Notes from Game Day

8:30am Saturday-- breakfast: a bagel and a cup of coffee in San Juan Capistrano.

9:30am —first beer of the day, courtesy of the family (mother, father, and what seemed like about 5 sisters) of Casey Cullen on the bus at Anaheim Marriott, waiting to head to the Coliseum.

The bus ride itself was a whole adventure unto itself. We got on the bus right at 9:00—the shuttles were supposed to be running all morning. When we got onboard, the guy who seemed to be in charge indicated that this first bus would leave as soon as it was full.. and it already looked pretty close to full, so we figured we’d be off in no time. But apparently, other alumni in the Orange County area didn’t have plans to tailgate quite as early as we did.. it took nearly an hour for the powers that be to finally decide the bus was full enough to embark on the hour-long trip up to LA.

After the first few minutes of this long wait, it became evident that we were sharing this ride (or rather this wait for a ride) with some family members of one of the ND players. A whole crew of folks on the bus, all wearing ND gear with the #60. Turns out these were all the sisters (and maybe a brother or two) and Mother and Father of Casey Cullen. And they were prepared to tailgate. Not long after everyone realized we’d be on the bus for some time, the Cullens broke out the beer, someone ran to get some extra ice.. and so the long day began with a toast to the family Cullen.

10:50am—our bus arrives in LA, within sight of the Coliseum.. but nowhere to park. Again, apparently the powers that be in the OC Alumni club didn’t think it would be necessary to call ahead—perhaps a week in advance, a day, even an hour in advance to ensure that there would be ample parking to handle 14 buses. So more waiting. About 30 minutes of waiting and circling the block around the stadium. Finally, they decided that the buses would have to drop us off and park elsewhere, then return to pick us up an hour after the game ended.

So finally, by 11:30am, or so, we make it into IrishFest, the official LA Alumni club’s tailgater at Exposition park, about a block from the Coliseum. We buy ourselves tickets for In-N-Out burgers and four beers-a-piece. And they’re serving Guinness. Nice touch.

Lunch and two Guinnesses later, this is where the time-line begins to get a little hazy.
We ate and wandered around the park a bit—lots of Irish fans out for the festivities.. and we bumped into a few members of the band who arrived on their 6:30am flight from South Bend.

So then we decide to take a walk out around the stadium. Being not afraid, we head straight into the belly of USC tailgate country. And for the most part, everyone was quite civil. As is common in most scenes like this I’ve seen, there are very often mixed groups of ND and opposing fans tailgating together—or at least visting together, talking some good humored trash. Nothing too different here.

Lots of “Go Irish” being exchanged between roving bands of ND fans. We are not alone.

There was one amusing moment when, as we were walking along one of the access roads along-side the stadium, toward the ESPN Radio setup, some guy driving a big super-cab pick-up truck slowly through the crowd past us, hangs his head out the window and starts jawing at us—some forgettable crap about how ND was going down, USC was going to whip our tails, yadda yadda yadda… and as he’s doing this, from the other side of the truck, there’s this gnashing, crashing sound. The guy was so taken us and getting in our grills about what losers we were, he wound up scratching the whole passenger side of his nice big new Trojan red truck on some steel barriers that were setup along the curbside. Nice.

So we continue wandering.. make our way over to the front of the Coliseum and take the requisite photo with the famous Olympic façade behind us. We listen to a little of the local 710am ESPN radio broadcast—we were really hoping to catch sight of Colin Cowherd, but no luck there. So we start heading back the way we came when we come across an ND tailgate—and these guys have what appears to be four kegs of beer—right at the base of the wall of the stadium (outside section 28 as I found out later). Not sure exactly who the guy was who was sponsoring it—a guy who goes by ChrisB mentioned something about the board at UHND, which is a site I’ve looked at from time to time. And at some point during the thing, the guy running the tailgate handed me a card for some online sports business.. I’ll check that out and see if it’s worth anything before I mention it here. So we have one beer at this tailgate—pitch a little cash to the guy running the show—with that he says “it’s drink all you want, fellas”…

1:30pm—beers 4 & 5. I remember this because this is when Steve pointed out that Last Call back at the official IrishFest was at 3:30—at which point I check my watch—and suggested we should head back there to use up our remaining beer tickets, then head back here to the UHND tailgate. So we do that.

Somewhere between 2:30 and 4:00pm—back at the UHND tailgate. Jaeger shots (two rounds, and Todd, Steve’s brother-in-law does the first keg-stand of the day. At the USC tailgate next door, someone notices that they’re serving wine and Shrimp cocktail.

Met a nice young woman from Chicago—she and her husband (well, really her husband) are huge subway alum ND fans. Also talked for a long while with a guy from New York who’s another subway alum.. and today was his first college football game (wish it could have turned out better for him). Things got a little out of hand when someone grabbed an SC t-shirt, tore it to shreds and then tried to get people to set the thing on fire. Not too cool—though I do find it a bit unsettling that USC appears to sell flame-retardant apparel.

4:00pm—one last potty break and then we head into the stadium for the 5:00 kick-off.

Various notes from the game:

1) Wow, USC really puts the opposing fans in the crappiest seats in the building. And they position us so the band and cheerleaders couldn’t get anywhere near us for all the barricades that are setup to keep (I guess, though I’m not sure why) people from getting under the USC band bleachers).
2) The coliseum is picturesque (unlike the surrounding several square miles)—but this is a crummy building to see a ballgame in. The field is on one end of the infield and they put the Irish fans in the stands above and behind the big blocks of seats that are cut-off from the rest of the field.
3) 1st play from scrimmage for the Irish—deep pass to Rhema. Nice call, Charlie. Not sure where that play-calling went for the rest of that drive—or the game for that matter.
4) This team is still hounded by penalties. False starts and holding are killing us.
5) That said, USC only had two penalties called against them going into the 4th Quarter. Does anyone really believe USC didn’t commit more than two holds all game long?
6) Memo to the lady sitting a couple of rows behind me who kept yelling at me to sit down—may I remind you that you are attending a NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL game.. not the opera, a film, or the Ice Capades. Stand up and get loud. That’s what we’re there for.
7) Otherwise a good crowd of fans around us—with a few SC fans sprinkled in for spice. Met a guy from Franklin Mass—recognized him by his accent. He’s living now in San Diego and was at ND during the “Oust Faust” years, as he put it. And yes, he does remember Pete Carroll when he was coaching the Patriots.
8) Two high-school girl SC fans in the seats behind us. When I asked one of them how they came to get such sucky seats—being USC faithful, surely they should get better, no?—her reply (and I am not making this up) was “I don’t know; my Daddy got them for me.”
9) I hate that damn USC fight song.