You brought up some fun memories of my ND years. I played QB for interhall teams from 1954 – 58. One year we went to the finals which yielded the finest moment, playing the championship game in the Stadium.

I can remember the high quality of the interhall teams, many guys that could have played college ball at smaller schools or even major schools, but academics were too demanding. I played with HS all-Americans, and some varsity players that didn’t make the cut.

Strangely, I don’t recall any serious injuries, just nicks and bruises to the players. I chuckle at the football gear we had, especially the leather helmets with the blue crosses on top. Of course, there were no face masks in those days.

Good times were had by all and strong fellowships were formed. The Interhall program filled a void in continuing the sport we had played in elementary and high school, in one of the greatest football environments ever.

I arrived at ND in Sept. 1959. As a member of the Freshman Football Team, I received my numeral sweater at the end of a very frustrating season. The Freshman Team played no games and no Freshmen were allowed to be on the varsity. So, under Coaches Devore and Murphy we just practiced for the entire season, except for controlled scrimmages with varsity personnel. I'm sure the varsity was every bit as frustrated being coached to a losing season under Coach Kuharich. My first year GPA was so high that ND suggested I find accommodations off campus. Throughout high school in Los Angeles I was very involved in football and I wasn't ready to stop playing. So, I helped organize the Off -campus interhall Football Team. We received authorization from the Interhall organization and were put on the schedule. It was difficult to organize since our students were spread out all over South Bend. but we found enough players to practice and play games on Sundays. I believe that I was their first coach/player. Our record wasn't stellar, but we enjoyed playing and competing in tackle football again. A few of our opponents were drafted by the Varsity. Hecomovitch, I think his name was, was playing interhall and became a center on the varsity. When my GPA became even higher, I had an opportunity to return to campus, but I liked the off campus life style where no one told us what time we had to be back in our rooms. Also, I continued to play on the Off-campus Team. ( Remember ND was all males then and at 11 0'clock they were locking us in our halls.) I was selected to play in the Old timer's game against Ara Parseghian's first squad. (Actually, I think Hugh Devore coached in 63'.) I started at left guard, Daryle Lamonica was QB and Paul Hornung played on the team with us.

Many of the 1963 Morrissey team began playing together as freshmen in Keenan Hall. Sophomore year, many of us were now residents of of Morrissey Hall. We played pretty well during the 1962 season but did not make the playoffs. As a result, we made a pact to remain in Morrissey and come back for the 1963 season.

In 1963 we got off to a very good start and led the Western Division with a 4-0 record by early November. It was looking like we would be playing Stanford, the Eastern Division champion in the Stadium on Sunday, November 24. We were all looking forward to that. Then, John Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22. The entire campus was in mourning and all of us were numb with sadness. The hall chapels and Sacred Heart were full of students and the grotto was ablaze with candles. Football was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Nonetheless, the playoffs continued but without a championship game in the stadium. On the afternoon of November 22, the day Kennedy was killed, Dillon, who had beaten us 6-0, played Off-Campus. If Dillon had won, they would have been in the championship game with a 4-0-2 record. They played to a 0-0 tie and we were in. I remember standing on the sidelines of that game. It was chilly, overcast, and rainy. We were all playing or watching Interhall football knowing our president had been killed just hours ago. It was somber elation for us to say the least.

The championship game was played on the afternoon of Monday, November 25, the day President Kennedy was buried. The game was played on one of the Interhall football fields behind the old tennis courts. Today, those fields are gone; long ago replaced by handsome campus buildings like the DeBartolo Center. I recall it being another cold and dreary day. As on all regular Sunday games, our high school refs came from the South Bend area. In the Scholastic and Voice accounts, the game was a defensive battle with each team having chances to score but without success. At the end of regulation, the refs told us there would be another 12 minute quarter of running time with the winner being determined by a score or the team with the most first downs. I played running back and recall making a first down on a 79 pitch left. John Capacci, our quarterback, made the other first down. Stanford made only one first down in the quarter and we were the Interhall Football Champions. As I tell friends, we crushed Stanford, 0-0. The Voice account says the game ended in darkness but I recall the clock running out. Regardless, we were quietly joyous, and as always, trooped back to Morrissey to the sound of our cleats clicking on the sidewalks. It was a day of melancholy triumph for us and a requiem for John Kennedy. With Interhall Football, there is no adulation, just the fun of playing a game with your friends who will give you all the small taunts or accolades you deserve.

Here are some recollections from the 1963 season. Our uniforms were vintage 1950s. We had the old Notre Dame Varsity leather football helmets fitted with single or double bar face guards. We had hand-me-down shoulder pads, girdle pads, and football pants. The pullover jerseys had our hall name on them. Teammates I remember were John Capacci, our quarterback. I still have a bumpy right pinky knuckle from one of his practice passes. Don Toomey was our other running back. Walt Desmond was one of our guards. He is also a good friend from San Diego. Each year we, along with our wives, go to a Notre Dame football game in South Bend. Ed Hurley was one of our tackles and our place kicker. Dick Zasada was our coach. He was from Buffalo, New York on a football scholarship but was not playing because of injury. He used to tell me, “Cragg, who do you think you are, Cookie Gilchrest!” We ran a basic T Formation with basic dive, counter, and belly running plays. Our passing game was mostly in the flats with maybe a few downfield. For winning the championship, we each received a gold football key chain fob and a monogram jacket with a gold football patch that says Notre Dame 1963 Champs. It was called the Nappy Bowl because Dominick Napolitano ran the Interhall program along with the Bengal Bouts. That year, the Varsity football team was 2-7, so I considered ourselves the best football team on campus. Next year, the Varsity was 9-1 under new coach Ara Parseghian, and John Huarte won the Heisman Trophy. The era of Ara had begun and we were all retired from Interhall Football, enjoying a real intercollegiate championship season in the Autumn of 1964.

I have dug deep into my memory and can recall little. I know that I played in some games for the Voice, which was the newspaper we started because, before that, there was only the Scholastic. I was sports editor of that first Voice. Interhall football was a huge deal and since I played quarterback in high school (Sheboygan, Wis., North) I got asked to help out in those games a couple of times. But for which team and what the result was is beyond my memory. I don't think I played in a title game, although I would have been in Howard Hall at that time. My only main memory is the single bar helmets, which were a hand-down from old varsity teams. I always fantasized that mine had been worn by Paul Hornung, and later, during my days in the newspaper business, I told Paul that. He laugh and asked how many times my nose has been broken.

Follow-up:

"I met Hornung many times as part of my job. I was sports editor of the Milwaukee Journal, then the L.A. Times for 25 years and a sports columnist at The Times for ten more years. I used to see Paul a lot at the Kentucky Derby, or even occasionally in LA when there was a Breeders' Cup event. He was close to D. Wayne Lukas, who was and is a friend of mine."

"I played for Stanford Hall my freshmen year which was 1963. I remember our team was pretty good and I believe we played in the championship game. I don’t remember the outcome. Also, the guy, Bob Scheuble, who referred you to me, is a name I cannot recall.

We had a good running back, Mike Conroy, who was our main offensive threat. He moved on to rugby and played it all over the world. Our quarterback, Phil Stinger, and a lineman, Jerry Young, were from the same high school in Detroit and played together in high school. Unfortunately all three of my above teammates are no longer with us.

Our coach was a scholarship football player who, for whatever reason, could no longer perform for the football team. Coaching was one of the ways he was earning his scholarship. I don’t remember his name."

"I played with "Off-Campus" for both the 1963 and 1964 seasons (though I was living in Lyons in 1964, but they had no team, and the "commissioner", Nappy Napolitano told me to just pick a team.). I do not recall that the Off-Campus team won the championship. I do recall that the team was coached by an injured ND player, Jim Rakers, who was from Illinois. I also recall that the "playing fields", which served as the parking lots for the Saturday ND games, were treacherous to life and limb (rocks, broken bottles, cans, etc.)!

Lyons combined with Morrissey in two years that I do remember. I think that was 1966 and 1967. (I had graduated in 1967, but was in graduate school there.) I have the Lyons championship trophy still--and will look at the dates. I remember we played that championship on the ND practice field--after a small snow storm. The final was 19-6--and I suffered a cut on my hand in the first quarter that took a lot of talking to the assigned doctor there to let me keep on playing! After the game, I received 7 stitches--and had to walk to and from the hospital! I also remember that we received the trophy at the half time of a ND basketball game--and we were booed quite generously. By the way, the co-captain of that team was Dan Lungren--who went out to politics in California serving as a U.S. representative and later a candidate for governor."

First response

Freshman year at Cavanaugh Hall was quite an adjustment. Away from home and on my own in an unknown environment. I went out for the Interhall Football. We had a fellow named Enver Azzizi on the team. He was from Venezuela and had never played our type of football. He was a large person and played nose guard. On one play Enver rushed the quarterback and put his right had up in the air and the football hit square in the middle if his palm. It stuck in his palm, he brought it down and now had both hands on the ball and started running towards OUR end zone We were running beside him , yelling for him to "turn around" and "run the other way" ... finally we had to tackle him ourselves!!! Vince Terlip was a self described punter. When playing Keenan he punted the ball over his head and into our own end zone...6 pts for Keenan. Our coaches were football scholarship players who were unable to play. We had 2 coaches, I know one was Brian Bullock (?). Arnie Vance was our full back and was always amazed on his running power sweeps that as he came around end there were no defenders... thanks to Tim Borne, Paul Ramsey, Byron Livingston and myself.

Second response

Towards the end the season Enver's roommate moved all Enver's belongings into the hall at Cavanugh because he and his football equipment smelled so bad... just a memory that still make me smile.

Interhall was about the continuation of a game you played in HS…some of the players could have played at a Division 2 or 3 school but wanted to go to Notre Dame so interhall became their outlet….also at the time Notre Dame was smaller, all male, and there was no stay hall…Keenan and Stanford halls where Freshman dorms….after that dorm selection was based on your GPS grades…after freshman year I spent 2 years at Dillon Hall and then because I was captain of the football team I spent my senior year in the Captain’s corner in Sorin Hall…. You have to understand that Sorin Hall / Sorin College…was the first residence hall on campus, thus had and still has a uniqueness about it. I can understand why they had not won a interhall championship in 50 years because dorm selection as I mentioned was based on academic standing, not athletic achievement. In 1967 Sorin had a great group of young men that were not only smart but also athletic…as I recall they all played in high school. I don’t think you can compare interhall football to anything….it’s an outlet to continue to do something you did in HS…it’s the camaraderie, the success or failure you share, an outlet in being apart of a team….the memories and stories you get to share. I was on the sideline for that game to not only support my dormmates, but as Captain of the Fighting Irish, to let them know how special this championship game was to all of us.

"Here's what I don't remember:

--who won the championship: no idea--Keenan, my dorm, didn't;

--any individual game.

Here's what I can:

-Leather helmets: We got mostly handed-down varsity equipment from the late '50's, early '60's, often with player names written inside. Some but not all of us got leather helmets--the equipment was mostly out of date, even for the time. I kept a leather helmet as a souvenir, which wound up fittingly being gnawed to unrecognizability by one of my sons' dog. (Made that up--no idea what happened to it.) Shoulder pads were also old but basically worked.

-Fields: At the time the edge of campus ended at the circle at the end of Notre Dame Avenue. The area across ND Ave from the Morris Inn, now occupied by the Hesburgh Center and McKenna Hall, among other buildings, was an open field, semi-maintained with a lot of dirt patches. That was where Interhall Football was played...and baseball, too, I believe.

- Class segregation: The Eastern Division was all freshman dorms. At the time frosh were segregated from upperclassmen, on the misguided notion that we needed a transition year and should be protected from corrupting influences. That was the Stanford and Keenan opened. (Personally, I was delighted to leave home--the generation gap was a real thing in my family.)

So the West Division was dorms with sophomores and up, and most off campus students were seniors or locals. It mostly took 2 dorms to raise enough players for 1 team They sure scored a lot more.

--Competitiveness: players hit hard, were eager to play but we got little practice time. A fair number of plays were made up in the huddle. From all the 0's in the scores you can gather most freshman games were 'defensive struggles.' My recollection is most teams only had 2 or 3 guys who blocked worth a lick, and 'chunk' plays were almost nonexistent.

There were a fair number who had been decent high school players, even a handful who tried to walk on the varsity and got cut. I was the fastest guy who turned out for Keenan and liked to hit. So naturally I got playing time, and plenty of bruises and 2-yard gains.

I wound up playing Interhall for other dorms through my junior year and remember 2 plays in 3 years...a forearm shiver with my right thumb raised to fend off a block while playing db, which left me with with an enlarged sore and now arthritic knuckle, and in another game catching a screen pass with an open field I'd not seen before and, as I turned, being hit very hard by one of our lineman who was sprinting all out to block the guy 2 steps behind me, the only defender in a position to prevent a long gain. Result: loss of 3 and a severely sprained ankle that's been weak ever since.

Can't remember the name of single player from champ Stanford. A guy named Denny Emmanuel, a lefty QB, purportedly all-state in Iowa, played, I think, for either Zahm (2-2-1) or Cavanaugh (3-2)."

I recall that it was great fun and I do recall being the placekicker with a long field goal during a game while playing for Keenan Hall in 1964. Other than that, and the theft of the square toed Rawlins Kangaroo skin football shoes I had, I don’t recall much of my interhall football days. Interhall football was a wonderful way to get to know the other freshman guys in our hall and on our team, especially those who lived on other floors. As I vaguely recall, we may have had as many as 20 players. I know it was not more than twenty-two, because if we had that many I never would have been given the opportunity to play both offense and defense. In all my high school football I never played a down on defense. That made playing linebacker on the interhall team that much more fun.

My roommate senior year (1967-68) was Steve Anderson who wrote the article that mentioned my name and the field goal. Steve has never let me forget that.

Our Rector, Rev. Michael Heppen, became a life-long friend of mine during that year and later befriended our daughter “Boo” Withers, Notre Dame Class of 1997. Our youngest granddaughter, Mary Heppen Beckstoffer, is named for him.

1969 Off Campus Football

In the Fall of 1966, parents from across the country dropped off their wide-eyed sons on the campus of Our Lady’s University. From that season’s very first win over a highly rated Bob Griese team from Purdue, it was obvious that the University and her students loved football. Perhaps it was the 1966 National Championship as freshman (following a 10-10 tie with Michigan State and a 51-0 blowout of 11^th ranked USC) that kept the competitive juices flowing for the Class of 1970 interhall players.

By 1969, we were Seniors. We were in our final year of college. We would be graduating in a few months --and leaving our sports careers behind us. Also, all of us (save one “transfer portal” player) were Off Campus students. Looking back on 1969, it seemed unbelievable that we could get a couple dozen 21-year-olds together from various South Bend neighborhoods to practice and play full pad, tackle football. But we did!

Our team had guys like the late Bud Clifford, an ROTC man (and future Coors Beer exec), at tight end. John Nesline was a rangy wide receiver, who was a number cruncher in Virginia after college (and who arranged our 50^th ND Reunion, after twice postponed by ND amid COVID-19 concerns). Jim Hansen, out of Northbrook, Illinois, was the 152-pound ND wrestler as well as a cornerback for ’69 OC football. His teammate in both sports was 177-pound QB Bill Hasbrook, an aspiring lawyer from Indianapolis, Indiana. Dan Johndrow, a speedy running back from Millbrae, California and Denny Kerrigan, a former ND freshman player, were on our squad.

Steve Strachota (a future Wisconsin dairy farmer) and Gene O’Brien from Ontario, Canada, toiled in the trenches. Rich Bollini, of New Philadelphia, Ohio, was a staunch linebacker of ‘69 OC. South Bend’s own Dan Valentino was a standout pass catcher as well.

The regular season was mostly a blur, but successful after a 5-0 start. An injury to a defensive lineman activated the “transfer portal”, as Hasbrook’s 24-year-old brother who worked in South Bend (after 3 years as defensive end for Tommy Mont’s DePauw Tigers teams), joined the team. He played in several games, until the Championship game in the ND Stadium, before which rosters were checked.

The Stadium game was against a combined team from Grace-St. Ed’s (which were both residence halls then). Off Campus players, if anything, were confident they would win the title over a 4-0-1 Grace-St. Ed’s squad. The field in the Stadium was natural grass in those days – and it had a crown sloping from the middle to the sidelines to help drainage. So, if your team wanted to run a sweep play, you could either be running uphill or downhill depending on your field position.

On the gray Sunday afternoon of November 23, 1969, the two championship game teams slugged their way to a 6-6 tie at the end of regulation play. Denny Kerrigan scored as time ran out to equal the GE touchdown pass to Michael Carmichael. In sudden death overtime, the Off Campus team was driving for a score that came up inches short on a 4^th and 1 attempt. Grace-St. Ed’s, on its next possession, threw a pass over the middle. Hansen and another OC defensive back collided while going for an interception and Grace-St. Ed’s receiver Junior Freeman scampered 60 yards for a 12-6 victory.

Although it was disappointing to lose the game, it was a thrill to play in ND Stadium before several hundred fans. On a side note, 3rd year varsity coach Ara Parseghian had sent his Offensive Coordinator, Tom Pagna, to watch the Interhall Championship game. Alas, none of the interhall players that day later joined the varsity team.

Bill Hasbrook

Class of 1970

Indianapolis, Indiana

317-525-7784

I played intramural football for two years. I recall drawing plays on the ground in the huddle, which was fun after years of organized football in high school. One game we had a receiver stand on the sideline(in bounds) and talk to other people like he was an observer. We hiked the ball and threw a pass for a long gain as he was not guarded.

It was a great experience and several players had distinguished high school records.

Morrissey Manor had only about 16 -18 guys sign up to play in 1970. I had played for my Cavanaugh Hall team in '67, then Morrissey in '68 & '69. In early Fall we came to the bowels of the old stadium to get old 'varsity' equipment and pads to use for practice and games. It was facinating to see names crossed out on the shoulder pads, like Lujack, Hornung, Hart and even Gipp (none of the pads likely were used by them). But it inspired us.

Our '70 Morrissey team was fortunate to have a set of brothers from the Cleveland area - Jeff and Jim Shula (nephews of Uncle Don Shula). Jeff was our QB, but like most teams with limited numbers, most of us played both ways. We didn't have an offense until Jeff wrote to his Uncle Don (now the head coach of the Miami Dolphins). Uncle Don graciously sent back 3-4 old Baltimore Colt plays which we practiced over and over (behind Sacred Heart Hall). Morrissey did alright that year, as I remember. We did lose to the Champs - Dillon Hall. Dillon was notable because they had pasted the "D" on their helmets from stick-on ads for Drewry's Beer.

Interhall football is definitely a unique ND thing and was enjoyed by so many of us over the years. The story I will share is a bit different but I am guessing not entirely unique.

In 1971 a group of high school buddies from D.C. who were students at Xavier in Cincinnati “visited” for a football weekend. As many reading this will recall these out of town college friend visits tended to turn into the invasion of the Huns. Of course, we would return the favor when we spent a weekend at their schools – but I digress. These friends who had been football teammates in high school were extremely jealous of interhall football. Their flag games didn’t quite scratch that itch for them. Anyhow, since I was nominally the “Captain” of our team (name of hall to remain secret to protect the innocent), when my buddies begged me to let them stay around and play on Sunday afternoon (when the games were played then), I made an executive decision and figured why not. We had a couple of guys gone for the weekend so equipment and uniforms were available. Two of the Xavier guys played, loved it, and were so excited they returned a couple of weeks later when we made the playoffs. Perhaps it was for the best that we did not advance.

The funny part was that in one of the games, I think the first one, one of these Xavier guys found himself lined up across from another guy from our high school who suddenly recognized his old friend and teammate – who he knew was not a fellow Domer. I heard our opponent say pretty loudly “Pete!?!?” and Pete from XU responded “Hey Dennis”. Fortunately, Dennis was mellow about the whole thing and did not blow the whistle with Interhall Sports (where I also had a part time job). Not sure this is what you were looking for but this is what I’ve got. We still laugh about it when we get together at Pinehurst every summer. Go Irish.

Our Zahm QB Paul Tufts was a really good. 71-72 was the year I played. Jack Leicht the coach.

My idea of playing interhall started on my first day in college in 1969. I was playing touch football outside the Rock with some unknow freshmen Pangborners and was booming the punting kickoffs. The Pangborners were going to form a team but need more players. I was from Fisher Hall and we contributed about a dozen players to from the Pangborn-Fisher squad. There was a lot of talent on the team lead by Pete Farbutko as fullback and linebacker. Chuck Voelker (QB) and John Barber (C) were also stalwards and we somehow ended up in the playoffs for the championship. I never played football in high school as I weighed only 120 lbs., so playing in pads was a new experience for me. I did bulk up to about 145 lbs though by beginning of the season. I became the default punter and kicked off but my star never really shined. In fact, it's rather tarnished.

I'll never forget that I was punting in the championship game. It might have been for the chance to play in the stadium and it might have been the conference championship. We played the game on the dirt and rock that is now the football teams practice fields. It seemed like the Super Bowl nonetheless. Toward the end of a 0-0 game I was backed up at about the 10 yard line and punting into the wind. Well I received the ball and looked at the ball to kick it when about three opposing players came crashing up the middle and blocked the kick into the end zone They jumped on the ball for a TD and a championship victory. Ahhh the agony of defeat. Memorable, but I should have bought the lineman blocking for me a pizza or a watch or whatever the NFL punters do to ensure protection.

I spent my sophomore year in Innsbruck so I missed the 1970 season. I returned in 1972 and was the only Fisher Hall member of the team this time around. I recommended we changed the name to Pangborn-Burke. My lobbying fell on deaf ears. Again Chuck Voelker and John Barber led the team. Poor John broke his leg early in the season and had to borrow a golf cart to get to classes.

One thing I'll never forget that season is that football stars All-American Greg Polowski (#1 NFL draft pick) and Ralph Stepaniak (#176 NFL pick) and would regularly show up at our games, often on cold and windy October and November Sunday mornings. I think one of them broke their leg and would show up in a golf cart in 35 degree weather supporting us. Great people.

Their names remind me of the famous Interhall Rockne Hall classic basketball game between Pangborn and Fisher. Walt, Ralph and Pete Farbutko took on a Fisher team consisting of UCLA beaters All American John Shumate and Gary Brokow. It was riveting as there was no love lost between the players. Someone with a fresher memory and I will have to complete the story but I remember sitting on the Rockne floor sidelines watching one of the best competitive basketball games I've ever seen.

Back to interhall football. Pangborn-Burke was not as successful in 1971 as prior years, but new friendships helped keep the season fun. I met Kirk Miller thru Paul Breen, a fellow 1970 Innsbrucker. Paul and I had just bicycled about 800 miles from Innsbruck to Le Harve, France to make our SS France cruise home for fall semester. Paul talked about his roommate Kirk Miller and I finally met him at a Morrissey party. Well Kirk won't remember because... well he just had too much fun at the party. Not an uncommon thing for Morrissey parties in those days. Well the next day I watched Kirk quarterback the Morrissey team to an upset victory over perennial champs, Dillon Hall, a team captained by Jim Cannon.

Now, recently the varsity ND football team had dip in quarterback talent after Joe Theismann left. I am making this proclamation now - Kirk Miller was the best quarterback on the Notre Dame campus - varsity or interhall. He tried out for Ara, but like many others was it seemed like a token event.

At Morrissey he shined for many years and won the championship in '71 or '72. He was a nimble QB often running for positive yardage, evading the Dillon pass rushers. He was great at running the triple option. Paul Breen scored many a touchdown off Kirk's execution of the option. He was a spot on passer as well. I don't know the stats but if you ever get the data, I think you'll find Kirk Miller deserves consideration for Interhall Hall of Fame.

After many of our junior and senior year games the Morrissey and Burke portion of the Pangborn-Burke team would adjourn to the polish bar on US 31 just over the border for Sunday brews and polka. Michigan's bars didn't close on Sundays back then so it was the perfect way to ease the bumps and bruises.

I think I played for off campus one year but injured my knee. I did recruit Hack Incorporated, a Bookstore Basketball Team that included footballer Craig Stark, basketballer Dave Kusmitz, Kirk Miller, Breen-Phillips Interhall QB Mike Manyak and a motley crew from Rockne pickup balling. We finished third out of about 500 teams during my 1975 grad years but that's another story....for another day.

Memories of Interhall Football at Notre Dame

Morrissey Hall Football Years 1969 – 1972

My name is Ken Gillig. I lived in Morrissey Hall for all four years of my time at Notre Dame, from freshman year starting in fall 1969 through graduation in May of 1973. That’s a story in itself, but for another time. Suffice it to say I lived with a great bunch of guys who became close friends, lasting throughout those years and after graduation to this very day 50 years later: TJ, Bobo, JP, Gerry, Con, Vince, Tex, Dave, Fran, and more. We have regular Zoom meetings to stay in touch.

When my parents took me (and my stuff) to ND for the first few days before classes started I had the chance to see a little of the ND varsity practicing, and on several occasions we ate lunch or dinner near them in the North Dining Hall. I remember thinking to myself … “well, I am 6 foot 3 inches and 220 pounds, somewhat fit, but these varsity guys were huge”. Any aspirations for attempting to walk-on were easily given in to the goal of getting a great education, and keeping my body in one piece!

Within weeks of starting at ND as a new freshman in 1969 I responded to the call for those interested in playing interhall football. I don’t remember the ads calling for players, but I do remember being surprised finding out that the games against other dormitories would be played as full tackle football, and was more than amused when us players for Morrissey went over to the ND stadium to be fitted for full equipment using old uniforms and equipment from the varsity team. Some people found it “fun” trying on leather helmets, where I had enough injuries in high school football to prompt me to take the newest looking equipment I could find. With that the Morrissey players went off and began forming a team.

All four years we typically practiced three days a week around 3:30 - 5:00 PM on an open field over behind Carroll Hall and St. Mary’s Lake. Many Morrissey players had played high school football and brought with them ideas for drills for different players: offensive and defensive line, quarterbacks and ends, running backs. Sooner than later it made sense to design and write down plays so that we knew what was going to happen (hopefully) when a ball was snapped.

For me, as a linemen on offense and defense, it was fun practicing – a great release of energy from the tensions of studying or any other distractions you might have. On several occasions, lineman-to-lineman drills got pretty intense and competitive, but we always seemed to all walk away smiling at the end of practice as we got ready for weekly games. Being a bit tired from practice did not stop us from speeding over to the South Dining Hall for a ‘wonderful sit-down dinner’.

Game days on Saturdays were unlike high school – first, the pressure we created for ourselves to play well and push to win was self-created, not driven by much more than personal and hall pride. Second, often after a night of partying, knowing in a few hours you were going to play tough football, shaking off that party was the focus. Finally, I remember traveling around the campus on our game days, which often were ND varsity at home game days as well, getting burgers/dogs, having a few beers, and meeting others and catching up … staying loose. Then you were ready to go play.

Over the four years on Morrissey’s teams it became evident a little more organization and discipline before, during, and after practice and games paid off in more frequent wins with better scores for our team. One or our hall mates, Vince, was a great help in making all this happen. While he did not play, he was more of a coach and coordinator to keep us focused. We even got to a point where some limited scouting of other supposedly good dorm teams we were soon to play happened.

Our Morrissey team members got closer each year, and our team got better each year as our plays got more sophisticated and worked more reliably, and we had more fun along the way. We even ended up with a Morrissey fight song, sung to the “tune” of the University of Southern California fight song:

“Fight on, for Morrissey, the black and gold, to victory!” - repeated over and over

My junior and senior seasons in the fall of 1971 and 1972 afforded us the opportunity to play in the championship game for the ND Interhall Football. By then our biggest competitor was Dillon Hall if I remember correctly. Morrissey did win the 1972 championship game, played inside the ND stadium. It felt surreal being in the center of that field and looking up at the stands seeing about 300-400 “fans” watching us play. I tried to imagine how an ND varsity player feels when he is in big games. It was pretty cool for me, all things considered!

My memories of ND Interhall Football – great fun, great guys to team with, added memories of my time at ND, a great school!

Regards,

Kenneth J. Gillig

ND Class of 1973

B.S Mathematics

I played intermural football for Breen Phillips from 1969-1972 We had a mixture of high school players and guys who wanted to "play football at Notre Dame".

A few random thoughts:

We were issued old and sometimes antique equipment. My roommate, Dave Bertke was issued a leather helmet with a single bar facemask.

Dave was about 6'3" and 175 lbs. playing outside LB. Dave hadn't played in HS so he seemed to do a lot of yelling and waving his arms. At the time there was a professional LB with the Raiders named Ted Hendricks. Nickname-the Stork. Dave was given a nickname that has lasted 50 years.

We had a pretty good QB. Mike Manyak and wideouts Bob May and Lynn Hebel.

Livio Parolin, since departed, was the middle linebacker. He claimed to be all state out of Chicago. I don't know if he was all state but he was pretty darn good in Interhall.

We played Stanford for the North Quad championship my senior year, but as I recall we were soundly beaten.

I did score a defensive touchdown one game playing defensive end. As I recall, the ball was lying in the endzone and my teammate and good friend, Livio, was about to fall on it. I quickly pushed him out of the way and fell on it myself.

Again, thank you the opportunity to think about things I haven't thought of in many years. I believe most of what I have written is be true.

The Breen Phillip’s 1972 Inter-Hall Football Team

The team was famously and proudly named THE NADS. This team was probably the BEST B-P team ever fielded in the 35-year history of the ALL-MEN’s DORM. Why do we note this? Because the 1972 team was the LAST team ever to wear the Breen Phillips jersey on the gridiron. The dorm became a women’s dorm in the Fall of 1973. We should note that the “BEST” classification might be disputed by some earlier teams. We did not survey them for their opinions.

We take pride in documenting the above, this November 22, 2022, almost 50 years to the day that the famous Breen Phillips Nads, took the field for the last game ever played by a B-P team. The game was a playoff game against Stanford that took place on November 19, 1972. B-P played Stanford earlier in the season beating them handily. But on that very last game, The Nads went down in flames never to rise again. The results might have been the result of too much fun the night before. Here is a partial roster of that team:

Dave Berke, ’73 from Kentucky, an engineer and played defensive end.

Bill Cleva, ’73 from Long Island New York, a chemical engineer. Played offensive and defensive end

Mike Farrelly, 74 from Long Island. Played defensive line

Tom Foristel, 76, New York City, offensive and defensive end

Mike Hansen, ‘73 from Milwaukee, an accountant and played offensive and defensive tackle

Lynn Hebel, 73, from Albert Lea, MN, an accountant and played defensive back

Bill Henshaw, ’74 from Country Club Hills, Illinois, an accountant and played offensive and defensive line.

Bruce Jiorle, ’75, from New Jersey and played quarterback.

Dave Klunk, ’73 an accountant from Littlestown, PA was a halfback and defensive back.

Ed Klunk, ’74, Dave’s brother and was a halfback and a defensive back.

Mike McConville, ’73, played offensive and defensive guard. Mac passed away about 7 years ago.

Joe Morahan, ’74 Chicago, Illinois and played safety.

Greg Pappariella, ’73 Hershey PA and played center and defensive lineman.

Livio Parolin, Chicago, Illinois. Played center linebacker and fullback. Livio passed away about four years ago.

Forest Whiterabbit, ’73, Hudson, Wisconsin, played offensive and defensive line.

Jim Wethertbee, ’74, Long Island New York, an Aerospace engineer and famous astronaut who has log more time in space than any American. Jim played wide receiver.

Rich ???, 73 was Dave Berke’s roommate.

Outlined against a steel gray sky on November 19, 1972, the Marauders of Morrissey Hall, thirty three strong, eagerly took the hallowed field at Notre Dame Stadium in the first title game of the “Co-Ed Era” of Interhall Football. The championship had eluded the Marauders the previous two years, thanks to the team known as “Dillon Hall”. Much as the Red Sox later beat their Yankee daddies in 2004, Morrisey finally took down Dillon in the semis in ’72. Like the Red Sox, the Marauders felt that the championship was now essentially theirs. Stanford Hall, their opponent in the championship game, was presumed to be a mere speed bump in the journey to interhall destiny.

I was a 5’7”, 165 pounder who hadn’t played high school football, and was now playing in my second year of interhall football. My first two years were spent in Walsh Hall, once the home of the Gipper and Joe Theisman, but now occupied by the first class of women in ND history. Walsh Hall was one of the two dorms selected to become women’s dorms, out of the twenty one then on campus. Given its long history of excess testosterone oozing out of its pores, carpets, sinks, and toilets, that decision was not greeted by its residents with anything approaching glee, particularly among those sophomores who were in line to upgrade their semi-squalid living quarters. Having been cautioned by the rector not to “overreact”, predictably, the mother of all parties was held. Were it not for the fact that two of my roommates were on the varsity football team, I might never have graduated….but it was a hell of a party.

Thus, having been “evicted” by the new co-eds, and in need of new quarters, I was salvaged by several friends who had resided at Morrissey since freshman year. In part due to the proximity of Morrissey to the practice fields out by Holy Cross, I decided to play ball for the Morrissey Marauders. At my very first practice, I was blown away by the football bona fides of several of my mates: former ND varsity players, second team All-Staters from hotbeds like Ohio and Oklahoma, and a head coach who actually knew something about coaching. As any ND student knows, one of the many unique joys of going to ND is the opportunity to play virtually any sport on an interhall level, often against accomplished fellow student-athletes. Playing any kind of football at ND was a dream come true for any Catholic kid in America, and I was no exception.

At my size and having some quickness and willingness to stick my head in there, I played some cornerback, although not with the skill of some of my teammates. But I did have one skill that no one else had: I actually knew how to long snap. I’d learned it the summer of my freshman year when I was a camp counselor in Connecticut and one of my fellow counselors had been a Division III player at Springfield College.

Our punter and I worked out a silent signal to keep me from getting obliterated by the opposing nose tackles, and in two seasons, we never had a botched punt. One of those nose tackles was “the” guy nicknamed “Rudy”, who happened to be a friend of another roommate and also happened to be about 50 pounds heavier than Sean Austin.

Our regular season was a blast, all leading up to the rematch with Dillon. Dillon actually filmed some of our games, which was unusual in those Jurassic times. Although the details of our semi-win over Dillon escape me due to the ravages of time and lack of any written chronicle, I still recall the sheer joy we had in taking down the perennial favorites.

During the prelude to the championship game, Morrissey Hall was filled with banners and the constant refrain of the Morrissey fight song, which had been culturally appropriated from USC: “Fight on, for Morrissey, for black and gold, for victory!”

Taking to the field for the Stanford game, I was filled with one recurring thought, shared by virtually all of the players: I can’t believe that I’m playing football at Notre Dame Stadium. But it was soon time to focus and do our thing, and we did.

The game was never in doubt, as our starters dominated on both sides of the ball from the opening coin toss. We finished on the right side of a 28-0 final score, thanks to QB Kirk Miller, RBs Paul Breen and Tim Leutkemyer, who led the way on offense, and our D linemen, Kevin O’Neill, Bill LaVigne, Dave Hammond and Mike White, who left Stanford’s QB unable to get off a pass. Coach Randy Salyer pressed all the right buttons, as always.

Occasionally we had to punt. Though we were up by 21 points in the second half, the most memorable play for me was a punt which I had snapped for and then downed at around the 5 yard line. I sometimes run into the punter, Ed Posluszny, now a successful dentist, at games and reunions. Ed loves to regale his wife with stories of his punt, which over the years has gone from being downed at the 5 yard line, then the 4 yard line, and by the time I next see him it will have been downed at the one foot line.

Beyond the thrill of actually playing at the stadium, the fact that a thousand or so people showed up to see us, including my girlfriend, who came all the way from my home state of Connecticut, was an incredible rush.

Once victory was secured, the party began and lasted for hours in the bowels of Morrissey Hall. A few weeks later, we were treated to an honorary awards dinner. We also received our prized championship jackets, which I treasured for the next 20 years until my 165 pound frame increased to 185 pounds.

Any athlete will tell you that lessons learned on the field carry over in real life. What I learned from my interhall experience, and from other experiences in sports, is that you should always push your envelope, and never let other people’s opinions stop you from pursuing whatever dream you might harbor. (Hence, the appeal of the movie “Rudy”). Having played at Notre Dame Stadium, I later got to play baseball at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown and at many major league spring training sites in Arizona and Florida. Professionally, I’ve “performed” in many otherwise intimidating courtrooms as a litigator. Yet, 50 years after the event and with a lifetime full of memories, I have to admit that few experiences have matched the one of November 19, 1972. Thank you, ND Interhall Football!!

Rich Arconti ‘74

Morrissey Hall

Very interesting! I played for four years for Grace Hall, from 1970 through 1973. Steve Tierney, also class of ’74, one of my suite mates sophomore and junior years, also played, but I can’t remember how many years. He moved off campus senior year. Steve and I both walked on varsity football in the Spring of 1972, made the team, or they didn’t tell us to go away, and both of us played in the Blue/Gold Game for a couple of minutes. One of my lungs collapsed that summer and I couldn’t return that Fall (my doctor wrote a letter to Coach Parseghian, probably saved my life!), but still played Interhall that Fall anyway. Didn’t realize that I could have died if I got hit the wrong way.

Senior year I was a member of the men’s varsity golf team. Walked on there, too, and qualified third in the Notre Dame Open (the qualifying tournament), but still played Interhall. Got in trouble with the golf coach O’Sullivan when he saw that article in The Observer where I intercepted a pass against Stanford.

I played three years for Keenan Hall in the Interhall football league — Fall 1970 to 1972. I was a freshman in 1970. We had a good team that year. I can’t remember our record, but we made it all the way to the Interhall championship game against Dillon. At that time, the only games played in the Stadium were the regular season varsity games and the Interhall championship. I recall playing in the Stadium on a very cold Sunday in mid November. It was a close game, but we lost to Dillon. Our kicker was Joe Garigiola Jr. One of our best players was Ray Donovan, an end. A number of our players had excelled in high school and probably could have played college ball at some place other than ND. Playing for Keenan was a great experience and I made many good friends.

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.

Memories of Inter-Hall Football Sixty Years On

I was a decent high-school football player from a small Class D school but I had no notion of continuing that pursuit at any college much less at Notre Dame but I loved playing football (all 140 pounds of me) and when informed by some upper classmen about Inter-Hall I signed up right away.

Breen-Phillips had a good team especially on the defensive side. I had been a defensive end/ linebacker in high school but I got to play cornerback at B-P which was very cool. We had a good rivalry with Stanford Hall and I don’t remember many details but I do remember being burned long twice in a play-off game against them in 1972. The game was played on an Astro-turf practice field on a rainy day and my grass cleats were no match for either the field or for the Stanford receivers in their Astro-turf cleats.

After moving off campus in 1973, I played one season for the off-campus team. While at B-P we had regular practices but the off-campus team had no such plans. Our field was right outside Senior Bar and after running a few laps (maybe) we repair there to seek refreshment. The games were not necessarily competitive, but I didn’t mind. I got to play safety and return punts. My “highlight” reel was returning a punt about 60 yards when, with the goal line in sight, I was blindsided near the sideline and landed about 15 yards out of bounds. Then holding was called on the play nullifying my return but I didn’t mind. I still remember the feeling of running down the sideline with the goal line in sight and I still wish I had been just a little faster. Thanks to IH football for the memories.

Charlie Donnelly, class of 1975

Championship Game Site Remembrances

On Saturday, November 18, 1972, the Irish defeated the University of Miami 20-17 to secure a bid to the Orange Bowl. ND had only recently begun going to bowl games (starting in 1969), and in that era would only play in the Cotton, Sugar or Orange (Rose was out of the question with the Big 10/Pac 8 commitment). So, this was a big deal. The turf of Notre Dame Stadium was strewn with oranges from the student section, celebrating the win and the bowl bid, and it generally showed the scars of a season’s play. The home schedule was complete, and only the annual rivalry game with Southern Cal (that year’s National Champion) in LA, and the Orange Bowl opponent Nebraska (led by Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny Rodgers), still loomed. (ND would lose 45-23 to USC, when Anthony Davis scored five touchdowns -- his five touchdowns were in this game, not in the 55-24 loss two years hence; and would lose 40-6 in the Orange Bowl. However, the 1972 varsity formed the nucleus for the undefeated/untied 1973 National Champions, including a 23-14 home win over SC and a 24-23 Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama to capture the crown.)

The only game still scheduled for the Stadium in 1972 was the Interhall Football Championship between Morrissey and Stanford, to be played the following afternoon -- Sunday, November 19^th. The condition of the turf wasn’t a significant issue given the running clock that was employed for Interhall games, and besides, neither team cared. We simply wanted to play in the stadium that Rockne had built. Playing the Interhall Championship game in the Stadium was a tradition, and had been promised to us again for that season before the season’s play had even begun.

Promised, that is, until the phone rang in my Morrissey room at about 9:00 p.m. on Saturday night. One of my roommates, Bill “Whitey” Hake was the Morrissey Athletic Commissioner, and I was the Assistant. It was therefore natural that Tom Kelly, Assistant Athletic Director in charge of Interhall Athletics, would contact us (I happened to take the call, as Whitey was game-prepping at Corby’s) with the news that the Stadium would be used for varsity practices leading up to the SC and Nebraska games (both LA Coliseum and the Orange Bowl were grass fields, and the ND grass practice fields were supposedly not usable by that point in the year). As a result, Tom informed me, the Interhall Championship game would be moved to the Astroturf of Cartier Field, so that the Stadium grass wouldn’t be further damaged and thereby interfere with the practices.

Tom attempted to turn this into a real treat for the Interhall players, given the history of Cartier, but I wasn’t buying it. Instead, I immediately objected, arguing that not only did this violate the promise made to both Morrissey and Stanford (and to all of the Interhall teams), but it was also no picnic to play on the “fuzzy concrete” that the Cartier Field Astroturf was in those days. Tom wouldn’t budge, but I wasn’t finished.

Unbelievably (particularly in retrospect), the student directory in 1972 contained not only every student’s campus address and phone number, but also included the same information for administrators, professors and other University hierarchy -- including Father Hesburgh, Ara Parseghian, Moose Krause and more! My first call of protest and appeal was to Father Hesburgh in Corby Hall, but he was out. I then tried Ara at his home, but he was also away. My third call was to Moose, and he likewise was not at home. I next decided to try Father Jim Burtchaell, who was then the University Provost. I had taken a class from Father Burtchaell the prior semester, and therefore knew him. Further, he lived in Dillon Hall (where he was Assistant Rector, and whom we had defeated the week before by a 26-18 score to reach the Championship game). I suspected that all of this would give him some appreciation and empathy for Interhall football, and I was right. Father Burtchaell entirely understood the predicament and even sided with us. Moreover, he said that he had just returned from a party celebrating the Orange Bowl bid, that Moose Krause had been at the same party, and that Moose had also just left. He suggested that I again try Moose at home, and I did.

Moose answered the phone when I called, and I recounted the situation for him, including the rationale that Tom Kelly had given. Moose’s only question was, “Do you really expect to have enough spectators that you’ll need the Stadium?” I laughed and told him that we’d be lucky to have a couple hundred for both teams, but that that wasn’t the point. I explained that the point was that a bunch of guys on both teams had been promised the Championship game in Notre Dame Stadium -- a dream come true for many of us -- and that having this promise broken was simply not fair. I also reminded him that the running clock would mean that we wouldn’t be on the field all that long in any event. I implored him to intervene, and he couldn’t have been more gracious.

Moose said that he would contact Tom Kelly that evening, and would arrange for Tom to meet me in the Stadium at 11:00 a.m. the next morning (game time was 1:00 p.m.). Moose said that if after a fresh look, I (and I alone -- not Tom Kelly) thought that the condition of the field would allow Interhall play, then the Championship game would go ahead in the Stadium. Needless to say, I “knew” that the field would be just fine before I hung up the phone!

I did, in fact, meet with Tom Kelly on Sunday morning. To say that Tom was not happy with me, in light of the several levels over his head that I had gone, would be a gross understatement. Nonetheless, as we stood above the tunnel to survey the field (it was still full of oranges from the day before, but actually wasn’t all that bad), I gave the thumbs up for the game -- over Tom’s continuing objections and efforts to convince me otherwise.

The game was played in the Stadium, and Morrissey prevailed 28-0. This particular Morrissey team finished the season undefeated, and it included at least four players who had made All-State teams in high school (at least two of whom had been “invited” walk-ons to the varsity). In fact, this was the second year in a four-year string, during which Morrissey lost a total of only three games. This high degree of success was thanks, in some part, to the handiwork of Father Tom Chambers, Rector of Morrissey, who was also the University Director of Housing and in charge of residence hall assignments.

The following year -- and, as I understand it, for a number of years thereafter -- the promise of the Stadium was no longer made, and the Championship game was instead played on Cartier Field (I believe that the Championship games are again now played in the Stadium, perhaps because of the outstanding grade of artificial turf installed some years ago). But in 1972, we had our way, both with the site and the outcome! Go Marauders!!

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!

I was in the class of 76 and played 4 years of Interhall football. Playing highschool ball, this was a great way to continue my love of the game. I was amazed back in 72 we had actual coaches and afternoon practices. Everyone took it very seriously. Our quad rivals were Dillon Hall which was next door to my dorm, Alumni Hall, affectionately called the Dawgs! Most of the team was comprised of our Freshman floor known as “Shit Alley!” Named for its luxurious accommodations. Lol. My roommate Frank Driscoll, who played quarterback, played highschool football with me in Long Island. My position was Middle guard. I always loved the sport but like so many athletes who came to play inter hall we were too small and underweight to even think about trying out for the Big team. I have to say the interhall teams were made up of many fine teams who probably could have taken on some smaller colleges! I do have the Observer article you talk about which depicts our underdog team playing Dillon Hall. The game was a lot closer than the score! If you need it let me know and if you need more material for your article let me know also.

"I was excited to play interhall football at ND as I had played tackle football as a kid with the neighborhood kids and my mom had to buy me a helmet after I had a bloody nose. I thought I played my freshman year for Farley as well as - that would have been 1973. I was in Angers for my sophomore year, so I was not back on the field for Lyons until 1975 and 1976. I usually played halfback and defensive back/safety. Memories include -making several interceptions; winning most of our games; playing on Carter Field for the championship (and losing- and I blew the coverage which I think led to the winning score); getting undercut while running with the ball and landing on my tailbone which resulted in pain for several years and eventual arthritis; and beating St. Mary's at least once. I've also attached the certificate that I found when I was named to the All-Star team my senior year. Perhaps the most unique and ultimately career boosting benefit of playing interhall football came in 2001 when I was interviewing for a position at the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH). The Chief Operating Officer at CSH was Steve Thomas. During the interview (on the phone) he asked if I was the same Sue Augustus who played interhall football - turns out Steve had been my coach senior year and I had not put two and two together. Long story short- I was hired and Steve told everyone that it was because I had been a fast and aggressive football player (not endearing to the non-football fans in the office). I spent 14 years at CSH."

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 ....”

1975 South Quad Interhall Football Championship Game against perennial power Dillon Hall.The only touchdown we scored was on a trick play. We knew we were playing at Cartier and it had Astro Turf. We had practiced a bounce pass that would look like an incomplete pass but would actually be a lateral and it worked for a touchdown! Dillon scored a TD but we blocked the extra point.

1975 is only time Pangborn ever won a South Quad interhall Football Championship! That year we wore orange jerseys and our nickname was the Violence after the Mott the Hoople song.

A great defense; offense was not so good but had a great quarterback in Bill Sahm who later walked on in Basketball.

I never played in High School but played a little linebacker on the Violence. Great year for Pangborn!

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.

When I entered Notre Dame and moved into Grace Hall in the fall of 1973 I missed sports. Being a three-sport athlete in high school and having no athletics in college was a big change in my routine. One day I was hangin out in Grace Hall and my buddy Jungle Cowley says "Hey , they are practicing football in the field outside the window between the library and Grace; you want to go check it out"? I reluctantly said yes, as I thought I was done with sports. So we went down and joined the team.

I remember checking out our football gear in Notre Dame stadium and the stuff was sold old, you were lucky to find shoulder pads that were not in shambles. They actually had some of those leather helmets in there... and none of the equipment fit anybody. And the helmets we got, not the leather ones, but the regular ones had to be from the 1950s and had plastic face masks. No one bothered with a mouth guard.

We had some really good players including players including my brother ,Slime Keller, who was an honorable mention Parade magazine All- American wide receiver, numerous all-staters and who knows how many all-leaguers from high school. McCreary was our quarterback and McGreavy a running back. There were probably a bunch of other Macs on the team just like at ND. We actually practiced together a few times with rudimentary plays that generally involved handing the fullback - me , the ball to run it up the gut, because we didn't have time to practice anything fancy like a pass play. There were other brothers on the team, but we were very competitive and got to play on astroturf under lights which was a new experience for me. We made the playoffs and , if we won , would be close to playing in the championship game. Our last game was outside Stepan Center and I ran the ball from the two-yard line to try and score the winning touchdown on fourth down. The face guard of my helmet actually completely broke off.... I am lucky to have a face left. Unfortunately, we did not score and win the game to get to play in the final against Dillon Hall. Probably a good thing as everybody said that nobody really wanted to get on the field with those guys.

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 an RA my senior year, 1977-78 and worked with Mike Natale to put together a team at Fisher. I’m not sure if Fisher ever had it’s own team. I think we were with Pangborn prior to that. As you figured out I don’t think we ever won a game but we had a blast. All of us frustrated high school players!

I will say the experience of playing on the turf field, under the lights was incredible. Not to mention, going to Notre Dame stadium to pick up our equipment which was the old helmets and pads from previous ND teams, was pretty cool too.

"My inter hall career ended in 1975 after a severe knee injury requiring repair of my ACL, PCL and medial collateral ligaments. I had surgery at St. Joseph hospital and my roommate was ND Center Ernie Hughes. He got a lot of visitors including Dan Devine and several ND players. I how ever recall getting a signed photo and encouragement from Mike McCoy. My RA was Jim Kelleher and he passed on my situation to McCoy who was playing for the Packers.

My last game was on October 18 1975 against Morrissey at Stepan field—under a cold and gray October sky. 2 days later I had surgery. I now have a right knee replacement. When people ask about my scars I tell them I had a knee injury playing football at Notre Dame!!!"

"For a little context, my father was George Ratterman, an ND QB in 1945-46 (national champs in 1946) and the last four-sport letterman in ND history. Dad played 10 years of pro football and was on 2 NFL championship teams in Cleveland in 1954 and 1955. He led the NFL in TD passes in 1950.

I played QB on the 1977 Off Campus interhall football team. That was 44 years ago, so my recall is not perfect. I don’t remember our record or which games we won (I do remember beating Dillon). I remember one of our wins was protested, but until you mentioned Sorin, I would not have remembered the opponent. My memory of the protested game is that it had to do with a punt. Our TE, Rich Hohman (one of the infamous “Sorin Seven” who go kicked off campus in the middle of the winter for running a bar in their dorm room – look here and here for stories on that) was punting, I was split right to cover the kick. The punt was deflected. I caught it in the air and advanced it past the first down marker. Refs gave us a first down. As I recall, the ref who made the call was a student named Paul “Frenchie” Hess. The question in the protest was whether I caught the ball behind or past the line of scrimmage, because by rule, the punting team cannot advance a blocked/deflected punt if the recovery is past the line of scrimmage. Honestly, I don’t remember the outcome of the protest. As I recall, we were ahead and they weren’t going to beat us. I vaguely recall having a fairly long run for a touchdown on a QB draw in that same game. No one from the interhall office ever asked me about the punt play or the protest. If they, had, I doubt I would have admitted it, but I probably caught the ball past the line of scrimmage. Ball should have gone to Sorin, but we would have beaten them, anyway.

I don’t think we made the playoff in 1977 (playoff would have been the championship game against the North Quad champ). We had a bunch of real good players on the 1977 team, and most of the team were seniors, but living off-campus made it hard to get everyone together for practices. By comparison, when I played for Grace from 1974-76, we practiced outside the dorm almost every day, so we were sharper and better prepared. Our 1976 Grace team was very good, too. I remember we tied Keenan head-to-head and also (I think) in our season records, but Keenan won a tiebreaker to get into the championship game with the South Quad champ. I am pretty sure Keenan won the interhall championship that year. Grace had a lot of guys start for the North Quad team in the first-ever interhall all-star game in 1976: from the offense alone, Dave Betlach was the starting RB, Pete McCarthy was a starting WR, I was the starting QB. Dave Betlach and I also played for the South Quad in the 1977 interhall all-star team, along with our center, Mike (or Bill?) Wenzel, TE Rich Hohman, probably DE Arnie Gough and I am sure a few others.

You asked about varsity walk-ons. I don’t have a clear recollection of guys going from interhall and walking on, but a couple came the other way. Dave Betlach was a “preferred walk-on” in the fall of 1974, meaning Coach Parseghian invited him to join the team for preseason practice as a freshman, but not on scholarship. He played on the JV as a starting WR in 74 and again in 75, but he had a bad concussion one of those years. In 1975, Devine was the new coach, he favored his own recruits, and the coaches were concerned about Dave’s head, so Dave thought it was unlikely he would ever get playing time on the varsity. He started playing interhall in 1976 and I don’t remember seeing anyone at the interhall level who was as good as Dave. He was real fast, tough, strong, competitive and had very good hands. He made my job calling plays easy. Dave was also a varsity athlete, he lettered in indoor track, where he did the high jump and something else. He played semi-pro football after college until he fractured one or more neck vertebrae while playing (he recovered fully).

Mike Parseghian, Ara’s son, who had been a running back on the varsity, was the coach of the Stanford or Keenan team in 1976. My understanding is that Bob Thomas, who kicked for the varsity through 1973 and then for the Chicago Bears, played at least one season of interhall before walking onto the varsity. I was a freshman at ND the year after Thomas left, so I can’t confirm that story from personal knowledge.

One other story. In 1977, a national championship year for the football team. The USC game had an added feature: a Trojan Horse that was wheeled out onto the field before the game, then a bunch of guys in ND football uniforms busted out and ran onto the field. The Trojan Horse was built by architecture students. I knew one of them, who was looking for guys with football equipment they could borrow. They needed uniforms matching the varsity. Off Campus had gold helmets and gold pants, so they told me that a couple of the Off Campus football players could be inside the horse if we got them a few other uniforms. I didn’t really want to be in the horse, but I thought it would be funny to jump out of the horse, then go over to the ND sideline and blend in, and maybe watch the whole USC game from the sideline, so I said OK. Wenzel and I were in that group. We were given regular ND blue game jerseys to wear and we got into the horse. As they wheeled us out onto the field, we looked out the openings in the horse and saw that one of the teams had green jerseys on, and it wasn’t USC. Door opened, we jumped out and ran onto the field, but the crowd was already going nuts because the team was running out of the tunnel wearing green. I tried (briefly) to stay on the sideline for the game. A security guy on the field told me I had to go to my seat in the stands, where I watched the game, dressed in a football uniform (wrong color jersey), looking like a dork."

The night our team of Hogs from little Holy Cross beat one of the tower dorms (Flanner I think but might have been Grace) junior year (fall of 77) was the most fun I ever had in athletic competition. Under the lights. On the Irish AstroTurf practice field. Playing in the same backfield as my good friend Steve Kazimer (who passed away this past year—a great human being). Just incredible.

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.

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 think it’s really cool that you’re documenting the history of interhall football. It is one of the quirky, unique things about our great university. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much about the games other than that Dillon was our big rival and it was always good to walk away with a win against them. So, I’m afraid I can’t help you with the outcomes of the games you mentioned.

One of my big memories of interhall football are how many really good athletes there were playing – guys who had had pretty good success in high school but weren’t big or fast enough to play in college. So, the quality of the play was pretty good, all things considered. I also remember that I was lucky because I roomed with three football players – Kevin Hart, a long-time childhood friend, and Rusty Lisch and Dennis Grindinger. They got me “upgraded” equipment from the discarded varsity equipment. The regular interhall equipment was pretty old.

You probably know this already, but there was an all-star game at the end of each season that pitted North Quad against South quad. It was played under the lights on the artificial turf varsity practice field. Our south quad team was coached by a Chemistry professor, Professor Carbury. I’m not sure about that spelling. But he was an alumnus of ND and was friends with Leon Hart, Kevin’s dad. Professor Carbury would tell us stories of the days when Leon played for Frank Leahy. Really fun stuff.

I played two years and had a ball. It is one of many fond memories I have from my years at Notre Dame."

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.

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.

I thoroughly enjoyed my four years of interhall football, playing for the Holy Cross Hogs, from the fall of 1977 to the fall of 1980. We were just a little dorm on the other side of the lake, but we played with a ton of pride. I'll never forget marching across campus, with my teammates and our loyal fans, from Holy Cross Hall to the Astro-turf football field behind the ACC. Someone in our dorm (Jim Ingolia?) designed and built a 6-foot paper mache' pig--our "mascot"--which we would carry to our games. The giant pig had the words 'king Hogs inscribed on it. (Holy Cross Alums will recognize the use of 'guage there.) I got to play with some great guys, and I have some great memories.

The championship game was rough. As I recall, our quarterback John Kenney had a back injury but still played but without a passing attack our offense was stymied (sound familiar?). That said, the worst part of the loss was that we had St Ed’s players living in Grace (St Ed’s was not livable after a fire). One of cool things about winning the interhall game is getting the letterman’s jackets. It was a constant reminder of our loss. Complaining aside, ND’s interhall program was one of the highlights of my time on campus. I love football and to be able to play a couple more years was great. It was so much fun playing with such talented athletes. One of my freshman roommates moved to Dillon Hall and ended up walking on the ND football team. I think he might have even got into a game (like Rudy). His name is Bob Moore. Bob was class of ‘82.

Hopefully, the current students have that same opportunity.

I don’t remember that Cavanaugh score but I do recall how we had our first winning season in a long time in ‘83 or ‘84 where we went 5-4. I do remember that 30 yard pass from you [Mark Palaski] in our loss to Morrisey since it was a beautiful throw from you and I grabbed it between two defenders. I hope I didn’t make that below the waist block that brought back Tommy Hynes’ score! I don’t think so, I would remember that, I’m sure.

My time on the Zahm Hall team was great in that I was one of the receivers that Mark threw to often. In high school, I was a starting receiver but I mostly brought in the running plays, while my teammate got most of the throws! I spoke to my coach not long ago at an alumni golf outing and he remembers that I had “great hands “, but he doesn’t remember not using me that much in the passing game. At Zahm I got to use those “great hands” and had a blast playing with Mark and the rest of the offense.

Now that Zahm is no longer a dorm, those playing days for the Rabid Bats and our first winning season for a long time at 5-4 mean even more to me.

I really enjoyed my interhall years.

I am fairly certain we beat Cavanaugh in ’83 because Zahm rarely won until our years and we were 1-0 to start the season. I remember all the guys on the ND varsity team tutoring me on how to QB the “wishbone”. They seemed more excited about our season than their own. LOL

Our best year was our junior year in ’84 when we only lost one game to Stanford. It was a back and forth game and we lost as we were driving in their red zone to tie it up and the clock ran out. They were a very good team and I got hit way too many times that game.

My favorite game of my Zahm career was in ’84 when we played Holy Cross under the lights at Cartier Field. We had great dorm support from our fellow Zahmbies and some of the Varsity ND players came out to watch too. Tim made a few nice catches and Fig was playing DB and absolutely crushed a receiver going for the ball. The crowd went wild!!! We went on to win and clinch a playoff spot. Our rector, Fr. King, was elated and Coach Looney lit up a stogie after the big win.

We ended up losing in the playoffs to Howard in a tight game as we drove the field at the end of the game. I tried to hit Tim on a crossing pattern that would have tied the game but the defender made a great read and nice pick. I remember chasing him for 40-50 yards before I jumped on his back and drove him into the ground. I felt bad later because I did not want to hurt him but I was so mad and disappointed.

I loved our pre game pep talks by Coach Mike Snyder and the fist pumping antics of Kevin “Colonel” Kearney, a la Jack Lambert.

One day junior year, Coach Looney could not make practice so John Krappman led our warm-ups/stretching. He said, “We have to get ready for the playoffs men, Let’s take this seriously. Lie down on your back, now cross your legs, put your hands behind your head. Now close your eyes and take a deep breath. Relax, exhale and find your happy place”. We were all howling. I still think of that whenever I lie down on my back !

So many great memories. What a great bunch of guys.

I think I remember it where a recovered I blocked field goal and made a return on it.

I played in 82 83 84 and 85. Someone may have already told you this but my freshman year was the first year Howard had had a team in many years. We made it to the championship against Dylan. Accordingly it was the smallest dorm on campus against the biggest.

When I initially tried to walk onto the ND football team in the fall of my sophomore year, quarterback Coach Pete Cordelli recommended that I start off by playing intramural football so I tried out for our interhall football team. I don't think there was any other kicker on the Cavanaugh team so I really didn't need to try out. Although small, I was a little fast so the team also experimented with me as a wide receiver for a go route long bomb situation play and once in a game as a running back. Never having played running back before, I was so excited that I outran my pulling guard during a sweep play to the right and was immediately cut down by the opposing defensive back. Needless to say, I remained as kicker for the rest of the season. We weren't very good but we tried hard and had fun. I only had 1 kicking opportunity that season which was the 3-0 field goal against Alumni that you mentioned. We were playing at Stepan field and after both teams struggled to get points on the board, I had an opportunity to kick a 38 yard field slightly right from center. The snap and hold were great and fortunately hit it the ball well off the tee to score our only points. After the kick, we were all excited jumping up and down. At our hall Mass later in the evening, our Cavanaugh rector, Father Miceli praised our victory on the golden toe of Reggie Ho - it was a great team win. I made great friends at Cavanaugh and will always remember those wonderful times. Thanks for allowing me to re-live those memories and your interest in interhall football at Notre Dame! Go Irish!

First response

I graduated class of 1991 and did play sports for Knott Hall, though I am not a good athlete by any stretch so am probably not the best person to write a story…I might have been some type of hall athletic commissioner for awhile (ha, my memory doesn’t serve me well!). I played flag football on occasion but my best sports memory was playing broomball ! Not sure if it’s still a thing there. It was just so fun…running on the ice in our sneakers with brooms as hockey sticks, trying not to do seriously bodily harm. One game, my uber athletic roommate Ann Buff took a nasty fall on the ice onto her bad shoulder and displaced it! I vaguely remember her somehow popping it back into the socket…she was tough as nails. She ended up having to go home to get surgery on it. (sidenote- she was also one of the few women commissioners for bookstore basketball tourney, I think 1989, so I of course had plenty of duty as a bookstore basketball tourney game scorekeeper, which gave me a great seat for some key games!)

Second response

We were not a good team but we sure had fun. That was Knott Hall’s inaugural year as a dorm. We thought we were so creative coming up with our dorm mascot, the Angels (i.e. 'We’re Knott Angels’). I was probably designated captain because I was organized and one thing I knew better than most my same age peers were the rules of football!

The Killer Tomato

I can surely forgive myself for harboring the stereotypical fantasy of playing quarterback in the shadow of the Golden Dome. From the moment I found out that Notre Dame had full-contact, interhall football, long before I was accepted to the school, I began to imagine myself leading a championship game-winning drive (in the STADIUM, no less!). The drive, of course, culminated in an endzone corner fade completion with all its resultant glory and admiration. I was not Rudy-delusional enough to imagine this happening in an actual varsity game. I had never played quarterback before, but whenever I threw the ball around, people would compliment my crisp, hard spirals. That had to mean something, right?

I did not have the courage to put my hat in the QB ring as a Freshman at Grace Hall. The pre-tryout meeting scared that ambition away, especially when the captains said that interhall football was on the level of high-class Ohio or Pennsylvania high school ball. Having crawled my way into the starting lineup my senior year in the Philadelphia Catholic League, I now significantly lowered my expectations to just making the team. That characterization of the league’s strength (let’s be honest) was a stretch. I would say it was like a gaggle of pretty good non-scholarship kids having a full-pad pickup game. I was able to start at cornerback, another position I had never played. After a successful year on defense, I ginned up the nerve to try for quarterback my sophomore year.

If you have ever watched the auditions on American Idol, you immediately sense the moment when the overmatched contestant realizes that not only is he not a “good” singer, but he may also actually be tone-deaf and missing a vocal cord. After doing reasonably well throwing against air, my fortunes nosedived when we lined up eleven-on-eleven. The first problem was my inability to hold on to a snap under center. No problem, we will run shotgun. Ten minutes later, I began to wonder if all those people who told me I had a good arm did so only because the look on my face told them I needed to hear that so very, very much.

This may be apocryphal, but it is said that former Notre Dame quarterback Phil Jurkovec transferred from Notre Dame, at least in part, because he could not make a throw in practice that did not end up in the path and/or hands of Kyle Hamilton. Hamilton is 6’4” and 220 lbs. My interhall version of him was a more modest 5’10” and 205 lbs with a mop of red hair. He was also my good friend, Jeff Abbot. It was Jeff who made sure that not a single pass of mine made it into the secondary. I never saw him in the passing routes, not one time, until the ball was leaving my hands and he was, of course, RIGHT THERE. It got to the point where every play ended in laughter, led by the person who would undoubtedly now be QB1 based solely on the fact that he at least looked to see where the best player on defense was before he called for the snap.

After practice, I walked back to Grace Hall more than a little mortified. I saw Jeff about 30 feet away and our diagonal paths led to a tandem finish just past the outdoor Stepan Courts. He had a slight smirk as he greeted me with “Garb.” I nodded and said, sotto voce, “I hate you.” His smirk expanded, as did mine. We both knew he had done me a favor. My humiliation was now over and took place in front of a limited audience. Had that happened with two full sidelines of spectators on a Sunday morning, it would have been much worse. The dream was dead, and I moved back to my comfort zone on defense.

I had a realization that day, not just that I was a terrible quarterback. I realized that Jeff was the type of player those captains described the year prior. He had played high level Ohio high school football and basketball. He came from a family of great athletes. His Irish twin, Eric, was a star linebacker at Ohio Wesleyan and his sister, Heather, eventually played basketball for Loyola-Maryland. Jeff told me that one of the best years for his family was when senior defensive end Eric and junior defensive tackle Jeff led Grandview Heights High School to the Ohio State Quarterfinals. Jeff grew up and (to his great discredit) continues to be a full-throated Buckeyes fan. He did not really consider Notre Dame until he was awarded a full scholarship from a local foundation. I think the Interhall League was, as it was for many of us, a chance to wring the last drops of glory out of his athletic journey.

When I say Jeff was a great football player, it is not a sentimental overstatement. He played both ways for Grace, offensive guard and middle linebacker. When he blocked you, you stayed blocked. When he tackled you, you got up slowly. I truly believe he was the only person on the team that could have started at all 22 positions (yes, even quarterback). A sure source of the sophomore moxie that pushed me to try to throw the football came from a surprisingly (to me) successful initial year on defense. I was proud of the number of tackles I made and passes I broke up. That led to my next, sad realization: these players were running into me so frequently because they were running away from Jeff and the passes were easy to defend because he was either deflecting them or hitting the quarterback mid-motion. I watched him play over four years and I say with the highest confidence that not only was he the best player on our team, but he was also the best player in the league.

More importantly, Jeff is one of the best human beings I have ever encountered. A reliable litmus test for whether I will like a person could be their opinion of Jeff Abbot. If they cannot get along with him, in my opinion, something is truly wrong with them. About ten of us routinely gather annually for a golf trip and not only did he inaugurate this yearly gathering, his presence is guaranteed. One of the things that made me admire his playing intensity was how different he was off the field. As I mentioned, he is under six-feet-tall, but definitely has the presence of a gentle giant. Similar to one of his tackles, when he befriends you, you feel it for a long time.

In typical Notre Dame fashion, collections of friends start to intersect, as do their interests. As my daughter bitingly told me on her initial visit to campus, Grace Hall is the “worst looking building at Notre Dame, and it’s not even close.” I told her that was incorrect and the contest for ugliest building was a tie (Flanner). That being said, Grace undoubtedly lacks the visual grace (sorry) and beauty of the other dorms. At the time, however, it had two advantages over the rest of campus: air conditioning and Grace TV. The former worked intermittently; the latter worked when placed in the hands of the proper talent.

We noticed that there were cameras and students with microphones at our Interhall games freshman year. I did not think much of it until changing the channels in my room and seeing a replay of the game accompanied by the driest announcing you had ever heard. My roommate, Mike DuBay, noticed this as well. I could see the hamster running on the wheel in his head. I knew that he would be the announcer the next year. He teamed up with our other close friend, Steve Connolly, and the replays became ex-post-facto must-see-television once they took over.

The two of them took biased announcing to another level. About 25% of the broadcast was play-by-play and the rest was insults. They loved nicknames: our fleet receiver Jeff Burns was “The Burner”, I was undeservedly “The Golden Boy”, and Jeff was dubbed “The Killer Tomato”, as the aforementioned carrot top was too good to ignore. Mike would interview me after the game and focus mainly on my questionable hygiene habits and lack of a girlfriend, rather than any particular play. While their slights of their friends on the Grace squad were always on point, their observations about the other teams (“We are now hearing that the Morrisey quarterback has a colostomy bag.”) were unfair and glorious.

“That’s a big loss for Keenan, Mike, as I’m told he is the only player on the team with pubic hair.”

“Look at the Grace sideline: an intermix of world class athletes and a bevy of campus beauties. Over on the Dillon side, I see a pathetic gaggle of pure sausage.”

We would gather on Sunday evenings to watch the first replay of the game. It was fun to see Mike and Steve eye each other when they knew a line they were particularly proud of was on its way. They were also pretty awful to each other on the broadcast, a repartee that continues on our annual golf trip lo these 30 years later. Steve was a good athlete in his own right, and tried out one year, starting at defensive end before a game one season-ending wrist injury. Mike would ask Steve to draw on his extensive playing experience for his analysis before dryly questioning “How would you grade your football career, Steve?” Steve would compare himself to “Moonlight” Graham, the doctor in Field of Dreams that came so close, but just short of, career glory. Between watching Jeff play (something I could not directly do when I, too, was playing) and listening to my dear friends lay verbal waste to anyone in their purview, I look back at the Sunday replays as one of the many things that drew us together. It is clearly not the only thing, or the biggest thing, that gave us cohesion. However, our intertwined football experience provided some fibers in the tapestry of our life-long friendship.

The seeds of those relationships have blossomed and continue to pay dividends in numerous ways. When my father passed, I went to look at his announcement on the funeral home website. There was a section where people could offer online condolences. At that point, there were about twenty of them. The very first was beautifully written by my wonderful friend, Jeff. Honestly, how do you hate a guy like that?

I came to ND in August 1990 as a 5' 10" 160lb not-exceptionally-athletic former cross country runner. But since I loved Irish football, and full-pad intermural was an option, I joined Zahm Hall's team. (Yes, it was still Zahm "Hall" at the time... it wouldn't become Zahm "House" until long after I graduated).

I basically was a glorified tackling dummy for the guys on our team who actually COULD play, but I did get a few snaps in games at WR or at safety on defense. My one highlight was when I was playing free safety and the WR in front of me bobbled the ball right into my arms and I got an interception.

I played again sophomore year when we made it to the championship game and we got to play in the stadium. We ended up getting blown out by Keenan, and I got leveled on a pick-out route by a linebacker. Pretty cool to say I was knocked in the dirt in Notre Dame Stadium, I guess.

Junior year, I realized that PLAYING football wasn't my calling, and I essentially became Zahm's offensive coordinator. I helped design and install the wishbone offense that took us to an undefeated season and the campus championship. I still remember riding back to the dorm from the stadium after the win in our rector Fr. Tom King's car. He was honking and waving out the window and shouting at all passersby "Zahm football is #1!" It was literally the happiest I saw him in 4 years living in the dorm lol.

Senior year, I coached/managed the team again. And while we had a decent season, we lost in the playoffs and didn't make it to the stadium for the first time since freshman year.

All of these memories are extra special now that Zahm has been disbanded and our home no longer exists.

First response

Interhall was a huge part of my experience at ND. I lived in Zahm Hall and played QB. My freshmen year (1991) I think we went 2-2 or 3-2, made it into the playoffs and then made it to the championship game as an underdog in the stadium against our arch-rival, Keenan Hall. We lost a close game, think it was 14-6 or around there. They ran a pitch pass with a clear offensive pass interference that wasn't called. My sophomore year we came back with a vengeance, we went undefeated and beat Keenan handily in the championship game. Zahm Hall bought a bench and decorated it for our season that was in our basement forever. My junior year, I studied abroad in Australia, so missed that season (but did meet my wife). Senior year, I moved to Lafayette Square and played for the Off Campus Crime. We were all seniors and a few of the guys were former scholarship wrestlers with time on their hands because they pulled wrestling while we were at ND. Those that didn't transfer were allowed to play interhall. Our defense was good. We didn't practice much. We had team meetings at Club 23 during the week. We made it to the playoffs and, if I remember right, we won a thriller OT game vs Stanford in the semi's. In the championship game, we played against my old dorm, Zahm Hall, AND Zahm's starting QB was my younger brother, Benji, who was a freshman living in Zahm. We ended up winning the game 21-14 or something like that. I was named the Observer's Player of the Year. I will try to find the picture of my brother and me after the game with our parents. See attached for team picture. I wish I had more pictures - not sure where they are. So, I played interhall 3 out of my 4 years, played in the stadium 3 times (one of the games we played while they were filming Rudy crowd scenes. Random "Rudy" chants during the middle of our game), won the title twice, POY and it was 100% my identity while at ND.

Second response

Just remembered - I was also the offensive coordinator for the Siegfried Slammers, girls' team, and they won the title our senior year, too. Their QB, Marcy something, was also Player of the Year.

AND, my daughter is a sophomore in Cavanaugh Hall and just caught the game-winning TD in the playoffs on Sunday.

My only recollection of interhall football is writing an article or two about it for the Observer in the mid-90s before I went on to other extracurricular activities, and I can't remember the dorms or players involved other than I probably included a pun or two in my stories. I didn't play interhall football but I appreciate its place on campus. It's one of the many things that makes Notre Dame unique.

Brian Griffin ℅ ‘98

“Interhall Football made me feel like the King of the World because after I hit people so hard I left an imprint on them and myself that would last forever.”

Fisher Hall Green Wave 1994 to 1997

3 Playoff Appearances 94, 95, 96

94: 2 - 2; lost in 1st round of playoffs to Stanford

95: 3 - 2; won championship by defeating Flanner (I believe)

96: 3 - 2; lost in semifinals

97: 2 - 2 - 1

1 Interhall Championship - 1995 (Although we didn’t play in the stadium and may have been the only male team that did play in the Old Stadium; Lyons was the last team to win in the Old Stadium.)

Coaches were Chuck Hurley and T.C. Kazmeriak (sp) - both officers with the University of Notre Dame Police Department

Championship Season

1) 3 and 2 Regular Season and Defeated Kennan, Zahm, and Flanner in the Championship Game in Loftus

2) We lost the first 2 games badly and the rector had even thought about dismantling the team

3) Started winning when our QB was switched to a freshman, Alfredo Rodriguez 4) Key players: Sean Lynch, Chris Ebey, Mike Dougherty, Brian Hertz, Dave Walsh, Bill Cerney, Greg Regan, Chris Backus, Chuck Ferrando, Dayne Nelson, Mark Trotske, Mike Carroll, John Kmetz