Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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F Fun Is New Tradition At Notre Dame FIGHTING WORDS WES MORGAN to hosting the National Collegiate Baton Twirling Champion- ships, Jack Swarbrick has more going on than the flight deck of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. What really keeps him up late at night? Mail. Snail mail, e-mail, notes passed along from alumni and even current employees of the university. They all land on his desk in some shape or form. And a lot of them ema- nate heat. Or what the Fighting Irish athletic director likes to call "passion." Often times the cen- rom a new college football playoff for- mat, to extending a number of prom- inent Notre Dame coaches' tenures, tral theme of the corre- spondence is the pres- ervation of traditions at Notre Dame. At the top of that list is maintaining football in- dependence, which Swarbrick covered ex- tensively in a one-on-one interview with Blue & Gold Illustrated on July 18 (check out pages 32-34). Oh, but there are so many more athletic customs that stir up strong opinions from Irish faithful. Athletics director Jack Swarbrick walks a fine line when it comes to traditions at Notre Dame, holding on to those that define the school while allowing current students to create new ones. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND thing," said Swarbrick, who is entering his fifth year overseeing Notre Dame's athletic endeavors. "I can guarantee you that anything I do that is perceived to be a breach of tradition will generate a ton of inter- est. When we changed 'The Walk' I started to get a lot of negative response. I said to my team, 'Somebody get me the history of the walk. Does this go back to Rockne? What's the deal?' "It started with Lou [Holtz]. And it was an accident, when you re- ally get into the facts of it. The mass location changed because they couldn't get where they wanted to be, so it was easier to walk. Then all of the sudden there's a walk." Few things are more "I hear more about tradition than any- stomach turning for a college football fan than having to deal with an opponent's sappy traditions. Nothing irritates Fight- ing Irish fans more than when their own traditions are tinkered with or snuffed out altogether. Some traditions come to an end because AUGUST 2012 7