Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1527865
14 OCT. 19, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA T he middle of a Notre Dame foot- ball spring practice isn't a time for bright smiles and chipper attitudes. Those sessions are all business, especially on the cold, late- winter days in South Bend that make it feel like you're Washington crossing the Delaware when running across the street from the Guglielmino Athletics Complex to the Irish Athletics Center. But if you're Aamil Wagner, there's always time for blissful liveliness — no matter how frigid the weather, how gru- eling the work. Wagner moved from one drill area to another at Notre Dame's practice facility this past spring. His offensive line posi- tion mates, dripping sweat that clung to their clothes and would make it even colder getting back to the Gug, kept their heads down and minds focused. Wagner had his head up. If he didn't, he wouldn't have seen two people dear to him, two people he had no expecta- tion of seeing on that particular day, which had felt like all the others in the grind that is spring ball. His high school coaches, Roosevelt Mukes and Cole Newsome, made a surprise visit from Dayton (Ohio) Wayne to watch Wagner. "He didn't know we were coming," Newsome told Blue & Gold Illustrated. "He was running on the field and looked to the side of his buddy and said, 'Coach Mukes? Coach Cole?' That giant paw just started waving, and he just started smiling ear to ear mid-practice like an 8-year-old seeing his dad. And then went out there and balled out." That's who Notre Dame has as a ju- GENTLE GIANT Notre Dame offensive lineman Aamil Wagner is fierce on the field but a stand-up individual off it Wagner, a first-year starter, has been playing as well as anyone along the Irish offensive line in 2024. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER