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Chapter One
Irish Eyes
August 11, South Bend, Ind. —I feel His gaze. I feel those granite eyes on me before I turn to meet them. Making my unhurried way across the Notre Dame campus on a still August evening, heading east on a thoroughfare named for one Moose Krauss, I am captivated, as usual, by the monument to my right, the tan-bricked colossus that is Notre Dame Stadium. I've covered huge games in this old bowl: Notre Dame's upset of top-ranked, Charlie Ward—led Florida State in 1992; its near misses against Nebraska in 2000 and 'SC last season—the Bush Push game. But my most vivid memories tend to be small-bore and personal. Playing catch with Raghib Ismail during a 1990 photo shoot. Chatting on the grass with Bobby Bowden on the eve of that upset in 1992. Seeing the Trojans react to the savannah-length grass the groundskeeper prepared for the visitors in 2005. ("Do you think they might be trying to slow us down?" inquired Frostee Rucker, feigning shock.)
And I remember Notre Dame's comeback win over Boston College 20 years ago. Fueled by flanker Tim Brown's 294 all-purpose yards, the Irish rallied from a 25-12 second-half deficit. What success Notre Dame had running the ball that day, according to the lore of my family, it earned by attacking the left side of the Eagles' line, away from starting defensive tackle Mark Murphy. (I have since told Brown, who won the 1987 Heisman Trophy, that he owes my brother at least a thank-you note.)
Less than a year after that 32-25 Irish victory, I was back on campus, reporting a preseason cover story on the resurgent Fighting Irish, when my mother phoned with news that Mark had been cut by the Detroit Lions.
"That's a shame," sympathized Lou Holtz, with whom I shared the news, and who graciously feigned a recollection of No. 67 of the BC Eagles. "Your brother's a fine football player."
This being Holtz, the word "brother's" came out "brutherth." As well documented as the coach's lisp is the fact that he could be a son-of-a-bitch on the practice field, a saliva-spritzing martinet whose players referred to him as "Lou-cifer." His sideline histrionics used to get on my nerves, as did his compulsion to inflate the upcoming opponent into the second coming of the 1985 Chicago Bears—-"They've got a lot of great athletes at Navy; they do some things very well"—while reflexively poor-mouthing his own more talented outfit.
These quibbles amount to a modest pile beside the mountain of reasons to admire and respect the man who may have been the most charisimatic coach of his generation. Certainly none of his peers was handier with the one-liner. (When an apoplectic Woody Hayes shouted at the 1969 Rose Bowl, Why did O.J. go 80 yards?
it was his young assistant Holtz who replied, "Coach, that's all he needed.") And he was a hell of a game coach.
Maybe I am thinking about Holtz when I come upon a familiar commons. Despite having been to this campus a dozen times, I have yet to gain such a firm handle on it that I am not taken by surprise, just a bit, each time I come upon this green rectangle, which pulls the eye to the north. There above the reflecting pool is a massive, vibrantly colored mural called The Word of Life, a 163-foot rendering of the resurrected Christ better known by its more populist handle, "Touchdown Jesus."
In no particular hurry, I walk toward the pool and the Theodore Hesburgh Library, whose south-facing façade is brought to life by the most famous mosaic in sports. What's the deal with this haloed, Fu Manchu—ed, vaguely cubist Christ? Who are these smaller figures milling about beneath him? A plaque by the reflecting pool identifies apostles, just beneath "Christians of the early church," who reside on the mural above the guys representing for the "age of Science," whose bookishness is thrown into sharper relief by their proximity to the manly "explorers," whom the artist has blessed with better muscle tone and whose loins are girded with armor. Below them stand envoys from the "medieval era" and "ancient classic cultures." The scene is not static. Some heads are turned toward the Wonder Counselor, others are talking, gesticulating, arguing their positions, possibly discussing grant applications. Diagonal shafts of light further animate the tableau.
Later, I will learn that the mural has been rendered in granite to better withstand the Michiana elements. The artist, Millard Sheets, used 140 different colors. In a terrific little video clip on the university's Web site, Notre Dame architecture professor John W. Stamper explains that Sheets "visited 16 foreign countries and 11 different states" to find the granites he needed. Says Stamper, "The theme of the mural, Christ the Teacher, was based upon a biblical passage" from the first chapter of John. After sketching out the figure of Christ, Sheets drew in a cross (one of the last things you notice about the mural), then sketched in a kind of who's-who of Christianity. After the classical scholars and Old Testament prophets, he "moved upward on the mural, to the Byzantine, the medieval, the Renaissance."
"It's like a kaleidoscope of personalities making up the history of Christianity, and pre-Christianity as well," adds Father Hesburgh, who gets in the best line of the clip. "We knew that if we didn't do something with this building," he explains, when asked why the library needed a mural in the first place, "it could be mistaken for a grain elevator."
Walking back to the car I smile at a guy roughly my age—a dad playing Wiffle ball with his three sun-kissed daughters. They look to be around 14, 12, and 10. The youngest is at bat, rifling her old man's underhanded pitches past his head, despite the fact that she is confined to a wheelchair.
Saturday Rules
Excerpted from Saturday Rules: A Season with Trojans and Domers (and Gators and Buckeyes and Wolverines) by Austin Murphy
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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