1979 season

82nd season of men's interhall football, 8th season of the Co-Ed Revolution

Season Summary

League Director: Tom Kelly and Rich O'Leary

Duration of season: September 23 - November 18

Total teams: 17

Games scheduled: 43

Interhall champion: Morrissey (6-1-1)

Season schedule

1979 season

Alumni stories

Jim Trizna, '80

1976-79 Dillon (G)

As a background, I graduated from Notre Dame in 1980 ( BSCE ) and lived in Dillon Hall for all four of my years of college. Further, I played interhall football for Dillon all four of those years beginning in the Fall of 1976. Dickie Hughes ( an injured ND Varsity football player - he had a career ending knee injury ) was our Head Coach for the '76, '77 & '78 seasons. Dickie's older brother Ernie Hughes was a starting offensive guard for the ND 1977 National Championship Team.


 I don't remember scores of the Dillon 1976 games but I believe we won 4, lost 2 and tied 1 for that season.  


The following are tidbits I remember from my 4 years of interhall football:


1. Dillon Hall would typically practice on the old Green Field 4 days a week with games on Sundays.

2. In the 1976 season, there was an Interhall All-Star game played between the South Quad vs. North Quad. This was quite an honor to be selected from your dorm to play in the All-Star Game.

3. Dillon Hall beat Keenan Hall for the Interhall Championship in the 1978 season. The winners received award jackets that looked like the varsity monogram winner jackets except the interhall jackets had "snaps" instead of "buttons" and ours had a football patch instead of the "ND" the monogram jackets had. Both jackets were navy blue with black sleeves. 

4.In the 1979 interhall season, Dillon Hall lost the championship game 3-0 to Morrisey. Dillon lost our QB to a knee injury in the semi-final game so we had to play w/ a running back as our QB in the championship game. The crazy story behind that was our QB was Brian Crowley and the running back who replaced him was Dana Crowley - Brian's NEPHEW ( NOT BROTHER OR COUSIN ). Brian Crowley was the youngest of a family of 10 and Brain had a couple of nephews/ nieces that were older than him. Dillon beat Morrisey earlier in the season when we were at full strength.

5. I met many players from my team and other interhall football teams who like myself, could have played NCAA Division III football, but came to Notre Dame based on their Major Course of Study or other reasons. My point is that the interhall tackle football league was an extremely competitive league.