NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL
People love to hate Notre Dame. When I was a kid in Kentucky, my Dad used to tell me stories about the old Notre Dame Football teams, and I grew up watching Ara Parsegian coach the beloved Catholic team to victory after victory. It was a dream of mine to attend Notre Dame, but obviously I was not ND material. I loved the simple uniforms (without names on the back of the Jerseys) and the shiny gold helmets which were pained before every game by the students themselves. The golden helmet represents the "Golden Dome" which is the centerpiece of the Notre Dame campus. I have been to the ND campus several times, and I used to say that you don't walk around the campus, you FLOAT around the campus.
Touchdown Jesus
The stadium is absolutely beautiful and historical. You can feel the history of the stadium as you look at "Touchdown Jesus" overlooking the home end zone. The smell of cooking bratwurst, BBQ, or other fine tailgating foods permeate the air from the thousands of hardcore faithful fans who often brave the miserable weather during the fall. When the school's band come marching on the field (in perfect unison) it sends chill bumps down your arms and back. Then, both teams form up at the end zone to come running on the field. As tradition has it, the visiting team enters the field first. Then, the stands erupt and the band plays loudly as the Fighting Irish Football team come running through the tunnel out onto the field. This is an experience I will never forget.
Like I said before, people LOVE to hate Notre Dame down here in Florida. This is exactly why I love the team so much. I guess it must be the holier-than-thou attitude the school has toward any other school in the country.....or the NBC television contract they have every year. Virtually every game they play is on national television. The old ND vs Miami series in the 80's and 90s were classics, and Coach Bethel was right in the middle of it. I used to talk a lot of smack about ND when I first started at SRHS, but Miami has come back to bite me so often that I stopped saying anything to Bethel about it. This year, ND destroyed Miami, but I did not say much about it to Randy. I just sort of smirked and started preparing for our game with Port St. Lucie.
We had a good week preparing for our game with Palm Beach Lakes...but man, we are beat up pretty good. One can certainly tell that we are in the meat of our season, and those aches and pains are starting to show. Today we got an infusion of fresh blood from our JV team (who completed their season last night) so we are hoping they will help us out some next week. At least we will be able to use fresh legs on our scout teams to keep our starters fresh for the games. I actually feel bad for Coach Miller, it seems like he has to adjust constantly for missing players on his defense. Hopefully, we will be at full strength before game time.....or Miller will have a stroke.
On offense, we just can't throw anyone into the mix. Our system is just too complicated for anyone brand new to our side of the ball, so it takes some time for them to adjust. We have some special packages where we can spot somebody up for a few plays, but rarely can we add somebody brand new to our no-huddle mix. Our offense is a work in progress for sure, and we are constantly experimenting with different formations and plays to adjust to different teams and their tendencies. This why I am constantly working on our wristbands to add and subtract different plays and formations. It is almost a full time job.
We were running scout team today, and Justin Peabody came out of the scrimmage toward the sideline. I yelled: "PEABODY, I need you!" He held up his hand and showed me his little finger which was pointed at a 90 degree bend..... in the wrong direction! Apparently, during the previous play, he either dislocated (or broke) his little finger. Pretty gross. (Luckily, Hilary was quickly on top of the situation.) Justin is a tough kid, and he did not say much about it. This injury had the kids buzzing, so I said that this was part of football, and we need to get back to work.
I remember when I was playing for my Dad. One of our players came running up to my Dad and showed him his hand. Apparently, another player had stepped on his hand and dislocated four of his five fingers....fingers were pointed in all directions. I remember my Dad grabbing each finger and popping them back into position one by one. It was brutal to watch, but the kid held tough. When it was all over, my teammate flexed his fingers and went back into the game. I also remember another teammate (Kevin Nichols) dislocated his right knee cap during a practice. I watched as my Dad grabbed the knee cap and pushed it around the knee into position. Now, THAT was gross! I remember Kevin going to the doctor who told him the knee cap was in perfect position. Man, I can't even imagine stuff like this happening today.
One final injury story. When I was playing for the Georgia travelling team I told you about in an earlier blog entry, I was having severe knee pain for some reason. Back then, there was no such thing as Torn Meniscus, ACLs. MCL's and all that stuff. Apparently, I had torn some cartilage and my knee swelled up after I banged it on the frozen turf one too many times. I had quite a bit of water on my knee, and it had to come out. The trainer stuck me with a needle and drained the knee, then he proceeded to freeze the knee so I could play in the game. I was only 12 years old! LOL. That is so funny to me today. Can you imagine something like this happening in today's world?
Later,
GZ
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