Last Saturday I witnessed the most shameful performance in my 45 years at Notre Dame Stadium.  And that has nothing to do with the miserable loss to a bad Syracuse team.  I will leave that discussion to the sports writers, talk show shouters, bloggers and the millions of anal retentive fans who seem to have all day to send e-mails to web sites with their incredible insights into the state of the football program.

No, this has to do with some of the fans, most of them allegedly intelligent students.

First a little background.  I am a Notre Dame alum and between my family and my wife’s family we go back four generations at Notre Dame.  Little known fact, my wife’s grandfather PLAYED with Knute Rockne.  You can look it up, he was a running back named Harold Lower.  Also I have been the public address announcer at Notre Dame Stadium for 27 years which translates to 161 games.

There have been many good times and some bad times during the first 160 games but nothing as embarrassing as game #161.  We had close to ten inches of snow in South Bend Thursday and Friday and it was impossible to get all of it out of the seating area by game time Saturday.  Now kids will be kids but what I witnessed was shameful.  From the very beginning of the game snowballs by the dozens were being hurled towards the field.  I had a clear view of some of this directly below the PA booth which is where most of the senior class sits.   Many of those snowballs where AIMED at Notre Dame players, their fellow students.  Some of those students clearly have snowball fighting experience because from a good thirty yards away they hit several players, some in the head and face when they were not wearing helmets.  What in God’s name was the point of what they were doing?

As PA announcer I made two announcements on my own before word got to me by Notre Dame officials to make a third.  Still I had nothing to threaten them with which made me feel like a sheriff delivering a warrant without a gun.

These so called fans were also trying to hit police officers and they had a field day hitting the NBC cameraman who sits on a large moving vehicle up and down the sideline.   The Notre Dame students should thank their lucky starts that NBC doesn’t use that as an excuse to move the home games to a 9 A.M. start next year.

As it turned out the bombardment of ice laden snow balls was worse than I could see.  Two friends of mine who sit on the east side of the stadium said  “fans” were pelting the Syracuse cheerleaders.  Classy, real classy!  This only subsided when some real fans got in the face of the asshole fans and told them to stop or else.  One of my friends has already apologized to the Syracuse cheerleaders through a link he found on the school’s web site.

You know what “fans.”  You are not worthy of a Notre Dame football team even in a down year.  You should be ashamed.   And since most of the action came from the senior student section let me say enjoy yourself trying to find a good job right now.