Boilers Spank Irish, 41-16 Boilers Spank Irish, 41-16

BY TOM CAMPBELL
A Boilermaker In Irish Territory
Co-Workers Share Notre Dame Experience
SOUTH BEND, Ind — The
Joyce Center on the Notre
Dame campus was rocking
Friday night. Ten thousand
Irish fans make sure it’s rocking
every Friday night before
a Notre Dame home football
game.
In a scene that was
equal parts high school
homecoming and Hollywood
hype, the Irish toast their traditions
during a pep session
that features goofy skits with
cross-dressing students and
plenty of versions of that
goose-bump raising “Notre
Dame Victory March.”
In the middle of all
those Irish stewing was one,
lone Purdue fan. Wearing a
Purdue shirt and hat, Dan
Annarino stuck out like that
mole on Cindy Crawford’s
face.
“Man, I was getting some
serious strange looks,” said
Annarino, a graphic artist in
Purdue’s department of
Agricultural Communication.
Annarino was born a
Boilermaker. His dad, Tony, took
him to Purdue games while Dan
was still in diapers. He’s seen his
share of Purdue flops in South
Bend and missed some, too. It got
so bad for Purdue one time that
he left an Irish blowout at halftime
and spent the remainder of
the game across the street at the
Snite Museum of Art.
But he was back in Notre
Dame this past weekend to see if
his Boilermakers could break their
30-year losing streak to the Irish.
The pep session was the first
stop of Annarino’s Irish
Experience. His tour guide for the
weekend was best friend and coworker,
video producer Steve
Doyle.
“I have to listen to his
stories all the time about how
great football weekends are at Notre
Dame,” Annarino says, “so I thought I
would take him up on it and see what
all the fuss is about.”
Ever since he was in elementary
school, Doyle and his dad, Tom,
have been regulars at Notre Dame
home games, and at the pep session the
night before.
As a student at South Bend St.
Joseph High School, Doyle could look
out the window and see Notre Dame’s
fabled Golden Dome. Each Friday in
the fall, classes would halt for a
moment so students and faculty could
say a brief prayer for their beloved Irish
football team.
The pep session is something the
Doyle’s take in every chance they get,
arriving at the Joyce Center (Notre
Dame’s basketball arena) 90 minutes
before the gates even open, not to
ensure they get good seats, but seats,
period.
“We got here late one time,” Doyle
relates, “and they wouldn’t let us in. It
was full.”
Doyle’s Irish tour continued at
Fiddler’s Hearth, a traditional Irish pub in
South Bend. There the air is filled with
the smell of corned beef and cabbage, the
sight of wall-to-wall Notre Dame fans and
the sound of more versions of the Notre
Dame Fight Song performed by, you
guessed it, an Irish band.
Tom Campbell
Purdue fan Dan Annarino gets to experience the
Friday night Notre Dame pep session in the Joyce
Center with his Purdue co-worker and Notre Dame
fan Steve Doyle.
But everything is just a prelude to
the blur of traditions and tribal rites
that is game day.
The Doyles park downtown to avoid
traffic and take a shuttle to campus where
they enjoy one Bloody Mary in the Frank
Leahy room at the Morris Inn. Then it’s a
hike to the famed grotto (everything here
is the famed something or other) for a
quick prayer for the Irish (Annarino
chooses not to participate in this ritual).
He thinks 30 years of losing is enough.
“I got the whole tour,” Annarino
Tom Campbell
Nearly 10,000 Notre Dame fans
(and one lone Boilermaker) take
part in festivities the night
before the game. Nearly half of
the crowd was students.
said. “We went to the famous
cabin by the lake, which was
the first structure on the Notre
Dame campus, then we went to
the basilica where the team was
having mass. Everybody lines
up and the players walk
through. It’s pretty intense.”
Next stop, the Knights of
Columbus building on the
quadrangle for one of their
famous steak sandwiches. A
movie was playing in the K of C
lounge, “Rudy,” of course.
After watching a concert by
the marching band on the steps
of Bond Hall, Annarino and the
Doyles fell into lock step with
the other thousands of fans and
marched to the stadium.
Finally, game time.
“It was an amazing 24-hour
period,” said Annarino. “I
think I heard just about every
Notre Dame tradition and
story there is. It was the total
college scene, it was great.”
But for Annarino, the best
came last, when Purdue broke
its own tradition of losing at Notre
Dame.
“I’ll bet I sang ‘Hail Purdue’ at least
10 times during the game. What a great
game. What a great weekend.” j
Tom Campbell’s weekly photo galleries on
GoldandBlack.com. Campbell can be reached
at TSC@Purdue.edu.
GOLD & BLACK ILLUSTRATED • VOLUME 15, ISSUE 5 • 16 GoldandBlack.com