Please let me introduce myself.  My name is Mike Kemp('75).  I am the Head Football Coach at Erie Community College in Buffalo, NY.  I have coached college football for over 40 years.  My career stops have included: Springfield College(MA), St. Lawrence University(NY), University of Connecticut, University of Pennsylvania, SUNY Cortland, Plymouth State(NH), Utica College(NY), SUNY Brockport and Norwich University(VT).

I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach every position on the field, serve as a coordinator on offense, defense and special teams.  I have coached at the Division 1, 2 and 3 levels.  I have been the Head Coach at 3 institutions.

After graduation from ND, I played Minor League Football for 8 seasons.  I played free safety/strong safety for the Rochester Mustangs, Buffalo Geminis and Niagara Falls Spartans.

All of these opportunities grew out of my experiences at Notre Dame in Varsity athletics and Interhall football.  I feel that my Notre Dame experience provided me with 4 educations.  I got a great academic education from one of the finest institutions in the world.  I got to experience Division 1 athletics as a starter(wrestling) where you are expected to perform at the highest level everyday.  I saw what it was like to be a walk on(football) where the coaches didn't know your name.  I saw the inner workings of a nationally ranked football program.  I saw what went into winning a national championship('73).

Notre Dame was my dream school for as long as I can remember.  Football has always been my first love but I was recruited by ND for wrestling.  My football offers coming out of high school were at the Division 2 and 3 levels.  When the ND offer came it was a dream come true for me.

During my wrestling career at ND, I was a 3 year starter and team captain.  Football players that also wrestled during my time there were:  Phil Gustaphson, Pat Mudron, Mike Fanning, Jay Achterhoff, Joe Pszerachi and Ken Dike.  We were in the first group of recruits that were brought in to build a Division 1 wrestling program.  The way I like to describe it is that we weren't D1 wrestlers when we arrived on campus but we were when we graduated.

My love for the game of football drove me to tryout for the varsity team.  I knew that I wasn't the caliber of player that plays at Notre Dame.  I tried out as a walk on defensive back.  My role was that of a scout team player who would never get to dress or play in a varsity game.  As one of my former players so accurately described it, Rudy played more than I did.

It was not unusual for walkons to play Interhall on Sundays.  The first 3 years on campus I lived in Farley Hall.  During my freshman and sophomore years the guys didn't take it very seriously.  I remember the upper classmen going around the dorm on Sunday mornings waking guys up to go play.  Understandably, we didn't win many games.  During those two seasons I was a utility player.  On offense, I played running back, tight end and guard.  On defense, I played linebacker, defensive end and defensive back.  John Conlisk, a walk on tight end for the varsity, ran the team.  My junior year, I volunteered to run the team.  I was able to gain support for a different approach.  We practiced, scouted and game planned.  We went 3-3.  My coaching career was underway.

The next year Farley Hall became a women's dorm.  My room mates and I moved to Dillon Hall.  I had met Dillon's Center(Frank Tombari) while working out in the weight room at the ACC.  He recruited me to join the team at Dillon.  Thus began my career as a member of the "Big Red."

Mike Bireley was the coach.  He did an excellent job of preparing us.  There were a bunch of walkons playing for Dillon:  Joe Riepenhoff, Craig Tigh, Carl Weyand, Pete Reilly and Bob Derdak.  Mike O'Neill from the baseball team was our quarterback.  Other walkons that we played against were: Mike Parseghian, John Audino and Dan Ruettiger.  John Audino went on to be the very successful Head Coach at Union College in Albany, NY.

Playing for the Big Red was the most enjoyable experience that have had playing football.  It was a great bunch of guys who worked hard, took it seriously and generated tremendous success.  I injured my knee in wrestling my junior year.  They Red Shirted me, so I stayed for a fifth year.  As a result, I got to play for Dillon during 2 championship seasons.  We defeated Keenan Hall for the Championship in "73 and Grace in '74.  The 1974 season was special because we only gave up 1 TD to an opponent all season.  Grace scored in the second half of the Championship game.  Even though we had won back to back championships, we were very disappointed with our performance.  That's the type of competitive attitude that every guy brought to that team.  They were awesome!

The following is an account of the 1974 "Game of the Decade" between Dillon and Morrissey Halls.

First a little background. I was in my second year of coaching and in 1974 Dillon was going for its fourth title in five years. We had one tie-Sorin-in 1974 and that was our only league game we had not won since 1971. We were the "Big Red Machine" not to be confused with the Cincinnati Reds who attempted to hijack our fame. Dillon had so much talent that I actually was able to start 22 players, and nobody had scored on us.  To say Morrissey disliked us would be a huge understatement. 

The November game had Morrissey undefeated followed by Dillon with one tie. This was the game to decide the South Quad title and Morrissey was prepared.

How prepared? A Morrissey resident, who tracked statistics for the ND team, attended every Dillon game and recorded every play including down and field position. He then entered this data into the ND football program and thus was able to very accurately predict our plays. As you can guess we did not have an intricate offense.  In fact, I think Morrissey would have given Tony Romo a run for his money in play calling.

Early in the game we knew something was up as they were way too accurate in their calling of our plays. I noticed, which I didn't think much of initially, a fellow standing on the sidelines with a huge computer printout. I remember those days of massive reams of paper.

It was a scoreless game until we decided to run a play we had never run but had practiced to have in our back pocket.  I had picked up the play from St. Joes Hall. Their QB was a brother of one of NDs quarterbacks and was very good.

We ran the play, a double slot fullback dive. Joe Riepenhoff took it 63 untouched yards for the deciding score!

It was a very satisfactory win, especially for seniors Mike Kemp, defensive captain and ND wrestling captain, Frank Tombari, Tim Cunningham and the late great QB "Shifty Mike O'Neil.

We beat Alumni the next week to secure the South title and then Holy Cross for the Interhall Title.

When my oldest daughter, Jennifer, was taking her tour of ND, she is a 2007 grad, they wound their way through the South Quad and when they got to Dillon, he made the remark that in the 70's they were known as the "Big Red Machine".  She just rolled her eyes and said I have heard this story before. 

This Observer article dovetails with the piece in the Interhall Bible by Matt Birely (75) of Dillon Hall.  Our 1974 game against Howard was one week before the “Game of the Century” with Dillon.  Mike was correct in his description of the feelings between Morrissey and Dillon.  We considered Dillon to be the Evil Empire of Residence Halls.

The individual who compiled the computer analysis of Dillon’s play selections was our coach, Vince Merconi.  His “data” wasn’t quite as specific or accurate as Mike portrays.  It was more like a few rough tendencies on certain downs.  The fact that Vince spent time all season scouting Dillon is testament to the seriousness of Interhall.  I played right Defensive End for Morrissey.  I vividly remember the scoring play that Mike describes.  Dillon ran a player in motion, which we hadn’t seen before.  My recollection was that the play kind of resembled today’s “jet sweep”.  The runner cut inside of me; Dillon effectively blocked our linebackers, and he was off to the races.  Morrissey mounted a furious comeback near the end of the game, but we stalled out on Dillon’s ten yard line and lost 6-0.  The loss really stung and we remembered it for the following year, where we extracted our revenge with a 10-0 victory in 1975.

For those of us who loved and played football in High School; but were not quite college scholarship material; Interhall was a second chance to play the game.  When you walk off the field after your last game in High School, you know that you’ll never again get to put on the pads and compete at that level.  Not so if you went to Notre Dame.  My Interhall “career” included a partially separated shoulder and torn knee ligaments, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  Interhall football and bookstore basketball evoke fond memories that I’ll never forget.