By Kyle Bender ’12 & Tyler Wade ’12
On October 21st, 1905 the Wabash College football team travelled to Notre Dame Stadium in Notre Dame, Indiana and defeated the Fighting Irish on their home turf, 5-0. The Irish would not lose again at home until 1928. On Friday night, the Wabash Road Trip brought Wabash Men to the campus again, as they hosted the St. Joseph Valley Association of Wabash Men for a lovely get together at The Legends of Notre Dame, located just 100 yards south of the fabled stadium.
We arrived early in South Bend (making sure to avoid the interstates again) so that we could maximize our sightseeing opportunities. Wabash football star Wes Chamblee ’12 met us on the north end of the stadium near “Touchdown Jesus” and we talked with him for a little bit and he gave us a nice tour of campus before returning to his summer internship with the South Bend Tribune.
After meeting up with Wes, who we are staying with tonight, we continued our tour of campus stopping at the basilica and The Gold Dome before making our way south to grab lunch at The Legends with another Wabash student, Michael Carper ’13, who was in town to pick up his sisters from a church camp.
Lunch was fantastic and we decided to take a trip to another important Notre Dame site, The Grotto, before making our way to the main campus and the bookstore. Tyler was concerned with purchasing a “Brian Kelly pullover” so that he might imitate the attire of the second year coach of the Irish football team. After some perusing at the store, we met up with Tom Runge to take some photos around campus. You can see those photos in Tom’s blog post below.
Tom had arranged a meeting for Kyle with Wabash man Peter Horvath ’92, who is the Director of Student Services at The Law School of Notre Dame. Kyle is hoping to attend law school next year and Peter was kind enough to give him some pointers and a tour of the lovely facilities the law school finished just a couple years ago.
After a long day of sightseeing, the gang made our way back to The Legends to wait for the alums to show up. We had a decent showing of St. Joseph Valley alumni, current students, and spouses at the event that had lots of questions about recent developments at the College. Of special importance were recent athletic field projects and job placement in the tough economy. The alums were very excited about the event and are hoping to make an event even bigger in the coming years.
After things wrapped up on campus, we went to the Chamblee’s house outside of South Bend for some much needed rest and relaxation. We will get up tomorrow to head for Fort Wayne and Don Hall’s Factory in the evening. We also hope to catch Abraham Wade ’22 in his AAU basketball tourney at Ft. Wayne Concordia HS.
