room. Dozens of guys. I never realized how deep the team roster went. This wasnât like high school. And they werenât all hulking six-foot-five giants like Page. The fact is, there were plenty of guys on that team who looked like me! Over the smell of that sweat and the noise of everyone talking over one another in a post-practice, pumped-up excitement, it hit me like another slap in the face: not only were there students here who looked like me, there were guys wearing Notre Dame uniforms and playing on this team who looked like me too! They were on the shorter side. Stocky. I never saw these guys on TV. Never saw them on the field. But there they were, in the very same locker room as the big guys.
âHey! Who are you guys? What are you doing in here?â The voice came booming from the doorway. We turned, knowing weâd been caught, only to see that the man behind the voice was Ara Parseghian, the greatest coach Notre Dame had seen since Knute Rockne. He had just led Notre Dame to the National Championship in 1966. I was awestruck. I didnât know what to say. Then a string of words just came shooting out of my mouth: âIâm gonna play football for Notre Dame!â I shouted. I have no idea why I said that. It made no sense.
âWell, not today, youâre not. Get out of here!â he said. We apologetically slipped outside into the glowing late-afternoon sun bouncing off the walls through the end of that famous tunnel. We looked at each other and just laughed. We were so excited, so pumped! We couldnât believe it! We were inside the Notre Dame locker room and got yelled at by Coach Parseghian!
Figuring weâd pushed our luck far enough and seen just about as much as we could for one day, we ran all the way back to Fatima House, snuck back inside just in time for dinner, and were thankful no one noticed we had gone.
I didnât think a whole lot more about Notre Dame in the days and weeks after that afternoon. I was glad I had seen it, of course, but I had no reason to dwell on it. I went back to the retreat, we read our Bible verses, and we took that quiet time that our priests asked us to take to reflect on ourselves, our lives, and how far we had come in our high school careers. That was all good. I enjoyed that time. But it didnât move me.
As time went by and I thought back on that day, the feeling I got from taking a walk on that campus is what moved me. The feeling I got from stepping inside that locker room moved me. For some reason, as we walked around that lush, beautiful campus, I didnât feel like an outsider. I felt as if I belonged there. It was almost a cleansing feelingâclearing away some of the negativity that had clouded my mind. I had resigned myself to what I thought was an unalterable fact, of course: I was not a âcollege-boundâ guy. And yet, when I look back now, I can see that a seed was planted. That seed would grow even when I wasnât tending to it or paying attention to it at all.
I made it through the end of my senior year without any real fights, any real drama, or any real passion. I graduated third in my class . . . from the bottom. My GPA was 1.73. I partied. I celebrated the fact that I was done with those twelve years of crap and agony. And that was that.
For a moment, I didnât worry about what lay ahead. I didnât stop to think about what was to come. I didnât bother thinking about anything, period.
3
Sea Change
Have you ever felt as if you were in a place where life just sort of happens to you? Like youâre not in control? As if someone punched the autopilot button and youâre strapped to your seat inside this contraption, helplessly headed wherever it takes you? As if you have no choice? As if youâre stuck fulfilling the expectations of what other people put upon you, and you donât have any expectations that are truly your own?
Thatâs exactly where I was after high
âHey! Who are you guys? What are you doing in here?â The voice came booming from the doorway. We turned, knowing weâd been caught, only to see that the man behind the voice was Ara Parseghian, the greatest coach Notre Dame had seen since Knute Rockne. He had just led Notre Dame to the National Championship in 1966. I was awestruck. I didnât know what to say. Then a string of words just came shooting out of my mouth: âIâm gonna play football for Notre Dame!â I shouted. I have no idea why I said that. It made no sense.
âWell, not today, youâre not. Get out of here!â he said. We apologetically slipped outside into the glowing late-afternoon sun bouncing off the walls through the end of that famous tunnel. We looked at each other and just laughed. We were so excited, so pumped! We couldnât believe it! We were inside the Notre Dame locker room and got yelled at by Coach Parseghian!
Figuring weâd pushed our luck far enough and seen just about as much as we could for one day, we ran all the way back to Fatima House, snuck back inside just in time for dinner, and were thankful no one noticed we had gone.
I didnât think a whole lot more about Notre Dame in the days and weeks after that afternoon. I was glad I had seen it, of course, but I had no reason to dwell on it. I went back to the retreat, we read our Bible verses, and we took that quiet time that our priests asked us to take to reflect on ourselves, our lives, and how far we had come in our high school careers. That was all good. I enjoyed that time. But it didnât move me.
As time went by and I thought back on that day, the feeling I got from taking a walk on that campus is what moved me. The feeling I got from stepping inside that locker room moved me. For some reason, as we walked around that lush, beautiful campus, I didnât feel like an outsider. I felt as if I belonged there. It was almost a cleansing feelingâclearing away some of the negativity that had clouded my mind. I had resigned myself to what I thought was an unalterable fact, of course: I was not a âcollege-boundâ guy. And yet, when I look back now, I can see that a seed was planted. That seed would grow even when I wasnât tending to it or paying attention to it at all.
I made it through the end of my senior year without any real fights, any real drama, or any real passion. I graduated third in my class . . . from the bottom. My GPA was 1.73. I partied. I celebrated the fact that I was done with those twelve years of crap and agony. And that was that.
For a moment, I didnât worry about what lay ahead. I didnât stop to think about what was to come. I didnât bother thinking about anything, period.
3
Sea Change
Have you ever felt as if you were in a place where life just sort of happens to you? Like youâre not in control? As if someone punched the autopilot button and youâre strapped to your seat inside this contraption, helplessly headed wherever it takes you? As if you have no choice? As if youâre stuck fulfilling the expectations of what other people put upon you, and you donât have any expectations that are truly your own?
Thatâs exactly where I was after high
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