Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s football season ended Saturday night. It ended badly. A season that started brimming with high expectations turned into a bummer. The last game was brutal The University of Southern California (USC) embarrassed the guys from South Bend. It was so painful I turned the game off at half time.

This year, the Irish lost games they should have won, giving up healthy leads to less-talented teams. The fans – including me – expected a nine-win season or maybe eight wins and a trip to a major bowl game. Instead, the Fighting Irish ended the regular season at 6 – 6, hoping for an invitation to a third-tier bowl.

My mom, an ND fan for almost ninety years, called on the phone after the Irish lost to USC. "They were terrible," she said. "The coach should be fired."

My mom isn’t the only fan who feels that way. The sharks are already circling Coach Charlie Weis who was, after all, hired away from the pros at $2-million a year to return Notre Dame to football greatness. No wonder coaching Notre Dame is famously known as the second hardest job in the country. Barack Obama just won the hardest.

Last year at this time, at the end of what was the worst season in the history of ND football, I started counting days, waiting for this year’s team to take the field. I figured – pessimist that I am – that 2008 was likely to be my last chance to watch a team I’ve been following for almost 60 years.

Now it’s over, or almost over. There will be a bowl game and I’ll watch it and root. Then, I’ll start counting days, waiting for October of next year, waiting for a new season. And when the Irish take the field I’ll be sitting next to my teddy bear, the one dressed in a Notre Dame uniform, cheering the team again.

I wish the Irish had done better, but waiting for next year – waiting for the Irish to excel and for the Cubs to finally win the world series – may well be the impetus I need to keep on living for another 12 months.

Here’s hoping.