An observation on Notre Dame Fans this weekend.I stayed all weekend
- Thread starter mdpitt
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I'm not sure I've ever been to a Pitt game at Heinz without seeing somebody in a PSU game jersey. Its a weird phenomenon. The best was when PSU had a big game against Alabama but PSU fans showed up to our game against a 1AA team instead. They are such big PSU fans to actually wear their fame jerseys to a Pitt game but not big enough fans to watch the PSU game. Doesnt make sense.
Oddly, some of the nicest, kindest conversations I've had with opposing fans at games have been with older WVU fans... both at Pitt and on the road at WVU.
If you could just block out their other fans screaming obscenities in your face at you while trying to have those conversations, it would be a delightful atmosphere.
If you could just block out their other fans screaming obscenities in your face at you while trying to have those conversations, it would be a delightful atmosphere.
Up around the small coal towns northeast of the city there are many who root for ND and Pitt and may root for ND when they play or for whomever is nationally ranked when they play one another.
OH please. I have always found the "Walmart Wolverine" label especially laughable because it comes mostly from MSU and OSU fans. So far off base that all you can do is laugh. And Notre Dame fans may seem wonderful to many because they are usually beating the heck out of the opposing team in South Bend and can afford to be hospitable under those circumstances.
I didn't stay the weekend but went up early in the morning. We hung out and had lunch and a few beers in the restaurant right beside the Clemente bridge. The place was full of both Pitt and ND fans. Generally they were loud and just having fun. Didn't seem to be hassling anyone just having fun. At the game the ND band was too loud for my liking but their fans were OK... I've seen worse.
You have to put the Duke fan base right up there with the worst, most arrogant bunch in the Country. The b-ball game at Madison Square Garden several years ago when we ended up beating them in OT was one of the best sports experiences ever. Duke fans dominated the arena and of course the Team was kicking our butts for the entire first half. Every fan in the Garden was convinced Pitt was going to be humiliated by the mighty Duke team. Then came the second half come back with Fields final shot to go to overtime. Winning that game was absolutely sweet and rubbing it into all those Duke fans made it even better. Thank you Jamie and Pitt for such a great game time experience.
I do not travel to all games but I have been to # of them. I have always been an Irish Fan and I am graduate of Lasalle. I live in Arizona and go to some of their games also, Not every fan in PA or arizona is a fan of their local state school And why should they? its kind of crazy where I run into a lot of Steeler fans in arizona most have never been or know how to spell Pittsburg . So I guess their should be Arizona cardinals fans. Growing up as a child I never was a temple, PSU or Pitt fan. I could care less about them but Notre Dame was my team. That said, I have been college games all around the country. The one thing that makes you hate the fan base is if their is a lot of drinking and the folks get obnoxious. I see that at U of Arizona games and it makes me embarrassed for the visiting fan base. Also a high percentage of fans that go to Irish home games are not graduates of the school. What I find is a lot folks who do not like the subway fans make up stories because they hate notre dame at all costs.
So in other words you sold out your hometown team so you could prance around in apparel conveniently representing the most successful program in college football hx.
Got it.
Since I was 6 I rooted for the irish. The only time I do not is when or if Lasalle plays them in basketball.
I was mad at Pitt following that crushing loss to Utah - not because we lost, but because our defense let Alex Smith walk off the field rather than be carried off on a stretcher.
Utah had that huge lead, yet Urban Meyer not only refused to sub his starting QB, but also had him throwing the ball. If I was coaching that defense, I would've declared "open season" on Smith and would've accepted any ramifications that would've come later.
You clearly didn't encounter the 75 y/o Domer that was in my section & was mfing and trying to fight every Panther fan within shouting distance.
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I guess that we've been fortunate, because other than some genuinely negative experiences at WVU, our road trips have been great.
I know that not everyone can devote a weekend to a football road trip. But for those who've never done it but are contemplating one in the future, I'd recommend Notre Dame, Virginia, and Navy. All have great fans who are visitor-friendly. And all of those areas have other fun things to do when you're not at the football game.
I know that not everyone can devote a weekend to a football road trip. But for those who've never done it but are contemplating one in the future, I'd recommend Notre Dame, Virginia, and Navy. All have great fans who are visitor-friendly. And all of those areas have other fun things to do when you're not at the football game.
Here is the question to you ... was he drinking? or was this his everyday charm? my guess a drunk. probably he never graduated from charm school also. 1 or 2 fans out of 50k fans is not the whole fan base. Likewise drunken arizona students harassing some 'BYU players and fans. This does not make the wildcat fanbase as a whole bad.
Had a second home in Tucson from 1985 until 1991, enjoyed it very much. Work with Raul Grijalva to Supervisor then to Congress campaigns. My close friends children all went to U of A and enjoyed all the Museums near Campus, Old Tucson and Desert Museum Sabino Canyon, it is more of Basketball School and Pitt's Sean Miller is now there Coach. CoachRod is doing a good job but talk is he wants to move away and rumor is Sean Miller may leave too in the future. Tucson is so much more a Retirement/Military Community than Phoenix. I have not been back for over 10 years? One can get used to the Deseret settings, but you ever miss Pennsylvania just needed to drive up Mount Lemon and in 45 Minutes you are surrounded in Green Pine Trees!
I don't find the Walmart Wolverines laughable. I find them contemptible. And I have lived in SE Michigan for over 30 years, they are EVERYWHERE. With all due respect, it's the phenomenon that uneducated, disenfranchised people tend to align themselves with winners, and Michigan football has been the institution in this state for most of the last 100 years. Same people that never watched hockey before but suddenly became huge Red Wings fans when the Wings were in their glory. Go to any machine shop or shot & beer bar in the working class areas of Metro D and I guarantee you will see a lot of Michigan stickers next to Red Wings stickers on old pickup trucks.
By the way-are you a Michigan grad? And Flint and Dearborn campuses don't count.
My wife is from Tucson and I have been there many times. I enjoyed Mt. Lemmon and was surprised to find a town and a lake near the summit. I have been to Gates Pass, Old Tucson, Sabino Canyon and also to Tombstone and Bisbee.
Your description of the "Walmart Wolverines" is precisely the way that I see the Nit fans: desperate, culturally deprived Central PA people who have nothing but the Little League World Series and Nit sports to hang their hats on. And the fact that the Nits did win for so long made them easy to root for.
Add to the equation the fact that anybody with a high school diploma and a pulse, and who are willing to pay the bucks, can sneak thru the Nit academic acceptance system via their massive branch-campus system, and suddenly you find Nit graduates everywhere. Many of Pennsylvania's state universities are struggling to maintain their numbers right now, and the problem has been fueled by Penn State's constant, bombardment-style recruiting of students for their branch campuses who'd never sniff their main campus otherwise. From their point-of-view, why seek a diploma from some small state school with limited cachet when - for only a few dollars more - you can get one with the snob value "Penn State"?
gameday at South Bend is the most overrated experience in the history of mankind.. Unreal campus, beautiful as all heck, TD Jesus is corny but yes, I took a pic in front of it (when in Rome), stadium is bad ass, all it's cracked up to be but the actual pre game festivities is ridiculous.. Call me crazy but waiting in line to see candles in a cave before a college football game is weird, standing in single file line and walking thru a student chapel, every single person dead-silent, looking up at the ceiling like it's the Sistine chapel is beyond weird to me.. after breaking away from the organized tour that was going on, we walked into a bar on the edge of the parking lot to get a drink and hopefully see someone with a heartbeat and of course, 1 hour before kickoff, the bar has about 30 people in it.. I may be in the minority but if I am going to an away college game, I want some actual enthusiasm, some back and forth, some Rah rah, some pageantry.. I don't want a campus tour like I am a 16 year old student trying to decide on which school I pick.
Anyone that says pre game at notre dame is memorable, remember what I tell you..
Anyone that says pre game at notre dame is memorable, remember what I tell you..
I go to Mt lemon generally in the summer to get away from the heat. yes I do miss the lush green of PA. I lived in tucson since 2001. I agree its more of a retirement city. Job growth is not very good here and in a lot aways I would like to move because of that. My children went to Salpointe Catholic High School 2 went to Arizona and 1 to Notre Dame. I love the desert
I'm neither. So what does that make me? A Walmart Pitt/MSU fan? Neither program has been historically good enough for long enough to have that element. There are only a handful of schools that have those, and you have one of them in the middle of your state. Maybe this will help you understand the point of my post to Rojo: Where I live, MSU is to Michigan what Pitt is to PSU in PA.
it takes a certain kind of sickness to have been a lifelong Pitt fan, but being born to my parents and growing up in my house, it was unavoidable. So here I am.
I've been to Tucson, felt like I was in Jihad central.. Almost went and bought a muslim prayer cap and quoran just to fit in with the locals.. People started to stare so I talked about killing non-believers and destroying westerners just to avoid detection. Besides that, great city..
Good thread. I probably have a rather unique perspective on this.
My dads side of the family (outside of my late father) are all big Irish fans. My grandpa went to Pittsburgh with my great-grandfather in the 1920s sometime to root for Pitt against ND. During the day, my grandfather (who was 12 at the time) got to meet Coach Rockne before the game and he was "infected" as they say from that moment on as a Irish fan. He was a civil engineer and worked his whole life (while putting 6 kids through school) to be able to acquire ND season tickets. He did that in 1961 and went to every home and away Irish game for 32 years. He was one of those closet recruiters for ND in Western PA and I recall vividly as a little kid being in South Bend for games and sitting/playing in Faust's and Holtz's office. I remember have breakfast with my grandpa and Moose Krause too. My grandpa had a stroke the night of the ND-Stanford game on Oct. 3, 1992 when the Cardinal upset the Irish. He passed in March of 1993 and Holtz came to the funeral. The tickets have been in my family since 1961 and they're in my name now (I also have Pitt season tickets). I cheer for ND every single week EXCEPT when they play Pitt.
One of my greatest memories with dad was when he visited me in Indianapolis and we went to that epic Pitt-ND game where the Panthers won in 4 OT. He wanted to leave at halftime (recall we were out of it 17-3 and didn't really have an answer). Nonetheless, we stayed and I can still see his satisfied face of beating the Irish in South Bend. He was with his dad and saw those great Pitt teams roll over the Irish with TD, et al. Out of military school, my dad was down to choosing to go to Pitt or ND. My grandfather got him into ND but he chose Pitt because he loved the City of Pittsburgh, wanted to be a dentist and also wanted to cut his own path in life. To his last day, some of his closest friends were ones he met while at Pitt--mostly football players. While that was always a cause of some friction between them, he and my grandfather always had a fun little rivalry about Pitt and ND (and they could coalesce around hating the State Penn and Paterno).
I have vivid memories growing up of going to both South Bend and to Pitt Stadium. I was raised to love Pitt, respect college football and respect other fans.
But, I'm a Pitt Panther fan first and foremost and will always Hail to Pitt above all others (even though I'm a subway fan of Pitt).
I strongly dislike the arrogance of some Irish fans because it comes from some sense of entitlement. From my perspective this entitlement and arrogance generally doesn't come from Irish grads. It comes from that pesky and long subway.
Just this weekend at Heinz Field, I was sitting in my seats for the game and I sit next to a nice Pitt fan and his son. I also saw some ND fans that I recognized. All of the sudden in the 2Q, my seat mates, left to get something to eat/drink. These two younger kids (in their early 20s) came and sat in my neighbors seats. I thought (perhaps) that my seatmates traded them tickets or whatever and so I ask these two young guys if they had tickets for these seats. They had ND shirts on but were clearly not ND students. They said no and started to get in my face about it. It took all of my patience to not throw them both over the railing. Nevertheless, I waved to the usher in our section and the kids quickly ran away. The ND fans sitting in front of me thanked me (I could see his ND class ring on his finger). He said, we hate the arrogant side of the subway fans. "Why can't these so called fans, have some respect, respect the opponent and be courteous?" Good question I thought...
As DvY deftly put above, we cannot put fan-bases (particularly NDs) all into a box...Got to just take each at face value and move on. [Maybe we could put all of UPS' in a box though...]
Hail to PITT.
My dads side of the family (outside of my late father) are all big Irish fans. My grandpa went to Pittsburgh with my great-grandfather in the 1920s sometime to root for Pitt against ND. During the day, my grandfather (who was 12 at the time) got to meet Coach Rockne before the game and he was "infected" as they say from that moment on as a Irish fan. He was a civil engineer and worked his whole life (while putting 6 kids through school) to be able to acquire ND season tickets. He did that in 1961 and went to every home and away Irish game for 32 years. He was one of those closet recruiters for ND in Western PA and I recall vividly as a little kid being in South Bend for games and sitting/playing in Faust's and Holtz's office. I remember have breakfast with my grandpa and Moose Krause too. My grandpa had a stroke the night of the ND-Stanford game on Oct. 3, 1992 when the Cardinal upset the Irish. He passed in March of 1993 and Holtz came to the funeral. The tickets have been in my family since 1961 and they're in my name now (I also have Pitt season tickets). I cheer for ND every single week EXCEPT when they play Pitt.
One of my greatest memories with dad was when he visited me in Indianapolis and we went to that epic Pitt-ND game where the Panthers won in 4 OT. He wanted to leave at halftime (recall we were out of it 17-3 and didn't really have an answer). Nonetheless, we stayed and I can still see his satisfied face of beating the Irish in South Bend. He was with his dad and saw those great Pitt teams roll over the Irish with TD, et al. Out of military school, my dad was down to choosing to go to Pitt or ND. My grandfather got him into ND but he chose Pitt because he loved the City of Pittsburgh, wanted to be a dentist and also wanted to cut his own path in life. To his last day, some of his closest friends were ones he met while at Pitt--mostly football players. While that was always a cause of some friction between them, he and my grandfather always had a fun little rivalry about Pitt and ND (and they could coalesce around hating the State Penn and Paterno).
I have vivid memories growing up of going to both South Bend and to Pitt Stadium. I was raised to love Pitt, respect college football and respect other fans.
But, I'm a Pitt Panther fan first and foremost and will always Hail to Pitt above all others (even though I'm a subway fan of Pitt).
I strongly dislike the arrogance of some Irish fans because it comes from some sense of entitlement. From my perspective this entitlement and arrogance generally doesn't come from Irish grads. It comes from that pesky and long subway.
Just this weekend at Heinz Field, I was sitting in my seats for the game and I sit next to a nice Pitt fan and his son. I also saw some ND fans that I recognized. All of the sudden in the 2Q, my seat mates, left to get something to eat/drink. These two younger kids (in their early 20s) came and sat in my neighbors seats. I thought (perhaps) that my seatmates traded them tickets or whatever and so I ask these two young guys if they had tickets for these seats. They had ND shirts on but were clearly not ND students. They said no and started to get in my face about it. It took all of my patience to not throw them both over the railing. Nevertheless, I waved to the usher in our section and the kids quickly ran away. The ND fans sitting in front of me thanked me (I could see his ND class ring on his finger). He said, we hate the arrogant side of the subway fans. "Why can't these so called fans, have some respect, respect the opponent and be courteous?" Good question I thought...
As DvY deftly put above, we cannot put fan-bases (particularly NDs) all into a box...Got to just take each at face value and move on. [Maybe we could put all of UPS' in a box though...]
Hail to PITT.
I'd guess he was drinking just from his obnoxious over the top behavior but its not like he was slurring or falling down drunk. He did have a younger guy on each side of him that were built like they were straight out of the WWE that would basically stand up and flex anytime anyone said something back to the old man.
The beauty of a ND home game is you can do it the way you did it, the all on-campus experience which is unique to college football and awesome in its own way, or you can post up at a tailgate and see all the usual type of "enthusiasm" you want, or you can combine the two and get some of both experiences, which is what i typically do down there. The first time I went I did exactly what you did, and enjoyed it very much as I'd never seen anything like it at a sporting event.
I'm guessing that bar you reference is Legends right in the middle of the parking lot closest to the stadium. Every time I've ever been there you can;t even get in the place, but I think it's really cool that ND has a sports bar right on campus.
I don;t understand how you can criticize the place for a lack of pageantry, there is more of that at ND on gameday than anywhere else in the country.
Yep, had to set up a Factory in Douglas and went to the same places before choosing Douglas for the Clients. They still do much mining in Bisbee and I loved Tombstone History even though some of it was Tourist Made Up! The Cemetery in particular! Also, spent time Sidona!
The Arizona State Museum on U of A Campus was terrific and went there many time, the many Masons and Military Community was always a pleasure to meet and greet!
Did not care for the scorpions, spiders, lizard and snakes and had the home fumigated every time I stayed? Very cold at night too and the Swimming Pool Water was even colder unless you put the heat on the pool. It could be 100 degrees and the water still cold from overnight cold. reminded me of Cold Ohioply Rapid Water!
That is the bar, it was dead empty when I was there before the pitt game in 05, very weird to have a bar that empty, in the lot, right before a game. My complaints are about the lack of any "tailgating" experience, I kid you not that the lots were completely dead.. I get that Pitt may not be the Irish #1 rivalry but still, it just seemed that everyone was doing the grotto or chapel thing and that just isn't "college football" to me. When I think college football, I think of something different than this pic.. This is seriously, the epitome of pre gaming at notre dame..
My wife and I love Tucson. We drove down to Tucson from Phoenix when we were there for the Insight bowls and the Fiesta Bowl.. Mt. Lemmon is very cool. It's crazy how different the temperature is as you drive up the mountain. Last time we were there, locals were filling their pickup trucks with snow to take home. It was a very funny sight. My favorite part of Tucson is the Mexican food. There's a place called the Cafe Poca Cosa that we eat at every time we are there.
The ones I've met are older. They wear tweed jackets with elbow patches and tortoise-shell glasses. They think that Liz Taylor girl is a mahvelous actress. Hornung and Lujack are the greatest of all time. They've heard of the movie "Rudy" but may or may not have seen it.
if you can't appreciate the "Grotto " and its meaning and history that's on you.That is the bar, it was dead empty when I was there before the pitt game in 05, very weird to have a bar that empty, in the lot, right before a game. My complaints are about the lack of any "tailgating" experience, I kid you not that the lots were completely dead.. I get that Pitt may not be the Irish #1 rivalry but still, it just seemed that everyone was doing the grotto or chapel thing and that just isn't "college football" to me. When I think college football, I think of something different than this pic.. This is seriously, the epitome of pre gaming at notre dame..
Yep, I was there and had same experience. I don't dislike Utah, just Urban !
ChooChoo
Just pointing out the irony. Knocking on me bandwagon to jump on , while you've jumped on two others.
