So the story of how I became a Notre Dame football fan is both sad and humorous. My Mother, Dorothy Pietrzak (nee Hauter) was born in 1935. She had a brother that was about 5 years older than her, Robert Hauter, (Notre Dame Class of 1951), and a younger brother, John Hauter, (Notre Dame Class of 1963). They grew up in Harvey, Illinois.
I am Ray Pietrzak, and I was born on September 28th, 1964, University of Illinois Class of 1986. I wish I could have said Notre Dame Class, and I really wanted to go to Notre Dame with all my heart, body, mind, and soul, but I did not have the money to go there. I barely had enough money to pay for my engineering degree at U of I, and I had to choose an in-state school.
So anyway, Robert Hauter was a hugely successful businessman that helped run Federal Cement and Calumet Flexicore in Hammond, Indiana. Him and his wife Norma just had their 12th child, Andrew Hauter sometime in 1972 or 1973. Well he got suddenly very sick in August of 1973 and spent the new several weeks in the ICU at Saint Margaret’s Hospital in Hamond. He was very sick, but he almost recovered, and then tragically died on October 16th, 1973. He was very loved, and my Mother, especially took it very hard. The wake seemed to last for days and it was the first funeral I ever went to. I cried my eyes out and I just teared up again as I am typing this.
So, now for the Notre Dame football part of the story. Because he was sick, his 2 season tickets for, I think it was the Northwestern game went to my Father, also Ray Pietrzak, who took me to my first game. I was hooked ever since. I think John Hauter also went to that game along with one of my other uncles. I remember being amazed at the passes Tom Clements threw and the Notre Dame wide receiver who jumped up into the air and made the most amazing catches. We had really good seats because he was pretty rich at the time. I was singing the Notre Dame fight song and got a Notre Dame banner. The whole works.
Later on in the 1973 season I went to either the Navy or the Air Force game. This time it was on a bus trip for St. Jude the Apostle Church in South Holland, Illinois. I went with my Father, I and his good friend at the time, I think I want to say was Bill Farlow, and his young son Brian, who was about the same age as me. Well as Catholics and fathers tend to do, there was quite a bit of beer flowing on the bus before the game and probably after the game. The game was completely awesome I was cheering every second. So the game ended pretty late and all of the dads were pretty tired from their long day of partying and everything else, and just wanted to sleep on the bus ride back to South Holland. But not a 9 year-old Ray Pietrzak and his friend Brian. We kept the light on where we were sitting and just sang the Notre Dame fight song over and over and over again the whole way back to South Holland and waved our Notre Dame banners.
So I watched every game that season and to this day, I still think the Notre Dame victory against Alabama in the December 31st Sugar Bowl was my favorite Notre Dame game of all time.
I have been a Notre Dame football fan my whole life, even though I am a U of I graduate. If Notre Dame were ever to play the Illini, or whatever they are calling themselves these days in football, there is no question at all that I would root for Notre Dame. I know, even my brothers who are Illinois graduates and Notre Dame fans don’t completely agree or understand this. I’m not asking anyone to understand it. It is what it is and I am proud of it. I am certainly a Fighting Illini fan, even though their football program is …
I also get asked from time to time in several other threads on why I don’t watch the games live and why I don’t dedicate my entire Saturday to Notre Dame football. And I promised to answer that when I had time. Well now, I am making that time. This is my story. My reasons will probably be considered anathema or blasphemy to everyone else on this board, and I get that. I really do. I am not trying to claim that I am the biggest fan on this board. I am not trying to win any prizes or enter the contest for this. Is there such a thing?
My reasons is that I just don’t want to. I don’t want to give up the few nice weather Saturdays in the fall when there are so many other things I can do in life. I have Xfinity and Peacock (unfortunately) and I can carry on with my day and watch the game later when I want to. I did not get around to watching the Cincinnati game until 9 p.m. Saturday Night.
I am an avid bicycle rider (again anathema , please bring on the scorn. It would amuse me). I have just eclipsed 7,200 miles for the year and plan to hit at least 8,500 by the time the year is done. I ride with lots and lots of amazing, cool, successful and awesome people, and I don’t want to skip group rides just because of Notre Dame football. I recently finished Century 21 for 2021 and will do Century 22 on the White Pines trail in Michigan Saturday. I probably won’t be able to watch the game until later in my motel room in Grand Rapids that night.
As for the thread where people were shocked that I had to watch the Notre Dame 4th quarter win over Wisconsin for the 4th or 5th time. This is my story of that. My girlfriend and I host an annual outdoor party called What’s in Your Growler. It is an awesome fun party where everyone brings a crock pot of their favorite soup and a growler of their favorite beer and we all share and sample and have an absolute blast and lots of laughs and really good times. I also put a TV out there every year where nothing except college football, especially Notre Dame, if the game is on is allowed to be watched. We definitely had the Wisconsin game on and the college football fans were watching it. I watched what I could and saw a decent part of the 4th quarter live, but my host duties were so overwhelming that I could only catch bits and pieces of the game. I also did not to just watch it anyway. It is a party and there were 30 or 40 people there with bean bag games and fires and lots of different tables. So I also wanted to make my rounds from table to table and make sure I talked to everyone and had fun. We stayed up until 2 a.m., so I never did get to watch the game that night. I also work full time and had a major clean-up duties and tent putting away duties that took several days. So I watched bits and parts of the replay when I could, but we just got a new Xfinity box and I did not get a chance to set up the Close-Captioning options just yet. Our sound system on our tv is just not that good and I can constantly trying different sound options because when the Wisconsin or Notre Dame band started playing, it was really hard for me to hear what the announcers were saying, and it seemed like some really good stuff. So I finally watched the replay on my phone a couple of times with a Bluetooth speaker which has much better volume The 4th quarter of the Wisconsin game was just amazing to me so I might watch it again someday.
I realize I will get blasted on this board for opining about my own personal opinion about the Cincinnati Game. When I started watching this game, I told myself that it really looked like Notre Dame was the better team in the end. There were a lot of mistakes and some terrible calls against Notre Dame, but I was convinced that Notre Dame was going to overcome all this in the end and overcome this.
I realize this thread is very long, and may elicit both positive and negative replies. Some of the angry bitter replies on other threads sometimes just amuse and shock me. I think in the end, we are all on this board because we love Notre Dame football. And just like anything else in sports, politics and life, we don’t always agree on things.
All I ask is that you don’t just block me because of this thread and that the mods don’t just delete it. If they do, I would really like to know why and what policies I violated. That’s it for now. Thank you all for being fellow fans of our beloved Irish. Go Notre Dame.
I am Ray Pietrzak, and I was born on September 28th, 1964, University of Illinois Class of 1986. I wish I could have said Notre Dame Class, and I really wanted to go to Notre Dame with all my heart, body, mind, and soul, but I did not have the money to go there. I barely had enough money to pay for my engineering degree at U of I, and I had to choose an in-state school.
So anyway, Robert Hauter was a hugely successful businessman that helped run Federal Cement and Calumet Flexicore in Hammond, Indiana. Him and his wife Norma just had their 12th child, Andrew Hauter sometime in 1972 or 1973. Well he got suddenly very sick in August of 1973 and spent the new several weeks in the ICU at Saint Margaret’s Hospital in Hamond. He was very sick, but he almost recovered, and then tragically died on October 16th, 1973. He was very loved, and my Mother, especially took it very hard. The wake seemed to last for days and it was the first funeral I ever went to. I cried my eyes out and I just teared up again as I am typing this.
So, now for the Notre Dame football part of the story. Because he was sick, his 2 season tickets for, I think it was the Northwestern game went to my Father, also Ray Pietrzak, who took me to my first game. I was hooked ever since. I think John Hauter also went to that game along with one of my other uncles. I remember being amazed at the passes Tom Clements threw and the Notre Dame wide receiver who jumped up into the air and made the most amazing catches. We had really good seats because he was pretty rich at the time. I was singing the Notre Dame fight song and got a Notre Dame banner. The whole works.
Later on in the 1973 season I went to either the Navy or the Air Force game. This time it was on a bus trip for St. Jude the Apostle Church in South Holland, Illinois. I went with my Father, I and his good friend at the time, I think I want to say was Bill Farlow, and his young son Brian, who was about the same age as me. Well as Catholics and fathers tend to do, there was quite a bit of beer flowing on the bus before the game and probably after the game. The game was completely awesome I was cheering every second. So the game ended pretty late and all of the dads were pretty tired from their long day of partying and everything else, and just wanted to sleep on the bus ride back to South Holland. But not a 9 year-old Ray Pietrzak and his friend Brian. We kept the light on where we were sitting and just sang the Notre Dame fight song over and over and over again the whole way back to South Holland and waved our Notre Dame banners.
So I watched every game that season and to this day, I still think the Notre Dame victory against Alabama in the December 31st Sugar Bowl was my favorite Notre Dame game of all time.
I have been a Notre Dame football fan my whole life, even though I am a U of I graduate. If Notre Dame were ever to play the Illini, or whatever they are calling themselves these days in football, there is no question at all that I would root for Notre Dame. I know, even my brothers who are Illinois graduates and Notre Dame fans don’t completely agree or understand this. I’m not asking anyone to understand it. It is what it is and I am proud of it. I am certainly a Fighting Illini fan, even though their football program is …
I also get asked from time to time in several other threads on why I don’t watch the games live and why I don’t dedicate my entire Saturday to Notre Dame football. And I promised to answer that when I had time. Well now, I am making that time. This is my story. My reasons will probably be considered anathema or blasphemy to everyone else on this board, and I get that. I really do. I am not trying to claim that I am the biggest fan on this board. I am not trying to win any prizes or enter the contest for this. Is there such a thing?
My reasons is that I just don’t want to. I don’t want to give up the few nice weather Saturdays in the fall when there are so many other things I can do in life. I have Xfinity and Peacock (unfortunately) and I can carry on with my day and watch the game later when I want to. I did not get around to watching the Cincinnati game until 9 p.m. Saturday Night.
I am an avid bicycle rider (again anathema , please bring on the scorn. It would amuse me). I have just eclipsed 7,200 miles for the year and plan to hit at least 8,500 by the time the year is done. I ride with lots and lots of amazing, cool, successful and awesome people, and I don’t want to skip group rides just because of Notre Dame football. I recently finished Century 21 for 2021 and will do Century 22 on the White Pines trail in Michigan Saturday. I probably won’t be able to watch the game until later in my motel room in Grand Rapids that night.
As for the thread where people were shocked that I had to watch the Notre Dame 4th quarter win over Wisconsin for the 4th or 5th time. This is my story of that. My girlfriend and I host an annual outdoor party called What’s in Your Growler. It is an awesome fun party where everyone brings a crock pot of their favorite soup and a growler of their favorite beer and we all share and sample and have an absolute blast and lots of laughs and really good times. I also put a TV out there every year where nothing except college football, especially Notre Dame, if the game is on is allowed to be watched. We definitely had the Wisconsin game on and the college football fans were watching it. I watched what I could and saw a decent part of the 4th quarter live, but my host duties were so overwhelming that I could only catch bits and pieces of the game. I also did not to just watch it anyway. It is a party and there were 30 or 40 people there with bean bag games and fires and lots of different tables. So I also wanted to make my rounds from table to table and make sure I talked to everyone and had fun. We stayed up until 2 a.m., so I never did get to watch the game that night. I also work full time and had a major clean-up duties and tent putting away duties that took several days. So I watched bits and parts of the replay when I could, but we just got a new Xfinity box and I did not get a chance to set up the Close-Captioning options just yet. Our sound system on our tv is just not that good and I can constantly trying different sound options because when the Wisconsin or Notre Dame band started playing, it was really hard for me to hear what the announcers were saying, and it seemed like some really good stuff. So I finally watched the replay on my phone a couple of times with a Bluetooth speaker which has much better volume The 4th quarter of the Wisconsin game was just amazing to me so I might watch it again someday.
I realize I will get blasted on this board for opining about my own personal opinion about the Cincinnati Game. When I started watching this game, I told myself that it really looked like Notre Dame was the better team in the end. There were a lot of mistakes and some terrible calls against Notre Dame, but I was convinced that Notre Dame was going to overcome all this in the end and overcome this.
I realize this thread is very long, and may elicit both positive and negative replies. Some of the angry bitter replies on other threads sometimes just amuse and shock me. I think in the end, we are all on this board because we love Notre Dame football. And just like anything else in sports, politics and life, we don’t always agree on things.
All I ask is that you don’t just block me because of this thread and that the mods don’t just delete it. If they do, I would really like to know why and what policies I violated. That’s it for now. Thank you all for being fellow fans of our beloved Irish. Go Notre Dame.
