Great moments are born from great opportunity.
Hollywood tells us that Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks inspired the United States team to its famous victory over the Soviet Union in 1980 with those words.
I spent an unforgettable day in Indiana recently to watch the Northern Illinois University football team face that great opportunity in its game against the University of Notre Dame. And a great moment was born as the NIU Huskies defeated the Fighting Irish in a nationally-televised event. Notre Dame was highly favored and nationally ranked, and the Huskies weren’t given much of a chance.
Having spent many years covering high school and college football games for newspapers, I’ve seen and reported on many exciting games. But none of them can compare with the recent game in the fabled Notre Dame stadium.
It was an amazing day, and the fans of each school will never forget it.
I’m a proud graduate of NIU, and I attended the game with my son, who is an equally proud alumnus of Notre Dame. It was going to be a special day for that reason alone — the game would only be secondary.
But with the improbable victory for NIU and its aftermath, I will always remember the day as being picture perfect in every way.
Since this story is not about individual highlights on the field, I asked my friends Bob Burnell and Mark Lindo to summarize the play-by-play. Burnell is a veteran broadcast journalist, and Lindo was on the air that day as the color commentator for the NIU Radio Network.
“NIU was the more physical team and was the aggressor,” Lindo said. “The Huskies won the battle in the trenches, and there is no doubt that NIU was more poised. They never panicked or blinked.”
“NIU won in every facet of the game,” Burnell added. “The offense was diversified and the quarterback was so poised. It was a total team effort, as good as I’ve seen from Northern in a really long time.”
But the NIU victory will live on in my memory independent of its highlights, final score and statistics.
NIU students and alumni are standing a little taller and are experiencing a sense of pride and unity. The last time I can remember this feeling is when we mourned together after the mass shooting on campus in 2008.
“Forward, together forward,” words from the NIU fight song, took on a special meaning then and now. We stood together during NIU’s most terrible moment, and we are standing together now in a time of happiness and celebration provided by our amazing young players and their coaches. I don’t think they really understand what they have done for us, but we are most grateful.
As head coach Thomas Hammock prepared his Huskies in the week leading up to the game, he motivated them with the words, “We don’t need to have luck, we just need to be our best.” Those words would seem to be a good mantra for all of us in our everyday lives.
But my day trip to Notre Dame was even more special because I spent an already perfect day with my son. We hadn’t spent time like this for ages as his family life and work schedule are busy and hectic.
For one day we were able to walk the beautiful campus where he excelled in his studies and extracurricular activities. We toured one of the newer buildings which he actually helped design in his career as an acoustician. And we were able to sit in a famous stadium, wear our opposing team colors and cheer our boys on.
The NIU victory was euphoric, but tempered somewhat for me by the disappointment my son was feeling. If you have a loving and loyal son, you will probably understand that.
As I look back over a most wonderful experience, I thought of the famous Mastercard commercials about costs. The summary of costs for my unforgettable day might be: “Tickets: $70; gas: $50; souvenirs: $30; day with perfect weather to watch an historic game and be with my son: Priceless.”
Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
