Notre Dame is rather infamous for the number of traditions it has, some reaching pretty far into the realm of minutia. Every official ND dance ends with Billy Joel's "Piano Man", for example. Every single dorm has its own formidable bucket o' traditions. Every night at the Backer, which is not even an official Notre Dame establishment, finishes with "Proud to Be an American", the Notre Dame fight song, "Oh, What a Night", and "Happy Trails". In that order. Every time. And when you sing the fight song, there's a part where girls are supposed to yell and one where boys are supposed to yell.
Here's a pacticularly unique tradtion I hadn't heard of until I got there this summer: in the stuent section at the football games -- I don't know if you knew, but Domers are pretty serious about football -- with every score, a group of people will pick up one person and do "push ups".
Here's how it looks up close.
And here's how it looks from afar when the whole lot of them are doing it.
Two of my housemates teach at St. Joe's, which has its homecoming game Friday night. The St. Joe fight song just happens to be exactly the same as the Notre Dame fight song, and three of the six housmates present were ND alum. So, when St. Joe scored and the band started playing the fight song, naturally they all decided we should do push ups. Being the smallest one present not wearing a skirt, and being totally game, I soon found myself the object of a lot of odd stares as my housemates threw me in the air nine and then twenty-five times (we missed a touchdown), counting as we went.
I am now truly and undeniably an Notre Dame student.
2 comments:
That sounds ridiculously fun! My grandfather was a huge Noter Dame fan--so much so that many of my aunts have "WE R ND (Insert # here)" license plates. When I was little I used to know both the old and new fight song by heart. So these tidbits of Notre Dame culture feed my dorky love of the Fighting Irish.
I don't know if your mom noticed it, but your dad did.
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