Vol. 15 No. 3 Football Edition - Notre Dame Club of Greater Orlando

Vol. 15 No. 3
Football Edition
New Assistant Coaches
Golf Tournament
Freshman Dinner
Game Watches
The Shirt 2015
Summer Picnic
The Navy Series
Game Watches
Beta Center
Preseason Football Poll
New Football Uniforms
Notre Dame Trivia
Notre Dame vs. Miami 1988
Pass Right
Three Return to South Bend As Assistant Coaches
The new Irish running backs coach is
Autry Denson, Notre Dame’s all-time
leading rusher with 4,448 yards and 46
touchdowns. He certainly knows how
to run with the football but he has
limited coaching experience, serving
three years at Bethune-Cookman and
one year at Miami of Ohio as their
running backs coach.
Item of Interest
Tara Doyle SMC’13 is the
newest member of our Board
of Directors. Contact her at
[email protected].
September:
Young Alumni: Raglan Road-4th
First Game Watch-5th
Notre Dame on Showtime-8th
Universal ND Celebration-21st
Bishop Moore H.S. Info Night-30th
October:
Feast on the 50-8th
Habitat for Humanity-24th
Region 17 Alumni Meeting-24th
Hesburgh Lecture-29th
November:
Men’s Basketball-26th-29th
December:
Santa Shop Service Project-12th
Newsletter Vol. 13 No. 4
**Watch your email for details**
Todd Lyght was recruited by Lou Holtz
as a receiver but was moved to
defensive back where he was a three
year starter and two time consensus
All-American in 1989 and 1990. The
new Fighting Irish defensive backs
coach likewise has a short coaching
resume but he did serve under an
excellent head coach, Chip Kelly, at
the University of Oregon. When Kelly
got the head coaching job with the
Philadelphia Eagles, he brought Todd
Lyght with him.
Notre Dame’s new offensive
coordinator, Mike Sanford Jr.,
returns to South Bend where he
attended high school while his father
coached wide receivers under Bob
Davie. His most valuable coaching
experience was at Stanford under Jim
Harbaugh where he coached
quarterbacks, running backs and
wide receivers for three years.
The former Boise State quarterback
returned to his alma mater last year
as offensive coordinator where his
Broncos averaged 494 yards per
game, won the Mountain West
Conference and beat the Arizona
Wildcats in the Fiesta Bowl.
Golf Tournament A Big Success
By Rob Thomson
The beautiful Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes
hosted our 23rd annual Notre Dame Club
Scholarship
and
Charity
Golf
Tournament. Nearly $16,000 was raised
to support scholarships for local students
at Notre Dame and for Bishop Moore High
School, New Hope for Kids, Morningstar
School and Bishop Grady Villas.
A big thank-you goes out to the
tournament leadership triumvirate of
Paul Partyka, Rob Thomson and Dave
Anderson with great help along the way
Legacy Club Fazio Course: Hole #15, Par 5
from David Mack and tournament day
volunteers including Mary Heaton, Paul Vasquez, Paul O’Toole and friends from New Hope for
Kids.
Panera Bread (Gavin Ford) was once again our title sponsor. Other major sponsors included
SchenkelSchultz (Tom Chandler), The Flooring Center (Dick Rusnak), Trustco Bank (Kieran
Bulger), Guignard Company (Neal Ungar) and Florida Business Interiors (Denny Bowman). And
thanks to the “regulars” that continue to support our tournament and also to our newcomers
who keep us energized.
At check in everyone received an
OrlaNDo branded duffel bag, a
coupon for a free haircut and
shave at Kennedy’s All-American
Barber Shop and a Panera box
lunch. The Bishop Moore Band
entertained us with pre-teeoff
music including the National
Anthem and the Notre Dame
Victory March. There was free
beer, a frozen margarita machine
at the turn, a chance to win a
Bishop Moore High School Band
Lexus with a hole-in-one and
additional contests on one of the Par 3 and one of the Par 5 holes sponsored by Dixon Golf. The
event concluded with more food and drink and an exciting live auction.
Unfortunately, travel snafus got in the way of honoring our 2015 Good Fellow, Reggie Brooks,
and he was unable to make the tournament. We hope to honor him at some point in the
future, perhaps with a former teammate at his side.
The Golf Committee (Rob Thomson, Dave Anderson
and Paul Partyka) with two members of the winning
Panera team.
The defending 2014 champion Team
Kiley/Horan/Peckels finished tied for
second with Patrick Fravel’s JP Morgan
Chase Team. The Panera Team comprised
of Jeff and Brad Doster, Miles Deardon
and Ron Erickson took home the 2015
title with a 16 under par 56! Board
member Caleb Keenan captained the
team with the highest score and took
home the booby prize, rounds of
miniature golf at Pirate’s Cove.
Thank you to everyone who participated
at any level of sponsorship or
participation. Annually, this is one of the proudest moments for our club. See you in May,
2016 for tournament #24.
Freshmen Meet Upperclassmen for Dinner at Cheesecake Factory
(Freshmen in bold) BACK: Anthony Acuna, Matthew Millay, Michael LeGrand,
Reinando Angola-Hernandez, Robbie Ryan; MIDDLE: Anna Burbank, Matthew
Mottern, Michael Romano, Kayah St. Gerard; FRONT: Brittney Decimus, Juliana
Mestre, Sydney Monroe, Patrick Dunleavy
New Location for Evening Game Watches
Caitlin Van Voorhis has invited our club back
to Finnhenry’s in downtown Orlando for the
afternoon game watches. Finnhenry’s was
previously named the best bar in Orlando and
we will have the place all to ourselves. It
usually opens at 6:00 pm on Saturdays but for
the Notre Dame Club the doors will open 30
minutes before kickoff.
Caitlin will treat us to one free keg so get
there before the tap runs dry. And she has
arranged free parking two blocks away. The
parking pass can be downloaded from our
website: www.NDOrlando.com. Be on the lookout for unfamiliar faces because all local
alumni will be invited. Introduce yourself and
invite them to join our club.
The last three years the evening game
watches were held at Ollie’s Public House,
Caitlin’s second establishment. We were
treated just as well there as at Finnhenry’s but
the place is small, crowded and very noisy
during football games. It was so noisy that we
celebrated our apparent victory over Florida
State for two minutes before it quieted down
enough to learn that our winning touchdown
had been negated by a penalty.
Late in the season, we’ll be watching
football and enjoying the cool breezes under
the awning at Vanbarry’s Public House.
Fortunately for us, Caitlin opened a third
establishment in 2014, Vanbarry’s Public
House, 3 miles south of Finnhenry’s. We tried
it out at the end of the last football season
and it can better accommodate our club. So
join us there for the evening game watches in
2015. Both places have excellent bar food so
bring your appetite along with your Notre
Dame spirit.
The baked mac-and-cheese (lower right)
gets universally great reviews.
The Shirt Project 2015
The students of Notre Dame gave birth to The Shirt in
1990. It was the inspiration of Brennan Harvath ND’91,
Chairman of AnTostal, who envisioned selling T-shirts at
the event to raise money for the student body. The front
simply read “Notre Dame Irish” and on the back was a
rather comical depiction of Coach Lou Holtz surrounded by
The Shirt 1990
campus landmarks. The Shirt created a sense of unity
when the students wore it to the home opener against Michigan, creating a sea of green. Nine
thousand were sold that first year with $17,000 in profits divided among the residence halls.
The shirt was so popular that its creation and sale became an annual event with each new
edition of The Shirt outselling the previous one. Profits from the 1993 shirt were used to assist
in paying the medical bills of a Notre Dame student who had been paralyzed and to establish
memorial scholarships in the names of two women on the varsity swim team who had died in a
bus accident.
The Shirt Project has become so big that it is now its
own student organization with annual sales topping
165,000 making The Shirt the largest selling piece of
collegiate athletic apparel in the world. Half of the
$750,000 annual profit is allocated to The Shirt Charity
Fund, used to assist students with unanticipated
medical expenses beyond their means.
About
$100,000 goes to The Rector Fund, from which hall Cheerleaders modeling The Shirt 2015
rectors can request money for students-in-need to
participate in extra-curricular campus activities which they otherwise could not afford. The
remaining revenue is distributed to student clubs and organizations and to create additional
memorial scholarships.
The Shirt is kept secret until its unveiling with much fanfare the weekend of the Spring Game.
This year a special guest was handed the microphone and, as soon as he uttered his first few
words, cheers of recognition and appreciation erupted:
“May I have your attention please. This is Sgt. Tim McCarthy for the Indiana State Police.”
Sgt. McCarthy just retired after 60 years of delivering pun-filled safety messages at Notre Dame
Stadium. He saved one pun for his last event: “Today it’s a little bit chilly, but wearing The Shirt
makes you look hot.”
Student Send-off at Summer Picnic
Ten new students and their families were
welcomed to our Notre Dame family at the
summer picnic on August 8. Notre Dame
banners hung from every hook, sign and
plaque in the cafeteria of Annunciation
Catholic Academy.
As the freshmen
arrived, they were given green-beaded
necklaces to identify them. Sophomores
and Juniors wore blue and seniors and
graduate students wore gold.
The new students seemed to gravitate
toward one another, which was not surprising since they had met each other previously at clubsponsored functions at Sam Snead’s Tavern and the Cheesecake Factory. Our new club
president, Kieran Bulger, welcomed everyone and then Dave Anderson explained the
significance of the bead colors followed by a story from his first week on campus. His talk could
have been entitled How Not to Act Like a Freshman.
Fr. George, our club chaplain, led us in grace before meals and
then Bubbaloo’s Bodacious BBQ served us chicken and
barbequed beef plus lots of sides like cole slaw, baked beans
and mac-and-cheese. The student balloon toss was won by the
team of Jon Wiese ND’16 and Alex Acuna ND’18 . In the junior
division, Josh Steedle (future ND’29) and dad Jeff Steedle
ND’02, 04 took the title.
Then it was back inside where
Tom Steedle introduced the new
students to the history of The
Shirt. Each of them was called to stage and presented The Shirt
2015 and a group photo was taken. Allie Tessitore won the grand
prize in the raffle, a pair of tickets to the Georgia Tech game.
The new students returned from the back room where they had
learned the Alma Mater during the raffle. They retook the stage and we all sang Notre Dame,
Our Mother. Of course, that was followed by the Notre Dame Victory March.
Reinaldo Angola-Hernandez, Brittney Decimus, Patrick Dunleavy, Ashley Fleishman,
Michael LeGrand, Matthew Mottern, Michael Romano, Kayah St. Gerard, Rebecca
Tessitore, Caitlin Linden
Why Do We Always Play the Naval Academy?
The Notre Dame-Navy rivalry dates back to
1927. It is the longest uninterrupted
intersectional series in college football.
Why has it lasted so long?
The answer to that question dates back to
1941, the year that the United States
entered World War II.
Notre Dame
students left in droves to enlist. Even head
football coach Frank Leahy joined the
Navy. Enrollment plummeted and by 1943
it had fallen to the same level that it was
during the Great Depression. The few students remaining were mostly 17 year olds and
upperclassmen who were ineligible to serve because of medical deferments. There just wasn’t
enough tuition money coming in to keep the University open.
Notre Dame already had ties to the Navy besides football. One of the first Naval ROTC
programs in the nation was established on campus just a few months before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor. The Navy needed a place to train more men for war and Notre Dame
needed more revenue to survive.
Virtually the entire campus became military except
for 250 civilian students. In four years, 12,000 young
men came to Notre Dame for officer training in the
V-12 program. They attended class, had mass
meetings in the dining hall and held drills on the quad
or in the stadium. Civilian students agreed to double
bunk in already cramped dorm rooms to make living
space for the officer candidates.
Notre Dame survived the war and, as a gesture to its benefactor, the Irish agreed to play the
Midshipmen on the football field for as long as Navy wanted.
The Notre Dame-Navy series has generated another longest in college football history, a
winning streak for the Irish. Future Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach quarterbacked
Navy to victory over Notre Dame in 1963, a year in which the Irish won only two games. But
the next forty-three games belonged to the Irish. It wasn’t until 2007 that Notre Dame’s
winning streak ended as a Charlie Weis coached team fell to Navy in triple overtime 46-44.
Baseball Coach to be Speaker at UND Celebration
Notre Dame’s head baseball coach, Mik
Aoki, has accepted our club’s invitation to
be the guest speaker at our Universal
Notre Dame Celebration (formerly called
UND Night). He has been with the Irish for
five seasons after holding the same
position at Boston College.
Aoki is known for player development and
has seen 17 of his ND players taken in the
major league draft. Among those drafted
include our club’s own Trey Mancini, who
was picked by the Baltimore Orioles in the 8th round in 2013. Trey was just elevated from A to
AA ball, now just two steps from the Big Leagues.
The UND Celebration will be held downtown at the University Club on Monday, September 21.
Board of Directors Tours Beta Center
For many years our club has been sponsoring a Notre
Dame student to spend eight weeks during the summer
working at the Beta Center. This year’s volunteer was a
local student, Anna Burbank ND’18, whose mother, Gail
Burbank, serves on our club’s Board of Directors.
For our July meeting, the board met at the Beta Center
for a tour before our meeting. Beta Center’s mission is
“to give children and parents the knowledge and
support needed for strong and healthy families.”
There is a walk-in crisis center where distressed families
or pregnant teens can get immediate help. A residency
program houses pregnant teens and those with infants
for up to 18 months while Orange County Public School
Dwight Howard, whose mother was
teachers conduct accredited classes so that the girls
a teen mom, donated $50,000 to
won’t be among the 70% of teen moms who drop out.
equip the media center.
There are non-academic classes in parenting, life skills,
personal enrichment and career preparation. Anna rotated through all of the departments and
was highly praised during the tour.
This is REAL Reality TV
Showtime will be presenting twelve weekly episodes of A Season With Notre
Dame Football as their cameras follow Irish players and coaches from game
preparation to the drama of the game itself. The half-hour series premiers on
Tuesday, September 8, three days after the season opener against Texas.
Is ESPN’s Preseason Football Poll
Really That Good?
Preseason polls are notoriously poor predictors of
the eventual outcome of the college football
season. Reputations get too much weight and
important predictive factors are not taken into
account. However, ESPN Stats and Information has
created a Football Power Index (FPI) that was amazingly accurate in 2014. The top three teams
in last year’s Preseason FPI were Florida State, Oregon and Alabama, all of whom made the
inaugural four-team College Football Playoff.
FPI estimates team strength using four major components (although it does not take into
account difficulty of schedule). In order of importance:
1. Prior years’ offense, defense and special teams efficiencies (with the greatest weight
given to the season immediately prior).
2. Returning starters with special weight given to a returning quarterback. Notre Dame
has 19 starters returning, more than any other FBS team.
3. The four-year average recruiting ranking which measures the talent on the team.
4. Coaching tenure with a penalty assessed for a first-year coach introducing a new
system. This will be Brian Kelly’s sixth season.
Here is the Preseason FPI for 2015:
Top 25 FPI Opponents on Notre Dame’s Schedule:
1. Ohio State
13. USC
2. Alabama
17. Stanford
3. TCU
19. Clemson
4. LSU
23. Georgia
5. Baylor
6. Oregon
In a separate analysis measuring Strength of Schedule,
7. Notre Dame
Alabama, Notre Dame and Ole Miss were among the 10
8. Ole Miss
teams with the most difficult schedules. Baylor and Ohio
9. Georgia
State were among the 10 teams with the easiest schedules.
10. Arkansas
“Ungrabbable” Uniforms for the Irish
Under Armour, Nike and Adidas have been trying to
come up with college football uniforms that are lighter
and tougher for opponents to grab. Under Armour
thinks it has succeeded and has supplied Notre Dame,
Cincinnati, Auburn, Maryland and Utah with uniforms
constructed using its new Armourgrid technology.
Will the technology give these five teams and edge? If
so, it could be a game-changer.
Shamrock Series Uniform Unveiled
The Shamrock Series neutral site games began in 2009.
Starting with the 2011 game Adidas, and now Under
Armour, have designed a special uniform just for that
one game. This year the Shamrock Series game
against Boston College will be played at the “Green Monster,” Fenway Park, and the uniforms
will likewise be green.
At a team meeting on August 13, Brian Kelly introduced
senior walk-on running back Josh Anderson to model the
uniform. Josh is a player who has never been in a game
but he’s taken more hits than any other running back as a
member of the scout team.
After Coach Kelly pointed out the uniform’s features,
emphasizing the eleven stripes representing Notre
Dame’s eleven national championships, he spoke of Josh:
“He’s a great model. That’s why I brought him up
here because he models a lot of the things that are
right with Notre Dame football. He’s worked hard
since he came here. He’s a walk-on. And today,
Josh, congratulations.
We’re awarding you a
scholarship.”
A video captured the event. The entire team jumped to
their feet cheering as they rushed to the front of the room. The first player to reach him and
give Josh a big hug was another former walk-on, team captain, and the 2014 team MVP, Joe
Schmidt.
Notre Dame Trivia
Name the six Notre Dame coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame
Answer on next page
Hesburgh Lecture to be Presented October 29
Hesburgh Lectures have brought Notre Dame and local
communities together for continued learning since 1986. Each
year over 6,000 alumni and friends take advantage of more than
200 Hesburgh Lectures presented by more than 100 Notre Dame
faculty members.
Board member Kathleen Sabol has arranged for Dr. Atalia Omer
to present our annual Hesburgh Lecture October 29 at Valencia College. Dr. Omer is a tenured
Associate Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for
International Peace Studies.
Dr. Omer’s lecture should be especially relevant and interesting in light of the upsurge of
violence by ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram. Her talk is entitled Does Religion Cause Violence?
What is the Role of Religion in Peacebuilding?
Fighting Irish Basketball is Coming to Orlando
The Notre Dame men’s basketball team will make its second
appearance in the Advocare Invitational Tournament (formerly the
Orlando Classic) at the Wide World of Sports Complex Thanksgiving
weekend, November 26-29, 2015. The Irish captured the title in 2010.
You’re Invited to Raglan Road
For those who won’t be at the Pep Rally on
campus the day before the opening game
against Texas, you’re invited to a pep rally of
sorts at Raglan Road Irish Pub September 4,
sponsored by the Notre Dame Club Young
Alumni.
There will be live music and great food and
drink as Raglan Road brings back The Great
Irish Hooley all Labor Day weekend,
September 4-7. All ages are welcome.
Raglan Road Irish Pub is in Downtown Disney.
The Six Notre Dame Coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame.
KNUTE ROCKNE 1918-1930 Record 105-12-5 (.881)
Rockne played end for Notre Dame and was the team captain in 1913. Upon
graduation, he accepted a teaching position in the chemistry department on the condition
that he be appointed an assistant to football coach Jesse Harper. When Harper retired after
the 1917 season, Rockne took over the team. Knute Rockne has the highest winning
percentage of any coach in both college and professional football. His teams had five
perfect seasons and won the National Championship in 1924, 1929 and 1930. He was
elected to the Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 1951.
JESSE HARPER 1913-1917 Record 34-5-1 (.863)
Harper played football at the University of Chicago under legendary coach Amos
Alonzo Stagg. He coached at both Alma College in Michigan and Wabash College in Indiana
before Notre Dame appointed him both head football coach and athletic director in 1913,
Knute Rockne’s senior year. Notre Dame went undefeated his first season but Harvard was
chosen the National Champion. He retired at age 33 to live on his ranch in Kansas. Harper
was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1971.
FRANK LEAHY 1941-43, 1946-53 Record 87-11-9 (.855)
Leahy played tackle on Knute Rockne’s last three teams. He became the line coach
at Georgetown, Michigan State and Fordham before getting his first head coaching job at
Boston College where his team posted a record of 20-2 in two seasons. He took over as
head coach at Notre Dame in 1941 and coached until 1953 except for two years in the Navy
during World War II. His teams went undefeated six times, had a 39 game winning streak
and won the National Championship in 1943, 1946, 1947 and 1949. He was elected to the
Hall of Fame in 1970.
ARA PARSEGHIAN 1964-1974 Record 95-17-4 (.836)
Parseghian played football at Miami of Ohio and, after a two year pro career with
the Cleveland Browns, returned to his Alma Mater as an assistant under Woody Hayes. He
succeeded Hayes as head coach at Miami and then moved on to Northwestern where he
held the head coaching job for eight years. In 1964, he took over a Notre Dame team that
had won only two games the year before and posted a 9-1 record, winning Coach of the
Year. His teams won the National Championship in 1966 and 1973. He was elected to the
Hall of Fame in 1980.
DAN DEVINE 1975-1980 Record 53-16-1 (.764)
Devine held head coaching positions at Arizona State (27-3-1) and Missouri (93-37-7)
before leaving the college ranks for a four year stint as the head coach and general manager
of the Green Bay Packers. Hired in 1975 to replace Ara Parseghian, his teams won the Gator
Bowl once and the Cotton Bowl twice. The decisive 38-10 Cotton Bowl victory over #1 Texas
on New Years Day, 1978 vaulted the #5 ranked Irish to the National Championship. He was
elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985.
LOU HOLTZ 1986-1996 Record 100-30-2 (.765)
Holtz coached William & Mary, NC State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and S.
Carolina, taking all six teams to bowl games within two years of his arrival. In a seven year
stretch at ND, he beat fifteen teams that finished in the top 10 in the AP poll, more than Hall
of Fame coaches Joe Paterno, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, John McKay, Darrell Royal
and Bud Wilkinson did in their entire careers. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2008.
October 15, 1988: Day of Redemption
The Miami Hurricanes had the best record in football over the previous five seasons. They had
won or played for the National Championship four of the last five years and were riding a 16
game winning streak. Miami had beaten Notre Dame the last four years in a row including a 240 shellacking the year before.
The Hurricanes arrived in South Bend ranked #1 with a 4-0 record to play the #4 Fighting Irish
with a 5-0 record. Hoping to plant a seed of doubt in his opponent and bolster confidence in his
own troops, Lou Holtz said publicly, “Without a doubt,
Miami is better than Notre Dame. But what we don’t
know, and what Miami doesn’t know, is whether they’ll be
better on Saturday.”
In order to take the field for the pre-game warm up, Miami
players pushed through the Notre Dame players in the
tunnel, knocking “Rocket” Ismael to the ground and a fight
ensued. Back in the locker room, Lou Holtz discarded the
inspirational speech he had prepared and instead told the
team that he expected them to play with nothing but class.
Any player who did otherwise would never play for Notre
Dame again. Then he added (see caption).
“Men you’re gonna take care of
Notre Dame had the only score of the first quarter but the ‘Canes today. But do me one
Miami tied the game 7-7 early in the second quarter. favor: Leave Jimmy Johnson’s ass
Minutes later the “Rocket” caught a bomb from Tony Rice for me.”
that led to another Irish touchdown. On Miami’s next position Pat Terrell, who only had his
first start the week before, intercepted a Steve Walsh pass and returned it 60 yards for a
touchdown and a 21-7 Notre Dame lead. Unfortunately, Miami owned the last six minutes of
the quarter, scoring two touchdowns and tying the score going into halftime.
In the third quarter, the Irish weren’t fooled by a fake punt on a 4th-and-3 and two plays later
Pat Eilers crossed the Miami goal line for a 28-21 Notre Dame lead. At the end of the third
quarter, Reggie Ho converted a 27 yard field goal to increase the lead to 31-21.
Four times in the fourth quarter, Miami would find itself inside Notre Dame’s 25-yard line. The
first time a field goal narrowed the lead to 31-24. The next two times, the Hurricanes turned
the ball over on fumbles. The Fighting Irish had only to run out the final three minutes on the
clock but Tony Rice coughed up the ball on the Notre Dame 14 yard line with 2:10 remaining.
The crowd fell silent.
On 4th-and-7 from the Notre Dame 11 yard line with 0:51 left, Steve Walsh completed a pass to
the back right corner of the end zone to pull within one point. In those days there was no
overtime period and games could end in a tie. It was well-known that both head coaches
disdained ties and so Jimmy Johnson opted to go for the 2 point conversion and the win.
Pat Terrell, who undoubtedly thought
that his 60 yard interception return
would be his personal high point of the
game, lined up opposite Miami receiver
Leonard Conley. The two were from
Tampa and had played against each
other in high school. Terrell caught
Conley’s eye and they both grinned,
thinking “this is it.”
Walsh threw the pass to the same spot
as on the previous touchdown play with
Conley the intended receiver. But Pat Terrell was in perfect position. He leaped high and
batted the ball to the turf. Notre Dame recovered Miami’s onside kick and ran out the clock to
preserve a 31-30 victory.
The Sports Illustrated cover the following week said it all:
Pass Right: A 10 Year Flashback
Charlie Weis will not go down in the annals of Notre Dame sports history as one of the
winningest football coaches, but he loved Notre Dame and understood what the University
stands for.
On the Monday before the Washington Huskies game in 2005, he made the short drive to
Mishawaka to the home of the Mazurkiewicz family whose two boys were named Montana and
Rockne. Ten year old Montana had been sent home from the hospital because nothing more
could done for his inoperable brain tumor. The day before the coach’s visit, the tumor had
paralyzed him from the waist down.
They discussed the overtime loss to Michigan State the week before and Charlie’s daughter
Hannah who has global development delay. Montana seemed to be especially entertained
when Coach Weis told Montana about some pranks he had played on his college roommate,
Joe Montana, the boy’s namesake.
Montana told Weis that he was a big Notre Dame fan
and he just wanted to make it through the week and
live to see one more Notre Dame football game.
Charlie Weis autographed the football he had brought
and asked if there was something he could do for him.
Montana asked to call the first play: Pass Right.
Washington received the opening kickoff and marched
down the field but fumbled the ball away to Notre
Dame on the one-yard line. Brady Quinn was
concerned that they wouldn’t be able to run the play
but Weis said “We have no choice. We’re throwing it
to the right.”
Fasano’s leap left the defender
tackling nothing but air.
Quinn took the snap from center and rolled to his right
on a naked bootleg in the end zone. He tossed a short
pass to tight end Anthony Fasano who leaped over a
defender for a 13 yard gain and a first down. Montana
got to see the game from the best seat in the house,
looking down from heaven.