Notre Dame Trivia

This weekend my parents traveled out to South Bend, Indiana to visit the Seidls and to spend some time at Notre Dame. They didn't take me. I am instead here at work. Alas. Woe is me.

So, here's a bit of Notre Dame trivia to help take us all to South Bend for just a little while, without having to leave the comfort of our own desk chairs.

• Notre Dame has won 11 football national championships, the second most championships won by any NCAA Division I team.


• Notre Dame has the most Heisman Trophy winners of any college football team - 7. That includes the only offensive lineman to ever win.


• The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842.


• Notre Dame faculty members have won 29 fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the past eight years, more than for any other university in the nation.


• The statue of the Blessed Mother which sits atop the beautiful Golden Dome, was a gift from Saint Mary's College.


• The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame were the legendary backfield of Notre Dame's 1924 football team, under the coaching of Knute Rockne. The players that made up this group were Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden.


• I was a member of the Notre Dame Marching Band, which is the oldest college marching band in exsitance. It is also the only band anywhere to have a section comprised of "Faltos", the instrument I played. While other bands call them melophones, or marching horns, the ND band created the name because they are alto horns in the key of F. F-altos.


• About a decade ago, the Notre Dame stadium was updated to create more seating for the thousands of football fans. Instead of destroying what was there, the builders constructed the the stadium around the old one. So, when you enter the ticket gates, you can actually see the old stadium in front of you before you head in to your seats. That's why coach Lou Holtz says you can hear the echos of Notre Dame's past in the tunnels leading onto the field.


• Coach Lou Holtz took the Fighting Irish to bowl games for 9 consecutive seasons, a Notre Dame record.


• ND's full name is The University of Notre Dame du Lac, meaning Our Lady of the Lake.


• Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College are separated by the Saint Joseph and Saint Mary Lakes


• Notre Dame was always an all-male school, and Saint Mary's was it's all-female sister school. But it 1972, when my dad was a sophomore at ND, school president Father Theodore Hesburgh made the decision to go co-ed. St. Mary's remains a women's college.


• Near the lakes is the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, which was built in 1896 as a replica of the original in Lourdes, France.