Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? the first game of his career. The No. 1-ranked Irish were playing No. 4 Michigan in South Bend in prime time. Notre Dame was coming off a con- troversial No. 2 finish in the polls the previous season. The Wolverines were playing their first game in more than 20 years without Bo Schembechler on the sidelines. On third-and-15, with the Irish trailing by 10 late in the third quarter, Dawson made his first career reception to spark an 80-yard scoring drive and an eventual fourth-quarter come- back. He hauled in a ball that deflected off the fingertips of Raghib Ismail and floated past a Michi- gan defender, lead- ing to a 41-yard gain. Dawson was shocked when the ball got to him. He was shocked to be on the field at all. men, and none of us really were expecting to play. I liter- ally was standing on the sideline and didn't even have my helmet with me; I had to scramble to find it," he said. "At that point, all the guys on defense looked huge. They looked like grown men to me." Dawson's first moment in the spot- "We were all fresh- light at Notre Dame came about a month earlier during one of the team's first preseason meetings. At that time, freshmen showed up a week earlier than the rest of the team to get ac- climated. Dawson impressed head coach Lou Holtz enough during his first week that the coach singled him out when the rest of the upperclassmen returned as an exam- ple of how he wanted all his players to work throughout the season, according to Dawson's longtime friend Mike Harrity, who now holds a job in the Irish athletic department. "That was a year Dawson's main role as the vice president of player personnel for the Tennessee Titans is to evaluate upcoming draft prospects. PHOTO COURTESY TENNESSEE TITANS/DONN JONES PHOTOGRAPHY through his career to know that his head coach not only recognized that about him but continued to expect that out of him." Dawson often had his best moments and a half removed from a nat ional championship. So there were a lot of champions in that room still," Harrity said. "Of course, he was a target in prac- tice after that, but it motivated him from day one all the way on big stages. He jump-started the Irish offense with an early touchdown in the 1992 Sugar Bowl as a sophomore.