options after the game, including in the dorms.
...Walsh.
It was the ND Club of Los Angeles charter trip to the game which included the game ticket. Drove down to LA from Fresno to LAX to catch the NDCLA charter flight not knowing anyone. I had just joined. And I was so damn excited. An uncle of mine graduated from ND in '50...Leahy's run of dominance. He never saw the Irish lose in his four years there.
But I digress.
I find the gate at LAX for the NDCLA trip and join the line. Right ahead of me is an elderly gent and a younger woman. The man turns around and looks me up and down and asks, "Did you play football." I didn't think sandlot ball counted so I told him that I did not play football, that I was on the tennis team in college. He half smiles, looks me in the eyes, and says, "Well, you should have played football", then turns around to face the front of the line.
The younger woman that was with him turns to me then and asks if I know who he was. I didn't. She proceeds to tell that he is Adam Walsh, the center and captain of Rock's '24 Four Horsemen national championship team. He was heading back to ND for their 50th anniversary memorial of Rock's loss in the plane crash. He was introduced on the field at halftime during the ceremony.
Me and my buddy to this day who I met on the trip, Big Lou, from San Pedro tried to hang around Adam as much as we could. He was most gracious and I still have the ND-USC game program from that day (Rock on the cover). Adam signed it, "Mike, God bless. Adam Walsh."
ND lost. SC had Marcus Allen and he won the Heisman that year. But I felt like I won being able to meet Adam Walsh.
Enjoy the time there with your son. What a great memory for him to carry with him the rest of his life.
I was 14. I’m jealous of how excited he’s going to be.
We froze our arse's off. I seem to remember a lot of running plays, likely due to the windy and rainy conditions. Also Tony Rice got knocked out of the game late.
Forget which network game was on, but there were a lot of running plays.
Weather being that bad. The 1987 Penn State game was brutally cold
I felt like I walked into church. When I took my family I always made sure to explore the campus, get a KoC sandwich, visit the Grotto, etc. One year, I went with my parents, who had gone to ND games for years (my dad worked with a guy who knew Ara and got tickets through him). They had never explored the campus, just went to the game and left. I think my dad got a bit teary when we went into the Basilica.
The first visit to the stadium has made indelible memories for my kids and grandkids. "Too young" is (almost) an oxymoron.
Enjoy this. The opportunity does not come around very often.
I was a ripe old 6th grader. Was the time of my life. That weekend alone was enough to get me to enroll at ND. Never took any college visits.
Anyway, we were front row in the south end zone and so had front row seats for Lee Becton’s opening TD breakaway. Beautiful day and game.
great time with my dad. I was a bit older than your son, but nevertheless it was a blast. Enjoyed giving the wind and rain a standing ovation and it was a great comeback win. What made it better was that there was this super super drunk and obnoxious Sc fan sitting about 3 rows behind us, cheering nonsense like "yeah baby!" after every single play when they were winning. He started really getting into it with some little kids (around 11 or 12) and a few of us had to separate him from them. We started chanting "yeah baby" back at him during the comeback and I pointed him to the exit when the game was sealed. My dad had to grab me to make sure I didn't punch the bastard.
Fun times with dad.
As long as the weather is not rainy, Campus should be glorious
Even when ND and/or USC suck the first game is a big deal and a great time. Enjoy the time together and if my experience is any indication you'll both remember it for a long time.