pick in the 1989 NBA Draft. He played in the NBA until 2001, after then played in France before retiring from professional basketball.

Joe Wolf was selected by the Los Angeles Clippers as the 13th overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft.

Jeff Lebo appeared in four games for the San Antonio Spurs during the 1989-90 season.

He is currently the head basketball coach at East Carolina University.

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XIII. NOTRE DAME vs MICHIGAN STATE 1988 Academically and socially, my sophomore year was the most difficult of the four years at Notre Dame, but by the time it ended I was in fairly good spirits and in a good position to make an impact on the school. After the 1988 Spring football game, the student managers selected the 16 sophomores who would earn scholarships for junior and senior year, and I was one of them. All sixteen of us would work on the football team during the 1988 season.

At the end of the season, we would evaluate ourselves again, and the top three would stay on with football during senior year, while the other thirteen would take jobs as head manager of one of our other varsity sports. I was delighted and excited to receive the scholarship. As I have said before, my mother and father were working miracles at home to pay for my education, so I was very happy that my work with the athletic department would help them out.

I gave tennis lessons in the Canton parks during the summer of 1988, and had a wonderful time doing that. It was a short summer for me, however, because all the managers assembled

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back on campus on August 2, two days before the freshman football players reported for fall camp.

That fall camp was grueling. After the first few days, we had two practices each day until classes started. Managers had field duties during practice, but we also had a number of roles to play before and after practice. Someone was always assigned to take attendance, at team meetings, meals, and any other team functions. Practice was closed to the public, so people had to guard the gates to make sure no unauthorized people strolled in. The locker room was always staffed with at least two people, because even on non-practice days players would lift weights, and there was always dirty laundry to collect or clean laundry to pass out.

After the first practice for freshmen, Coach Holtz knew that two of his recruits, Derek Brown and Raghib Ismail, would make an immediate impact on the team, and he specifically called them out at the end of practice. When the upperclassmen arrived a few days later, everything began to take shape. Practices during camp were quite physical, much more so than those during the season. One day the coaches really held their whistles and let the guys really hit each other hard. At the end of the season, Coach Holtz pointed to that day as the point at which he knew he had a special group of football players.

Our first game was at home against Michigan. It was a very close game, but thanks to four field goals from Reggie Ho, we won 19-17. That set up a meeting the following week in East Lansing with Michigan State, the defending Big Ten and Rose Bowl champions. Michigan State was loaded with talent. They had quarterback Bobby McAllister, wide receiver Andre Rison, middle linebacker Percy Snow, and offensive lineman Tony Mandarich. The NCAA suspended Mandarich for the first two games of the 1988 season, so he did not play against the Irish.

I was not assigned to travel to the Michigan State game with the team, but I wanted to go anyway. So I traveled with Miles Hadlock, a friend of mine from Grace Hall. We followed some other friends who drove in a separate car. I was riding in the back of a pickup truck, next to an untapped keg of beer. At one point our caravan seemed to get lost, and considered making a U-turn on the interstate. A state trooper witnessed the maneuver and pulled us over. The trooper walked tot the car and said “I noticed you guys jockeying for position back there. What was that all about?” Miles was an honest man, and he told the trooper “You see, we thought we were going the wrong way, and we were going to make a U-Turn back there, until we saw that you were a cop.” The trooper said “It is a good thing that you didn’t make that turn.” and sent us on our way without a citation. If the trooper noticed the pony keg in the back of the truck, he didn’t mention it. That night in East Lansing, we did things that college kids do. I slept in the back of the truck, next to the still untapped keg.

I had a bought ticket for the game and planned to sit with my father and Uncle Anthony.

Early Saturday morning I set out for the stadium, and as soon as I arrived I saw Gene O’Neil, our head equipment man. He pulled me into the locker room, and I helped out the other managers who were on the official traveling squad for the game. I was dressed in my manager uniform, and I had hoped that I’d be able to work the game in some capacity. I would just have to find a way to get the word to my dad.

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Out on the field, the guys suggested that I assist Coach Tim Scannel, who was a graduate assistant helping Joe Moore on the offensive line. The other managers had first choice, and they selected the more glamorous coaches who used headsets, Coach Alvarez, Coach Palermo, and Coach Stewart. What they didn’t know was that the previous week against Michigan, Coach Holtz spent a great deal of time talking to the press box coaches, and he used the headset belonging to…you guessed it, Coach Scannel. So here I was, a stowaway on the trip, befitting the legends of managers who attended road games by hiding in train trunks, working a game on about two hours of sleep in the back of a truck, and with a good chance of working directly with Coach Holtz!

Things played out exactly as I had thought they might. Early in the game, Coach Holtz took the headset, and so I followed wherever he went. Telecasts at Spartan Stadium used a boom camera from atop the pressbox, so every time they showed the Notre Dame sideline, they got a wide angle shot of Coach Holtz, and his trusty assistant! My mother and Grandmother were watching at home, and my mother tells me that Grandma would say “That guy keeps blocking my view of Tony!”

Dad figured things out pretty quickly too. When I hadn’t shown up by kickoff, he started scanning the sidelines, and he found me. At halftime, he talked to a Michigan State Trooper (probably not the same one who stopped us on the road) who escorted him to see me at midfield. He and the trooper had set up near the locker room to intercept me there, but I stayed on the field during halftime. I gave Dad a big hug, and briefly walked over to the stands to see Uncle Anthony.

To that point, the game was very close. Michigan State scored first, then Reggie Ho kicked two field goals in the second quarter to make it 6-3. We had played six quarters of football and had not scored an offensive touchdown. Michigan State’s defense (led my middle linebacker Percy Snow) was tough, but Coach Holtz was getting impatient. On our first possession after the half, Tony Rice led the team on a 71-yard drive. Tony Brooks had a 37yard run, Mark Green had a couple of big runs. Rice scored from eight yards out on an option right, and we finally got our first offensive touchdown of the year.

After the extra point, ABC faded into commercial with an isolation shot on Coach Holtz. As he walked toward the endzone where Tony Rice had scored, Coach remained calm, but right behind him, I was quietly pumping my fist. Go Irish!

In the fourth quarter, I was back with Coach Scannel when the defense put the game away.

Michael Stonebreaker stepped in front of a Bobby McAllister pass and raced 39 yards into the endzone. Notre Dame won 20-3.

At the end of the game, I ran to midfield to see my friend Percy Snow. Percy had gone to McKinley with me and Dean Brown. Since Dean was an offensive lineman, they had talked throughout the game, but I had not seen Percy yet, and I wanted to shake his hand. We embraced and ran off the field together, and as we left the field several of my teammates came and told Percy what a fine player they thought he was. Percy was a great player, no

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doubt about that. He would win both the Butkus and Lombardi awards, becoming the first college player to ever do that. But what impressed me after the game was how much Percy had grown up during his time at Michigan State. This was the same guy who three years earlier had said, in a John Belushi/Animal House-like speech before the McKinley-Massillon game “Um…Snow….gonna put on…a show!” Percy was articulate and mature, and while I was happy Notre Dame won, I was proud of the way Percy carried himself in defeat.

When I got back to Miles’ truck, the keg was empty. The tailgaters must have taken care of that before the game, because everyone was wide awake, ecstatic about the victory, and ready to go home.

I got a lot of television time during the game. Back on campus, Mark Byrne, another junior manager who had not traveled to East Lansing, mocked me. “There you were, all over the TV, and it wasn’t even your game to work!” I was quite lucky, because I really had a great time on the trip and I was so happy that we won the game.

September is often the toughest month in Notre Dame’s football schedule. We already had two wins over two Big Ten schools behind us. We fed off the momentum from those wins in our next two games, blowout victories over Purdue and Stanford. Then in early October we took a road trip to Pittsburgh. Once again, I wasn’t part of the traveling team, so I made the trip with my dad and Uncle Anthony. This time he knew I’d be working the game, so he took me directly to the locker room. That night I had ball duty on the Pittsburgh sideline. I remember two things about the game: a fumble recovered by Chris Zorich to stop a Pittsburgh scoring threat, and Pitt Head Coach Mike Gottfried’s incessant jawing with the officials during the game. We won that one, 30-20. That gave us five wins and no losses, and set up a mid-October showdown with the number one team in the country, Jimmy Johnson’s Miami Hurricanes. ♦♦♦ Percy Snow played three NFL seasons for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Chicago Bears. In 2013 Percy was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.

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Coach Lou, and Tony too, during the Michigan State game

My unused game ticket

Game program cover

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XIV. NOTRE DAME vs. MIAMI 1988 October 15, 1988 was a perfect autumn day in South Bend. The leaves had changed colors, the sun shined brightly, and midday temperatures reached seventy-five degrees, so football fans did not need sweaters or jackets. I was dressed in coat and tie, since my assignment for the Miami game required it. During the game I would sit near the “President’s Box” with the senior leaders of the university and their guests, make sure that they had clean chairs, hand each guest a game program when they entered the stadium, take their food requests and serve lunch shortly before halftime. Although it sounds somewhat subservient, it was an honor to greet the university brass and their guests and show them a side of the football equipment managers’ organization that they never might have imagined or expected. It was a fairly easy job during the game, and best of all, my work would be finished by halftime.

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The bulk of my responsibilities for the Miami game had taken place before I entered the stadium. In accordance with my President’s Box role, I also had to take attendance at all of the team functions from dinner Friday through mass on Saturday morning, and present a report to Coach George Kelly on Sunday. I had checked every name off the list when the team gathered in coat and tie before the Friday night pep rally. Once the team returned from the pep rally, they met in the Loftus Center for the final team meetings, and what Coach Holtz called a “Positives & Relaxation” session.

In the “Positives” session Coach Holtz showed the players a highlight video, then he asked the players to tell him why Notre Dame was going to win tomorrow. One of the seniors from the defense would stand up and say “We’re going to win because we have an outstanding offensive line which will protect the quarterback.” Then one of the offensive players would rise and say “We have great linebackers and defensive backs who will cover Miami’s passing attack.” Then the long snapper would say “We have a great kicker and holder, so if we need a field goal to decide the game, we’ll make it.” And so on. As I watched the positives session, I was moved by the way this quiet activity enabled the team to bond.

At the end of the positives session, the team walked out onto the end zone of our practice facility and sat down on the turf. All of the lights were shut off, and Coach led them through a “Relaxation” session, where he would ask them to visualize all of the good things that would happen tomorrow. “Our defensive line and linebackers will get good pressure and sack Steve Walsh…Our defensive backs will cover their receivers and intercept passes…Our running backs will beat their defense around the corner…Our passing game will execute with precision…Our kicking game will make field goals and extra points.” After witnessing just one relaxation session, I was convinced that the visualization techniques were effective.

Before big tests, big projects at work, or any big challenging life situations, I tried to emulate the practices that I watched Coach Holtz facilitate that night.

Once Positives & Relaxation was finished, the players boarded buses for their sleeping quarters for the night. The top sixty players and coaches went to the Holiday Inn in Plymouth, about thirty miles away. Head Manager Mike Green went with them. The remaining fifty players went to Moreau Seminary on the northern edge of campus. I went with them. Even though I was only about five hundred yards from my own bed in Grace Hall, I had to sleep in a tiny room at Moreau, because I had to do bed check and wake up calls for all of these players.

Defensive Line Coach John Palermo joined me at Moreau for bed check. He knew the drill, because for the Michigan game five weeks earlier Coach Holtz and the entire team had stayed here. Mark Byrne had bed check and wake up duty that night, and while there were no problems, Mark said that Coach Holtz wanted to sequester the team in the more luxurious digs in Plymouth. So Coach Palermo and I made sure all of the players were in their assigned rooms, we wished everyone a good night, and talked about what a big day we would have on Saturday.

The reserve players were not thrilled about sleeping at Moreau. These guys knew they had little chance of seeing playing time, and I’m sure they wanted to be in Plymouth, but all of

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them probably got more sleep in the seminary than they would have in the dorms. All of them except Marty Lippincott, that is. Marty was a big lineman from Philadelphia. He was very intelligent and had more financial resources than the average Notre Dame football player or manager. Marty had been a recruit of Gerry Faust, but Lou Holtz was not impressed with Marty’s skills or work ethic, so he had fallen down the depth chart. When we knocked on the partially open door to Marty’s room, the lights were out. Marty had left his boots on the side of the bed and appeared to already be sleeping. Marty had a blanket over himself that revealed his gray shorts and what we might affectionately call a plumber’s crack.

“That’s Lipp?” Coach Palermo said, with a bewildered look in his eyes.

I said “Yeah coach. That’s Lipp.”

Coach said “Goodnight Marty.” and we walked out.

After we finished bed check, I walked Coach to his car. When I climbed the steps to the top floor of the seminary, there was Marty, fully dressed.

“Did you see him drive off?” Marty asked.

“Yes, I saw him drive away.” I replied.

“Goodnight Tony” Marty said as he walked out into the South Bend night.

I took attendance at breakfast Saturday morning. Everybody – including Marty – was there.

Nobody laughed or spoke loudly, people mostly ate and kept to themselves. When I sat down across from senior equipment manager Shawn Patrick, he said quietly “We’re gonna win you know.” There was a glassy determination in his eyes. “I know” I said and started eating. I’m sure players and coaches had similarly brief conversations in the cafeteria, in the trainer’s room, and on the bus from Plymouth. There wasn’t much more to say. We were going to win, and we knew it.

After breakfast, the players gathered for Mass at Pangborn Hall. After that, we walked to the Stadium. I wasn’t needed in the locker room, and everyone in there has to be completely silent anyway, so before the game I went to the press box to see John Heisler, our Sports Information Director, to get the game programs. It was the only time that I have ever been in there. I remember the press box being bright and spacious. Through the giant glass panes of the press box, the field loomed large below, but I could not hear any noise from the field or stands. I bet that it is difficult for an easily excited person to watch a game in such a businesslike atmosphere. But it probably would be fun once.

As kickoff approached my guests started to arrive. The dignitaries were seated in the yellow seats at midfield on the press box side of the stadium. Although the student sections were not far away from the President’s Box, no students came near the VIPs during the game. I was dressed in my official manager’s blazer, with white shirt and necktie embroidered with interlocking ND monograms. And I wore dress shoes. This was the only football game I have ever attended (or ever plan to attend) while wearing a blazer, tie and dress shoes.

Despite my awkward feelings about my wardrobe, I was dressed appropriately. I would have looked pretty silly in the president’s box if I had dressed in my usual manager’s gear or in the classic polyester coaching garb.

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University President Father Malloy did not attend the game, or at least he did not sit in his box. Father Beauchamp, the Executive Vice President of the University, was there, along with some famous families whose names adorned buildings on campus. My game day tasks seemed to happen very quickly, perhaps because I was able to watch a great deal of the game. And the game was played at a very fast pace.

There was a minor melee in the tunnel before the game, but after kickoff, both teams settled down and played good football. Notre Dame scored first, on a Tony Rice option run from seven yards out. Miami answered early in the second quarter, on a drive that included two twenty-yard passes. On the next drive, pinned inside his own twenty facing third down and 13, Tony Rice found Rocket Ismail for a 57-yard pass. Then Braxston Banks scored from nine yards out on a delay pass that we had gone over extensively in practice. At the midpoint of the second quarter, not only was Notre Dame beating the great Miami Hurricanes we were beating them with passing plays.

The Hurricanes had receivers Andre Brown and Leonard Conley and tight end Rob Chudzinski, and their quarterback Steve Walsh was an expert at finding the open man.

Walsh efficiently moved his team down the field in fifteen and twenty-yard chunks. But if passing offers high rewards, it also requires high risk. With just under six minutes until halftime, Steve Walsh dropped back to pass, rushed aggressively by Notre Dame. Frank Stams tipped the pass, altering its trajectory. That allowed Pat Terrell to step in front of the receiver, intercept the ball, and race sixty yards down the sideline for a touchdown. As I walked to stadium foodservice to get the lunches for my guests, Notre Dame was ahead 21-7.

Steve Walsh was undeterred by the interception, and when he retook possession of the ball, he efficiently executed an eight-play 61-yard scoring drive. Then Miami held Notre Dame to a three-and-out and took over the ball near midfield with 1:08 to play in the half. I had served my guests and my Presidents’ Box duties were completed, but in that final minute of the half, I watched uncomfortably as Steve Walsh once again drove his team into the endzone. He completed a 15 yard pass to Cleveland Gary to tie the game at 21-21.

I walked to the locker room, but hid in the back with the managers. Everyone was stunned that after we had played so well in the first half, we had nothing to show for it on the scoreboard. Furthermore, we felt like we had to work so hard for our points while Miami seemed to get them so easily. The events late in the first half were perhaps exactly what the Notre Dame coaching staff needed, for when the position coaches addressed their units, each was very loud and firm. Coach Palermo yelled at the defensive line “You see, those guys across from you can bench five hundred pounds too! You have to be meaner than they are!

You have to want it more!” Chuck Heater, our defensive backfield coach, had been a running back for Bo Schembechler at Michigan, so he knew how to give a fiery speech.

Coach Heater worked from the press box, so halftime was his last opportunity to be in his men’s faces. He said something to the effect of “They have great receivers and they can throw the ball, but we are not going to be outplayed in this game.” As he gave the speech, he put his fist through a chalkboard. It had a big hole in it, up to the forearm, and Coach Heater looked like he was going to boil over. With his assistants so vocal and demonstrative, Coach

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Holtz was able to be a calming force. He said the team should forget about the lead that had just disappeared. The fact that we were tied at halftime proved that we could play with Miami, so we just had to stay focused and avoid mistakes, and we would win the game.

In the second half, I had nothing to do, so I settled in at the 30-yard line next to backup punter Sean Connor and assistant trainer John Whitmer. I wanted to stay away from any of the assistant coaches, but close enough to the sideline that I would not be conspicuous, if that’s possible for a five-foot tall guy in coat and tie in the midst of a hundred six-footers in uniform. I remember that I did not have a student manager credential, because we had so many managers working the game. Before the game, senior personnel manager Pete Witty told me not to worry. “Relax TonyT, you’ll be in a coat and tie. And everybody knows who you are anyway!” While I still would have enjoyed the comfort of having a field pass, I appreciated that Pete said that. If everybody knew who I was, or at least enough people knew who I was to give me free reign in this environment, then maybe I was leaving my mark on Notre Dame. Ultimately I did get a bench pass from somebody, and after the game Terry Pringle, one of the sophomore managers, gave me his manager pass so I would have a complete set for my scrapbook.

While the first half was fast and carefree, the second half was sloppy and nerve-wracking.

Tony Rice threw an interception early in the half, but on the next play, Jeff Alm hit Leonard Conley and caused a fumble, which Frank Stams recovered. Notre Dame’s next drive ended when Miami blocked a long field goal attempt by Billy Hackett. Then after Miami’s offense was stopped, they tried a fake punt, which was broken up by reserve quarterback Steve Belles. Two plays after Belles’ tackle, Notre Dame scored on a two-yard run by Pat Eilers.

Jeff Alm picked up another interception late in the third quarter, and the Irish added a Reggie Ho field goal to take a 31-21 lead into the fourth quarter.

As the Miami players held four fingers in the air to claim that the fourth quarter belonged to them, there was not an Irish fan in the crowd of 59,075 who thought that it would be easy for Notre Dame to hold on. A ten point lead would certainly not be safe against Steve Walsh and Jimmy Johnson, the man Notre Dame fans detested because of his 58-7 sendoff for Coach Faust. As long as Walsh could still throw passes, he and Johnson could find a way to beat us.

Down 31-21, the Hurricanes drove deep into Notre Dame territory, but had to settle for a field goal by Carlos Huerta. After Notre Dame punted, Steve Walsh drove Miami downfield again. After catching a pass over the middle, Cleveland Gary fumbled at the goal line, and Mike Stonebreaker recovered at the one. Deep in our own territory, the Irish couldn’t do much, and punted a few plays later. The clock was under four minutes when Chris Zorich was called for a late hit on Rob Chudzinski, moving the ball near the ND 35. Zorich redeemed himself on the very next play, when he recovered a fumble caused by Frank Stams.

With about three and half minutes to play, the Irish were up seven, and needed some first downs to burn the clock. The great Miami defense led by Randy Shannon, Bernard Clark, and a young Russell Maryland was not about to allow first downs at this point in the game.

Facing a passing situation on third down with 2:10 to play, Tony Rice was hit and fumbled.

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Although the ball dropped only to the ground at his feet, it was immediately covered by Miami’s Greg Mark. The Hurricanes were in the driver’s seat to score a touchdown.

It took four plays for Miami to score, with Walsh finding Andre Brown in the corner of the end zone. 31-30. Jimmy Johnson could kick the extra point and tie, or try to go for two and get the win. Johnson said later that he never had any doubt about what he would do. He sent in the play to try to win the game.

The ball was placed on the left hash, with the wide side of the field was on Walsh’s right.

Taking the snap, he dropped straight back to pass. George Williams made a very strong rush, and Walsh was forced to throw sooner than he wanted. He threw a fade deep to the corner of the end zone, which Pat Terrell batted down to secure the Notre Dame victory.

On the day, Steve Walsh was 31 for 50 for 324 yards, with four touchdowns and three interceptions. Miami outgained Notre Dame by 150 yards, but they turned the ball over seven times.

After the game, Coach Holtz spoke about the Notre Dame spirit. “It was a win by the spirit of a group of guys who just refused to fold. You can’t pick out a hero. Notre Dame was the hero today.“ While the win required a total team effort, this was the day that many individual legends were made. Pat Terrell will be forever remembered for his long interception, and his knockdown of the two-point play. Frank Stams’ dogged pursuit of the previously untouchable Steve Walsh etched his name into Irish lore. Chris Zorich, George Williams and Jeff Alm stood up to the great Miami Offensive line. Dean Brown, Tim Grunhard, Andy Heck, Mike Heldt and Winston Sandri protected Tony Rice. Coach Holtz didn’t award individual game balls after the game. He gave one to everybody.

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♦♦♦ Back at the dorm that night, my roommates and I were on an adrenaline rush. We went to dinner at a Pizza Hut up on US-31, not far from campus. We knew that we had just witnessed a special game, possibly one of the greatest college football games of all time. We didn’t know what the big picture would look like for the Irish, for there was still a lot of football to be played. The week after we beat Miami, Notre Dame was ranked second behind UCLA in the polls. We knew that as long as we kept winning games, we would be in the national championship picture at the end of the season.

After Miami, we played Air Force at home. Coming off such a high, we were ripe for a letdown, but we stayed strong and beat the Falcons 41-13. The letdown did come one week later, in Baltimore against Navy. Against the Midshipmen, Notre Dame had 90 yards in penalties, three fumbles, five dropped passes, and played poorly on special teams. I did not make the trip to Baltimore. It was the only game I missed all season. Maybe my absence had something to do with the letdown, but I doubt it. We won 22-7. Strangely, our lackluster performance did not prevent the pollsters from elevating us to the number one ranking, after UCLA lost to Washington State. At 8-0 we still had to get past Rice, Penn State and our archrival, USC. The defense had turned in some super performances, and the offense had been improving all year, thanks to a strong and consistent running game. While some people find it hard to prepare for, the triple option offense is beautiful in its simplicity. There are a series of binary decisions (hand to fullback? pitch to tailback? cut back inside or run to the edge?) that have to be made each time you run the option, and once you master that decision tree, you can execute the option over and over again. In 1988 it was our safety net. Whenever Tony Rice would get to the line of scrimmage and see something he didn’t like, he could check out of the called play into the option. We would hear “West 18 West 18” and wait for the magic.

During the Rice game I worked footballs, similar to what I had done at Pittsburgh. We blew out the Owls handily, 54-11. A funny play happened near the end of the game. While Notre Dame was attempting an extra point, Rice players blocked the kick and returned it all the way into the endzone for a safety. Under a newly enacted NCAA rule, that play was scored a safety. It was the first time such a play had ever happened.

The Penn State game was special for me, for it brought to mind memories of the 1984 trip with my dad, when I yelled at the guy behind me for not knowing Frank Stams. The week of the Penn State game Frank and I laughed about that story. Each of our junior managers had a favorite player who we made sure had everything he needed. Tom Nevala took care of Tony Brooks, Greg Leininger kept an eye out for Mike Stonebreaker, and I took care of Frank.

Even before the 1988 season, he was high on my list of all-time favorite Notre Dame players.

After the Miami game, Frank had the top spot for life!

During the Penn State game, once again I was assigned ball duty. It was a cold rainy day, so it would be a challenging job to keep the footballs dry. Before the game, CBS sideline reporter Lesley Visser was walking around talking to people, looking for stories to fill her

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sideline snippets. I noticed that although she was trying hard to initiate conversations, none of the other managers would talk to her. So I walked up and told her what I would be doing that day, that I’d be sending in a different ball for each play and keeping the balls out of the rain between plays. When we were done talking she said, “Look for me in the second quarter.” The game rolled along and sure enough, early in the second quarter I heard “Manager!” After a Tony Brooks run up the middle, the cameras cut to Lesley, and I stood next to her while she explained my role to the television audience. It was another nice gift for my friends and family back home, and it came about because I was the only manager who wasn’t too shy to talk to the sideline reporter!

I had another nice experience that afternoon. Before the game, Penn State Coach Joe Paterno walked over and shook my hand. He also shook hands with all of the other managers, players and assistant coaches who were standing nearby. The gesture took only a few seconds, but he made me feel special. Coach Paterno is a legendary figure of college football.

Penn State stubbornly fought hard to avoid its first losing season in 50 years, but Notre Dame proved too strong, beating the Lions 21-3 and sending them home 5-6. Along the way, Notre Dame racked up 502 yards in total offense and controlled time of possession by a nearly twoto-one margin. The win over Penn State did two things for the top-ranked Irish: it secured an official invitation to the January 2 Fiesta Bowl, and it set the stage for the final regular season game, a confrontation with the unbeaten University of Southern California Trojans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. ♦♦♦ Steve Walsh was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the 1989 NFL Supplemental Draft. He played for six teams in an eleven-year NFL career. He is currently the head football coach at Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Coach Jimmy Johnson had a 52-9 record over five years at Miami. In 1989 Jerry Jones hired him to be head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Together, Jimmy and Jerry won Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. Johnson was the first coach ever to win an NCAA division I-A championship and a Super Bowl. He is currently an analyst for Fox NFL Sunday.

Rob Chudzinski is currently an assistant coach in the National Football League. In 2013 he was head coach for the Cleveland Browns. He is currently an assistant coach for the Indianapolis Colts.

Russell Maryland was selected by the Dallas Cowboys as the first overall pick in the 1991 NFL Draft. He played for three teams over ten years.

Randy Shannon was an eleventh-round draft choice of the Dallas Cowboys. He played two NFL seasons. From 2007 to 2010 he was the head football coach at the University of Miami.

He is currently the linebackers coach at the University of Arkansas.

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Miami Game Program Cover

Dad’s Rice Ticket

On the sidelines during Penn State Keeping the footballs dry

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Terry Pringle’s Miami Field Pass

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On camera with Lesley Visser during the Penn State game

Mark Byrne and I before our 1988 Manager’s Game

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XV. NOTRE DAME vs. USC 1988 During training camp, the managers got together each night after dinner to review the previous day’s work and look at the next day’s assignments. We also did our advance planning for the season, reviewing class schedules, allocating game tickets, and setting the travel rosters for each away game. Since there were sixteen junior managers, it was not cost effective for all of us to travel to every away game, so we held a mini-lottery to determine which managers would be part of the travel squad for which games. Mark Byrne, Pat Quenan, Mark Staelgraeve, and I were the winners of that lottery. We drew the first numbers and thus we were part of the traveling roster for the final regular season game against USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

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I have already written about my stowaway trips to the Michigan State game and the Pittsburgh game, where I drove myself or rode with friends. The USC trip was a new experience for me, riding on the team bus, flying on the team plane, and staying in the team hotel. As you might expect, the Fighting Irish travel in high style and in relative isolation. We left campus in two motor coaches, and when we arrived at the South Bend Airport, the buses parked right beside the plane, a Northwest Airlines 737 charter. We loaded all of our baggage, then walked directly onboard the plane. Inflight, it was not much different from a regular commercial flight, except the food service was better quality and the frequency of service was greater. I think I had one steak over Iowa and another steak over Colorado. There was plenty of food for everyone, so I certainly wasn’t taking food out of the mouths of any players. It was Thanksgiving Day, and before leaving campus we enjoyed a huge feast at the South Dining Hall. But football players – and all world class athletes for that matter – have big appetites, and the Northwest flight staff was very accommodating.

Due to our passenger load and as a general safety measure, we stopped in Kansas City to refuel. It was nearly 9PM by the time we reached Orange County Airport. At that destination, a caravan of buses and a California Highway Patrol escort took us to the Newport Beach Marriott, our home for the next three days.

My parents were already in California by the time we arrived on Thursday night. Earlier in the week, they had flown to San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving with my sister Dianne, who had been living there since 1981. They had a nice holiday with Dianne and her friends, then they drove to LA to attend the game.

The matchup with USC received a great deal of national attention during Thanksgiving week. The pollsters had voted Notre Dame number 1 and USC number 2, and the people at ABC sports capitalized on the Thanksgiving holiday to promote the game. Unlike today, where such a game would almost certainly be aired in primetime, our kickoff was set for 3:30 Pacific time, so the entire game would be played in the sunshine. And for a group of kids from South Bend who were staring at four months of winter, an afternoon in the California sun was like manna from heaven. But this was a business trip, and even though we were cozy and warm in LA, we all knew that we had a mission to accomplish.

We were going to the Fiesta Bowl regardless of the outcome, but if we beat USC, we would complete a perfect regular season. If we lost, our dreams of a national championship would vanish. The Irish had so much to lose, one might have expected the team to be tight and edgy, but there was really none of that during the week of practice.

In contrast, Coach Larry Smith and the USC team should have been carefree and relaxed, but it seemed that they were anxious. Many people believed that this squad was Smith’s finest USC team, and they were unbeaten and Rose-Bowl bound. But USC had lost five straight games to Notre Dame, no current Trojan player had ever beaten Notre Dame, and I’m sure that burden weighed in the minds of the Men of Troy.

On Friday morning, we practiced at a local high school. The game plan was already in place, and we wouldn’t reveal anything in such a public place anyway, so the practice

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was really a glorified stretching and running session. We did, however, practice special teams execution, and an incident occurred during that part of practice. Ricky Watters was having difficulties fielding punts, and several of the team members gave him a goodnatured ribbing about it. Ricky was not amused, and in response to the barbs, he replied “If I drop one in a game how funny will it be then?” The situation was diffused on the field, but the words stuck in the memories of all who heard them.

After practice, the managers went to the Coliseum to prepare the locker room for the game. We went through our usual game prep routine, but we were able to go much faster because we had already painted the helmets and prepared equipment before we left South Bend. It was a casual game preparation, and we were nearly finished when my parents walked into the locker room. We had a brief visit, and for a few minutes we walked around the Coliseum. I knew that our schedule would be crazy, and most players do not get to see their families until after the game, so it was a nice surprise for me to see them on Friday. Dianne took a picture of Dad and me out on the field.

While we were at the Coliseum, the players were given a few hours of free time until the team dinner. Everyone made it back to the hotel in time for dinner, except Ricky Watters and Tony Brooks. They had gone to a shopping mall, got stuck in traffic and were very late arrivals at dinner. It was not the first time that either of them had been late. Tony Brooks had times when he operated on his own schedule, and Ricky had been late for a few team functions earlier in the week. In fact, at the Thanksgiving meal at South Dining Hall, I clearly recall Rick sitting alone with Coach Holtz, getting an earful, probably about his responsibilities to the team and the need to be accountable for his own actions.

Coach Holtz met with the team captains and they decided that Ricky and Tony would not play in the game against USC. It was not a decision that anyone took lightly, but it was not a decision that would be reversed, either. By the time the team assembled for the normal Friday night positives/relaxation sessions, Ricky and Tony were on their way back to South Bend. (I never knew who escorted them on the plane back to campus, but I know it must have been an unpleasant job.) We assembled in the meeting room and the first thing Coach said was “They’re not going to play.” He explained why and he asked if anyone had any comments. There was a short silence, and Coach started to say “Then I guess we will call the matter closed.” He hadn’t finished the sentence when Andre Jones stood up and said “It just doesn’t feel right. They are key players on our team. It’s going to be harder for us to win without them.” (Facts would have backed Andre up. Brooks was the team’s leading rusher, and Watters the team’s leading receiver.) I always admired Andre for getting up and saying that. He was a Sophomore linebacker who saw regular playing time, but he was not one of the starters. He knew that there was a great deal riding on the game, and he wanted us to win. I’m sure others felt the same way, but only Andre said anything.

When Andre finished, Ned Bolcar, one of the captains, jumped up and made it clear that they were not going to play. He explained that they had habitually broken rules, and they needed to be held responsible for their actions. When Ned had finished, Frank Stams jumped up and said “If there’s anybody who doesn’t think we can win without those two,

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then there’s the door. Get the hell out.” That was the point at which I knew that we would beat USC. That evening was very emotional. As he would often do, Coach asked the team to pray for Ricky and Tony. He also asked us to pray for ourselves and for the decision that had just been made.

While Friday night was intense, it did not cause any of us to lose sleep. I was so tired from the trip and the game preparation and the emotional meetings, I fell asleep almost immediately after getting back to the room. I set an alarm clock and arranged for a wake up call, so that Mark Byrne and I could wake up the team. When we made the rounds to wake up the players, we found most of them already awake, alert and relaxed. Some were extremely relaxed. Two of my favorite players opened the door just a little, and when they saw that there was no one else but me and Mark, they threw the door open and stood there in front of us, fully nude. Here we were, on the morning of a very big game, and they appeared to have no nerves whatsoever. It was a great sign that victory was imminent.

Breakfast was fairly quiet, and I remember that Coach Kelly was sitting with Harvey Mackay, the bestselling author, salesman, and motivational speaker. Mr. Mackay was a good friend of Coach Holtz, in fact he had convinced him to become coach at Minnesota just a few years before he came to Notre Dame. I shook hands with Mr. Mackay and went on with my breakfast. I wish I had spoken to Mr. Mackay in greater detail that day.

Now that I have read a few of his books, I would love to sit down and share thoughts about business and life with him.

On the bus into the stadium, I rode with George Stewart, who coached our outside linebackers. In the back row of the bus, offensive line coach Joe Moore was jawing away, about Brooks and Watters and how stupid they had been to get sent home before such a big game. As Coach Moore kept talking, Coach Stewart was getting madder and madder. It was the only time I ever remember hearing Coach Stew swear, and he said something to the effect of “Somebody back there better shut his $#%@ mouth. That decision is done. It was made last night and there is nothing that is going to change it now.” George had been a key player on Coach Holtz’s 1978 Orange Bowl team at Arkansas, and he had valiantly stood by Coach Holtz when three prominent Razorback players were suspended from the bowl game for violating team rules in their dormitory.

Now, eleven years later, George was part of another incident involving the dismissal of players before a big game. Although George was justified in his anger at Coach Moore, I don’t think Coach Moore was talking to be hateful. Rather I think that was his mechanism for coping with the situation. Many of us – especially managers in the locker room and on the sidelines – have to work things out internally and silently. Coach Moore was a person who would talk things through.

During the game, I was with Coach Barry Alvarez. Notre Dame jumped out to a 14-0 lead. In the absence of Brooks and Watters, Tony Rice and Co-Captain Mark Green took over the ground attack, each scoring a touchdown in the first quarter. Mark Green was from Riverside, so it was great that he had a big day in front of many friends and family.

Notre Dame’s defense spent the first half trying to figure out the USC offense. We got

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good pressure on Rodney Peete, but he was still able to find his key receiver Erik Affholter and flanker John Jackson. At one point late in the second quarter Coach Alvarez said into his headset, “We’re playing well, but we need a break.” Shortly thereafter, Stan Smagala intercepted a pass and raced right in front of us, 64 yards down the sidelines to for a touchdown. We went into halftime up 20-7, and the game was effectively over at that point. In the second half, our defense shut USC down. USC drove into the red zone, but the Irish defense held the Trojans to a field goal. Mark Green scored another touchdown for his hometown fans, and the game ended 27-10.

As a manager working on an assistant coach’s headset, the greatest thing you can hear during a game is “We’re finished with the headsets, they’re coming down from the pressbox.” With about five minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Coach Alvarez handed me the headset and gave me a big bear hug. Once I put the gear away, I got more hugs from Frank Stams, Ned Bolcar, Mike Stonebreaker, and Wes Pritchett. My sister Dianne got a good picture of me and Wes, and she somehow made her way down on the field to join us for the postgame celebration. Mom and Dad were seated in the far corner of the Coliseum, up near the Olympic torch. Dianne and I had a nice moment on the field before I helped pack and clean up.

Normally, the team flies back to South Bend immediately after the game, so the postgame locker room cleanup is a frantic race against time. After the USC game, however, we operated with a relaxed pace. We were euphoric, having just completed a perfect regular season, and we didn’t need to rush off to the airport, because we were not returning to campus until Sunday evening.

Back at the hotel after the game, I had dinner with Mom, Dad and Dianne. We took a walk near the marina in Newport Beach. The 3:30 kickoff gave us extra time to visit that we would not have had in a primetime game. (That is yet another reason why I prefer the afternoon kickoff…but alas, television pays big money so television can set the primetime stage.) I’m sure my mother wished she could have spent more time with me, given that she traveled all the way to the west coast and only got to see me for a few hours. But she and my father understood that this was a business trip, and at dinner that night we celebrated the success of the USC trip and the entire season.

On Sunday my mom flew back to Ohio, and my dad returned to San Francisco with Dianne in a limousine that Dianne had hired specially for the trip. After he retired, Dad would often enjoy extended visits with Dianne, staying behind for a week or two after mom and I returned to the Midwest. It was great that Dianne and Dad had that time together, for they shared many special experiences, conversations, and celebrations during those visits.

While Mom was flying East and Dad and Dianne were riding North, the Notre Dame football team was at Disneyland! We had a short time to walk around the park, but the event was mostly a photo opportunity. I have a nice shot of Coach Holtz and the captains standing at the main entrance with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. There was a sense of irony in this photo, and it was not lost on Coach Holtz or the team. Often during

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practices Coach would say that our upcoming opponent was “not some Mickey Mouse team.” By this he meant no insult to Walt Disney, but rather he was implying that the opponent ran a respectable, high-class program, instead of one run by a bunch of characters. As we approached Disneyland, Coach Holtz stood up on the bus, grinned a wide smile, and said “We already played these guys! We played that Mickey Mouse team!” Everyone on the bus had a good laugh about that.

I regularly travel to Southern California for business. I’ve probably been to Los Angeles more than a hundred times since 1988. I’ve attended over fifty sporting events there, from Dodger games to Laker games to horse racing and UCLA basketball games. I can tell you this with certainty: no business trip to LA and no sporting event in LA has ever been as much fun or as rewarding for me as the 1988 Notre Dame-USC game. ♦♦♦ On the Monday after USC trip, the football season was completed, and the student managers conducted our self evaluation and ranking process. All sixteen juniors were evaluated and ranked by each other and the three senior managers. The top three would stay on and become senior football managers. The remaining thirteen would pick a different senior sport depending on their rank. In the final rankings, I was number seven.

While I was disappointed to not become a senior football manager, looking back I can appreciate how fair and honest the system forced us to be with each other and with ourselves. I think that if an independent third-party had evaluated my work over the season, that third party would have determined that I ranked seventh as well. I’m sure that some of the other managers may not have felt as I do, especially the guys who ranked fourth or fifth and were so close but just shut out from a football spot. But I think it was a pretty fair evaluation process. As the seventh rank, I had the chance to select every sport other than football, basketball, and tennis. I chose ice hockey and the opportunity to work with Coach Ric Shafer.

We made our selections Monday night, and on Tuesday I was in Coach Shafer’s office meeting my new coach. Tom Nevala, Greg Leininger, and Pat Quenan, the three men who would become senior football managers, received a nice congratulatory letter from Coach Holtz. In that letter Coach Holtz wrote “Please take good care of Tony as I know he is disappointed that he’s not one of the final three, but I think he’s a great young man.”

I was surprised and touched that Coach Holtz took the time to say that. While I was disappointed about not getting football, his nice comments sent me to Coach Shafer determined to do whatever I could to help our ice hockey team. ♦♦♦

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Larry Smith had a 44-25-3 record in six seasons at USC. The 1987-89 seasons were his finest at USC, and his teams made three straight Rose Bowl trips, including a victory over Michigan in the 1990 Rose Bowl. In addition to USC, Smith also served as head coach at Missouri, Tulane and Arizona. He compiled a 143-126-7 record in 24 seasons as a head coach. A native of Van Wert, Ohio, Coach Smith died of leukemia in 2008.

Rodney Peete won the Johnny Unitas Award at the end of his senior season at USC, and he finished second to Barry Sanders for the 1988 Heisman trophy. He took USC to the Rose Bowl in 1988 and 1989. In the National Football League, he played for six different teams over sixteen seasons. He is married to actress Holly Robinson Peete. They currently have a television show together.

Erik Affholter played one season in the NFL, for the Green Bay Packers in 1991. He recently served as head football coach at Flagstaff High School in Arizona. Currently, he works with the Young Athletes for Christ Foundation, a Christian youth group in Oxnard, California that provides guidance to at-risk student athletes. ♦♦♦

Dad and I in the Coliseum

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Coach Holtz and Ned Bolcar with Mickey and Friends

T-Lyght, Stoney and Pritch keep USC out of the endzone

At Disneyland with Coach George Kelly

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Game Program

Dianne’s game ticket

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XVI. NOTRE DAME vs. WEST VIRGINIA 1989 FIESTA BOWL The month of December was one of great anticipation for the Notre Dame football program. After beating USC on November 28, the team had thirty-four days to prepare for the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl. Of course, the team did not spend every one of those days preparing for West Virginia. First, we had final exams to think about. Those ran through the second week in December, and the team lifted weights and did light workouts until finals were over. After finals, the team had a week of practice on campus, then everyone went home to celebrate Christmas. The team reconvened in Phoenix on December 26.

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Because of the Christmas holiday, the athletic department arranged for team members to fly from their hometowns to Phoenix, rather than on a charter from South Bend. The airfare allowance was calculated rather liberally, based on the full unrestricted airfare between our hometowns and Phoenix. Before I left campus for the holiday, I received a check for $1007 to cover my airfare and meals during the trip. I may have mentioned before that my mother worked in banking. In fact, she is a financial wizard, for she could do with a thousand dollars what Jesus did with the loaves and fishes. She found roundtrip airline tickets to Phoenix for me and my father and we still had several hundred dollars left over for the trip! So the bowl game was not only a nice reward for me, it was also a special treat for my dad. Mary and Phil Amendola, two longtime family friends, offered to host my dad in Phoenix. I would stay in the team hotel, the Sheraton Scottsdale Resort.

I made it through my final exams. I had taken fifteen credits during the season, three mathematics courses, an accounting course, and a history course. On days when I worked practice during the season, I returned home from training table around 8:30. I would generally study from 8:30 until 12:30. On Sundays and on days when I did not have to work practice, I was able to study a lot more. But on those practice days I had to be disciplined, because my study window was short. Throughout the term I stayed on pace in every course and put myself in a good position to score well on finals and earn a good GPA for the semester. I did well on finals, and my final grades were four A’s and a B+ in the History course. Father Tom Blantz’s history course had cost me a perfect GPA. (Nevertheless, it was one of the greatest courses I took at Notre Dame. At each session Father Blantz would lecture for an hour about the 1920s and the New Deal. He had notes and he appeared to speak from memory.) While I wanted to earn a 4.0, I was satisfied with a 3.866 GPA, given the busy semester I had working with the football team.

Academically and athletically, it was the greatest semester I had during my four years at Notre Dame.

When we arrived in Phoenix, Senior equipment manager Shawn Patrick said “Have you seen your grades, Tone?” I had. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Shawn had seen my grades too, or at least he knew my GPA. He was asking about my reaction to the grades.

“I had a pretty good semester” I said, and then I told him about my specific grades. Mike DeCicco, the head fencing coach and Academic Advisor to the athletic department, had already spread the word, and I felt very proud when Coach George Kelly and Coach John Palermo congratulated me about my grades. I had done well, but I think Paul Dankowski, one of the other junior managers, had earned a 4.0. I hope the coaches also saluted Paul!

I had no work responsibilities of any kind for the Fiesta Bowl. By that time, I had transitioned out of the football program and into hockey. I worked the December hockey games with senior manager Bill Beston. I even traveled with the team to Chicago for a weekend series with Illinois-Chicago and Lake Forest. I would follow Bill’s lead until the end of the 1988-89 hockey season, then I would take over for off-season dry-land conditioning and preparation for my senior season. I was a tourist in Phoenix.

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Our flight was safe and successful, and it was only memorable because it was one of the final US domestic flights in which smoking was permitted. (I think the no-smoking policy for that airline went into effect the next day, January 1, 1989.) Dad was a smoker, so we were seated in a smoking row. Inflight, many people seated in the forward rows moved back to the smoking area to get their fix. By the end of the flight I had inhaled at least two packs of second-hand smoke! We arrived in Phoenix close to midnight on New Years Eve. Phil Amendola met our flight and took me to the Sheraton. Shortly after I checked in, we ran into Frank Stams. It was rather late, and Frank explained that Coach Holtz had let the players stay up until 1AM, so that they could ring in the new year with their families. Frank was wearing a fancy Fiesta Bowl yellow and white warmup jacket, and he had some lipstick near the collar. My dad asked him about it, and he said that it was from his mother kissing him. My dad and Phil laughed about that, because I don’t think they believed Frank!

When I checked in to the hotel, I was directed to a meeting room, where I received a giant bag of swag from all of the athletic department vendors. Adidas, our official shoe provider, gave the warmup suit, a hat, and a T-shirt. Champion, our official apparel provider, gave us a sweatshirt, windbreaker and more T-shirts. The Fiesta Bowl gave us a gold watch. Each vendor/provider gave us something in the gift bag. It was like another Christmas day! Everything was emblazoned with the Fiesta Bowl logo. And whenever I (or anyone linked to the team) wore the clothing in the hotel, little kids would come up and ask for autographs, even though they did not know who I was. I was getting treated like a rock star! That was the one and only time in my life that I have ever signed autographs.

The team members, especially the most recognizable captains and stars, faced swarms of fans at the hotel day after day. It is quite commendable that Coach Holtz and the staff kept them level-headed and focused on the game. But once again, just as he had before the USC game, he reminded them that the goal was so close, and the only way to realize it was to stay focused and concentrate on the game plan for West Virginia. I didn’t go to any of the practices, but I’m told we had a pretty good week of practice in Phoenix. The players were not anxious. They just went about their business.

West Virginia had a very good football team in 1988. While many Notre Dame games were close, the Mountaineers had blown out most of their opponents. They beat all eleven opponents by ten or more points, and only the Rutgers and Virginia Tech games had been decided by less than 13 points. Moreover, they had handled our common opponents, Pittsburgh and Penn State, more easily than Notre Dame had. Coach Don Nehlen probably didn’t have as much talent on his team as the Irish had, but he had utilized it very effectively. Quarterback Major Harris could really make things happen.

Reggie Rembert, Harris favorite receiver, was tall slim and fast, the kind of guy who could frustrate a secondary. On defense, the Mountaineers featured linebacker Renaldo Turnbull and defensive back Bo Orlando. While many of my friends back in Canton were pulling for the Irish because of Dean Brown, some of the old timers were supporting West Virginia, because Don Nehlen had coached at McKinley in 1964.

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Mark Byrne, my closest friend among the managers, was my roommate on the trip.

Because New Years Day fell on a Sunday, when the NFL games were played, the Fiesta Bowl was not held until Monday night, so we had all day Sunday to relax. We lounged with the cheerleaders at the hotel pool. We played on the tennis courts. We had a great time in Phoenix, running around the hotel and Sun Devil Stadium, site of the game.

Meanwhile, my dad and Phil were having a nice time themselves. When I called on Sunday to see what they were up to, Phil’s wife Mary said “I don’t think they ever went to sleep last night.” Visits with Phil were like that. He moved to Arizona after his retirement, and he seemed to know everyone in Canton and New Philadelphia. Phil and Mary were indirectly responsible for my parents’ courtship. Phil knew my dad’s side of the family, while Mary knew my mom’s side. Mary’s brother was a football coach, and he used to hold a practice in Roswell near my mother’s home. Mary and Phil somehow made sure that dad and mom were in the same place at the same time, then my dad took over from there. Early in their romance, Dad told Mom that he would marry her one day.

Sure enough, he did. With so many memories to revisit, it’s no surprise that Phil and my dad stayed up all night. Dad managed to get some rest on Sunday, and he was ready to go on game night.

When we awoke Monday morning, the weather was threatening to drizzle. It was cooler than we would have thought, but still quite pleasant. Dad, Mark and I beat the crowds and arrived at the Arizona State sports complex very early. Sun Devil Stadium is situated on a hill, but all of our seats were in the lower level. Mark and I were together on the left side of the Notre Dame Band, and my father was in an aisle seat on the right side of them.

After being in the middle of all the action for the entire season, it was a somewhat awkward experience to watch the game from the stands. Mark and I had to assimilate ourselves back into spectators. Up there we could shout, we could show emotion, we could give high fives after every play if we wanted to. As managers on the sidelines we really weren’t able to do that, we had to keep things quiet and to ourselves. When people watch a game with me today, they find it strange that I remain so quiet. Don’t worry, I tell them, inside I am shouting!

It seemed like a long wait Monday morning, but 3PM finally arrived and Billy Hackett kicked off to start the game. Major Harris and West Virginia went three-and-out in their first possession, then Notre Dame executed a slow steady drive, highlighted by a 31-yard run by Tony Rice. Hackett kicked a 45-yard field goal to put ND up 3-0.

On their next series, West Virginia went three and out again. After their punt, Tony Rice hit Derek Brown with a beautiful pass for 25 yards. The Irish drove into the red zone, and on a fourth and inches at the goal line, fullback Anthony Johnson scored. Halfway through the first quarter, the Irish were up 9-0.

On their third possession, once again West Virginia ran three plays and failed to get a first down. But their punt pinned the Irish deep in their own territory. Notre Dame went

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three and out, and West Virginia took over at their own 45 yard line. But once again the Mountaineers offense could not get a first down.

At the start of the second quarter, Tony Rice led the Irish on an eleven play, 84 yard scoring drive. The key play was a 40-yard pass to Derek Brown, who was tackled at the four yard line. On the next play, freshman Rodney Culver ran it in for the touchdown.

Notre Dame 16-0.

The Irish defense had silenced Major Harris early, but after Culver’s touchdown, Harris finally got things going for the Mountaineers. He strung a couple first downs together and drove deep into the red zone. He actually threw a touchdown pass, but the officials ruled that he had already crossed the line of scrimmage, so West Virginia settled for a field goal. Notre Dame 16, West Virginia 3.

After the kickoff, Tony Rice engineered an eight play, 63 yard scoring drive, which culminated in a touchdown pass to Rocket Ismail. All year long, Tony Rice had been such an outstanding running quarterback, especially with the Triple Option 18 Right, his bread and butter play. But in The Fiesta Bowl, Rice was passing the ball with precision.

Trailing 23-3, Major Harris went into a two-minute drill and drove his team downfield/ He completed several passes, and Don Nehlen considered going for the endzone on fourth down at the end of the half. He ultimately decided to kick another field goal, so the teams went into the locker room with Notre Dame up 23-6, thirty minutes from a Fiesta Bowl victory.

At halftime I ran over and visited with my dad. It was very loud for him to watch the game with the band right next to him playing after every first down and before almost every defensive play. But in Sun Devil Stadium that afternoon, my dad was all smiles.

On the first possession of the second half, Notre Dame was stopped at midfield, but on West Virginia’s possession, Pat Terrell intercepted a Major Harris pass. A few plays later, Tony Rice hit Mark Green for a 35-yard pass, and Reggie Ho kicked a field goal to make it 26-6.

Later that night, we would learn that on the third play of the game, the ferocious pass rush of Frank Stams, Jeff Alm and Mike Stonebreaker had separated Major Harris’ shoulder. In the second half he was visibly in pain, favoring that shoulder when he walked. However, Harris never quit, for he performed valiantly throughout the day.

After Reggie Ho’s field goal, Harris led a scoring drive, throwing to Grantis Bell for a 17-yard touchdown. Notre Dame led 26-13, but the Mountaineers were mounting a comeback.

Immediately after the next kickoff, Tony Rice threw an interception over the middle, and West Virginia took over at the Notre Dame 25 yard line. Despite their outstanding first half, the Irish had given West Virginia a golden opportunity. If Major Harris could

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punch it in from the 25, his team would be within a touchdown. This drive was the most critical series of the entire game.

First down, Harris dropped to pass, scrambled, and was tackled for a two yard loss. On second down, Harris again was hurried out of the pocket, but he found an open receiver in the endzone, only to have the play broken up by Stan Smagala. On third down, in what would become the signature play of the game, Harris dropped back to pass, and was sacked for a twelve yard loss by Frank Stams from the left and Arnold Ale from the right.

With 1:12 to play in the third quarter, Stams and Ale had essentially decided the game.

If Stams and Ale put the nails in the coffin, Tony Rice hammered them in on the next drive, connecting on a pass to Ricky Watters in the open field. It is important to note that after their incident at USC, Watters and Tony Brooks redeemed themselves in Tempe.

Rick and Tony both played a great game. A few plays after Watters’ long pass and run, Rice ran play action from the two yard-line and hit tight end Frank Jacobs in the endzone.

West Virginia played hard until the end, but after Jacobs’ touchdown, Mark and I were mostly watching the clock and counting down to the celebration. Reggie Rembert scored on an end around with one minute to play, and made a great catch to add the two point conversion, then Kent Graham ran out the clock to complete the 34-21 victory.

By the end of the game Mark and I had made our way to the field. The first guy I looked for was Frank Stams. I gave him a big hug and congratulated him on a great season and a national championship. The celebration started on the field, carried over to the locker room, and continued back at the hotel until the wee hours of the morning. At some point, I remember that Mark Byrne and I had a private moment, and he said, “August 2 until January 2, five of the greatest months of our life, ending with a national championship.”

My cousin Greg Massarelli was in town for the game, and he and his friends partied with us in one of the bars back at the hotel. Coach John Palermo was in the hotel lounge with us, and as we sipped Champagne he told me, “You’re gonna get a really big ring!” After a team banquet held on St. Patrick’s Day 1989, I did get that ring.

Lou Holtz said that Notre Dame was the best team in 1988 because nobody proved otherwise. They had beaten Miami, USC and West Virginia, all ranked in the top four at the time of the game. If there had been a rematch or a playoff, who knows what might have happened, because those teams were strong and the Irish might not have been so lucky the second time around. But there were no rematches, there was no playoff, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were National Champions for 1988. ♦♦♦

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Major Harris played one season in the Canadian Football League for the British Columbia Lions. In 2009 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He is currently an assistant coach at North Hills High School in Pittsburgh.

Don Nehlen retired from coaching in 2000. In 21 years at West Virginia, he compiled a 149-93-4 record, and his overall coaching record was 202-128-8. In 2002 he received The Distinguished West Virginian award, and in 2005 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He is now a spokesman for the coal industry.

Reggie Rembert was drafted by the New York Jets in the second round of the 1990 Draft.

He played three NFL seasons for the Jets and Cincinnati Bengals. ♦♦♦

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1988 National Champions – Where are they now?

Lou Holtz is a commentator for ESPN. Barry Alvarez is athletic director at the University of Wisconsin. He served as head coach at Wisconsin from 1990 to 2005, compiling a record of 118-73-4 including three Rose Bowl victories.

George Stewart is an assistant coach for the Minnesota Vikings. He has been an assistant coach in the NFL for twenty years.

John Palermo is currently the defensive line coach for the University of Pittsburgh. He was a key member of Barry Alvarez’s coaching staff at Wisconsin. 2014 will be his fortieth year of coaching football.

George Kelly served the University of Notre Dame as a coach and administrator for thirty-four years. He developed thirteen linebackers who went on to play professional football. He died in 2003 at age 75.

Joe Moore died in 2005. In 2006 he was posthumously presented the American Football Coaches Association Outstanding Achievement Award. He is considered one of the greatest offensive line coaches.

Vinny Cerrato is the Executive Vice President for football operations for the Washington Redskins.

Chuck Heater is the defensive coordinator at Marshall University.

Jay Hayes is the defensive line coach for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Tony Rice lives close to the Notre Dame campus. He makes regular public appearances for Killir Sports.

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Dean Brown passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in November 2012. He was Principal of the Nexus Academy in Cleveland. For many years he had served as Dean of Students at the Friendship Edison Collegiate Academy in Washington DC. Chris Zorich played seven years for the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins. After his NFL retirement, he completed Law School at Notre Dame. Through his Christopher Zorich Foundation, he is an active philanthropist in Chicago. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2007 Frank Stams is a businessman in Ohio. He ran for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (with running mate Bryan Flannery) in 2006.

Wes Pritchett is a financial advisor in Atlanta.

Mike Stonebreaker owns a coffee distribution business in Louisiana.

John Foley is a financial services professional in Chicago.

Corny Southall is an agent in the US Secret Service, assigned to the Presidential Protective Division.

George Streeter is a financial advisor and wellness coach in San Francisco.

Pat Terrell played nine seasons for the Rams, Jets, Panthers and Packers. He is now retired and frequently attends games on campus.

Ricky Watters played ten NFL seasons, for the Eagles, Seahawks, and 49ers, with whom he won Super Bowl XXIX. He is now a motivational speaker and works tirelessly as an advocate for foster children.

Raghib Ismail skipped the 1991 NFL Draft and signed with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. He played two CFL seasons, then moved to the NFL where he played ten years for the Raiders, Panthers and Cowboys. He currently is a television commentator in Dallas.

Derek Brown played for four teams over nine NFL seasons.

Rod West is CEO of Entergy Corporation in New Orleans.

Doug DiOrio MD practices family and sports medicine in Columbus, Ohio.

Reggie Ho MD is a cardiologist. He teaches and works at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Bryan Flannery is a government official in Ohio. He ran for governor of Ohio in 2006.

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Tim Grunhard played eleven seasons and 169 games for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Stan Smagala operates a business in suburban Chicago.

Steve Belles is a high school football coach in Arizona.

Arnold Ale transferred to UCLA after the 1988 season. An undrafted free agent, he played in nine games over two NFL seasons.

Senior managers Mike Greene, Shawn Patrick and Peter Witty are attorneys at law.

Mark Byrne is a corporate controller in New Jersey.

Greg Leininger works in industrial sales and coaches youth sports in Pittsburgh.

Tom Nevala is Associate Athletic Director at Notre Dame.

Jeff Alm played four seasons for the Houston Oilers. He died in 1993 after a car accident.

Rodney Culver played four NFL seasons for the San Diego Chargers. He played in Super Bowl XXIX. He died in a plane crash in the Florida Everglades in 1996.

Bob Satterfield died suddenly at Notre Dame in 1989. ♦♦♦

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Tony Rice’s three Sports Illustrated covers

Game Program

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XVII. NOTRE DAME vs. KENT STATE 1990 I entered my senior year at Notre Dame with three main goals: I wanted to earn enough course credits to graduate, to find a job for life after graduation, and to make my mark on Ric Schafer’s hockey program. Of course I also wanted to have fun too. But fun was almost a given, for the first three years at Notre Dame had been so exciting and enjoyable I almost took it for granted that my senior year would be fun too.

Graduation in May was imminent. I needed fifteen credits in each of my senior semesters to reach the magic number of 120. I had completed all of the required courses in my major, mathematics, and I had only one core course that I was required to take, a second semester of philosophy. (All Notre Dame students must take two units of theology and two units of philosophy.) So most of the classes I took as a senior at Notre Dame were entirely my choice. While I had focused on very technical coursework in my first three years, my senior year electives were broad-based, including art history, international relations, business law, and American History after World War II. While my coursework was under control, I was anxious and intimidated by the idea of conducting a job search. During my summers I had been a tennis instructor in the public parks in Canton. Before that I had worked as a stockboy in a grocery store. After such carefree summer jobs, I suddenly found myself as a senior in the university career center, thinking about resumes, wingtips, and pinstripe suits. I was as much of a greenhorn as any company could ever hire. As a prospective hire that year, I was selling companies my potential. The main evidence of my work ethic were my academic record and my service to the Athletic Department as a student manager.

Hockey practice did not start until October. Over the summer I wrote to each of the returning team members, telling them that I was excited to be serving as hockey manager for the upcoming season. (This was before e-mail.) Before I had left campus for summer, I took an inventory of all our equipment, and presented a report to Coach

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Schafer. I also gave him attendance reports for the dry-land workouts. I was ready for practice to begin, but I would not have much to do until the sheet of ice was put down.

In 1989, Notre Dame Hockey was a program on the rebound. In 1968 Charles “Lefty” Smith had built a fine program that achieved national acclaim very quickly, but the athletic department gradually reduced the allocation of resources to hockey and in 1983 hockey was relegated for one year to club status. Coach Smith retired after the 1986-87 season, and Ric Schafer, a 1974 Notre Dame graduate and Smith protégé who had built a fine program at Alaska-Fairbanks, returned to his alma mater.

Throughout his entire tenure at Notre Dame, Coach Schafer had to endure the budgetary woes imposed on his program by the athletic department. The late 1980s were halcyon days for Title IX compliance, and athletic departments everywhere struggled to make sure that there was equity between varsity athletic offerings for males and females.

Hockey was not isolated, all programs except football and basketball were impacted. Our wrestling program had been eliminated altogether.

Most of his players received partial grants-in-aid, but Coach Schafer wanted the athletic department to fund ice hockey with the full allotment of scholarships. He tried to show the athletic department that he could be financially disciplined and keep costs down, in hopes that the administration would reward the program with full funding. The financial diligence of coach may have been popular in the offices upstairs, but in the locker room it was met with complaints and low morale. I think that the players always had the equipment, tape and supplies that they needed, but relative to other sports at Notre Dame and other hockey programs, we were a no-frills operation. After operating for three years in the spare-no-expense world of football, the no-frills approach was a challenge for me. Whenever I would leave printed correspondence on his desk for signature, coach would often come running to the equipment room. “Tony!” he would say “You have access to a laser printer?” I would explain that the university library had about twenty of them that any student could use them for printing. I wasn’t costing the program any extra money, and if I was responsible for delivering the report, I wanted to make sure that the report looked good.

In his first year, Schafer’s Irish were 27-4-2, but in his second season, the team struggled to a 10-26-2 record. During that dismal 1988-89 season, goaltender Lance Madson recorded 1288 saves, a record that still stands. In front of Lance, nearly every position on the 1989 squad looked to be an improvement on the previous year. Dan Sawyer, a strong defenseman who had been drafted by the Calgary Flames, was our top incoming freshman. Our defense would consist of Sawyer and veteran players Mike Leherr, Kevin Markovitz and Kevin Patrick. Scoring goals for the Irish would be team captain Tim Kuehl, Bruce Guay and Sophomores David Bankoske, Michael Curry and Lou Zadra. My season at the rink looked very promising.

Our schedule was front-loaded with home games, with nine of our first twelve contests on the home ice of the Joyce Center. (The south dome of the Joyce Center is the

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basketball arena, and the north dome held the ice rink and a multipurpose floor.) We performed very well in those games, going 10-4 before final exams. We had a short break for Christmas, but December 27 we embarked on a seventeen-day eight game road trip. During those seventeen days, Schafer was Coach, but I was Dad. Each morning I would wake up the players, give them the schedule for the day, tell them when to arrive, and what to wear. If an airplane bus hotel or any public appearance was involved, coat and tie was de riguer. While I would explain the dress code to the freshmen, the captains would enforce it. A few freshmen were occasionally sent back for dress pants, a belt or a tie, but nobody ever missed a bus or a flight.

We started our holiday tour in Milwaukee, for the greatest event we played in all year, the Bank One Badger Hockey Showdown. We played Wisconsin and Boston College, two of the best teams in the country. The Bradley Center was a sea of red as the Badgers put nine goals on us. New Year’s Eve, we flew to Colorado to play the Air Force Academy.

We matched up well with the Falcons, but the second night we lost a tight game, so the players left Colorado with a bad taste in their mouths. From Colorado we flew to Tucson. I didn’t know that they played hockey at the University of Arizona (this was long before the Coyotes were an NHL franchise in Phoenix) but there were many Canadian imports and some great hockey fans in Tucson. The final leg of our road trip was a stop in Kent, Ohio, just forty-five minutes from my hometown.

At Kent State, I roomed with John Whitmer, our athletic trainer. “Big John” as everybody called him, had been at Notre Dame since 1969, for all but one year of the Notre Dame hockey program’s existence. John was big and could be intimidating to the uninitiated, but he was one of the greatest people I met at Notre Dame. During a game, John would write in a little book he kept in his pocket, quick notes like “Zadra ankle” or “Patrick lower back.” A few days later, when Zadra or Patrick walked into the training room, they would find that John had everything ready to treat their ailments.

John was about the same age as my father, and we had roomed together at other times during the long road trip. John enjoyed a mixed drink after a flight or bus ride, so when we walked into the hotel room at Kent, John said “Where’s my jug?” I laughed and said “John you probably won’t believe this, but my father says that same thing!” I don’t remember if he wanted bourbon or vodka, but I knew my father could bring some to him.

When my dad joined us that afternoon, he made sure that John had the jug of his choice.

I was very excited to have a game so close to my hometown. My parents were there, along with my mom’s sister Pauline and her husband Glen, whom we called “Uncle Smitty.” My sister Lori and her husband Kevin brought their family, my nephews Joshua and Kyle and my niece Kara. The next night I think Uncle Stan and Aunt Ruby came.

Uncle Anthony was there too, he never missed a chance to cheer on the Irish. Each of our opponents provided complimentary tickets for the visiting team, and that weekend at Kent I think most of our allotment went to my family!

As team manager I played several administrative roles, ordering food, distributing per diem, filing expense reports, and so on. I also had a number of tasks to perform before

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during and after each hockey game. On game day, I was the first one to arrive at the locker room, to set up all of the game jerseys and shells (pants), distribute tape for sticks, make sure the pucks were frozen, and set up the skate sharpener. Once the team went out on the ice, I kept the keys to the locker room, and stocked oranges or bananas for the players in between periods. After the second intermission, I would stay in the locker room and make sure all of the equipment was packed and ready for a quick departure after the game. Those tasks were important and necessary, but it was my role during the games that made the job exciting.

When a hockey team makes line changes, the incoming players go over the boards, and the exiting players use the door. During our games, I stood at the blue line and opened the door for players who were coming off the ice. A consequence of this role was that along with coach Schafer, Big John, and assistant coach Tom Carroll, I was exposed in the player bench area. The players had headgear and mouth guards. The four of us had nothing. We were vulnerable to the rapidly moving puck.

Knowing that I would be exposed at the blue line, I had separate conversations before the season with my dad, Coach Schafer and Big John. If the puck came toward the bench, I was going to have to duck quickly or put my hands and forearms in front of my face.

Fortunately, the reserve goalie would often be positioned to my immediate left. When I talked with Coach, we discussed the scenario by which I would be at greatest risk of being hit by a puck. If a defensemen were ever to take a long slap shot from behind the blue line, and if – immediately before taking the shot – he was hit from the proper angle, his body would turn toward the bench, the stick (already moving forward) would instinctively come through to complete the shot. The puck would be headed in my direction.

In our first contest with Kent State, halfway through the first period, the scenario happened exactly as Coach Schafer and I had envisioned it. One of their defensemen had his stick back to take a shot when one of our guys clobbered him from the left side. I had my eyes on the shooter the entire time, and as soon as I could read the “Kent State” on his jersey, I started to bring my hands up. My efforts were futile, the puck was coming right for me. I didn’t get my hands above my chest when I heard the sound of rubber hitting leather. Michael Russo, our reserve goalie, had put his arm in front of my face and blocked the shot with his left arm and caught the puck in his glove. When I looked at his blocker, the ice was still dripping down the leather!

My family members witnessed the entire play, and I’m sure it gave them a scare. In between periods, my brother-in-law Kevin asked me if he needed to go get me a clean pair of underwear. I could smile by that point, but my heart was still racing!

The rest of the game went well. We won 3-2 that night, but the next night Kent State won 4-1. Instead of returning to campus on the team bus, I went to Canton for a few hours and drove back to South Bend the next day with my dad. I was thankful that Coach Schafer had let me do that. After being away from my family for most of the holidays, those few hours at home and in the car gave us a nice chance to visit.

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Mom and Dad were back on campus two weeks later, when Coach Schafer hosted the families for Hockey Parents weekend. Saturday night before we played Army, the parents of each player were introduced to the crowd and took a picture on the ice. Coach Schafer treated my family the same way he treated all of the other parents. I was so happy that Mom and Dad came that weekend, because before and after the games, I was able to relax with them and we could enjoy time together as a family, without having to worry much about my classes, my job search, or the next game. ♦♦♦ In between hockey games, I spent most of my time attending class, studying at the Hesburgh Library, or relaxing in my dorm. I lived in Grace Hall all four years, and I share a bond with the five hundred men who lived there with me. I had several different sets of roommates, but the four men whom I lived with most commonly were Chris Horton, Paul DeMieri, Bob Mitchell and Paul Brauweiler. They were great roommates, and we had some wonderful times in the dorm. Each of us made our mark on Notre Dame in different ways. Chris participated in the Arts and Letters honors program and studied abroad for one semester. Paul DeMieri was active in Navy ROTC and was a key player on the men’s volleyball club. Bob Mitchell was a writer for our student newspaper, The Observer. And Paul Brauweiler was a disc jockey at WVFI, the voice of the Fighting Irish, our campus radio station.

Our extracurricular activities provided a diversion from the classroom, and a chance to think about something other than what we’d be doing next year. Bob was one year behind us, so he had another year at Notre Dame. The rest of us had to either get into graduate school or find a job. Chris, Paul Brauweiler and I started interviewing early in the year and continued through the winter. Paul DeMieri applied to medical school, and that process was every bit as complicated as our job search.

The Department of Accounting at Notre Dame is highly regarded, so Paul Brauweiler had no trouble securing a job in his major. He was the first of our group to receive an offer.

Chris and I also interviewed with accounting firms, or at least their consulting divisions of accounting firms. Chris received a job offer over the winter break from Andersen Consulting for a position in Chicago. Around that same time, Andersen informed me that they were not interested in my services.

I interviewed with more than fifteen firms for jobs in actuarial science, computer science, and information technology. Early in the process I noticed that the interviewers were most interested in two topics: my proficiency in computer programming and Notre Dame football. I loved talking about football, but I equally loved discussing how I might contribute to the future of information technology as a computer programmer. In the late 1980s disk space and processing speed were limiting factors, but then as now, businesses collected a lot of information about their customers, and they wanted to figure out how to use that data to make better decisions for their customers and their shareholders.

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While most of my job interviews were followed up by concise “Thank you. We’re sorry.

Good luck” rejection letters, I made office visits for three different IT jobs. I drove to a small town in Illinois for an IT job with an insurance company. I flew to New York for an internal IT position (housed in the South Tower of the World Trade Center) with a major brokerage firm. And I flew to Washington DC for a management consulting position with the government services division of Price Waterhouse. Over Spring Break, while my dad and I were at Dianne’s apartment in San Francisco, Price Waterhouse made an offer, which I accepted. The job and company name has evolved, but I remain employed in the same capacity today.

I was so happy to return from Spring Break with a job offer in my pocket. My roommates from Notre Dame congratulated me, and we celebrated the promise of our future. We now live in different parts of the country, but the guys are all very successful today. Chris still works in information technology. Paul Brauweiler and Bob Mitchell work in Financial Services. Dr. Paul DeMieri is a physician with the Navy. They are great people whom I am lucky to call my friends. ♦♦♦ We played 33 hockey games that season, finishing 18-15. At the season ending banquet Coach Schafer presented the team MVP award to our goaltender Lance Madson, and he gave great praise to our team’s six graduating seniors. I was waiting for someone to correct him that there were only five seniors, but he was speaking so quickly he called out the names, “Bruce Guay, Tim Kuehl Mike Leherr, Lance Madson, Kevin Markovitz, and Tony Talarico!” I was touched by his comments, because they were an affirmation that I had succeeded in contributing to the hockey program at Notre Dame.

The hockey players and I had a decent season, and we made some great memories along the way. I fondly recall team mass in tiny hotel rooms, a visit to the old Sonora Mission near Tucson, extreme cold in Saint Cloud, and nightlife in Milwaukee. But that play at Kent State is the most personal memory that I keep from my time as Hockey Manager. If I had been hit, I might have broken my jaw, or injured my skull. By protecting me, Michael Russo had earned his wings for heaven. Unfortunately, he needed those wings much sooner than he should have. Over the following summer, Michael was in a car accident and sustained injuries from which he never recovered. I cried that summer day when I learned of Michael’s death, but I was already numb from a more personal loss that had occurred a few months earlier. ♦♦♦ On the final Monday of that Spring semester, I sat down at the library to prepare for my final exams. The second floor of the Hesburgh Library was my usually favorite place to study on campus, but that night something just wasn’t working, so I returned to Grace Hall after about one hour. I hadn’t been in the room long when the phone rang. It was my sister Dianne.

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“Dad fell.” Dianne said. She was crying. “He’s in the hospital.” She had already spoken to Mom and Lori, who had told her to call me. My father had suffered a heart attack and fallen down a set of concrete steps, and he was admitted as a trauma patient at Timken Mercy Medical Center. The situation was grave. Dianne and I should both return home as soon as possible.

I could have driven home, but it was already 7 or 8PM, and nobody wanted me driving through the night in the nervous state that I was naturally in. So we started calling the airlines. Dianne would fly a red-eye from San Francisco to Chicago. I would fly from South Bend and meet her at O’Hare and we would catch a connecting flight to Canton together. After setting the flight arrangements, I talked with Lori and Mom, who told me later that they tried bravely to make it through that phone call without weeping to me that Dad was fighting for his life.

My flight was not until 6AM. I was so nervous, so anxious, so in the dark about what was going on at the hospital in Canton that I didn’t sleep much. I spent most of that night at the Grotto, praying. It was a fairly warm Spring night but my entire body was shaking as I sat there and tried to comprehend what was going on. I remember being thankful that Dianne had reached me directly, because I would never have wanted one of my friends to have to deliver that news. I shuffled between the Grotto and Grace Hall for most of that night, and as each of them learned the news, my roommates were strong and supported me while we passed the hours before my flight.

When Kevin picked us up at the airport the next morning, we were throwing questions at him a mile a minute. He just said “You have to see him for yourself” and he quickly drove us toward the hospital. Kevin had been right. When we walked into the room the sight was more horrific than anything that I could have ever imagined. My father was in the center of a bed, surrounded by all of the heart monitors that accompany heart attack patients, and all of brain monitors that accompany trauma patients. But the most imposing machine in the room was a breathing machine, which pumped air into my father’s lungs.

Lori, Kevin, Dianne, Mom and I set up camp in a waiting room near my father’s bed.

One of us was always there, and more often than not we were all there. Mom and Lori had been brave on the telephone, but once we were together there was no more inhibition and no more pretense. We wept openly, together and alone. When visitors came we wept with them. I wept most when I heard Aunt Mae Chambers, who raised my father, stand by his bedside and call to him “Junior, Wake up!” At times his body showed reaction to our pleas, and he would squeeze a hand, but after years of hard drinking and heavy smoking, the combination of the heart attack and fall were too much for him to overcome. We prayed for a miracle. The Sisters of Charity of Saint Augustine, led by Sister Mary-Bernard, ran a support operation at Timken-Mercy and they were often by our side. We prayed for an end to his suffering. We prayed for peace.

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Dad fell on Monday afternoon. Dianne and I arrived on Tuesday morning. The doctors ran tests until Thursday, then they told us that there was really nothing more that could be done. A fighter until the end, Dad hung on until Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon Michael Wander and I sat in the basement of my parents’ house, in a room that my father had recently decorated with Notre Dame memorabilia. All week long, Michael had planned to drive up on Saturday morning. When he got to Canton his mother gave him the news. Michael was with me for a few hours that day, and we were able to sit in my Dad’s space and grieve together. My dad had loved Michael because he wasn’t afraid to talk with him, but that day I don’t remember what Michael and I talked about, or if we even said anything at all. But I can tell you that Michael bravely stood by my side and supported me through the most difficult day of my life. I can’t ever express enough gratitude to him for doing that.

Earlier that day, when we were leaving the funeral home after scheduling the funeral and calling hours and working through all of those details, Dianne took me aside and told me “You know, people will start coming to the house.” She was preparing me, but she understated the truth. We had visitors day and night for the next twelve days. People brought food. People sent flowers and plants and prayers and masses. That outpouring of love and support helped my family get through the entire ordeal.

After the funeral I had to return to campus to complete my final exams and collect my degree. I scheduled make-up exams in History and Art History, and took the others at their regularly scheduled times. I did not do very well on any of the exams, but I passed every course and earned the right to graduate.

I had such an empty feeling in my heart at the time that I thought it would be silly to attend graduation and celebrate with my friends as if nothing had just happened.

Fortunately, Dianne convinced me that graduation was a reward for the whole family, and that if I skipped it I would be dishonoring Dad and penalizing Mom. I also needed the closure and the chance to say farewell to my classmates and friends. So just two weeks after my father died, Mom was back in the Joyce Center watching me graduate.

Dianne came, and two of her college roommates, Kris Bergman and Mara Tolhurst drove from Ohio to celebrate with us. Aunt Mae, Aunt Joanne and Aunt Pauline came to support my mother and me. My godmother Betty Sobiski also came in for the event, with her daughter Christine and her grandson Jason. Just as they had done at the funeral, our friends and family once again surrounded us with support and love.

Our commencement speaker poignantly mentioned that while the graduates and their parents had been dreaming of this day together for many years, this was probably the point where the parents had stopped envisioning their child’s future. The parents planned on the child going to college, but what he or she does from this day forward is entirely up to him or her. It hit home with me completely. I was certain that my dad was proud of me for graduating. I also thought that the speaker was right, and Dad had probably not envisioned my life after my graduation from Notre Dame. But I was really hurting that he was not there to enjoy that day with us, or any of the days that would follow.

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♦♦♦ Ric Schafer coached hockey for 15 years, and compiled a record of 211-234-18. He was Director of Athletics at Indiana University-South Bend until 2001. He now works in financial services in Minneapolis, as a specialist in Long Term Care for adults.

John Whitmer worked at Notre Dame for more than 30 years. In 2001, he was elected to the Indiana Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame. He made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1993 movie Rudy.

Tom Carroll is the head hockey coach at New England College in New Hampshire.

The new rink at the Compton Family Ice Arena at Notre Dame was named for Charles “Lefty” Smith. Coach Smith, Coach Schafer, Coach Carroll and John Whitmer reunited in April 2008, when new coach Jeff Jackson led Notre Dame to the NCAA Frozen Four, beating Michigan in the Semifinals before losing in the national championship game.

Bruce Guay MD is a general practitioner in Naperville, Illinois.

Lance Madson still holds the Notre Dame goaltending records with 3519 career saves, and 1288 saves in a single season in 1988-89. ♦♦♦

Bruce Guay

Lance Madson

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Michael Russo

Ric Schafer

Hockey Parents’ Weekend

Joyce Center Ice Rink 109

XVIII. NOTRE DAME vs. OHIO STATE 1995 & 1996 For the first few years after I graduated from Notre Dame, I did not travel to many games.

As a new hire at Price Waterhouse, I dedicated most of my effort in those years toward making an impression on the firm and contributing to my clients’ success. Price Waterhouse hired me on potential alone, but I was a sponge in those early years, learning as much about our business and our customers’ business as I possibly could. In 1991 I lived in Connecticut, where I built an automated budgeting system for the state government. After that project was completed, I was shipped off to Wyoming, where I helped build two systems for different state agencies, the Wyoming Departments of Revenue and Transportation.

It was quite difficult for a young man in his social and sexual prime to be sent to Wyoming, which had a great deal of land but very few people. I was quite fortunate to have been sent there with a team of young men and women, and we looked out for each other. Two people in particular made sure we were a comfortable team in Cheyenne. Amy DePetris spoke out for our travel privileges and expense allowances while we were working in Cheyenne. And Dave Graybeal planned numerous social gatherings and some formal trips to make our time there more enjoyable. The systems were quite challenging, for the taxpayer registration system relied on a then unproven optical character recognition technology, and the Transportation Financial system needed to be customized for the state’s requirements after the core team delivered a generic shell system. We bonded quite well as a team, and in the years since we left Wyoming the Cheyenne gang has really become, in addition to Michael Wander from Canton, the heart of my circle of adult friends.

Although I didn’t travel to many games in the early 1990’s, Notre Dame played in some very exciting contests during those years. There were two very close games with Penn State.

Michael Wander and his mother were on hand in 1990 in South Bend to witness the Nittany Lions kick a last second field goal to defeat the Irish. Two years later, the Irish got revenge when Rick Mirer connected with Reggie Brooks for a two-point conversion to secure a

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victory. While I watched from my Cheyenne apartment, Uncle Stan and Aunt Ruby were there to enjoy that game in person. In 1993 Mark and Ben Marchione, my cousins from Florida, traveled to Notre Dame to see the Irish beat their alma mater, Florida State, 31-24 in a game for the ages.

As the end of the twentieth century was drawing to a close, that 1993 Notre Dame – Florida State battle was one of many games that television talkers would over-hype as “The Game of the Century.” One of the first times that they had used that term was in 1935, when Bill Shakespeare led the Irish past Ohio State 18-13.

When the series between Notre Dame and Ohio State was announced for 1995 in Columbus and 1996 in South Bend, the excitement began to build for a rematch between two fine schools that had not played in over fifty years. Of course, the level of excitement was highest in and around the state of Ohio, for obvious reasons. First, the Buckeyes had lost that game in 1935, and the Buckeye fans would probably not have cared so much had the Irish fans not gloated about the victory ever since then. Second, putting aside the 1935 game, Notre Dame and Ohio State were both prominent schools which had very successful football programs, big fan bases and co-habitated in close proximity to one another. It has always made sense to me that Ohio State and Notre Dame should play a home-and-home series once every ten years. But it took the powers that be more than fifty years to make it happen, and as of this writing the Buckeyes do not appear on a future Irish schedule. So I looked at the two-game series as an extra-special pair of games, and my family and friends joined me in eagerly anticipating the matchup.

I was in my second year of graduate school that fall, in the full-time MBA program at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley. I flew in on Friday afternoon and I stayed in Columbus with Michael. Alan Abes drove up from Cincinnati on Saturday morning. He and Mike have season tickets together, and attend every Ohio State game. I was going to sit with my cousin Cindy Jones, whose husband Charlie has far-reaching and powerful connections throughout the world of sports in Ohio.

On football Saturdays, Alan and Mike head to campus very early, always arriving several hours before kickoff, and the Saturday of the Notre Dame game was no exception. I drove the three of us to campus in my rental car, and we headed to a nice pizza joint called Adriatico’s to grab some lunch and relax before the game. Of course, I use “relax” quite liberally, because we didn’t really relax, for we were too anxious about the game. I wanted nothing more than to arrive at Mike’s house after the game with my Irish having beaten their Buckeyes, and they wanted nothing more than to arrive at dinner with a solid home victory for their Buckeyes over my Irish. At 3:30 we would be spectators, and nothing would be done to ease our anxiety until that time, so we settled in at Adriatico’s for some lunch.

As soon as I walked into the place, I caught the attention of a nice gentleman who was working in the restaurant. When he saw my blue shirt and hat, all emblazoned with the interlocking “ND” he noticed Alan and Mike behind me (dressed in scarlet and gray) and he said “Oh Notre Dame, well even though it doesn’t appear that you have any class yourself, I see that your friends have class, so come on in and enjoy your lunch!” Of course the entire

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time he was saying this he was grinning from ear to ear. We had some good laughs in there before the game. Of course we ate well and drank some sodas. After a few sodas, I got up to go to the restroom, and the same man who greeted me at the door said “Oh No! Notre Dame you’ve got to pay…your friends can use the restroom for free, but you, you’ve got to pay!”

Again he was grinning from ear to ear, just having some fun at the expense of the only guy in the joint who got up that morning and dressed in blue. It was all in good fun, and we managed to pass the time before kickoff.

As for the matchup on the field, the Buckeyes had some offensive firepower, featuring quarterback Bobby Hoying, running back Eddie George, tight end Rickey Dudley, and wide receiver Terry Glenn. While the Irish featured quarterback Ron Powlus and linebacker Bert Berry. Entering the game Ohio State was 3-0, and the Irish were 3-1, having won three straight games after an embarrassing opening day loss to Northwestern. Going into the game, each team’s offense was fairly established, but question marks remained about each squad’s defense. For this matchup to work in Notre Dame’s favor, Notre Dame would have to control the time of possession, capitalize on any Ohio State mistakes, and find a way to neutralize the Buckeyes’ speed, while Ohio State would have to turn over the football on offense and play reactive rather than aggressive defense.

I joined Cindy at our seats in the top row of B deck, under the overhang of C-deck, at around the goal line or in the corner of the endzone. I don’t remember much about the seats, except that the view of the field was unobstructed (I don’t know if we had any view of the giant endzone scoreboard.) Michael and Al were up on C-Deck on the other side of the field, and I don’t think I could see their seats from my seat. Cindy and I settled in for the game that we native Ohioans had so long awaited.

In the first half, Coach Holtz wanted to control the line of scrimmage by running the ball, and commit no turnovers. Each team had early drives which covered a lot of yards and consumed a lot of clock. Ohio State drove to the 2-yard line, and went for it on fourth down, but Hoying missed Rickey Dudley in the endzone. In their first half drives, Ohio State had open receivers downfield, but Hoying’s passes just were not connecting. I remember thinking that if they got their timing down later in the game, it was going to be difficult for the Irish.

Taking over from the 2, Notre Dame drove the length of the field. Those two drives consumed the entire first quarter. As the second quarter started, the Buckeyes defense held at the goal line, and Notre Dame settled for a field goal to take a 3-0 lead. The Irish held the Buckeyes on their next possession, then marched down the field for another score, highlighted by a Powlus pass to fullback Mark Edwards which covered 39 yards. Randy Kinder ran into the end zone from six yards out to make it Notre Dame 10, Ohio State 0.

The Buckeyes answered with a nice 80 yard drive of their own, capped by a ten yard touchdown pass to Terry Glenn. And on its next possession, Notre Dame posted another score, executing a 65-yard drive to the end zone, again with Kinder scoring on a run from seven yards out. The Buckeyes response came in the final minute of the half, when Hoying

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hit Dimitrious Stanley, who made a great catch in the corner of the end zone. Notre Dame led 17-14 at the midpoint.

The first half, and the second quarter in particular, had been a beautiful display of college football. The teams had executed six long drives down the field, four of which resulted in touchdowns. Neither team turned the ball over, or made bad mistakes or penalties. One team would punch, then the other team would counterpunch. Time of possession in the first half was nearly equal for both teams. The results on the scoreboard were nearly equal for both teams. The Notre Dame game plan was working pretty well. The second half of football looked very promising.

To start the third quarter, Notre Dame picked up where it left off, driving 76 yards to inside the 10, before settling for a field goal to go up 20-14. On their first drive of the half, the Buckeyes were stopped near midfield and were forced to punt. Just before the punt, Mike told me that he turned to Al and said “They’re kicking our ass.”

At that instant, things fell apart for Notre Dame.

Allen Rossum failed to handle the punt, giving the Buckeyes the ball inside the 20-yard line.

Within three plays, the Buckeyes scored a touchdown to go up 21-20. Notre Dame tried to answer back, but a long drive was thwarted when Powlus threw an interception deep in Ohio State territory. Shortly after the interception, Bob Hoying hit Terry Glenn for a long touchdown pass. And on the next possession, Powlus fumbled a center snap on his own 15yard line. Three big mistakes by Rossum and Powlus, and Ohio State turned each mistake into a touchdown. Over that stretch of 13 offensive plays, the Buckeyes added 28 points.

Game over. Ohio State closed with a 45-26 victory.

During the second half explosion, the Ohio State players piled up some great statistics: Eddie George rushed for 207 yards and two touchdowns; Terry Glenn had 128 yards receiving and two touchdowns; Rickey Dudley had only 35 yards receiving and one touchdown, but one image of him running right up the middle of the field sticks out in my mind.

As the victory bells rang in the background, I met with Michael and Alan after the game. I was very upset about the loss. Mike and Al were elated to have a victory, but that day they got to see the losing side up close too. When I drove home I was pounding on the steering wheel, spewing negative comments about the players and the fumbles, and all of the Buckeye points that followed. In all my days as a Notre Dame fan, I never wanted Notre Dame to win a game more than I wanted this one. (If there is a close second place in that regard, it’s the game that I wrote about in chapter XI.) I knew that Notre Dame would get another chance in 1996, but I really wanted my guys to go into Columbus and beat the Buckeyes.

The Irish finished 1995 ranked 13th in the final poll, with a 9-3 record and a loss to Florida State in the Orange Bowl. The Buckeyes finished 11-2, ranked 8th in the final poll, but were very disappointed after losing at Michigan and to Tennessee in the Florida Citrus Bowl to end the year.

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♦♦♦ The 1996 game was much more casual, much more fun, and much more enjoyable for me, because it was a Notre Dame home game. The intensity of the competition was much lower in 1996, because in between meetings, the two programs moved in entirely opposite directions. Ohio State entered 1996 as one of the top teams in the country. The Irish entered the game 3-0 with wins over Vanderbilt, Purdue and Texas, but I had little confidence that they would play well against the Buckeyes. The 1996 Irish were somewhat of a flat team that appeared to be defeated-in-spirit for most of the year.

I enjoyed all of the pregame rituals that are popular among fans and alumni during home football games. I visited the basilica and the grotto in the morning. Near my old dorm, I visited the tree that was planted in memory of my father. I went to the Joyce Center to hear the Glee Club perform, then walked upstairs and made sure that my name was still listed on the wall in the Monogram Room. I sat at my class table in the Joyce Center to see if any old classmates were also visiting.

I took many pictures before the game, something that I had not done during the game in Columbus. I have photos with Uncle Stan and his family at the grotto, with my cousin Charlie Jones, and with Michael Wander and his then-girlfriend (now wife) Julie Izzo. In the photos Charlie and Michael are both decked out in Buckeye colors, and I’m in my service dress blues. The colorful clashes are one of my favorite things about college football.

During the game I sat with Uncle Stan, in a very good seat at about the thirty-five yard line, part of the Monogram Club allotment of tickets. From the outset, this was not a very competitive game. The line of scrimmage was controlled by Orlando Pace, Ohio State’s dominant lineman. Pace dictated the terms of the game to the Notre Dame defense all day long. Offensively, Notre Dame had only 28 net rushing yards in the first half. At halftime Ohio State led 22-7.

The Irish did mount one comeback effort, when Autry Denson returned a punt for touchdown that would still have only put the Irish within 7 points of the Buckeyes. The return was nullified by a holding penalty. The foul was not a nickel-and-dime infraction that could have been overlooked by the official. Film showed that Ty Goode had grabbed the Ohio State player near the upper right shoulder and stretched the jersey to the lower left side near his belt, as if he were using the jersey like a sling shot.

The game was not nearly as close as the final score 29-16 might imply. Behind Orlando Pace, running back Pepe Pearson rushed for 173 yards. Quarterback Stanley Jackson was 9 of 15 passing for 154 yards and two touchdowns. For the Irish, Ron Powlus was 13 of 30 for 154 yards, with one touchdown and two interceptions.

Coach Holtz resigned in mid-November. There had been speculation all year – actually for more than a year – that he would resign or retire before surpassing Knute Rockne’s victories record at Notre Dame. And there had been turnover in the Athletic Administration, in which Coach Holtz’s longtime ally Dick Rosenthal was replaced by an ill-experienced and

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uncharismatic gentleman named Michael Wadsworth. Coach Holtz had always fought with the university admissions office, but those fights would be much harder without an athletic director who would have his back. So Coach Holtz stepped down in November, a week before his last home game. The Irish won the home send off against Rutgers, but lost the following week in Los Angeles, snapping a 13-game win streak over the Trojans in Coach Holtz’s final game at Notre Dame. All year long they had appeared to be defeated in spirit, but the defeat in the Coliseum was spiritual, physical and mental. Notre Dame finished 9-3, ranked 21st in the final poll, but did not play in a bowl game.

Ohio State finished the year ranked #2 after winning one of the great Rose Bowls in history over Jake Plummer and Arizona State. A lone home loss to Michigan cost the Buckeyes a claim to a national championship.

The two-game series was a lot of fun for football fans from Ohio. Notre Dame fans everywhere complain about the Irish football schedule and when asked what they would change, they always mention having a home-and-home series with an opponent closest to their hometown. It is impossible to schedule every fan’s dream matchup. Michael, Alan, Charlie, Uncle Stan and I were lucky to have the series between Notre Dame and Ohio State in 1995 and 1996. The games didn’t turn out the way that I wanted, but if the Buckeyes show up on the schedule again some year, we will get together and enjoy the games again. ♦♦♦ Lou Holtz is a commentator for ESPN. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. His overall head coaching record is 249-132-7, including a record of 10030-2 at Notre Dame.

Ron Powlus is currently the quarterbacks coach at the University of Kansas.

Allen Rossum played for six different teams in the NFL over twelve seasons.

Eddie George won the Heisman Trophy at the end of the 1995 season. He played nine seasons for the Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers) and the Dallas Cowboys. He was NFL Rookie of the Year in 1996, and was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2011. He is married to R&B recording artist Tamara “Taj” Johnson.

Orlando Pace won the Lombardi Award in 1995 and 1996 and the Outland Trophy in 1996.

He was the first overall selection of the St. Louis Rams in the 1997NFL Draft. He played for the Rams and Chicago Bears over thirteen NFL seasons.

Bob Hoying played six years in the NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders.

He is now a principal with Crawford Hoying Smith, a real estate management firm in Ohio. ♦♦♦

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Eddie George in 1995

Orlando Pace in 1996

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With Michael Wander at the Joyce Center

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With Charlie Jones

With my sisters in front of Dad’s tree. (This picture was taken in 2002.)

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XIX. KENTUCKY DERBY 123 In the Spring of 1997, ten months removed from graduate school at Berkeley, I was back at Price Waterhouse, working with Intel Corporation on a big project that they called Job96.

Intel was the world’s dominant manufacturer of silicon microprocessor chips, widely regarded as one of the most respected companies, and was a darling of Wall Street due to the robust performance of its stock. Working on such a project should have made me as happy as any new MBA could be. But I was miserable.

I had embarked on two years of study at Berkeley with the intention to switch directions in my career after graduation. I loved working at Price Waterhouse and serving our prized clients, but I was not happy in my pre-MBA work group, known as the Geneva group. Geneva evolved from the system implemented by the Wyoming project teams from 1990-93 into a generalized architecture for accounting and reporting that could be implemented not only at state and local governments but for any customer who faced high-volume reporting challenges.

In the early-to-mid 1990s disk space was getting cheaper and business systems were growing more sophisticated. Companies were collecting massive amounts of raw data, and needed strong systems to turn that data into informative reports that could educate their employees and drive business decisions. That’s how Geneva was introduced to Intel, as a reporting component of Job96, whose glitzier and far more glamorous component was SAP, an

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enterprise-wide integrated business application. I was the team lead for Geneva at Intel, tasked with developing 125 interfaces to move data from SAP to a reporting platform. The files would have to be built during rolling four-hour windows at the end of each geography’s business day. In a proclamation that I still find truly absurd, Intel’s management team tied the success of their entire Job96 project to the success of those 125 reporting interfaces! The project was a pressure-cooker, and I was stuck with the same people processes and technology that I had spent two years and about $100,000 trying to escape. All I could do was grind my teeth, make my weekly trips from San Francisco to Sacramento, and try to finish the Intel project as quickly as I could.

In the end, the project team was successful, and I finished the Intel project in May 1997.

(After Intel, my career took a favorable turn, and I was sent to Philadelphia to do some intense SAP research and development work. I have been closely involved with the functional (non-data-warehousing) side of SAP ever since.) To reward myself after the grueling project, I arranged a trip to the 123rd Kentucky Derby, to be run the first Saturday in May. I booked a red-eye flight to Cincinnati. Uncle Anthony met me at the airport, and we drove to Louisville for the races. On the drive down Anthony recalled his Army days, when he “went overseas” by crossing the Ohio River. The tickets I secured that year provided for two days of racing, Friday’s Kentucky Oaks (the Derby’s companion race for three-year old fillies) and Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.

We arrived in Louisville by 11AM on Friday, well before the first race. We were lucky to find parking at a catholic school just a few blocks from Churchill Downs. The citizens of Louisville are quite proud of their home and the Derby. As Anthony and I walked to the track, we encountered a clean city and friendly people. The city cleanup reminded me of the way Canton is revitalized each year for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Festival. We made our way through the turnstiles at Churchill Downs and soon we were seated in section 11 of the Infield Bleachers, near the 1/8th pole, directly facing the famous twin spires of the clubhouse.

While I would have preferred clubhouse seats, I was quite happy just to be at the Derby.

From the Infield Bleachers we had a great view of the racing action and we were in a prime spot to take pictures with the spires as our backdrop!

Along with the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Indianapolis 500, the Kentucky competes for a place in the country’s heart as the Greatest American sports event. On historical grounds the Derby stands alone. First run in 1875, there were twenty-eight Kentucky Derbies before the first World Series, and thirty-six before the first Indy 500. The Kentucky Derby is not the oldest of the American triple crown races (It is predated by the Belmont Stakes) or even the richest race in American racing (many Breeders’ Cup events now have higher purses) but the Kentucky Derby is far and away the one race in America which casual fans pay attention to; it is the one race in America which horse breeders, owners, trainers and jockeys want to win the most; it is the one race in America which gives a winning horse and jockey immortality.

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Parallels can be drawn between horse racing and college football. The Breeders’ Cup may be the bowl series, but the Derby is the archrival game, USC vs. Notre Dame or Ohio State vs.

Michigan. The Derby winner is akin to the Heisman trophy winner, remembered forever, while the runners-up are reduced to footnotes and asterisks. People bet on both sports, of course, and people analyze and overanalyze statistics, numbers, and trends in both sports. In racing as in football, upsets occur sometimes, but more often than not, the biggest, strongest, fastest athlete wins.

And oh what a beautiful athlete the thoroughbred horse is! I first attended races in 1990, with my sister Dianne at Golden Gate Fields near Berkeley. For me it was love at first sight. Sure, the action provided by the gambling and handicapping was a big part of it - the chance to read the Daily Racing Form, review all of the past performances, and pick the winners. But just being at the races was fun in itself. Hearing the bell sound, watching the starting gates open, seeing the blur of silks as the horses ran the backstretch, feeling the rumble as the horses pounded on the dirt on their way to the finish line. It was intoxicating.

As I just hinted, I tend to be an analytical horseplayer. For each race I dig through the Daily Racing Form to find the hidden secret that will lead to my winning ticket. I look for equipment changes, that horse who was spooked by a shadow last time out, but now has put blinkers on. I look for the horse who is dropping in competition, badly beaten in a $30,000 allowance race who is now entered in $18,000 company. I look for the horse in the maiden races who has finished second or third a few times and who desperately seeks their maiden trip to the winners circle. I do the analysis. Uncle Anthony, on the other hand, is a hunch player. He bets based on colors or numbers, or just whatever seems right to him in that race.

Friday’s Oaks Day gave us a chance to orient ourselves at Churchill, and prepare for the much larger crowds that would be present on Derby Day. (The Oaks Day attendance was 92,547, while the Derby drew close to 141,981.) We both had some success with Friday’s race card, one or two wins for each of us. For Friday’s feature race, the Kentucky Oaks, Anthony asked me to bet a 4-5 exacta box. A few minutes later, after a vicious downpour of rain, Blushing KD won and Sharp Cat finished second, giving Anthony that exacta to send him home with cash in pocket. My expert analysis led me to pick the #1 horse, Glitter Woman, which might still be out on the track, trying to finish the race!

If we thought Oaks Day was fun, it was just a small taste of what Derby Day would be like.

We arrived at Churchill Downs early again the next morning. I started out hot, winning the day’s first race, The Riva Ridge, thanks to a longshot horse named Cliffty Falls, and the second race, The Northern Dancer, backing a favorite named Valid Expectations. In between races Anthony and I walked around the grounds, drank the famous mint juleps, and took many pictures. Given its exotic name, many people are surprised to find that a julep is essentially bourbon, ice, and sugar garnished with a mint sprig. For a whisky drinker with a sweet tooth, it is about as tasty a libation as there is.

As one walks around the grounds on Derby Day, it is impossible to fail to notice the stratification of society. Every social level is present at Churchill Downs, in fairly distinct sections of the course. Near the finish line is Millionaire’s Row, a section of the clubhouse

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reserved for the ultra-rich. The horse owners and trainers, emblazoned with special pins and lanyards to signify their participation, waltz gracefully and anxiously around the paddock before each race. Farther away from the finish line, you find Louisville’s citizens dressed in their finest clothes. Every man wears a jacket and every woman wears a hat.

When you walk through the tunnel under the track and enter the infield, you find an entirely different Kentucky Derby. In the infield, college kids drink beer from cans and cups.

Strippers perched atop the shoulders of willing carriers offer an eyeful of flesh to the vocal, raucous, wanting masses. Fans in the infield also wear hats, but here you might find a man with a handmade replica of the twin spires, or a woman wearing a hat that is being circled by a horse wearing a blanket of roses. Everywhere you go at the Derby, the mood is festive.

During our day at Derby 123, Anthony and I just tried to absorb everything that we saw. We met a lot of nice people, we took a lot of pictures, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

I found my third winner in the day’s sixth race, the Humana Distaff. One of the favorites, Capote Bell and jockey John Velazquez, beat everyone to the wire to add to my bankroll. Of course the undercard races are just teasers, and as each race finishes the excitement builds for the Derby. After Jerry Bailey and Always a Classic won the seventh race, the Grade I Early Times Turf Classic, the undercard was complete and there was about a one hour wait until the 123rd run for the roses.

Races normally are staged about thirty minutes apart, but more time is given before the Kentucky Derby to allow for the television buildup, and to allow for the 140,000 spectators to place their final bets. I was determined to not spend our day at the Derby standing in line, so after the fourth race, I placed all of my bets for the rest of the day. Anthony did the same, though I think he might have jumped back in line later to play a hunch or two.

The field for Derby 123 contained some stars of American sport, and some relative unknowns. At the number 4 spot was Concerto owned by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Concerto had won seven of his ten lifetime starts, including five in a row. His last loss came at the hands of his neighbor in post position 5, Captain Bodgit, ridden by Alex Solis. In post six was Silver Charm, with Gary Stevens up. Silver Charm, trained by Bob Baffert, had been beaten by a head by Free House (post twelve, with Kent Desormeaux up) in the Santa Anita Derby. Trainer D. Wayne Lukas kept alive a streak of 17 years with a derby starter, by saddling a lightly-raced sprinter, Deeds Not Words, for the mile-and-a-quarter Derby. The betting public didn’t buy Lukas’ ruse, and made Deeds Not Words one of the longest shots on the board.

After weeks of anticipation, from start to finish, the 123rd Kentucky Derby lasted two minutes, two and 2/5th seconds. Gary Stevens and Silver Charm held off Alex Solis and Captain Bodgit at the finish line to give trainer Bob Baffert his first Derby win. Kent Desormeaux and Free House finished third. Concerto finished ninth. Deeds Not Words finished last. Baffert, who had trained Cavonnier to a second-place finish in 1996, was the talk of the town. Gary Stevens, who had been elected to the Hall of Fame just three days earlier, got his third Derby win. For me, however, the gracious owners Bob and Beverly Lewis deserve the spotlight for this victory. One of the largest distributors of Anheuser-

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Busch products, Bob and Beverly Lewis gave the impression that they were more like me and Uncle Anthony than the guys on Millionaire’s Row. On the Lewises behalf, Baffert had purchased Silver Charm as a two-year old for $85,000. After the Derby Mr. Lewis joked proudly that his tombstone could now read “Loving Husband, Devoted Father, and Kentucky Derby Winner.”

I placed so many bets on the Derby that it would have been nearly impossible for me to not cash a winning ticket after the race. I did pick the winner, and my program shows that I had bet five times more on Silver Charm to win than I had bet on any other horse. I had also placed a number of exacta bets which included the 6-5 winning combination. So the Derby win, combined with my three wins on the undercard, made Derby 123 a profitable day for me!

But this trip was about more than gambling, it was a celebration of the thoroughbred race horse and a wonderful weekend with my Uncle Anthony. Anthony and I would return to Churchill for three more Kentucky Derbies over the years, but my fondest and most cherished Derby memory is of this, our first trip to Derby 123. ♦♦♦ Silver Charm won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes in 1997, but fell short of the American Triple Crown when Chris McCarron and Touch Gold caught him at the wire in the Belmont Stakes. (Hoping to see history made, I was at Belmont Park that day, celebrating my twenty-ninth birthday.) In 1998 Silver Charm won the world’s richest race, the Dubai World Cup. He is retired to stud in Japan, most recently at the Iburi Stallion Station. In 2007 Silver Charm was elected to the US Racing Hall of Fame.

Bob Lewis died in 2006. Santa Anita Park renamed a Derby prep stakes race in his honor.

His wife Beverly is still active in thoroughbred racing.

Bob Baffert has won eight Triple Crown races, seven Breeders’ Cup races and two Dubai World Cups. In 2009 he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

He remains active as a leading trainer of thoroughbreds.

Gary Stevens won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes three times each, and the Preakness Stakes twice. He won the Santa Anita Derby nine times, and mounted eight Breeders’ Cup wins. He retired from riding in 2005, with 4,888 wins. His mounts collected over $221 Million in purses. In 1997 he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He starred in the 2003 movie Seabiscuit where he played the role of jockey George Woolf. After working as a jockey’s agent, horse trainer, and television commentator, he came out of retirement in 2013 and is once again an active jockey.

Alex Solis finished second in the Kentucky Derby three times. Over a twenty-seven year riding career, he has won one Preakness, three Breeders’ Cup races, and one Dubai World Cup. He is still an active rider, and he now works closely with his son Alex, who is a horse owner / bloodstock agent in California.

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Race Card with LeRoy Neiman watercolor

Magazine with Derby trophy

With Uncle Anthony at Kentucky Derby 123 124

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Bob and Beverly Lewis in the Winners Circle

Finish line picture from Sports Illustrated

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XX. NOTRE DAME vs. OKLAHOMA 1999 In the Fall of 1999, an unfamiliar opponent appeared on the Notre Dame football schedule.

In the fifth game of the season, the Oklahoma Sooners would visit the Fighting Irish.

Oklahoma has a fine football tradition dating back many decades, with coaches like Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer, and players like Billy Sims and Lee Roy Selmon. The two teams had not played each other since 1968, so when the game was scheduled I immediately circled it as one that I would not miss.

Adding to the excitement of this matchup of historic greats was the matchup of upstart coaches. After serving a few years as Lou Holtz’s defensive coordinator, Bob Davie was in his third year as head coach at Notre Dame, and Bob Stoops was in his first year as head coach at Oklahoma. Both men had ties to Ohio, in that Bob Davie attended Youngstown State and Bob Stoops was a Youngstown native and graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School, where his father Ron was football coach. Both coaches held great potential, especially the young and fiery Stoops.

Entering the game, Oklahoma was 3-0 and ranked 23rd in the country. They had not been challenged during their wins over Indiana State, Baylor and Louisville. Notre Dame was a disappointing 1-3, having beaten Kansas to start the season, then going 0-for-the Big Ten in losing to Michigan, Purdue and Michigan State.

The Irish offense was led by senior quarterback Jarious Jackson, a versatile athletic player with good hands and quick feet, and sophomore tailback Tony Fisher, a talented but yet unproven ball carrier. On defense the Irish were led by a pair of sophomores, Anthony Weaver at tackle and Moeller graduate Rocky Boiman at linebacker. The Sooners’ potent

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offense was led by junior quarterback Josh Heupel, and their defense was led by senior strong safety Rodney Rideau and sophomore linebacker Rocky Calmus. ♦♦♦ After the trials and tribulations of Intel Job96, by 1999 my career was moving at full speed and I was as happy as I could possibly be. In late 1997 I joined a team in Longmont, Colorado for Project Atlas, an implementation of SAP for Maxtor Corporation, a manufacturer of disk drives. The sales and distribution team lead at Maxtor was my good friend Dave Linden. Dave and I had celebrated some great times together in San Francisco, but before Maxtor we had never had the opportunity to work together. The inventory lead at Maxtor was another great colleague, Shreyas Amin. Shreyas and I had crossed paths on a few previous occasions, but this would also be our first chance to work directly together.

And our project manager was Janice Chiu, one of the finest managers at Price Waterhouse and an early advocate/champion for SAP. I was staffed at Maxtor as the General Ledger lead, not the full finance team lead. That was important to me, because I needed to focus on system functionality, and someone else would manage the people, who were not particularly happy. Within minutes of my arrival, it seems that the finance team completely turned over, with about seven people leaving Price Waterhouse for various reasons. Meanwhile, I came walking in the door, happy to be there, and determined to get things done for my firm and my customer. It was a golden opportunity for me to shine, and I did not pass up such a great chance to perform.

Working and living with Dave Linden was a blast. As I said, before Maxtor we had a history of many good times together, most of which involved food, beverages, the pursuit of happiness, and of course the pursuit of the opposite sex. However, there remained a question as to whether we could be serious enough in the workplace to make the project succeed. It turned out that there was never any doubt. At work time, there was a look in the eye or a change in tone of voice – that we both understood – that signified the need to be serious and concentrate on the tasks at hand. And I would argue that after Dave and I worked together, we are closer friends now than if we had only been friends and colleagues on a social level.

My client counterpart was a strong but diminutive woman named Li Kian Chee, who was staffed in the US part-time during the project, but whose regular position was Accounting Manager for Maxtor’s Singapore operation. Li Kian was absolutely wonderful. She pushed me to develop good solutions for Maxtor, she worked side-by-side with me to make sure that the system worked as it should and that she understood exactly how the system worked.

Project Atlas went live a few months before the year-end, and when it came time to close the books for the fiscal year, Li Kian requested that I travel to Singapore to assist with the close.

That’s how I made my first trip to Singapore, a beautiful orderly city on the southern tip of the Malay peninsula. Looking back I am quite proud of what I did at Maxtor, but I am more proud of what Janice, Dave, Shreyas, and our entire team accomplished there.

Shortly before I flew back from Singapore I received an email from Janice, which indicated that I should send her my updated resume immediately, that she would like me to interview for a spot on her next project team at Nike. I sent Janice my resume, flew back from

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Singapore, and within a few hours of arriving in the States, I was sitting in a conference room at Nike’s World Headquarters in Oregon, telling a few Nike employees my philosophy of systems implementations and selling them on why I would be a good candidate for their project. They noted the jet lag in my eyes, but they agreed to take me on the project, again as general ledger / financial closing operations lead.

The Nike Supply Chain project was an aggressive endeavor for the apparel and footwear manufacturer. By implementing SAP as its enterprise planning solution, Nike hoped to remove one billion dollars in inventory holding costs from its supply chain. If you had observed Nike’s legacy business processes, you’d realize that achieving this cost savings would be the easy part of the project. Implementing a global centralized solution at a company where small units had historically thrived by operating independently in silos – that would be the hard part!

So it was that when the 1999 football season arrived I was in my first year as a consultant on the Nike Supply Chain Project, still as happy as I could be, and still determined to make my mark on my company – which had now merged with Coopers & Lybrand to become PricewaterhouseCoopers – and help my customers solve business problems through technology. ♦♦♦ I flew a red-eye to Chicago and drove to campus early Saturday morning to meet mom and her friends, Shirlee Krane and Sophie Adams. We walked around campus. We visited Dad’s tree near my old dorm at Grace Hall. We also visited the Grotto, where mom was caught in NBC’s camera in a shot they used as they opened their broadcast of the game. I still laugh as I watch Mom stroll right across the screen as she exits the Grotto.

Mom and I were able to visit a lot during the game. We have had many visits in Ohio, California and elsewhere since I left home, and I can state that there are unquestionable benefits of visiting Mom on neutral territory. In her house, one might visit with her for three hours, and it seems as though she does not leave the kitchen a single time. In my apartment, she may stay for three days, and it seems that she does not stop cleaning a single time. But on neutral territory – the definition of which should be self-evident at this point – she is a wonderful pleasure to visit. In the stadium, there are no dishes to wash, no floorboards to dust, no sauce to stir. We could simply watch the game and talk. (Automobile rides provide equally good opportunities for us to visit.) She and I attended a Michigan game in sweltering heat a few years after the Oklahoma game, and while we had a nice chat, that day she went down into the concourse during the long television timeouts to get some shade and drink some water. But for Oklahoma we had a nice cool day, and the rain stayed away all afternoon.

The game started with a bang. On the Irish first play from scrimmage, Tony Fisher raced upfield for a 55-yard gain. Fisher again rushed on the second play for an eleven-yard gain.

Assistant coaches Kevin Rogers and Urban Meyer had prepared the Irish offense well for Oklahoma. The initial drive covered 76 yards in five plays. The fireworks continued after

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the touchdown, when ND kicked off to Oklahoma’s Brandon Daniels, who returned the kick 89 yards for a touchdown. Two minutes elapsed, and we had a 7-7 tie.

Notre Dame then drove the length of the field again, with a 16-play drive. On 2nd down and goal, the Sooners stopped Notre Dame at the 1-yard line, when Rodney Rideau made a great tackle. The next play ND ran an option play that the Sooners busted for a loss, and on fourth down Irish kicker Jim Sanson missed a chip-shot field goal. With a sure scoring opportunity gone, I began to worry.

Near the end of first quarter, Oklahoma quarterback Josh Heupel finally entered the field.

The Irish defense held the Sooners on their first possession. As the quarter ended, the score was still 7-7.

The teams exchanged punts, with Oklahoma gaining on the exchange. When the Irish took over the ball, they were deep in their own territory. It was part of the game plan to have Arnaz Battle play quarterback for the first series of the second quarter, but given the field position, it felt like a bad choice. Arnaz Battle is a fine quarterback, a gutsy player, and a great athlete. I’m just not sure it was fair to make him enter that situation when Jarious Jackson was already warm and in a rhythm. The offensive line may have struggled to adjust to Battle’s cadence, or maybe they were worried about blocking deep in their own territory.

For whatever reason, the line committed two penalties, and on fourth down, Joey Hildbold was punting from inside the end zone. Hildbold failed to handle the snap, dropped it to the ground, and had to push it out of the back of the end zone to give Oklahoma a safety. It was a smart play, in that it was better than giving up an easy touchdown. But in the stands I continued to fret and worry.

After the free kick Daniels made another great return, and OU took over at the ND 35. The Sooners were killing the Irish on Special Teams! Josh Heupel is left-handed, and his passing style appeared somewhat quirky coming from the left hand side. Quirky? Maybe. Effective?

Definitely. He threw a series of short passes to put OU up 16-7.

The Irish would answer, scoring in the middle of the second quarter when Jackson hit Joey Getherall on a 58-yard connection, thanks to a nice spring block by David Givens. 16-14 Sooners.

Once again, Brandon Daniels had a nice return, this time for 68 yards, to set up OU at the Notre Dame 26. Working with a very short field, Heupel took two plays to score, on a pass to TE Trent Smith. Oklahoma went up 23-14, which was the score at halftime.

It was a promising sign when ND squibbed the second-half kickoff and covered the play at the OU26. Brandon Daniels had 200 total return yards in the first half, and he finished the game just shy of the NCAA record. After the 68-yarder, Notre Dame did not kick anything other than squibs to him for the rest of the game.

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The teams traded punts to start the second half. Then Heupel found the versatile Daniels with a 15-yard touchdown pass to put the Sooners up 30-14 with ten minutes left on the third quarter.

Before Notre Dame’s next possession, the Irish looked into the eyes of a possible blowout loss at home, in front of 74,000 Irish fans and 6,000 Sooners. These guys refused to succumb to defeat. Jackson made a nice pass to Raki Nelson, then another to Bobby Brown. Then he improvised to find tight end Jabari Holloway in the corner of the end zone for a 16-yard score. 30-21 Sooners.

Two plays later, at a point in the game when the Sooners had no reason to take risks, Heupel threw into coverage, and his pass was picked off by Lee Lafayette, who turned and had a “look-what-I-found” moment at the Notre Dame 43-yard line.

Thankful for the gift, the Irish put together a slow steady drive downfield, no big plays, just nice reliable offense which advanced a few yards at a time. Tony Driver scored on a wishbone run from the one-yard line, and with 2:37 to play in the third quarter, Notre Dame was within two, 30-28.

After the risky passing of their previous possession, the Sooners really shortened up their offense. They ran the ball more, and threw screen passes. They did not score on the drive, but they punted and pinned the Irish inside their own 2-yard line.

The Irish fought their way out of the deep territory, and six plays into the drive, Jarious Jackson faced a third down. Needing three yards to keep the drive going, he scrambled for a gain of 23 yards. That scramble seemed to break the Sooner defense. Next, as he had earlier in the game, Jackson once again found a wide open Joey Getherall in the Oklahoma secondary and Getherall raced to the 7 yard line. Fisher then rushed to the 2. Tony driver scored two plays later from the 1 yard line, capping and 11-play 98-yard drive . The Irish went for two and missed, but still led 34-30, with 9:19 to play.

On Heupel’s first attempt to bring the Sooners back, he picked up one first down, but the Irish defense held at the OU 40-yard line, after A’jani Sanders broke up a pass. ND took over and burned seconds off the clock. Jarious Jackson scrambled to the OU 36 yard line.

Then he scrambled again to the 8.

Inside the ten-yard line, if the Irish could score a touchdown they would put the game away.

If they could kick a field goal, they would force the Sooners to reach the end zone. On first and goal from the 8, Fisher ran to the 6, where he was clobbered by Rocky Calmus. On second down, with the clock still running, Driver ran to the 5. On third down, Jackson tried to improvise for more magic, but Rodney Rideau made a great tackle to keep the Sooners chances alive. Fourth and three, and Rogers, Meyer and Davie had to figure out what to do.

I can only guess at their conversation: We’re not sure our kicker can make the kick, and if we try and they block they could return it.

We can try to score from three yards out, but there are still two minutes left and that may be

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enough time for Stoops and Heupel to work some magic…Meanwhile the 25-second clock has started running, we have to make a decision. Let’s send the field goal team out there, line them up, and take a delay of game penalty to give our guy a better angle. And everyone let Jim know that we are confident in him, that we’re sure that he can kick it for us!

After the delay of game penalty, the snap was good, the kick was up, but “Doink” it hit the right upright and caromed off to the side. No good.

The Sooners took over, without the luxury of good field position and only one timeout. On first down, Heupel’s pass to Brandon Daniels was dropped. On second down, Heupel’s pass was almost intercepted by Clifford Jefferson. On third down, Heupel threw incomplete to Terrail Jackson. On fourth down, with one final chance to gain ten yards and continue the game, Heupel found Andre Woolfolk eleven yards downfield, but Woolfolk dropped the ball.

Game over. Irish win 34-30.

This was Bob Stoops first loss as Oklahoma football coach, and Bob Davie’s biggest win as Notre Dame coach. Mathematically, there were wins over LSU and Michigan, who may have been ranked higher than Oklahoma on game day, but I will always argue that for Bob Davie, who had coached with R.C. Slocum at Texas A&M, the win over Big XII power Oklahoma was definitely his most special win at Notre Dame.

After the game, the two teams headed in different directions. Notre Dame finished 5-7.

Oklahoma finished 7-5, and the following year they would win the BCS National Championship. The Sooners have been a dominant team in the Big XII and BCS landscape ever since.

Mom, Shirlee, Sophie and I had dinner that night at Tippecanoe Place, an old South Bend mansion that is an elegant restaurant. We celebrated Shirlee’s birthday, and a nice win for the Irish. Shirlee and Sophie came along on the trip as a favor to my mother. Sophie reported that as soon as the marching bands cleared the field and the teams kicked off to start the game, Shirlee asked “Can we leave now?” They enjoyed the pre-game pageantry, but not the game itself!

I was really thrilled to beat a fine football team like Oklahoma, and it had been a special game, which the Irish won by making just a few more plays in key spots than the Sooners had. On the Hertz bus at O’Hare airport the next day, I talked with a young boy from Oklahoma who had attended the game. “That was fun, and it was a great game, but I really wish we could play again” the young man said. I replied “I wish that Notre Dame could come to Norman and play a game.” I was impressed with the level of sportsmanship that the young man possessed. That game in 1999 was a one-off game, not scheduled as part of a home-and-home series. It was rumored but not yet published that Oklahoma would reappear on the Notre Dame schedule in a few years. I hoped so.

The athletic directors would make the fans wait more than a decade, but in 2012 and 2013, Oklahoma and Notre Dame played again.

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♦♦♦ Bob Stoops is still the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma. In fifteen years at the school, he is 160-39. He recently tied Barry Switzer for the most wins by a coach at Oklahoma.

Josh Heupel was the runner-up for the Hesiman Trophy in 2000. He was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the sixth round of the 2001 NFL Draft, but he did not make the team at the end of training camp. He is currently the quarterbacks coach at the University of Oklahoma.

Rodney Rideau led the Sooners with 20 tackles (14 solo) against Notre Dame. He signed with the New England Patriots as an undrafted free agent in 2000. He played three preseason games before being released. He is currently an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Oklahoma.

Rocky Calmus was a two-time Big XII defensive player of the year at Oklahoma. He won the Butkus Award after his senior season. He has played for the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts.

Brandon Daniels had 229 return yards against Notre Dame. He played several seasons with the Tulsa Talons and Austin Wranglers of the Arena Football League.

Bob Davie coached at Notre Dame until the end of the 2001 season, and compiled a record of 35-25. After many years as a television analyst for ESPN college football, he is currently the head coach at the University of New Mexico.

Jarious Jackson was drafted by the Denver Broncos in the seventh round (214th overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft. He played in only five games over four seasons with Denver, with passing statistics of 11/22 and 114 yards. In 2001 he played for Barcelona in NFL Europe and reached the World Bowl. In the Canadian Football League he won three Grey Cups as a member of the Toronto Argonauts. He is currently the quarterbacks coach of the Edmonton Eskimos. ♦♦♦

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Game Program

University of Oklahoma band on field at Notre Dame Stadium

Mom with Shirlee and Sophie in the Joyce Center

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A few months before the Oklahoma game, at a precise date that I do not remember, my good friend Jeff “Herbie” Easland invited the boys (our gang of friends) over for a poker game. I was living with Jeff at the time, in a two-bedroom apartment on Wood Street in the Laurel Heights section of San Francisco. I was out of town – I think Dave Linden and I may have still been working on Maxtor – so I did not attend the party. I’m not sure how the events of that poker party led the attendees into my closet, but they found the forty or fifty articles of Notre Dame clothing that I own. Someone suggested that to honor my absence, they should each wear an article of my ND clothing and take a picture. Herbie, front and center, wore my prized Monogram jacket. Dave Graybeal wore my Fiesta Bowl warmup. Pete Mathews wore my Gameday pullover. Paul Masquelier wore my Gameday polo . And Rod Mader wore my National Champions windbreaker. To add a finishing touch, Rod and Paul held a photo of me with University Vice President Father Beauchamp. I think that they also enjoyed blue and gold beverages that evening, Johnny Walker Blue and Goldschlager. My friends are the greatest! ♦♦♦

Clockwise from left: Pete Mathews, Rod Mader, Paul Masquelier, Dave Graybeal and Jeff Easland

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XXI. SUPER BOWL I did not attend many football games during the 2002 season. For most of the autumn I was in Europe, helping The Walt Disney Company implement SAP for its European operations. I had joined the project team the previous February, as the integration testing manager for the project team, which was based in Burbank. The team had just completed the global design, and was preparing for implementation in five waves over 31 months. I had expected to be working in Burbank for that entire time, but one day in late June, that plan abruptly changed.

Dave Padmos, our IBM project partner, said that my assistance was needed in Paris to help the French navigate through our “hypercare” period in the first few weeks after the go-live.

The hypercare period is often stressful, but it has always been the most rewarding part of a project for me, the time during which end users finally log into the system and “go live” by using the system to record actual business events. At the end of June I flew to Paris to work in Disney’s posh offices on Avenue Montaigne, located just off the Champs Elysees, next to Louis Vuitton, Harry Winston, and the Plaza-Athenee hotel. The go-live for the first wave was successful. For Europe wave one only included Disney operations in France, the

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production, publishing, video distribution, and theme park businesses. The second wave would be much larger for Europe, including operations in Benelux, Iberia, and Scandinavia.

Once Disney and IBM management realized that wave one systems were stable, attention quickly turned to wave two. I think I had only been in Paris for a few days when Elizabeth Brownhill, the Disney project lead for Europe, called me into her office.

“Are you busy with anything right now?” Elizabeth asked.

“Not really. Wave one hypercare is pretty much under control.” I replied “Is there something that you need me to do?”

This was apparently the answer that Elizabeth was expecting, for she had already spoken to my manager in Burbank about my availability. Without missing a beat, she said “I need you to fly to Portugal. Wave two data conversions require your help. Go back to the hotel, check out, and when you get back here I will have your plane ticket ready.”

I did what she said, and on the two-block walk to the hotel, I had two thoughts. First, this must be serious, given the urgency in Elizabeth’s voice. And second, “Where is Portugal?”

Sure enough, when I returned to the office, Elizabeth had a plane ticket for me, on a 7PM Iberia Airlines flight to Lisbon. (By that time I had consulted a map to determine – joyfully – that Portugal was close to France, on the Iberian peninsula west of Spain.) While I was waiting at Charles de Gualle airport, I placed a phone call to Burbank, where it was now morning time. Andy Bray and Marie Bell, who was Elizabeth’s counterpart as the IBM European lead for the project, filled me in on the situation. It was a fairly brief conversation.

“We need you to join the wave two project team for Europe.” Andy said.

I asked a few follow-up questions about the status of the team. From reading project dashboard reports, I knew that the project team was behind, but now that I was being thrown into the mix, I asked Marie for a few more specifics. She told me what I needed, and by the time I hung up I had made a commitment. When I originally flew to Paris for wave one hypercare, I thought I would be in France for four weeks. The role change would mean that I would be based in Paris but traveling through Europe over the next four months.

As the late substitution to a project team that was behind schedule, it was my job to “focus and finish” – to drive the team to make decisions about how to convert data structures in the legacy systems to those in SAP. Spain and Portugal needed my help the most, and I spent a lot of time explaining the mechanics of data conversion and system interfaces to my counterparts there. It was precious time that my bosses at Disney and IBM would have argued that we could not afford, but in my mind it was the only way I was going to get decisions out of the local teams. After about two weeks of shuttling between Lisbon and Madrid, we got Spain and Portugal settled. Now it was time to move on to Holland.

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I had visited Amsterdam one year earlier, on the back end of a trip that I had made to Scotland for Dave Linden’s wedding. Dave and his wife Susan had met on a project team near Amsterdam, so after their wedding in Edinburgh I traveled there to complete my salute to the Lindens. Amsterdam is a great place – the Amstel river, Leidseplein, Anne Frank House, and the Rijksmuseum. If I had not done all of that sightseeing the year before, I would have been disappointed, because this time around my time in Holland consisted of many late nights at the office, located in a suburb near Schipol airport. Vu Pham was there with me, and he helped bring me up to speed on the local project team members and their personalities.

August in Europe is not thought of as a time for work. Many businesses shut down, and even though summers in Europe are pretty hot, families travel to beachside cottages or tropical climates to enjoy their holiday time. In the midst of what should have been holiday revelry, Tony and Vu walked in from Burbank, with an “it has to be done right now” attitude and “which weekend day would you like to work?” approach to the project. These are some of the striking differences between work habits in America and Europe. Everyone in management knew about this when the project was planned, but the pressures of doing a systems project during Ferragosto hit all of us that summer.

We worked a lot of late nights and most weekends, but I did try to save Sunday for sightseeing. I would either travel late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, then take the rest of Sunday to walk around Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, Stockholm, Brussels or Amsterdam.

Wherever I found myself on a given day, I was determined to make the most of it and see what I could in the time that I had. They are all wonderful cities, but I think that Stockholm would be the first place that I would return today if I were given the choice.

After a few cold October weeks in Stockholm, we completed our work for all of the wave two territories. By mid-November I was back in Burbank, greeted by the global project team with a hero’s welcome. After four months of hard work, I was thrilled to be back in the United States. IBM rewarded me with a new assignment and greater responsibility at Disney for wave four.

During those four months in Europe, I had been thinking of a nice way to reward myself. I hated being so out of touch with football during the 2002 season. It was Tyrone Willingham’s first year as head coach at Notre Dame. His team started strong but faltered late in the year, finishing 10-3. My schedule unfortunately allowed me to witness two of the three losses. On the pro side, I didn’t make it to any Raider or 49er regular season games, but while I was sitting in hotels across Europe, a recurring though kept popping into my head. Wouldn’t it be nice to go to the Super Bowl? The game was going to be held in San Diego, so I could drive there, even if I had to drive from San Francisco. Chances were good that I would still be working in LA, which would make the drive even shorter, and eliminate the need for a hotel. And that was pretty much how I decided that I would reward my efforts during wave two at Disney with a trip to the NFL’s biggest event. ♦♦♦

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Sunday morning, January 26, I left my apartment in Burbank and drove south on I-5 toward San Diego. I had rented a Hertz sedan equipped with a CD player. As I drove south, I listened to “The Power and the Glory: the Music of NFL Films” featuring the narration of the late John Facenda. Listening to that CD could inspire Gandhi to hit somebody. I exaggerate, of course, but as I rolled past Laguna Niguel, Oceanside and Del Mar, my excitement grew with every mile. When I reached Mission Valley, I was ready to go.

Security measures in force for the game prohibited tailgating, and most attendees parked in satellite lots and took buses to Jack Murphy Stadium, whose naming rights were purchased

by Qualcomm.

The traditionally rowdy fans of the Oakland Raiders, who were playing in the game, believed that the tailgating rules were in force to limit their revelry. However, the security measures had been planned long before the Raiders had won the AFC championship. In fact, when I bought the ticket, I did not know that the Raiders would be in the game. But I did have a bit of a history of following the Raiders.

My good friend Dave Graybeal is a lifelong Raider fan, and when the team moved back to Oakland in 1994, he convinced our gang (at a poker game at Herbie’s house, of course) to purchase personal seat licenses to support the Raiders on their return. I vividly remember our first game together in Oakland. After a few hours of tailgating, when we reached our seats, Dave screamed about as loudly as he could “OAKLAND RAIDERS!” His new wife Eileen looked on, a bit stunned.

So I had been a partial season-ticket holder for ten years, enjoying some good seasons and some bad ones. Some years the team frustrated Dave, but they also made him quite proud during some very good playoff years. In 2000 the Raiders finished 12-4 and hosted the AFC Championship game, but lost to the Baltimore Ravens 16-3. In 2001, the Raiders again reached the playoffs, but lost to New England 16-13 in overtime. The 2002 season saw the Raiders finish 11-5. In the first round of the playoffs, Oakland beat the New York Jets 3010, stifling the Jets with man coverage. In the AFC Championship game, the Raiders beat the Tennessee Titans 41-24. In the parking lot after the game, Dave poured champagne for our gang and we enjoyed a toast to the AFC Champions. The Raiders were going to the Super Bowl. I was going to the Super Bowl!

I spent a week’s salary on the ticket. It was far more than I had ever paid for any other sporting event, but this would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and I wasn’t about to pass it up. I acquired the ticket the most expensive way possible, via an online ticket broker.

It was important to me to find a seller in LA who had tickets in hand – I didn’t want somebody brokering a deal to get a ticket for me from someone else. Once the match was made, I left the Disney studio one night, drove out to Valley, and picked up the ticket. It was a simple transaction. Given the high ticket price, none of my friends joined me in San Diego.

They were all ahead of me in the marriage and family cycle, and they could not justify the expense. Dave Graybeal hosted a big party at his house, projecting the broadcast on to a giant wall in his living room. Most of my friends watched there.

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An electricity surrounds the Super Bowl, similar to that rush I felt at the Kentucky Derby and at Notre Dame, or the tingling feeling others might get at the Masters or the NCAA Final Four. What makes the Super Bowl unique in this regard is the large ratio of people who watch the game on TV (often 1 billion people globally) to the people who actually watch in person (80,000 or so per year). That was the source of the electricity, that our presence at the game placed us in an elite group. The whole world was watching, and we were there!

I was seated about forty minutes before kickoff. (If you have read this far you know that is one of my modus operandi.) Carlos Santana and Michelle Branch provided the pregame entertainment. When they finished their set, all of the people around me jumped up to see who was entering our section, similar to the way everyone jumps up in Oakland when a fight breaks out. But this wasn’t a fight – it was fight promoter Don King, with his trademark hair.

He high-fived fans and flashed his smile as he strolled to his seat. Celine Dion sang God Bless America, and the Dixie Chicks sang the national anthem. It was sunny and 81 degrees when the jets flew over, a perfect day.

Super Bowl XXXVII was the fifth for the Raiders. The Raiders had won three previous Super Bowls, their last victory coming in Super Bowl XVIII in 1984 in Tampa. Meanwhile Tampa Bay was playing in its first Super Bowl. Prior to this season, the Buccaneers were most remembered for going 0-14 as an expansion franchise in 1976. At Media Day earlier in the week, journalists focused most on Tim Brown and the coaching matchup. It would be the first Super Bowl appearance for Brown, a Raider veteran who had won the Heisman Trophy at Notre Dame during my sophomore year. Tim Brown was a feel good story, but the coaching matchup was a little more controversial. After coaching four seasons at Oakland, Jon Gruden was in his first year at Tampa Bay. Bill Callahan, Gruden’s former assistant, was now in charge of the Raiders. The writers gave the edge to Gruden, whose fingerprints and influence were visible all over the Raider offense. Would Callahan have some hidden surprises in the gameplan for Gruden and the Bucs?

After the lengthy pre-game ceremonies, the game finally started after 3PM local time. The Raiders scored first, when Sebastian Janikowski kicked a field goal after an early interception

by Charles Woodson. A few minutes later, Martin Gramatica answered to tie the score 3-3.

In the first quarter the teams traded punts often as they worked through their scripted plays.

On the first drive of the second quarter, Tampa Bay kicked a field goal to go up 6-3. By the start of the second quarter, the Bucs defense had established their blitz-with-nickel and blitzwith-cover-two packages. The Bucs were executing the schemes perfectly, and they really got into the head of Rich Gannon and the Raiders. The first time he intercepted a Gannon pass, safety Dexter Jackson was able to play like a center-fielder, and roam to the side of the field that required his attention.

Midway through the second quarter, a strong return of a Shane Lechler punt gave Tampa Bay the ball at the Oakland 27-yard line. Four plays later, fullback Mike Alstott scored the game’s first touchdown and put the Bucs up 13-3. The second quarter was far from over…With Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer watching from his suite, Tampa Bay executed a two-minute drive aided by three defensive penalties. The Raiders had always been a heavily penalized team, and their gifts were appreciated by Tampa Bay. The drive culminated in a

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Brad Johnson touchdown pass to Keenan McCardell, and at halftime Tampa Bay was ahead 20-3. The Bucs gained nearly two hundred yards in the first half, while the Raiders only managed to get 58.

The halftime show featured No Doubt, Shania Twain and Sting, and I took in all of the events and entertainment. In fact, aside from getting up twice to take photographs, I did not leave my seat the entire game. I sat in a Club Level seat, so I ordered food and was served in my seat throughout the game. Although watching the game in person was a luxury for me, I did miss one thing – the commercials. American companies often debut new ads for the expensive time slots of the Super Bowl telecast, and the ads are often a bigger hit at Super Bowl parties than the game.

In the second half, the Bucs completed their super blowout. Gannon was intercepted five times, a new Super Bowl record. Fighting to come from behind, the Raiders passed nearly every play of the second-half, making them even more vulnerable to the pick. In the game’s final two minutes, the Bucs returned two interceptions for touchdowns, and the game’s final score was 48-21. Dexter Jackson was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Coach Jon Gruden became the youngest head coach ever to win a Super Bowl. On the podium after the game, Gruden, Glazer, defensive end Warren Sapp, receiver Keyshawn Johnson, and defensive back John Lynch passed the Vince Lombardi trophy around in jubilant celebration.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the Champions of the National Football League!

Driving home, I called several of my friends and shared my Super Bowl experience. While I would have enjoyed company at the game, I was perfectly content to attend the game on my own. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I lived that day to the fullest. ♦♦♦ Back at the Graybeal family Super Bowl party, I was not the only one absent. Jeff and Amy Easland had planned to attend the game watch with the Graybeals, but Amy’s water broke and during the game she delivered their son Jenner.

There was another delivery nine days later. Phuong Vu, whom I had dated for a few years while I was working at Nike, delivered her daughter Yvonne, and planned to raise her as a single mother. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this event would impact my life considerably more than Super Bowl XXXVII. ♦♦♦

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Jon Gruden compiled a 100-81 record over 11 seasons as an NFL head coach. He is currently a color commentator for ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

Bill Callahan coached two seasons in Oakland, compiling a 17-18 record. From 2004 until 2007 he was head football coach at the University of Nebraska, where he compiled a 27-22 record. He is currently the offensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys.

Dexter Jackson has played 10 seasons in the National Football League, for the Buccaneers, Cardinals and Bengals. He currently works for a nonprofit children’s crisis center in Tampa.

Keyshawn Johnson retired from the National Football League in 2007 after an 11-year career. He is currently a television broadcaster for ESPN. Tim Brown was the sixth overall pick of the Los Angeles Raiders in the 1988 NFL draft. He played sixteen seasons for the Raiders, and one for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tim holds Raiders records for games played, receptions, receiving yards and punt return yards. Tim also holds the NFL record for having ten consecutive seasons with at least 75 receptions. He currently lives in DeSoto, Texas. ♦♦♦

Before the game

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Enjoying No Doubt during halftime

With a costumed fan at the AFC Title Game

A nice pair of tickets

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The Raider Defense stifled the Jets and Titans… but the Bucs’ Cover Two frustrated Rich Gannon

Buccaneers Ring

Game Program

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Game Logo

XXII. DUBAI WORLD CUP 2004 At the time of Super Bowl XXXVII, I was still working on the global SAP implementation for Disney. After my successful tour of Europe during wave 2, I was appointed as a Site Lead for the Wave 4 rollout to the Disney Store operations in North America. I welcomed the challenge that the promotion would bring, and I looked forward to being home in the US again.

As the site lead, I had to serve as champion for the global project team at the site and the liaison between the Disney Store personnel and the Corporate IT personnel. While in Europe I was only responsible for the general ledger functionality, interfaces and conversions, for the Disney Store I would be accountable for the delivery of all financial functionality.

The Disney Store (TDS) was a rather unwilling participant in Project Tomorrowland (the moniker that Corporate IT gave to the SAP project) but their reluctance had more to do with business conditions than with any hostility toward Corporate IT, IBM, or SAP. During the 1990s, TDS had steadily expanded its brick-and-mortar operations, and by 2003 it was widely believed that there were too many Disney Store locations. In California, people who lived within driving distance of the Disneyland Resort also lived within close proximity of more than one store location. (In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, there was the giant store at Union Square, a smaller one at Stonestown Mall, a third at Serramonte Mall in Daly City, and a fourth in Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo.) Rather than being a strategic extension of the Disney brand, the retail stores were competing with each other for sales, the leasehold obligations were putting pressure on store profitability, and the general market trend toward online commerce was calling into question the need for The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) to continue its retail operation.

In March 2003, Disney’s management decided to sell TDS. No buyer was identified in the early announcements, but the theme of the statements from Disney was that TDS would focus on profitability and operating efficiency while preparing to spin off from TWDC. Management agreed that since TDS would be spun off, it no longer made sense for the

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implementation of Project Tomorrowland at TDS to continue. My promotion, the challenging opportunity for me to lead the implementation of SAP at a Disney site? Gone! I understood the business rationale for the decision, but I was disappointed that my project team would be dissolved, and more disappointed that my opportunity to be a project manager was lost.

Ultimately, The Children’s Place bought The Disney Store in 2004, but after five years they sold the operations back to TWDC. In 2009 the Disney Store assimilated itself back into TWDC, massively reducing its number of retail stores and focusing on the locations where it could profitably and strategically extend the Disney brand.

After the TDS project folded, I did a few small projects for the Project Tomorrowland team, until Dave Padmos approached me one day in the middle of July 2003. He told me that Marie Bell and Elizabeth Brownhill, my two colleagues from the Wave Two team, were working on another project in Paris and they wanted me to play a critical role on their team.

“Call Marie.” Dave said. I did, and within fifteen minutes, I was committed to a two-year project that would be based in Paris. It was the easiest round of staffing that I had ever gone through. I didn’t have to compete with anybody to get the job. Marie said “They want you.

Will you do it?” I said “Sure” and by the end of July I was back in Paris!

The project was called ESCO, for European Supply Chain Operations. Disney’s video distribution business, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and Technicolor, its videocassette and DVD manufacturer, were going to collaborate on a joint-venture to implement SAP throughout Europe. I would be the process lead for the Finance team. In addition to taking ownership of the finance functionality during the implementation, I would also have to manage team members from Disney, Technicolor, Capgemini and Vengroff Williams, the credit management vendor on the project. I was the only IBM staff member on the finance team, but I was accountable for work that would be delivered by the four other companies. It would be a challenging project, to say the least.

The IBM expense policy for an expatriate living in Paris was very good. In addition to generous per diem and an apartment in Paris, I would be able to fly somewhere every two weeks at firm expense. If I did not fly home to San Francisco, the airfare was taxable as income. The taxes did not concern me, and I generally flew every two weeks, once each month to San Francisco, and once each month to a different city in Europe.

I had some wonderful getaways, including weekends in Dublin, Geneva, Brussels, Berlin, Krakow, Venice, Barcelona, and more. And some weekends, I just stayed home, wandering around Paris with a camera in hand. I bought a membership to La Société des Amis du Musée du Louvre, which enabled me to visit the Louvre whenever I liked, including special members-only hours on Monday evening. Some Monday nights I found myself all alone in the Salle des États with its famous resident, the Mona Lisa. Just me, a guard and Leonardo’s masterpiece! Anyone who has visited the Louvre on a busy day will appreciate what a precious opportunity that those quiet members-only evenings were for me.

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My trips to San Francisco were typically four or five days long, and I generally kept on Paris time to avoid the jet lag. I would visit friends early in the day and sleep in the afternoon, if I had no other social events planned. Mobile telecommuting technology had not yet advanced to the point where working from home was feasible, so aside from a few phone meetings my time in San Francisco was spent on personal matters. I opened the mail and paid the bills. I visited my friends. I visited Phuong and her newborn baby Yvonne. Visiting only once every few weeks, it was amazing to see how much Yvonne would change from one month to the next. I really enjoyed our visits.

The first six months of Project ESCO were the most difficult, but by the New Year 2004, we had proven the concept, designed a pan-European system, and implemented it in Holland and France. Our next challenge was to rollout the implementation to the UK, Spain, Germany, and Scandinavia. By January 2004, our approach was proven, and now we were just working through all of the details to fully implement the system.

As I became more established in Paris and the project stabilized, I began to plan some of the more lavish weekend getaways that I mentioned above. I considered an excursion to the pyramids of Egypt, but the logistics were too difficult, and it seemed as though I would be traveling for three days just to get a few hours at the pyramids. Agra’s Taj Mahal presented a similar challenge. Dubai, however, was well within reach for a weekend getaway. It was a bit of an exotic location, but it was also a thoroughly modern city, and there was a daily direct flight from Paris CDG. It was also home to the world’s richest horse race, the $6 Million Dubai World Cup, held every February.

In October 2003, I attended the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, France’s biggest horse race.

HRH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai and his brother Sheikh Hamdan, were also in attendance that day in Paris, and that was really the first time I paid much attention to the two Sheikhs and their vast racing empire. Every February Sheikh Mohammed invites the racing world to the United Arab Emirates for the Dubai World Cup, and in 2004 I accepted his invitation.

I did take some heat from friends and family about traveling to the Arabian Gulf in the middle of George W. Bush’s war with Iraq. Dave Linden wrote in an email “Excellent time to visit the Gulf, my friend. Are you aware that there’s a war going on there?” Michael Wander asked “Are you out of your mind?” I knew that I would be perfectly safe in Dubai, far from the danger zones of Baghdad or Kabul. My trip to Dubai was focused not on the differences between the Arab and non-Arab worlds, but rather on something that we had in common, a love for the thoroughbred race horse. Nothing was going to stop me from making that trip. ♦♦♦ On Friday morning, my Emirates flight from Charles de Gaulle was delayed, so I did not arrive in Dubai until after midnight local time. My hotel, Le Meridien Dubai, was directly across the street from the airport, so I did sleep a few hours before being awakened by the

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5AM call from the mosque adjacent to my hotel. I sat out on my terrace and drank a cup of tea while I listened to the hum of morning prayers.

Thursday and Friday are weekend days in Dubai, so Saturday morning was the start of the local work week. I had breakfast, and spent the morning swimming at the pool at Le Meridien. Several young men from Sri Lanka served me cold drinks while I enjoyed the 100-degree heat. We talked about war-torn Sri Lanka, where the Tamil Tigers had waged a long battle, and I asked them about their lives as workers in Dubai. It was quite interesting for me to visit with them.

After a few hours at the pool, I retired to my room and dressed for race day. I wore a dark green suit, blue shirt, and green tie, appropriate attire for hobnobbing among sheikhs, kings and titans of industry. I felt like a million dollars! Around 3:30PM I left the hotel and took a short cab ride to Nad Al Sheba, the sports club where the races would be held.

When I arrived at Nad Al Sheba, I walked around the grounds and took in the scene. Nad Al Sheba features a luxurious stable area which Sheikh Mohammed built for the horses, with climate controlled barns and walking paths that offered soft footing for the world-class animals. As I walked around, I was thankful that I was dressed appropriately. The Dubai World Cup patrons were dressed to the nines. There were European ladies wearing brightcolored dresses and exquisite hats, and Japanese ladies wearing kimonos. European and Asian men wore suits like mine. The local men, including Sheikh Mohammed and his family and friends, dressed in traditional thawbs and keffiyehs.

When I entered the Millenium Grandstand, I was handed a glass of champagne and directed to a lavish buffet dinner. After my feast, I was taken to my seat to watch the first race.

Sheikh Mohammed had emulated many practices that are used for crowd control at the Kentucky Derby – colored wristbands identify the section of grandstand seating for each guest, and lapel pins identify those who are authorized for admission to the paddock and other secured areas of the course. Now there is one very noticeable difference between a day at the races in the United Arab Emirates, and a day at the races nearly anywhere else in the world. There were no betting windows, no totalisator boards, and no torn mutual tickets cluttering the floor. Gambling is illegal in the UAE! Of course, nearly every visitor to the Dubai World Cup had probably wagered on the races. I had placed my bets at the PMU off-track betting location near Paris’ Grands Boulevards, close to my friend Lazhar’s crepe stand. The British guests had likely acted similarly, booking bets with their local Ladbroke’s back in London or elsewhere. There was a Pick Seven competition held on the grounds of Nad Al Sheba, and anyone who picked the winners of all seven races would win a cash jackpot, but that was the only locally sanctioned wagering. Absent the clutter and commotion of gambling, all of the attention at the Dubai World Cup focused on the world-class horses.

The first race, the group 1 Dubai Kahayla Classic, went off at 5PM. I liked the number 9 horse, Van Nistelrooy, named for the Dutch football star. The horse was owned by Sheikh Mohammed’s son Rashid, and had won his last two starts at Nad Al Sheba. But he finished

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third in the Kahayla, behind a French horse named Kaolino and a British horse named Jiyush, both of which were owned by Sheikh Hamdan. In the next race, the group 2 Godolphin Mile, I picked a British horse named d’Anjou ridden by Michael Kinane. D’Anjou finished well out of the money in the Mile, which was won by jockey Frankie Dettori on Firebreak.

In between races I had a lot of chances to take pictures. I wandered past the golden trophies.

I sipped more champagne out in the picnic enclosure. I reviewed the entries for Fashions on the Field, a competition to identify the day’s best-dressed female spectators. It was a night of pure relaxation. Wherever I went, everyone was very kind to me.

In race 3, the group 2 UAE Derby, I picked Argentina’s Little Jim, but he finished third behind Lundy’s Liability and Petit Paris, ridden by Jerry Bailey. South African jockey Weichong Marwing led Lundy to the win. I was out of the money again in race 4, the Dubai Sheema Classic. I had chosen French horse Fair Mix, but a different French horse, Polish Summer, with jockey Gary Stevens up, beat everyone to the wire.

Race 5, the Dubai Golden Shaheen, was won by US jockey Alex Solis, aboard Our New Recruit. I had bet on Jerry Bailey and Cajun Beat, but Bailey finished fourth. In the final race before the main event, the group 1 Dubai Duty Free, I saw something that I had never before witnessed in a live race. Germany’s Paolini and South Africa’s Right Approach reached the wire at exactly the same instant, producing a dead heat. Advanced technology in photography has made it possible to nearly always determine that one horse finishes before another, but this time the picture showed both horses’ noses together, and both jockeys’ heads together – it really was a dead heat. Instead of $1.2 Million going to a single owner and $400,000 to second place, the two owners each pocketed $800,000.

With the undercard out of the way, the crowd started buzzing in anticipation for the world’s richest race, the $6 Million Dubai World Cup. (I had attended “the world’s richest race” once before, the 1997 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park. I think the Classic had a $4Million purse. That was a few years before Sheikh Mohammed increased his prize money to trump the Breeders’ Cup.) Dubai’s field of twelve included the best horses in the world.

Jockeys had flown in from seven different countries to compete for the big prize. There were three horses from Japan, six from the USA, one each from England, Germany and South Africa. Most experts believed that the favorites were two horses from America, Medaglia d’Oro, trained by Robert Frankel, and Pleasantly Perfect, trained by Richard Mandella. The two horses had finished first and second in the 2003 Breeders’ Cup Classic, with Alex Solis and Pleasantly Perfect beating Jerry Bailey and Medaglia d’Oro. At 9PM Saturday night in Dubai, as the horses prepared for post time, the racing world was watching closely to see what would happen as the two greatest thoroughbreds in the world squared off. Before I left Paris, I had placed a win bet on Pleasantly Perfect.

As the horses raced for home, Solis led Pleasantly Perfect to victory by ¾ of a length, with Bailey and Medaglia d’Oro closing fast at the end. It was a great race, and I had a perfect view of all the action. Marwing and Victory Moon finished third, while Sheikh Mohammed’s entry, Grand Hombre, with Dettori up, finished fourth. Richard Mandella and Alex Solis had their win, and with the PMU ticket in my pocket, I had my win too. It was the only selection

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that I got right all day, but I could go home happy, after having picked the right horse in the biggest race on the card.

After the races, the exhibitors and catering outlets remained open to keep the revelry going, and to ease the flow of traffic out of Nad Al Sheba. I visited several of the exhibitors after the races, including the real estate agents who were selling properties at The Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island community off Jumeirah Beach and its then-unbuilt sister property, The Palm Jebel Ali. I also danced to a rock band whose lead singer was a twenty-something girl in a white sleeveless pantsuit. Now the other Emirates, including the nearby cities of Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, are much more conservative than Dubai. I knew that in all of the UAE, I would only see a sleeveless female rocker in Dubai! Even after dancing, I still waited onehour for a taxi back to the hotel. I arrived back at Le Meridien after midnight, content that I had enjoyed a wonderful day at the Dubai World Cup! ♦♦♦ I awoke Sunday morning (again to the hum of prayer from the mosque) and prepared for a day of sightseeing in Dubai. Like many cities, Dubai had a bus tour that enabled patrons to make a loop of the city and hop on and off as they wished. Such bus tours are generally an ideal way to cover a lot of sightseeing in a short period of time, and the bus tour of Dubai was no exception. My tour started at Wafi City, a sparkling new shopping mall which had a stained glass pyramid. I then rode the bus to Jumeirah Beach. To many people, the main symbol of Dubai is the Burj Al Arab, one of the world’s most exclusive luxury hotels, where basic rooms start at $1200 per night. Next to the Burj Al Arab is the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, which looks like a giant wave, or a giant roller coaster. At Jumeirah Beach I dipped my feet in the waters of the Arabian Gulf, scratched out “Dubai 2004” in the white sand, and posed for photos with the landmark Burj in the background.

I proceeded past Dubai Media City toward Dubai Creek, a clean ultra-modern business district. I took a tour of Sheikh Saeed’s house, a museum of Dubai and UAE history. I visited some souks (markets) where spices, jewelry, and other goods were sold, then I boarded the bus and completed the full loop around Dubai. I returned to the hotel in time to shower and relax before my dinner appointment, with the brother of a good friend of mine.

Sam Almukdad owns and operates Affiliated Limousine service in San Francisco. Sammy had driven me back and forth between my apartments and San Francisco Airport for about ten years. When I would ride half-asleep in the back seat on Monday mornings, Sam would greet me with a smile, and get me to the airport safely and on time. When I would come bouncing out of the airport on Friday afternoons, Sam would greet me with a smile and get me home in time to enjoy the weekend. Over the years Sammy became more than a limo driver to me, he became my friend. In the car we would spend a lot of time talking about world affairs, about my mother and my family, about his son Sam or his wife Nancy, and we always had good conversation.

On one of my return trips from Paris, I told Sammy that I was planning to visit Dubai. He told me that his brother Gassan worked there, and he gave me his number so that we could

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connect. When Gassan and I met on Sunday night, it was as if I had Sammy with me there in Dubai! It was wonderful to visit with a local resident who could tell me about life in the UAE, and at the same time I shared with him stories about how his brother lived in California.

Gassan and I had dinner at the Dubai Tennis Club, home of the Dubai Duty Free Open tennis tournament events on the ATP and WTA tours. We then drove to Sharjah, a town near Dubai, to see its downtown area and landmarks. As I said before Sharjah is much more conservative than Dubai, and since it was late at night, we were alone as we visited the sites.

I remember seeing a roundabout with a giant sculpture of the Qu’ran in the center, opened to welcome its readers. Gassan and I took photos of each other near Sharjah’s big mosque. If not for Gassan, this was a part of the UAE that I never would have seen. I was so fortunate to have met him.

Gassan delivered me back to the hotel, and by 6AM Monday morning I was on my way back to Paris. Even though I was in the back row of Economy class on both legs, the Emirates Airlines flight crews provided great service. The seven-hour flight put a nice exclamation point on a wonderful weekend getaway to Dubai. ♦♦♦ Pleasantly Perfect retired at the end of 2004, after finishing third in the Breeders Cup Classic. In terms of career earnings, he is the fourth richest American horse. He stands at stud at Lane’s End Farm in Versailles, Kentucky. His first two crops of offspring have included three graded stakes winners and earned more than $1.4 Million.

Medaglia d’Oro finished in the money in 15 of 17 races in his career, earning more than $5.7 million dollars. He now stands at Darley Stud. His first crop of offspring includes the superstar filly Rachel Alexandra, who won the Kentucky Oaks and the Preakness Stakes during the 2009 Triple Crown series.

HRH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum is the Ruler of Dubai and the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates. His vast racing empire includes Ballysheehan Stud, Gainsborough Farms, Shadwell Stables, Darley Stables, and Godolphin Stables. His horses have won many of the world’s biggest races, including the 2006 Preakness Stakes. He has eight sons and eleven daughters.

Richard Mandella has saddled more than 1750 winners in his career as a horse trainer. He has been the winning trainer in four different Breeders’ Cup races, and he has had six horses race in the Kentucky Derby. He lives in Bradbury, California.

Robert Frankel won more than 3500 races over four decades as a trainer. A five-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer, he saddled Empire Maker to victory in the 2003 Belmont Stakes. In 1995 he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He passed away in 2009.

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Alex Solis finished second in the Kentucky Derby three times. Over a twenty-seven year riding career, he has won one Preakness, three Breeders’ Cup races, and one Dubai World Cup. He is still an active rider, and he now works closely with his son Alex, who is a horse owner / bloodstock agent in California.

Jerry Bailey won 5893 races and his mounts earned $295 Million over a 32-year career. He won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont States two times each, and a record 15 Breeders’ Cup races. In addition to Medaglia d’Oro, some of his other famous mounts include Cigar, Sea Hero, Real Quiet, and Black Tie Affair. In 1995 he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He is currently a commentator for ESPN racing telecasts.

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racing form

Lundy’s Liability wins UAE Derby

A Dead Heat in the Dubai Duty Free

Pleasantly Perfect wins Dubai World Cup 152

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With a golden camel at Nad Al Sheba

Dubai Creek with skyscrapers

Jemeirah Beach Hotel and Burj Al-Arab in background

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Gassan, to my right, and our waiter at dinner

Gassan and I enjoying dinner at the Dubai Tennis Club ♦♦♦

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A few weeks before the Dubai World Cup, my trip to San Francisco coincided with Yvonne’s first birthday. I baked a cake, iced it and put a big candle on it. (Friends in Paris chided me because I never removed the cake from the pan!) When I arrived at Phuong’s apartment, Yvonne was wearing a beautiful red dress, but the birthday girl had a scared, skeptical look on her face. She was frightened, either by the cake and candle, or by me! Working magic that only a mother knows, Phuong eased her daughter’s fears, and after a few minutes Yvonne relaxed and we had a nice birthday party!

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XXIII. ROLAND GARROS 2004

By June 2004, Project ESCO was moving at high speed. We had already implemented in France; we were one month away from rollout in Germany, Austria, Benelux and Spain; and we were preparing to kick off the rollout process for the United Kingdom and Italy, which would be followed by the final rollouts three months later for Switzerland and Scandinavia.

With the France and Holland headquarters already in production, the project was riding a wave of momentum. Skeptics who had thrown obstacles in our path a few months earlier were now kowtowing to requests from the project team. I was still managing staff from four different constituencies, none of whom were IBM employees, but after a year together all four groups and I had figured out how to coexist peacefully. It had not been easy, but by the summer of 2004 we were performing quite well as a project team.

In the first week of June, I was scheduled to present our system design to Disney, Technicolor and Vengroff staff from the UK and Italy. The presentations included an overview of system functionality across all process areas, followed by a deep dive into the financial processes, to identify if there were any site-specific gaps that our project team would need to address. On Monday and Tuesday of the week I gave the presentation to the Italians, and I set aside Thursday and Friday for the British. That gave me a window of opportunity to make a Wednesday morning trip to CDG airport, where I could pick up Aunt Joanne, who was flying in from Ohio to visit me.

I had always corresponded more with Aunt Joanne than I had with my other aunts and uncles, and during my project in Paris we spoke on the phone regularly. I would come home from a long day at work, or a fun day at one of Paris’ many museums, and I would call Aunt Joanne and tell her about my experiences. A cultural anthropologist and a career nursing professor, Joanne had been a major influence on my education in general, and in particular

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she had gone to great lengths to foster my appreciation for the visual and performing arts.

Now retired, Joanne was able to visit me in Paris. So I was looking forward to showing her around Paris and sharing with her my favorite spots in the City of Light.

Joanne had scheduled her visit for the first week of June, with a Wednesday arrival. As I reviewed my presentation schedule, it looked like things were going to work out well. But Joanne’s four thousand mile flight from Chicago to Paris was postponed due to a delay in her four hundred mile flight from Ohio to Chicago. As a result, Joanne stayed a night in Chicago and did not arrive in France until Thursday, at the exact time that I was presenting to the team from England!

Some of the project team members had established contact with a limousine driver named Bernard, and they convinced me that he was reliable enough that I could trust my dear aunt to his care. It helped that he knew exactly where to pick her up and how to take her from the airport to my office at Gare Montparnasse, since he had ferried several of our staff along the same route. The rescheduled flight went off without a problem, and Joanne arrived while I was making my presentation.

My poor dear aunt, who was jet-lagged and ready for a nice warm bed, had to sit at my desk while I did my deep dive fit-gap analysis with the UK team! I had decorated my desk with pictures of Yvonne and with the plush dolls Huey, Duey, and Louie – Donald Duck’s nephews – but I’m sure that the decorations offered little comfort to Joanne when she just wanted to sleep! After a few hours, the UK team and I completed our meeting, and I was able to take Aunt Joanne back to my apartment in the Marais where she could get some rest.

While I worked on Friday, Joanne was able to stroll around Paris’ 3rd arrondissement, the Marais. I had a small studio apartment on rue Vieille du Temple, steps from the Musée Picasso, the rue des Rosiers, and the Place des Vosges. The Marais was Paris’ Jewish neighborhood, and while there were visible remnants of prewar Paris, there were many more reminders of all the people and things that Hitler had destroyed in World War II. The twenty-three months during which I called the Marais home were filled with history lessons for me.

After work Friday night, Joanne and I enjoyed dinner at a vegetarian restaurant on the rue des Francs Bourgeois. Aunt Joanne rarely eats red meat, so a restaurant that served mostly vegetables was a nice treat for her. After dinner we visited my friend Lazhar Khorchani at his crepe stand, and we took another walk around the Marais.

Saturday we were not tourists, we were Parisiens! I had planned a full day of events for us, including museum visits, trips past a few spots that were of special importance to me, and a trip to the Bois de Boulogne to watch the women’s final at Roland Garros, the French Open! ♦♦♦ Ever since I was an aspiring teenage tennis player, I had always watched the French Open.

The tournament’s official name is “Les Championnats Internationaux de France.” Americans

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call it the “French Open,” but in Paris it is universally referred to simply as “Roland Garros” after the World War I aviator and tennis enthusiast for whom the main stadium is named. As a child I would wake up early in the morning to take in the action on NBC or ESPN, and for the finals I would even keep a running score of the matches on a note pad, as if I were the chair umpire. Roland Garros was where I had seen Martina Navratilova lose to Kathleen Horvath in the fourth round in 1983, the only match that Martina lost that entire year. Roland Garros was where I had watched my tennis idol John McEnroe get a two set lead on Ivan Lendl in 1984, only to lose to his Czech rival in five sets. Roland Garros was the place where I had watched Michael Chang upset Lendl in their great fourth round match in 1989, the year Chang became the youngest man ever to win a grand slam title. I had seen so many televised matches from Roland Garros, it was going to be a big thrill to be there in person.

The 2004 women’s final featured a matchup of two Russians, Anastasia Myskina and Elena Dementieva. Entering the tournament, Myskina was seeded sixth, Dementieva ninth. Both players had overcome tough draws to reach the finals. Myskina had beaten Svetlana Kuznetsova in the fourth round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals, and Jennifer Capriati in the semifinals, while Dementieva had defeated Lindsay Davenport in the fourth, Amelie Mauresmo in the quarters and Paola Suarez in the semis.

The day of the match, even though Dementieva was seeded lower, I thought that she had been playing better than Myskina in the early round matches. Myskina had even faced match point down against Kuznetsova, before winning in three sets. It looked to me at the time as though Dementieva would be the favorite. No matter who won, Aunt Joanne and I were guaranteed that we would be watching the first grand slam tournament ever to be won by a Russian woman.

It was a hot sunny day at Stade Roland Garros and the red clay sparkled on Court Philippe Chatrier as the players warmed up. Once the match started, it appeared that my gut feelings about Dementieva holding the edge were wrong. Myskina won the first set 6-1 and closed out the second set 6-2, needing only 59 minutes to dismiss her fellow Russian and capture the title.

After the trophy presentation, Joanne and I stayed in our seats to watch some of the men’s doubles final, in which the Belgian team of Xavier Malisse and Olivier Rochus defeated the French pair Fabrice Santoro and Michael Llodra. We wanted to allow some time for the big crowd to make its way off the grounds and into the Metro station. Leaving a half-hour after the women’s match, we still had plenty of time to visit the Centre Georges Pompidou and see its modern art collection during the extended Saturday evening hours. We had visited the Musée d’Orsay on our way to the tennis match. So our Samedi Parisien was indeed a full day! ♦♦♦ The next day, June 6, was the sixtieth anniversary of the Allied D-Day invasion at Normandy. Joanne and I were Parisiens once again, but on this day we were also students of history. We visited the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe, after our walk down the Champs-

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Elysées, we watched some of the television coverage from Normandy. French President Jacques Chirac hosted a huge ceremony at the World War II Memorial Center in Caen, which was attended by veterans, dignitaries and world leaders. As Joanne and I watched the veterans revisit the sites where they had been so heroic six decades earlier, I was touched by the magnitude of this anniversary and by the significance of the veterans’ contribution to world history.

At the same time as the Caen ceremony, we also watched some of the men’s final from Roland Garros, an epic match in which Gaston Gaudio rebounded from two sets down to beat Guillermo Coria in five sets. As I watched that match, I felt lucky that I had chosen for us to attend the women’s final instead of the men’s. After making my dear aunt suffer through a day at my office when she wanted to sleep, I’m glad we did not sit out in the hot sun for a five-hour tennis match!

All in all, Aunt Joanne and I had a great visit, one that we recall fondly to this day. I know that the trip was expensive for her, and the long flights and walks around Paris were physically taxing. But we had such a wonderful time together in Paris! ♦♦♦ Anastasia Myskina has earned 5.6 Million dollars in prize money during her professional tennis career. In September 2004 she was ranked number 2 in the world, her career-high WTA ranking. Injuries have prevented her from playing any tournaments since 2007. In April 2008 Myskina gave birth to her first child, a son that she named Zhenya.

Elena Dementieva won the gold medal in singles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She has won 16 WTA and 3 ITF singles titles, and 6 WTA and 3 ITF doubles titles. Having earned more than 14 million dollars in career prize money, she retired in October 2010. ♦♦♦

Elena Dementieva

Anastasia Myskina

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The Trophy Presentation

Aunt Joanne at Roland Garros

At the Musée d’Orsay

A beautiful day in Paris

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The Louvre

My apartment in Paris 75 rue Vieille du Temple

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XXIV. FIESTA BOWL 2006 If you read chapter XVIII, you know how excited I was about Ohio State and Notre Dame playing football together. You also know that after the games of 1995 and 1996 left a bitter taste in my mouth, I would have welcomed another opportunity for the Irish to play the Buckeyes. At the end of the 2005 season, that opportunity arrived, as the 9-2 Irish were selected to play the 9-2 Buckeyes in the 35th Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on January 2.

When the matchup was announced, I was playing in a golf outing with some friends in Southern California, and as soon as I got the news, I called Michael Wander. While we had several years to get excited about the 1995-96 games, this time we had only a few weeks to prepare for this one. Over the next few days and weeks, I sent several emails to Mike trying to analyze the matchup. The analysis had a recurring theme: although the two teams had

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identical records, all data indicated that the Buckeyes were bigger, stronger and faster than the Irish.

2005 had been an interesting year at Notre Dame. Following the end of the 2004 season, the university fired Tyrone Willingham as head football coach, in a move that was historically premature, socially unjust, and financially irresponsible. It was premature in the sense that every previous coach had been given five years to leave his mark on the program, and Willingham was replaced after only three years. It was socially unjust because Ty was the first African-American head coach of any sport at Notre Dame, so there was bound to be at least the perception that his abrupt dismissal was racially motivated. And it was financially irresponsible in that the university would still face contractual obligations to pay Willingham for multiple years in which he would not be working for Notre Dame. Nevertheless, incoming university president Rev. John Jenkins and the university trustees fired Tyrone Willingham. Some people were happy that day. Other people were unhappy that day. Some people are still unhappy about the firing to this day.

In Mid-December, university officials announced that they had hired Charlie Weis, an alumnus of the university who had been a very successful assistant coach in the National Football League. Weis was Offensive Coordinator for the New England Patriots at the time of the hiring, and he remained with the Patriots through their Super Bowl victory in early 2005, then moved to Notre Dame to take over the Irish program.

Every game of Notre Dame’s 2005 season was exciting. Quarterback Brady Quinn was a junior, and he really blossomed under the tutelage of offensive specialist Charlie Weis.

Quinn racked up great statistics, but two hiccups blemished the Irish schedule: a loss to Michigan State in the home opener, and a nail-biting loss to arch-rival USC in mid-October, a game that would be most memorable for the “Bush-push,” where USC running back Reggie Bush helped quarterback Matt Leinart into the end zone for the winning score.

Ohio State also had an exciting year in 2005. In the second game of the season, the Buckeyes hosted Texas, and lost a very close game to Mack Brown and the Longhorns.

Then in their second Big Ten conference game, the Buckeyes lost a close game at Penn State.

In their rivalry game in Ann Arbor, Ohio State beat Michigan 25-21 to clinch a share of the Big Ten championship.

In their final game, the Irish had narrowly escaped Stanford 38-31 in a back-and-forth matchup on a cold November night in Palo Alto. Looking at trends, it appeared that the Buckeyes were getting better toward the end of the season, while the Irish were getting worse, or running to stand still. That trend, combined with the bigger/stronger/faster analysis that I had emailed Mike Wander, left me feeling that the Irish could only win in Tempe if they managed to steal the game from the Buckeyes. Victory was possible, but the Irish would have to control the time of possession, take advantage of turnovers, and avoid big plays by the speedy Buckeyes. ♦♦♦

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I had finished my work with ESCO in the summer of 2005, and had followed Marie Bell to a project at Sony Pictures Studios. The project was similar to what we had done in Europe, a studio operations, finance and reporting system planned for global rollout. I was responsible for guiding the project team through integration testing and cutover, organizing and executing all of the activities in the weekend in which data conversions are executed and the system is prepared for go-live. It was an exciting role for me, and I was happy to work in California again. A one-hour flight from San Francisco to LA gave me many more opportunities to spend time with Phuong and Yvonne, who was now almost three years old. I enjoyed taking Yvonne out for fun activities, and Phuong and I were beginning to rekindle our old romance too. I was quite happy, still riding a wave of excitement about my European adventure, but also eager to make my mark on Sony, and thrilled to spend more time in California. ♦♦♦ I flew into Phoenix the morning of the game. The Fiesta Bowl committee had prepared a large tailgate party in the lot adjacent to the stadium, so I drove directly from the airport to Tempe and entered the party. Admission to the party included a buffet lunch, performances by marching bands and cheerleaders from both schools, and a safe spacious area to sit and relax before the 5PM kickoff. I set up a rendezvous with my cousin Cindy and her husband Charlie. Charlie had just undergone knee surgery a few days beforehand, so he was pushing a walker. Before the operation, Charlie’s doctor told him that he would need to rest his leg for several weeks after the surgery. “No problem,” Charlie said, “as soon as I get back from the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, I will rest my knee.” Sun Devil Stadium is set against a hill, so entry requires a walk along an uphill winding pathway. Fortunately, Charlie was driven up the hill in a golf cart.

Cindy and Charlie’s son Blake was in the middle of his sophomore year at Notre Dame. If anyone at the university remembered me (for good or bad reasons) fifteen years after my graduation, Blake was certainly making them forget about me. He was a resident of the Morrissey Manor, a fixture on the Dean’s list as a pre-professional major in the College of Science, and an overall good guy. His grandparents, my Aunt Ruby and Uncle Stan, were so proud that Blake chose to attend Notre Dame. When Uncle Stan and Aunt Ruby would visit me when I was a student, before Stan would leave campus, if he had a twenty-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill in his wallet, he gave me the twenty and he went home with the five. (The same thing was true about my father.) Times were tough for all of them, paying tuition, keeping everybody fed, yet they were always caring and giving of their time, their money and their heart. Stan and Ruby are immeasurably proud of Blake and all that he has accomplished.

After a few hours at the tailgate party, I made my way up the hill into Sun Devil Stadium for the game. For me, the price of admission was made worthwhile even before the kickoff, when I was able to take pictures of the two bands playing their fight songs and marching in their famous formations. Back in 1995 and 1996, digital photo technology was still in its infancy, so much so that I did not yet own a digital camera, and I had not even taken my still

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camera into the games that were held in Columbus and South Bend. Nine and a half years later, this special bowl pairing had enabled me to get two great pictures of the bands.

Notre Dame took the opening kickoff and scored first, with a six play 72-yard drive, guided by three big rushes from Darius Walker. The Buckeyes also scored on their first possession, with a seven play 80-yard drive capped by a 56-yard touchdown pass from Troy Smith to Ted Ginn. There were still ten minutes to play in the first quarter, and the teams had exchanged punches.

On its next possession, Notre Dame’s drive stalled at midfield, and the Irish punted to pin the Buckeyes deep in their own territory. A few plays and a few penalties into the drive, Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith was sacked and fumbled, with Notre Dame’s Ronald Talley recovering the ball at the 14-yard line.

This mistake gave Notre Dame a chance to take a lead and to capitalize on a Buckeye mistake. Such events were crucial if the Irish were to take the game from the bigger, stronger Buckeyes. For the Irish to dictate the terms of this game, they would have to take advantage of the short field. The ensuing possession was critical On first down, Darius Walker rushed for seven yards. Then Walker rushed again for one yard on second down. On third and two, Walker was stopped for no gain. Fourth down – what should the Irish do? Kick the field goal, right? Take a lead thanks to the gift from Troy Smith, right? At least put three points on the board, to reward your team and your defense for recovering the fumble, right? Wrong. Charlie Weis, the Jersey gambler, liked to go for it on fourth down. And even more, Weis liked to pass. Brady Quinn’s play action did not fool any of the eleven Buckeyes on the field, or any of the 76,196 people in the stands. A.J. Hawk sacked Quinn at the 14-yard line. The scoreboard did not change. The Irish defense got no reward for recovering the fumble.

The game, of course, did not end right there. But in the northeast corner of the stands, I had the feeling that it was all over for the Irish. If you’re going to steal a game from a stronger team, you have to capitalize on any mistake that they make.

Six plays later, Ginn took the ball from Smith on an end-around, beat the defense to the edge, and raced 68 yards into the end zone.

Ginn’s second touchdown effectively ended the game. The Buckeyes would add several big plays, including an 85-yard touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes and a 60-yard rushing touchdown by Antonio Pittman, but these plays just served as exclamation points on the Buckeye victory. Oddly, if you read popular press accounts from the game, you’ll read about a fumble that video replay officials overturned to an incomplete pass, which some might argue was a pivotal point in the game. I remember the play and the replay, and I promise you that the outcome of the game was clearly determined long before that point. If the replay had not overturned the ruling on the field, the outcome would have simply been proclaimed by a different exclamation point. The final score was Ohio State 34, Notre Dame 20.

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After the game I had dinner at Outback Steakhouse with Charlie, Cindy, Blake and Blake’s roommate. We had a nice meal, and celebrated the end of a fine football season. Three days after the Fiesta Bowl, Vince Young led Texas past USC to win the national championship for the Longhorns. Late in the game, Young scored on a quarterback-option to secure the win.

All three Notre Dame- Ohio State games hold special importance for me. Looking back, I think Notre Dame’s best chance to win any of the games was 1995 in Columbus, where the Irish played very well, right up to the point where Alan Rossum fumbled the punt. The 2005 Irish team was much better than either the 1995 or 1996 ND squads, but alas, the 2005 Buckeyes were stronger than the 2005 Irish. Of all three Buckeye teams, I would argue that the 1996 team was the best. That team finished ranked #2 in the polls after beating Arizona State in a fantastic Rose Bowl. I really hope that Notre Dame and Ohio State are able to play each other again, maybe one home-and-home series each decade, or maybe in another bowl game.

In the last twenty years I have attended the Fiesta Bowl Classic three times, and although two of those ended badly for the Irish, I have always left Phoenix with the feeling that I had been at a special game. Although I hope to one day, I have not yet attended a Rose Bowl in Pasadena – or any other bowl game, for that matter – but I can attest from experience that the Fiesta Bowl committee, the great Arizona weather, the people of the Phoenix/Scottsdale/Glendale metropolitan areas, and the inclusion in the Bowl Championship Series make the Fiesta Bowl one of the greatest college football events every year. I know that I will go back to Phoenix again some day, and I really hope to attend yet another Fiesta Bowl Classic. ♦♦♦ Brady Quinn was the 22nd overall selection in the 2007 NFL Draft. He has played with six teams over six years.

A.J. Hawk won the Lombardi Award as college football’s best interior lineman or linebacker.

He was the fifth overall selection of the 2006 NFL Draft. He currently plays linebacker for the Green Bay Packers. He is married to the Laura Quinn, Brady’s sister.

Ted Ginn Jr. was the ninth overall selection in the 2007 NFL Draft. He currently plays wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals.

Santonio Holmes was the 25th overall selection in the 2006 NFL Draft. He caught the winning touchdown and was named the most valuable player in Super Bowl XLIII. Jim Tressel has more than 220 wins as a college head football coach. He led Ohio State to a national championship in 2003, with a Fiesta Bowl win over Miami. In 2014 he was named president of Youngstown State University.

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The Ohio State Band playing “Le Regiment” and forming “Script Ohio”

The Band of the Fighting Irish

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With some ND cheerleaders at the pre-game party

Game Program

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XXV. STANFORD 2007 For the Notre Dame football team, 2007 was the worst season in four decades. The team got off to an 0-5 start, losing all of its September games without showing a trace of progress. I attended the team’s first win of the season, an early-October match against UCLA (who was ranked 25th before the game) in Pasadena. After beating the Bruins, the Irish drought continued until mid-November, when they beat Duke in the seniors’ final game at Notre Dame Stadium. During the abysmal year, Notre Dame finished at our near the bottom of NCAA rankings in many offensive categories. The team never went back to basics, and throughout the year continued to pursue a vertical passing game rather than stressing mastery of the core fundamentals of football. In its archrival games, Notre Dame lost to Michigan, USC and Boston College by a combined total score of 103-14.

The most egregious loss came at the hands of another perennial opponent, the United States Naval Academy. Navy beat the Irish 46-44 in triple overtime. Late in regulation time, facing a 4th and 8 at the 24-yard line, the coaching staff tried to get a first down instead of attempting a field goal to win the game. Maybe the coaching staff was right, and the kicker was unable to connect on a field goal from 43 yards. But if they were wrong, and the kid really could kick the field goal, the game was over, no overtime, Notre Dame wins. The Naval Academy is a great institution, and I’ve always admired the Midshipmen, so I was less upset about losing to Navy than I was about having a situation where the Notre Dame coaching staff did not have enough faith in its own players to take a chance on kicking the field goal to win the game. But they did what they did, and Navy beat the Irish for the first time since 1963.

Stanford would be the final game of the season. Jim Harbaugh, the former Michigan quarterback, was in his first year as Stanford’s head coach. The Cardinal had a disappointing 3-7 record entering the game, but they had defeated USC at the Coliseum the same night that the Irish beat UCLA. On paper, the matchup looked like it could go either way. Neither the

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Irish nor the Cardinal had any consistent credible strengths, so the game would likely go to the team which made fewer mistakes.

Appropriately, the two most memorable plays of the game never officially happened. David Grimes made a great catch in the end zone, directly in front of our seats, but the video replay official overturned the call, nullifying a touchdown. Post-game reviews would indicate that the video replay booth was in error, and Grimes had made a valid catch. The other memorable play occurred at the end of the first half, when Stanford threw a pass deep to the middle of the field. Notre Dame’s David Bruton intercepted, and with no time on the game clock, used six laterals to return the interception for a touchdown, similar to the 1982 play that California used against Stanford in their rivalry game. However, a Notre Dame defensive lineman was penalized for an unsportsmanlike hit on the quarterback, which erased the interception, the laterals, and the touchdown.

The final score of the game was 21-14, in favor of Notre Dame. I don’t remember much more about the game than I have already written. My cousin Mark attended with us, and as one incomplete pass after another was thrown, he and I enjoyed a nice visit inside Stanford’s sparkling new stadium. The afternoon was less about football than family. I will most remember Notre Dame - Stanford 2007 because it was Phuong and Yvonne’s first Notre Dame football game. I look forward to the day when I can take them to a home game on campus in South Bend. No matter what happened on the field, we had a wonderful afternoon together. Well, Yvonne had a good afternoon until she fell asleep, midway through the third quarter! Stanford had arranged a family fun center in the field adjacent to the stadium.

There were bouncy castles, slides, and other activities for children. Yvonne loved that area, and she used up a lot of her energy before the game. Phuong held Yvonne in her lap while she slept, and she marveled at how I remained so very calm in the stadium, as opposed to how animated I get when I watch the games at home on television. ♦♦♦ In the first decade of the 21st century, the Notre Dame football team enjoyed benefits that other college teams would envy: an abundance of donations from benefactors, a lucrative footwear/apparel contract from Adidas, and a contract with NBC that broadcasts all home games to a national audience. Yet despite these advantages, the football teams of the past 15 years had failed to live up to the standards set by teams during the previous one hundred years. The football team had not performed as well as the teams of the university’s other varsity sports. The athletic achievements of the football team were not on par with academic achievements that were prevalent in the campus lecture halls, faculty offices, and research laboratories. Twenty-one years removed from its last national championship, Notre Dame football was at a crossroads. Would the university officials tolerate the diminished football performance as long as the revenue from donors, Adidas, and NBC continued to flow in? Or would the administration see the trends and work to enable a renaissance of the football program, making sure that the coaches, players, and support staff were not only sufficiently skilled, but also tough enough, ambitious enough, and strong enough to free Notre Dame Football from the shackles of complacency, so that once again days of football glory will return to the Golden Dome? At the end of 2009, those questions remained unanswered.

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♦♦♦ I had recently been at a crossroads of my own. Would I continue to travel around the world, living a solitary life of luxury as I built systems for my customers? Or would I finally settle down at home and begin to build a more conventional, stable life for myself? For most of my traveling years I argued that the two alternatives were mutually exclusive. But in 2006 two things happened to influence my future. First, after I finished Project STAR at Sony Pictures, I moved to a new job on IBM’s long term outsourcing project at Disney, which enabled me to work form home and maintain the Tomorrowland System that I had worked with for so many years. Second, after I rejoined the Disney project and was established in San Francisco on a more permanent basis, my relationship with Phuong blossomed to the point where I wanted to spend every bit of my time outside of work with her and Yvonne.

After sixteen years of heavy work-related travel, I was finally able to live, work, and play in the same city. And I was in love!

Phuong and I married January 26, 2008. Dave Linden served as our celebrant, guiding us through our vows. Dave Graybeal served as the presenter of the bride. Peter and Linda Mathews did our readings. Lan Tran and Yvonne served as bridesmaids for Phuong, while Michael Wander and Jeff Easland stood up as my groomsmen. It was a perfect day, the happiest day of my life. Although I am writing about it at the end of this book, our wedding day was a beginning. Phuong and I became husband and wife, Yvonne became a daughter to me, and I became “Daddy” to Yvonne. In this book I have written about myself in many contexts: as spectator, tennis player, equipment manager, management consultant, and horse racing enthusiast. None of these roles is nearly as special to me as being a husband and a father. As proud as I am of the memories I have recounted in this book, I am even more excited about the new pages that Phuong, Yvonne and I will write in all of our tomorrows. ♦♦♦

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Yvonne with Notre Dame Cheerleaders

Leprechaun 172

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Phuong and I at home before the game

The new Stanford Stadium

The game was a real snoozer - literally!

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The Bridal Party (from left, Dave Graybeal, Linda Mathews, Pete Mathews, Dave Linden, Lan Tran, Michael Wander, Jeff Easland)

Enrique and Dianne, Mom, Lori and Kevin

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EPILOGUE I have had so many blessings and so many wonderful opportunities in my life. This book has mostly been an attempt to write about some of those experiences, and express gratitude to all of the people who made them possible. As I close this book, I offer two challenges. First, I put forth what I call the “two deviations from the mean” theory: While all of us are average at many things, each of us has something that we do much better than the majority of people, something for which our performance is statistically rated two standard deviations from the mean. I challenge you to discover that area of extreme competency within yourself, to pursue it to the greatest extent possible, and to use that talent to help make the world a better place. In your free time, pursue the activities that you feel most passionate about, because they too will enable you to leave your mark on the world. (Of course, if you happen to feel passionate about your area of expertise, you’re in an even better position to change the world!) Through it all, be a good citizen, and do the best that you can do – if you always do that, you will be free from regret no matter what outcome results from your efforts.

The second challenge takes the form of a very simple statement: If you want peace, work for justice. I first heard this statement more than twenty years ago, but it is only recently that I have come to grasp its power and meaning. Everyone in the world has some basic needs and rights: access to clean water, nutritious food, clothing, a safe place to live, basic education, and fair treatment under the law, regardless of where they are born or what political and economic systems they operate within. If the people of the world would work together to make sure that these rights were guaranteed to all, I think we would find that there would be fewer people waging war against each other. While the games that I have written about in this book all have winners and losers, life does not have to be a zero-sum game.

If we work together to ensure justice, we can have peace. ♦♦♦

PHOTO CREDITS Front Cover, middle left: Mari Okuda Front Cover, lower right: Dianne Talarico Front Cover, upper left and right: Tony Talarico Title Page: Dianne Talarico Chapter I: United States Naval Academy Chapter II: Tricia Capri

Chapter XVIII: game, Mark Hall, Associated Press game, Getty Images family, Tony Talarico Chapter XIX: family photo, Tony Talarico race photo, Ed Reinke, Associated Press race photo, Stephen Green-Armytage, Sports Illustrated

Chapter III: The Ohio State University Chapter VI: McKinley Senior High School

Chapter XX: band, Tony Talarico family, Tony Talarico poker photo, Jeff Easland

Chapter XIII: ABC Sports Chapter XXI: Tony Talarico Chapter XIV: scoreboard, The Observer sideline 1, Mari Okuda sideline 2, CBS Sports locker room, Tony Talarico Chapter XV: field, Dianne Talarico Disneyland 1, Tony Talarico game, Michael Stonebreaker Disneyland 2, Tony Talarico Chapter XVI: managers and team photo, University of Notre Dame Chapter XVII: player photos, University of Notre Dame family, Tony Talarico game, University of Notre Dame

Chapter XXII: race photos, Dubai World Cup family, Tony Talarico Chapter XXIII: match photos, Tony Talarico family, Tony Talarico apartment photo, Enrique Navas Chapter XXIV: Tony Talarico Chapter XXV: game, Tony Talarico wedding, Gary Trignani, Accents Photography family, Tony Talarico About the Author: Kara Coates

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to Phuong and Yvonne for tolerating those late nights and weekends when I was writing at the computer instead of cleaning the house or taking out the trash. Thanks to Dad for arranging those early trips, and thanks to Mom for finding a way to pay for them so that we could go. Thanks to Dianne and Lori for encouraging me to take risks, have fun, and learn as much as I possibly could.

Thanks to the family members and friends who proofread early drafts for me. Thanks to Aunt Joanne for providing encouragement throughout the writing process.

Thanks to every athlete that I have written about here. By competing in the arena, you have helped me to learn, to dream, to set goals and to work toward them. I hope that I have not been overly critical of any of you, because your athletic efforts were valiant.

Thanks to my friends and customers at Price Waterhouse, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM. Any mistakes, inaccuracies, or errors of omission are my own and mine alone, but please, charge it to my head and not my heart.

TONY TALARICO is a management consultant who helps multinational corporations use technology to solve business problems. In his leisure time, he enjoys playing sports, watching sports, reading about sports, and writing about sports. He also enjoys the visual and performing arts, and traveling around the world. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Phuong and daughter Yvonne. ♦♦♦ 25 Seconds is intended for optimal reading enjoyment in electronic form. Additional copies of 25 Seconds are available in CD-ROM/download format, organic paperback format, or organic hardback format. Contact the author for more details.

At least one tree was harmed in the production of this work.

Please only print hardcopies when it is absolutely necessary.