Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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murphy���s Law dan murphy in 1969. Corgel has missed five Irish home games since that day. You���ll excuse him for those, though, he had a bit of a commute. He lived in London during the falls of 1997 and 1998 and managed to make it through Heathrow for only seven of the 12 home games those years. Those were torturous Saturdays for Corgel. Fiddling with the early stages of the Internet for updates, listening while his parents held the phone up to the television speaker on the other end of the line. Football karma had rewarded him before. He sat in the end zone through four quarters of tsunami conditions in West Lafayette in 1971, and eventually saw Mike Creaney catch a two-point conversion to beat the Boilermakers in the closing minutes of an 8-7 game. He skipped Thanksgiving in 1973 and saw the home finale of an undefeated championship season ��� the last time a game at Notre Dame Stadium didn���t sell out. He made it through the early 1980s and reaped his rewards with Lou Holtz. ���The Faust years were the most painful,��� Corgel said. ���I���ll never forget the unusual uniforms in the first game against LSU. Even the way the offensive linemen crouched, it was kind of an odd five years. But never did I consider not going.��� Each week, he returns to his post in the ninth row of Section 129 and sees dozens of familiar faces. They���re all Johnny-Come-Latelies in the eyes of Charles Falkenberg. Falkenberg sat just a few sections down, a timeout���s distance away from the concourse men���s room, until this fall. In September, he watched an Irish home game on television for the first time ever. When he first started coming to Notre Dame football games, sports weren���t on television. When he was 9 years old, Falkenberg and his father rode the Powerhouse express train from South Station in Chicago right on to Notre Dame���s campus to watch the Irish play in 1939. And for the next 72 years he never missed a game. That���s 382 in a row. He tested his new bride by bringing her to games in the 1950s, where they sat in piles of snow. He bonded with his 10 children, most of whom went to Notre Dame, on football Saturdays and watched their children join the student section as well. When Falkenberg was a student he worked as a team manager for a couple of Frank Leahy���s undefeated seasons in the 1940s. He���ll plead the fifth when it comes to stories about how Leahy treated the managers back then. After all, he���s a true fan, through thick and sin. ���I���d like to see them go undefeated this year, too,��� he said. ���Tell them I expect a great effort. I���m not particularly fond of Alabama.��� He���s probably earned that. The sun will be shining in Miami, Mr. Falkenberg and Mr. Corgel. Enjoy it while you can. ��� Dan Murphy has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2011. He can be reached at dmurphy@blueandgold.com