NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL:
ALL ABOUT TRADITION
ND Football: Dorm Distinction, Student Body Unification
An In-depth Study of the Transformations That Occur on a Notre Dame Home Football Game:
A shift from Friday dorm pride to Saturday united student body support
On seven Saturdays every fall, over a hundred thousand people flock to South Bend, Indiana to partake in the phenomena known as Notre Dame football. While the overwhelming amount of supporters that come from all around America for this event are an amazing topic of their own, the transformation in solidarity formation amongst the student body at Notre Dame is one that is very unique. Due to the atmosphere of family and community-like dorms and the lack of a fraternal system, 80 percent of undergraduate students at Notre Dame live in one of twenty-nine dormitories on the campus.
From the moment students step on campus as freshmen they are sorted of and given color-coordinated shirts to match their dorm. A student’s residence is one of the first things that is brought up in a conversation when students are introduced to each other. These dorm bonds play a huge role in the Friday festivities of a Notre Dame football weekend.
Many times beginning even before the 6:30 pep rally, the events for the day are all divided up to represent dorm pride right up until the midnight drummer’s circle. Many dorms have their own events, which may be weekly or once a year. Each dorm is in charge of co-sponsoring one pep rally each season. For the pep rally, each dorm gathers together and walks over to the Joyce Center to represent their residence hall. The dorms sits together during the pep rally in matching shirts and even compete together in challenges ranging from crowd pushups to relay races and cheer-offs. Following the pep rally, in which the players who speak give recognition to their respective dorms, the students go back to their dorms and engage in social activity before reconvening at midnight as a unified student body for the midnight drummer’s circle.
The following morning, the students don a different shirt that matches the rest of the student body. This transformation signifies the transition from a divided dorm experience to a unified effort by the student body. The students then mingle together in the student section to create a single block composed of one color regardless of dorm-status. Throughout the game they participate in cheer and stand together arm in arm as they sing the alma mater following the game. On this website we will walk through the different traditions that each dorm has for football weekends in the fall at the University of Notre Dame. Once the dorms unite to create a student body, they create a "12th man" that can be comparable to the marginal play which Bradd Shore discusses in his Culture of the Mind. The rituals contained within the dorms can be compared to the cricket rituals that we viewed in Africa, as well as the dancer rituals that Schieffelin discussed in The Sorrow of the Lonely and Burning of the Dancers.
From the moment students step on campus as freshmen they are sorted of and given color-coordinated shirts to match their dorm. A student’s residence is one of the first things that is brought up in a conversation when students are introduced to each other. These dorm bonds play a huge role in the Friday festivities of a Notre Dame football weekend.
Many times beginning even before the 6:30 pep rally, the events for the day are all divided up to represent dorm pride right up until the midnight drummer’s circle. Many dorms have their own events, which may be weekly or once a year. Each dorm is in charge of co-sponsoring one pep rally each season. For the pep rally, each dorm gathers together and walks over to the Joyce Center to represent their residence hall. The dorms sits together during the pep rally in matching shirts and even compete together in challenges ranging from crowd pushups to relay races and cheer-offs. Following the pep rally, in which the players who speak give recognition to their respective dorms, the students go back to their dorms and engage in social activity before reconvening at midnight as a unified student body for the midnight drummer’s circle.
The following morning, the students don a different shirt that matches the rest of the student body. This transformation signifies the transition from a divided dorm experience to a unified effort by the student body. The students then mingle together in the student section to create a single block composed of one color regardless of dorm-status. Throughout the game they participate in cheer and stand together arm in arm as they sing the alma mater following the game. On this website we will walk through the different traditions that each dorm has for football weekends in the fall at the University of Notre Dame. Once the dorms unite to create a student body, they create a "12th man" that can be comparable to the marginal play which Bradd Shore discusses in his Culture of the Mind. The rituals contained within the dorms can be compared to the cricket rituals that we viewed in Africa, as well as the dancer rituals that Schieffelin discussed in The Sorrow of the Lonely and Burning of the Dancers.
Graduates of 2005 Return to ND for the Penn State game in 2006 (Picture by Bridget Nathanson)
