Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/76097
of outside forces. The mulch-for-brains Alabama fan that poisoned a pair of oak trees at Auburn's Toomer's Corner after the Crimson Tide lost to Auburn in 2010 thought he'd have a little fun at the expense of a rival. As stupid as the stunt was, which saddened an entire program, Auburn still produced a Heis- man Trophy winner and a national cham- pionship that year, so the Tigers weren't stricken with any kind of bad juju because of the incident. The trial for tree poisoner Harvey Up- dyke Jr. will be held 10 miles from the scene of the crime. Good luck finding an unbiased jury. And as for the tradition in- volving those trees, which by the way are beginning to make a miraculous comeback, they were so sacred that fans toilet papered them after every victory. Sometimes traditions don't make sense at all. out stupid. (Can someone please convince international soccer fans that vuvuzelas are more annoying than 1,000 Gilbert Gott- frieds?) The SEC finally got the incessant cow- Some come to a halt because they're flat ated Press and UPI polls in 1962? Denial must be part of the tradition there. Swarbrick admits he's lost institutional control when it comes to traditions at Notre Dame. From music being pumped into Notre Dame Stadium for the first time ever to one-off jerseys, Swarbrick has relin- quished some power to the spirited folks that currently call campus home. "The thing I sort of ask people to keep in mind, and what I try to reiterate a lot, is that tradition doesn't end when you leave," Swarbrick said. "The young people who are here now get to create their own tradi- tions. Though I don't shy away from the responsibility of the choices we've made, the fact of the matter is virtually every one of them has been student oriented. We have a phenomenal group of students that have really taken the Leprechaun Legion and grown it into something special." He wants to make another thing per- bells under control at Mississippi State, levying harsh fines for use during any time other than between plays. They'll be fully banned soon enough because of another MSU tradition: Its fans can't follow the rules. Speaking of the great state of Missis- sippi … Ole Miss has the "Walk of Champions" through the "Grove." That tradition started in 1962. The program has won exactly zero national championships since then. Didn't the Rebels finish No. 3 in both the Associ- AUGUST 2012 8 fectly clear before you sit down at your computer to fire a missive his way: "I'm not making music decisions." That means "Crazy Train," love it or hate it, isn't his fault. "We try to find the balance. We try not to lose any of those things that define Notre Dame. But I don't want to tell the students and the student-athletes that are here now, 'Sorry, we're kind of maxed out on tradi- tions; you can't create any new ones.' " Here's a new one for 2012: lighten up, folks. ✦ Assitant Editor Wes Morgan has been with Blue & Gold Illustrated since February 2011. He can be reached at wmorgan@blueandgold.com