Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Moniker The exact origin of the moniker "Fighting Irish" is unknown and has been the subject of debates and research. It was first attested to as early as 1909 and became more popular in the 1910s, becoming the official nickname in 1927. Prior to that, the athletes and teams at Notre Dame were known by many different unofficial names. During the Knute Rockne football era, Notre Dame had several unofficial nicknames, among them the "Rovers", "Domers", and the "Ramblers". These names reflected the teams' propensity to travel the nation to play its football contests, long before such national travel became the collegiate norm. Later, Notre Dame was known unofficially as the "Terriers" after the Irish breed of the dog, and for some years, an Irish Terrier would be found on the ND football sidelines. Other popular names were “the Gold and Blue”, “Nomads,” “the Blue Comets”, and “the Horrible Hibernians”. According to historian Murray Sperber, during the 1910s and 1920s, anti-Catholic and anti-Irish stereotypes and ethnic slurs were openly expressed against immigrants, and the press often referred to Notre Dame teams as "Catholics", "Papists", or "Dirty Irish". University leadership wished to distance itself from such names, and school publications referred to the team "the Gold and Blue" or the "Notre Damers". There are several accounts on the origins of "Fighting Irish". One story suggests the moniker was born in 1899 during a game between Notre Dame and Northwestern. The Notre Dame squad was leading 5–0 at halftime when the Wildcat fans began to chant, "Kill the Fighting Irish, kill the Fighting Irish" as the second half opened. The November 9th, 1912 edition of Notre Dame's student magazine Scholastic attributed the moniker "Fighting Irishmen" to the president of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Another legend in Notre Dame folklore is that the nickname was inherited from Irish immigrant soldiers who fought in the Civil War with the Union's Irish Brigade. Notre Dame's claim to the nickname would seem to come from the presence of Fr. William Corby, CSC, the third president of Notre Dame, who was at the Battle of Gettysburg. Fr. Corby served as chaplain of the Irish Brigade and granted general absolution to the troops in the midst of the battle. This is commemorated in the painting "Absolution Under Fire," part of Notre Dame's permanent art collection. A life-size statue of Fr. Corby stands in front of Corby's namesake building on the Notre Dame campus. A print of the painting "The Original Fighting Irish" by former Notre Dame lacrosse player Revere La Noue is on permanent display at the university's Arlotta Stadium. A print also hung in the office of former head Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, who said that he wanted to have the work which captured the "swagger" and "toughness" of the football program after seeing it online. One of the first documented uses of the nickname comes from the Notre Dame-Michigan game in 1909 when Edward A. Batchelor wrote in the Detroit Free Press: "Eleven fighting Irishmen wrecked the Yost machine this afternoon. These sons of Erin, individually and collectively representing the University of Notre Dame, not only beat the Michigan team, but they dashed some of Michigan's fondest hopes." Notre Dame football historian John Kryk later wrote: "With that flowery lead, E.A. Batchelor of the Detroit Free Press popularized a moniker Notre Dame teams would later come to embrace - and aptly summed up the greatest athletic achievement to that point in Notre Dame history." Kryk noted that according to Notre Dame folklore, Batchelor had overheard a Notre Dame player trying to motivate his teammates at halftime by pleading, "What's the matter with you guys? You're all Irish and you're not fighting worth a lick." The term Fighting Irish was used in an official capacity by the Notre Dame Football Review as early as 1917 and by Scholastic as early as 1912. While commonly used throughout student and university media at the time, it was still not universally accepted, as evidenced by an alumni letter in Scholastic opposing its use by virtue of the fact that most students did not have an Irish background. One theory associates the popularity of the nickname to the visit from future president of the Republic of Ireland Éamon de Valera, who had been part of the 1916 Easter Rising and was imprisoned and sentenced to death. He was given amnesty, elected to Parliament, and arrested by the authorities again. He escaped and slipped off to the United States to avoid recapture. Barnstorming the country, the future president of Ireland was welcomed as a hero at Notre Dame on October 15, 1919. Accounts in Scholastic indicate that his visit tilted campus opinion in favor of the "Fighting Irish" moniker — though not completely. De Valera planted a "tree of liberty" as a memorial of his visit — only to have it uprooted a week later and thrown in one of the campus lakes by a student "of Unionist persuasion." Notre Dame alumnus historian Todd Tucker from the class of 1990 asserts that the moniker became official in large part as a way of honoring and appeasing the student body after a confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had planned a three-day rally to begin on May 17, 1924. In response to racist and anti-immigration sentiments espoused by the Klan, a large number of Notre Dame students arrived in downtown South Bend to interrupt the Klan's parade with violent harassment. A secondary brawl ensued following the weekend's incident. Rev. Matthew Walsh, C.S.C., then the university president, having addressed the immediate threats of continued violence between the Klan and members of the university, was able to calm the students’ ire and restore relative peace. Francis Wallace, a student press agent for Knute Rockne and sportswriter, tried to popularize the name “Blue Comets” starting in 1923 but soon gave up and admitted his artificial attempt at a lasting name failed. Instead, he helped to popularize the use of “Fighting Irish” in the pages of the New York Post and the New York Daily News. In 1927, university president Matthew J. Walsh authorized the moniker "The Fighting Irish" as the official nickname. He stated that "The university authorities are in no way averse to the name ‘Fighting Irish’ as applied to our athletic teams. It seems to embody the spirit that we like to see carried into effect by the various organizations that represent us on the athletic field. I sincerely hope that we may always be worthy of the ideal embodied in the term ‘Fighting Irish." Conference affiliations Notre Dame joined the Midwestern City Conference (now known as the Horizon League) for all sports except football, basketball and hockey in 1982. They remained in the conference, with the exception of the 1986–87 season, until 1995. They were then members of the "old" Big East Conference, basketball included, from 1995 until 2013. The Irish are currently a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in all sports except for the following: • Football, in which the university maintains its status as an independent university. It is a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision, and for postseason purposes Notre Dame is the only independent with the privileges granted to teams in the Power Five conferences. :Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 football team played a full ACC schedule with eligibility for the ACC Championship Game for which they qualified. • The Men's ice hockey team competes in the Big Ten. Their former hockey conference, the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, disbanded after the 2012–13 season due to a major realignment of hockey conferences. The Irish then spent three seasons as a member of Hockey East before joining the Big Ten. According to former men's basketball coach Mike Brey, Notre Dame strongly considered joining the Big Ten in 2003, with the decision not to proceed occurring at the "11th hour". ==Sports sponsored==