First response

After three failed seasons trying to make the Varsity Baseball team I decided to forgo Baseball my Senior year (1977) and play on Keenan's interhall Football team instead. 

Ara Parseghian's son Mike lived in Keenan and was the team's Head Coach.  There is a pretty good picture of him addressing the team on page 296 of the 1977 Dome.  I am also in the picture but partially obscured by Mike. Immediately behind me (number 19) is John Brosious.  I don't remember the names of the other two players whose faces are visible.  You will also find another good picture of a Keenan player (Lou Drago) from that year on page 43 of the Dome.

You probably already know this.  But the Keenan team went on to win the championship that season beating the off-campus team in the final game under the lights on the varsity practice field.   What may not be known is that Keenan almost did not make it into the finals. 

I don't remember exactly the circumstances but Keenan and Stanford each had one loss and for us to have a chance to get into the Championship we had to win our final game and Stanford had to lose theirs.  As it happened, we were scheduled to play right after Stanford's game (I think they played Zahm) on the same field.  When our team arrived at the field the Stanford game was almost over with Stanford behind but driving for the end zone and a win.  With no time left on the clock the Stanford QB drops back and hits a wide open Stanford Receiver (The Player was a friend of mine from Baseball so I am keeping his name out of it) in the end zone, literally right on the numbers, seemingly crushing Keenan's chances for making it into the play-offs and then, as we watched our hopes fading away, inexplicably the ball slipped out of the receiver's hands...... we win our game and, go on to win the Interhall Championship....For me I was elated to have the chance to play in the Championship game having toiled away on a High School team that was 3 -23 -1 for the three seasons I played on it .... But I was very sad for my friend who, I will bet remembers that play like it was yesterday.

Second response

I actually remember the play (like I suspect many old players do) where I scored the PAT in the September game very clearly.  Normally,  I wouldn't go into it.  But, since you seem genuinely interested in the story behind the story I will share my perspective of what actually happened on that particular play as opposed to the Observer's description = "Bracale Kept the Ball Himself on an Option Play ...."

First Growing up playing Football in Ohio, in the Woody Hayes Three yards in a cloud of dust era of football (if we threw 10 passes in a game that was considered a lot), I was used to running the option play and I was taught two things.  

1. Come straight down the line of scrimmage

2. Prepare to get hit (I was no stranger to that as I said last night when you play QB on a team that only wins three games in three years that happens ..... a lot)

This is what happened on the PAT from my perspective during that September game so long ago:

• The play came in from the sidelines with the instruction for me to "just pitch the ball to George (our half back) and let him beat the defense to the corner of the end zone".  George, who's last name I don't remember, happened to be very fast and a pole vaulter on the track team if I remember correctly.  So the instruction makes sense, right?

• We line up and I take the snap and take a big long step to my right straight down the line of scrimmage (like I was taught to) and give a nice long "ride" fake to the full back to freeze the inside line backers.  This part of the play goes exactly as planned

• I take two more steps down the line of scrimmage and I see three things virtually at the same time:

  • From my peripheral vision to my left (i.e. the end zone side of the line) I can see the defensive back is at least two yards deep into the end zone.

  • In front of me, Instead of crashing down on me to force me to pitch the ball the Defensive end has floated a little out towards the sideline to guard against the pitch and in doing so he has opened up a lane for me to the end zone.

  • The outside line backer is mirroring the movement of our halfback and on about the two yard line.

  • Our half back was mirroring my movement and about five yards to my right putting him on about the seven yard line

• Given all of the above I concluded that, fast as George was, there was no way he was beating two players to the corner.  I on the other hand was on the two yard line with the only player in position to stop me being the Defensive back who was two yards deep in the end zone.  At that point "instinct" immediately over-rides instructions and I fake a pitch to the halfback, plant hard on my right foot and literally dive towards the feet of the defensive back.  He promptly falls on me, which is what I expected would happen, along with the expectation that I'd be across the goal line and in the end zone for the score ..... which is exactly what the observer said: “Bracale Kept the Ball Himself on an Option Play ....”

Some background; grew up on Franklin Lakes, NJ.. as most kids of the 50s and 60s, played all sports but in those days football was king..starting with touch football in neighborhood backyards everyday after school. I was the eldest of 9 children  (6 boys, 3 girls)..

Traditionally there’s always been a menu of Catholic all-boys high schools in North Jersey and these schools have thrived in athletics… totally dominating the athletic scene in New Jersey. I had brothers attend Don Bosco, St. Joe’s Montvale while I went to Bergen Catholic. Played multiple sports at Bergen and our arch rival was/is  always Don Bosco whom we would always play on Thanksgiving Day. We lost to Bosco my senior year…during that bus ride back to Bergen, I refused to remove my helmet as tears ran down my face… I realized that I wasn’t gonna play ever again. There was opportunity for me to play in college, notably Brown, but I realized that football would hinder premed studies. Thus I followed my best friend to South Bend….only to learn interhall football existed and I would get to play that boy’s game little longer. So I played for Grace Hall in ‘74, ‘75 and’76……the last two years as player coach. The two towers, Flanner and Grace housed 550 men each..

equal to a high school of potential talent. Many of us had played high school ball..some at some competitive programs like Bergen. Many of those guys could have played at another college but chose to attend Notre Dame for a variety of reasons. About the 2nd week of each fall semester, each dorm team would be summoned to the stadium for assignment of football gear…vividly remember, dark evenings, lost somewhere in the bowels of the ‘old’ stadium sifting through old, used varsity equipment (yes, in those days ND fielded freshman AND JV football teams). I can remember the excitement when one of the guys would grab a pair of shoulder pads or hip pads to find the name Theismann or Eddy inked on their gear!!  Our practices were ‘try to make it’ but we all realized that physics exams and chemistry lab came first. But we all had one thing in common… most of us left our helmets on during that last high school bus ride. It was great fun.. talking roommates into playing because we needed a 145lb. pulling guard! Week nights we played under the lights at Cartier Field on astroturf….Sunday afternoons on grass behind Stepan Center.

We had great attendance..a social thing..even the varsity ballers from your dorm would come and root. Especially the rivalry games; ie., Stanford v. Keenan..

At Grace, our natural rival was Flanner so that game was always last of the season and best attended. To answer your query, I don’t ever remember losing to Flanner during my 3 years even though Flanner was coached by another Jersey guy named Charley Weiss!.

Final thoughts.. I’ll give you 2:

1. To this day, Grace guys still bust my balls about our ‘punt team’.. if we didn’t convert on 3rd down, I’d run off the field shouting.. “punt team, punt team”. At which time, one small guy would run out onto the field (punter).. the guys always thought that was hysterical but it wasn’t as if we had a 60 man roster…hell, we would ask for a volunteer punter to come out of the stands if necessary .. still today, when I see some of these guys, they call me Knute and start yelling..”punt team, punt team” (46 years later! )..

2. My last game, ‘76 vs. Flanner…(this time the REAL last game)..it was a night game on Cartier..it was snowing with about 30 seconds left… I’m standing on the sideline with one of my roommates/teammates, Dick Waris, when Flanner makes a meaningless interception on the other sideline..as he’s running down the sideline, Dickie turns to me and says, “let’s go, let’s get him….we can’t let him score” ..so the two of us go sprinting across the field … laughing out loud, justifying our illegal participation by shouting..”we’ll always remember this..we’ll always laugh at the “remember the Flanner game”….and we still talk about that moment and can’t stop laughing..as if we did it solely for future laughter..

it worked..  great memories of dorm-mates, teammates like Dickie and Mike Reed.

My junior year they put together an All-Star game to be played in the stadium..

North Quad vs. South Quad.. Mike Parseghian (Ara’s son) had played varsity for his dad as a freshman walk on, but then left the team to concentrate on his premed studies. Well they asked Mike to coach our North squad.. although I chose a road-trip that weekend rather than play in the stadium (mistake), I jokingly respond to questioning..” oh yeh, I played for Coach Parseghian at Notre Dame!”..   well, confession made…my conscience clear.

I was mentioned in the Observer?  Holy crap. Send me a copy of that if you can.  I will have to talk to some people about this because I honestly don't recall much. My roommate Jim Lincer (an orthopedic doc in the Milwaukee areas) was one of our running backs. His younger brother Dave Lincer was a defensive back. Tom Bosche (sp?) was a receiver/back. A fella named Tom Maher was  a running back. As I recall he may have been an all-stater in Illinois who I think was asked to walk on to varsity. We relied on those guys and ran the ball a lot.  "Bone" Burnet (sp?) was the punter and he also was the organizer of the famous Bookstore Basketball tournament. I believe he worked in the Sports Information Department during school and after graduation. If anyone would have info on the games, it would be Bone.  I recall I played two years.  I may have completed one pass during that time. Keenan was the north quad (there were only two quads then) powerhouse. I think they had an actual playbook. The apocryphal story was they got a playbook/plays from one of Don Shula's kids, who supposedly either knew someone in Keenan or some BS story like that.  As far as the schedule and results, there was a Morrissey Manor "newsletter" called the Bullsheet which likely mentioned game results. Mike Costin, from Fort Wayne and became a sportswriter there, may have info about that too. He was a total sports junkie and would be a good source of info.  Morrissey would definitely have beaten Fisher,  We played some of the games on an astroturf practice field. That was a different experience. We had a play designed for that where I'd bounce a pass to the wide out who had taken  two steps backwards. So it was actually a legal lateral. You got a true hop on the bounce and was easy to complete. but it looked like an incomplete pass since it hit the ground. So the idea was the defense would stop, or at least pause when the ball hit the ground, the wide out would kind of shrug like, "bad throw, man" and then take off.  We lost the Off-Campus game because I had a crappy pair of adidas soccer cleats with rubber spikes that were all worn down. (you had to provide your own shoes, but all other equipment was provided by the University). We went to run an option play near the goal line at the end of the game to try to tie the game and I slipped and fell. It was fourth down and the game was over. At least that is how I remember it.  Hope this helps and provides some contacts. Sorry about not having better recall on games, scores etc. 

I played for Zahm Hall my Freshman, Sophomore and Senior year.

I was player coach my Sophomore year - 1976-1977 -- We tied Keenan Hall ( Mike Parseghian was coach) - all we had to do to play in the Championship game was to beat Cavanaugh hall -- we played them in a snowstorm and ended up losing by a field goal!! -- my chance to play in ND stadium was over.

The following year I was in Rome with the Architecture program.  ND won the national Championship while I was in Italy.  We listened to the game on the Armed Forces Radio Network.

I got stories from Zahm 1976.  I was a freshman and somehow by default was the QB.  Basically I knew how to get rid of the ball and throw it in the direction of my pal Cheech.  Obviously we ran the ball to Kevin Fallon, a true stud.  Defense carried us.  Bob O. was the coach and was a big dude on D.  We also had a linebacker who was nicknamed the Animal by Steve Niehaus, second player taken in the draft by Buffalo.  The Animal had an ND National Championship ring from 1973 as a walkon.  His name was ironic because he was small, like 5'6", but he hit like a truck.  We played a monster back on D, a senior Mike Stenger from Cincy.  He made plays all over the place because he was both fierce and fast.

Our claim to fame was Zahm was the only team to ever beat Keenan during little Ara, Tom Parseghian, era.  Those guys were really, really good but we got lucky on D and got an INT TD.  O did not mess up and we won 6-3, they had a great FG/punter.  We did not finish strong against Cavangh and ended up in a playoff game for North Quad against Keenan and Little Ara.  Final score 35-0 Keenan.  I did throw one TD pass that day; I think it was like 60 yards but I could not see from being planted on the Cartier field astroturf by an angry Keenan man screaming at me.