Like many children who attended Catholic schools in Pennsylvania in the 1960s and '70s, I was a Notre Dame football fan.
We watched the Fighting Irish highlights show and listened to Lindsey Nelson and Paul Hornung after Mass every Sunday in the fall.
We had more than our share of Catholic churches (and bars) in Hazleton, just like a lot of cities and towns in the state then.
There was Most Precious Blood, Holy Trinity, Mount Carmel, St. Stanislaus, St. Gabriel’s and Our Lady of Grace, my home parish and school, among others.
That was the heyday of Notre Dame football under Ara Parseghian, so we heard a lot about the Irish.
Sister Immaculata, my sweet and diminutive seventh-grade teacher, would remind us every now and then that she had taught Nick Buoniconti, or “Nicky,” a star linebacker at Notre Dame in the early 1960s and then with the Miami Dolphins.
My father wanted me to go to Notre Dame (or one of the service academies). I made up my mind that I wanted to be a sports writer. That’s how I ended up going to Penn State to major in journalism.
I’ve been fortunate to cover eight of the 19 meetings between the Nittany Lions and the Irish, including the last six. Next Thursday’s Orange Bowl meeting in the national semifinals will be the most significant game between them, by far.
Arguments will ensue across eastern Pennsylvania, from Scranton to Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Pottsville, Allentown, Reading, Philadelphia and places in between. Bets will be made. Families will be divided, not unlike presidential elections.
My mother-in-law, Irene, was a rabid Notre Dame fan. She placed her lucky leprechaun that would play the fight song next to her or on her TV and watched every Irish game.
Despite my ties to Penn State, she made sure she bought Notre Dame apparel for my two sons. She didn’t dislike the Lions; they just were a distant second to her beloved Irish.
She would have loved to see one of her eight grandchildren get a Notre Dame education, but none did. Six of them wound up attending Penn State; the youngest is a junior there.
My affinity for the Irish as a youngster also stemmed from future Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps guiding St. Gabriel’s High School in Hazleton to a state championship in 1966, his only season there.
I didn’t know much about Penn State football or Joe Paterno until I enrolled there in 1977. I began covering the football team for the Reading News in 1989 and made my first trip to Notre Dame the following year to cover the Lions’ 24-21 upset win over the No. 1 Irish.
I was there in 1992 when the movie “Rudy” was being filmed. If you watch the movie and look closely, you can see the Penn State Blue Band marching on the field at Notre Dame Stadium during one scene. That was the last game of a 12-year contract that fans for both teams loved.
The Lions and the Irish had home-and-home games in 2006-07; the 2007 meeting was Penn State’s first full-stadium White Out Game.
Seventeen seasons later, they’ll be meeting again in South Florida for a spot in the national championship game.
It doesn’t get any bigger or better than this for a lot of us. Enjoy it.