Fight Song Friday: Navy Week

It's Navy Week at Notre Dame. Not quite the same as a traditional "Navy Week," but in many ways not too far off. While I don't know that the Naval Academy intends for its football game visits to Notre Dame to act as community outreach missions, the peripheral effects are recognizable. There are always swarms of uniformed naval ambassadors blanketing the campus, which I can attest is never an unwelcome sight in South Bend. There is a feeling of family and mutual respect that doesn't usually accompany a true sports rivalry. There is admiration for the effort and sacrifice the Midshipmen give not only on the football field but also in serving and defending our homeland. There is appreciation for an annual contest that has been scheduled without interruption since 1927. There is understanding that regardless of which team wins and which team loses, the integrity of the relationship between Notre Dame and the Naval Academy will endure.

Whenever I try to explain the significance of this traditional game, I fail to convey the extraordinary quality of the annual rivalry. Rather than bumble through a lackluster attempt, I encourage anyone who is unfamiliar with the matchup to read a brief synopsis here. To put the rivalry into real-life perspective, I like to use the post-game visitors' lockerroom as a metaphor. As a student manager in college, I was often charged with helping clean up the visitors' lockerroom after football games. You can imagine that for the "big" rivalry games (USC, Michigan, Michigan State, for example), regardless of the game's outcome, the visitors' lockerroom was never in very good shape when we entered for cleaning duty. Dirty towels strewn all over the floor, bloody bandages littered near the trash cans but never in them, used athletic tape wads stuffed into lockers, empty Gatorade bottles in the showers...you get the idea.

Contrast those dreadful images with the condition in which the Navy team always left the lockerroom: spotless. Not a towel or a piece of trash anywhere but in the hampers and trash cans. No puddles on the carpet from used towels lying around. No bodily fluids to dispose of. It never failed that the Navy game was our shortest clean-up of the season. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the Navy game was then (and has remained) my favorite game of each season. There is something to admire about a team that not only conducts itself with dignity and pride (regardless of on-the-field results), but also considers how its actions might affect even the lowly student managers. They always exited the stadium with purpose, often throwing a wink or a smile our direction as we headed in to "clean up" what was already immaculate.

I look forward to tomorrow's game and the overwhelming experience of being part of something bigger than the game itself: a lasting friendship. Go Irish.

World Series Champs: New York Yankees

There's possibly not a major sporting event I care less about than the World Series. Don't get me wrong, baseball has its redeeming qualities...namely beer and hot dogs...but the best part about baseball is that it signifies summertime and being outdoors and enjoying one of America's oldest pastimes. The fact that the championship for this sport is played in NOVEMBER is a travesty. November is for campfires and raking leaves and FOOTBALL. Frankly, by the time the World Series comes around each year, I've moved my interest elsewhere, and I simply don't care. It also doesn't help that Indianapolis doesn't have a major-league baseball team, so I have never pledged my allegiance to a particular clubhouse and followed an entire season, thus the World Series is always anti-climactic for me.

All that said, I congratulate the New York Yankees on yet another World Series Championship. For those who are counting, this year's title makes 27 World Series Championships for the Yankees, the most championship titles for a single franchise in all of North American professional sports. Whether you love the Yankees or hate them, that's an impressive statistic. It's just too bad that the "boys of summer" had to win it in the Fall. I doubt they care.

Tuesday Tunes: The Funk Brothers

I recently watched a documentary called Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, which detailed the largely unknown story of the studio musicians responsible for creating most of Motown's greatest hits. The group of musicians, collectively known as the Funk Brothers, were reported to have turned out more #1 hits than The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined. The significant difference between The Funk Brothers and the aforementioned superstars is that the tireless Motown musicians barely received any recognition for their efforts. They were not allowed to be named on Motown records until 1971, just before Motown left Detroit for sunnier Los Angeles, consequently leaving many of the Funk Brothers unemployed.

Before they were even given credit for their prolific work, they had breathed the musical life into songs such as "My Girl," "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," "Baby Love," "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and "Heat Wave," to name only a few. Much of their music was the foundation for what rock-and-roll became throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, and it inspired what pop music is today. Despite the fact that many of the original Funk Brothers died long before they were given credit for their impressive repertoire, it is refreshing to see that even 40 years later, the music they created is still as important and beloved as the first renditions they churned out in Hitsville, USA, during Motown's heyday.