Phoenix: Community Service, Love Stories, and The Pig-Faced Satan

I'm posting today from Williams, AZ, outside the Grand Canyon, where I've been taking a little break. I drove up here yesterday from Phoenix, where I'd stayed in three different places: a home for unwed mothers founded by an ND alumna a few years ago and currently staffed by ND grads, an '04 almuna's apartment, and the home of Tyra and Corey Babington. Both of them are Domers, and Tyra is the president of the Phoenix club. It was a bit of an abrupt transition from my brush with retirement in Tucson—I went out with people my age, stayed up late, and didn't eat at a single country club—but I was very well taken care of in each place.

Maggie's Place is a home for unwed mothers who would otherwise be on the streets because of their financial situations. The mothers typically move in while they're pregnant and then leave 6 months after they give birth. I got to meet some moms and babies, and I interviewed a couple of recent grads about their work. The staff live at the house and work to make MP as much of a home as possible, and they're kind of moms to the moms, which can be a bit awkward, since they're usually younger. I interviewed Sarah Smith and Madeline Heck, and I was so impressed with them. They're both a few years younger than I am, but they have clearly learned a lot in their time at MP. Their job is to live on site 24/7 and create a community of loving support for the moms, many of whom have past substance abuse problems, issues with their babies' fathers, etc. Madeline summed it up best: "Love is going to the hospital in the middle of the night with a mom who thinks she's going into labor, even though you know she isn't." Wow.

I went out with the staff and stayed over at MP on Saturday night, then on Sunday I went to stay with Leslie Pechkurow, an '04 grad who insisted that I sleep in her bed and eat what was in the fridge. Leslie is one of those cool people who is plugged into every socket in the wall: among other things, she's in grad school for counseling at ASU, she works a job and an internship, and she volunteers for her church's youth group. Her interview was also really impressive—I may already have said this, but it's so inspiring to me to talk to young alumni who are doing so much good and really seem to have it together.

On Tuesday I spent the afternoon with Bob and Kay Sanford, who dated back before Bob graduated in 1940, then lost touch, then found each other again after 29 years. They've now been married for almost 40 years. Classic—and they tell the story much better than what I just wrote! Bob's two ND claims to fame, aside from one of the greatest romance stories ever, are that he has been class secretary for the class of 1940 since he graduated, giving him the most class write-ups of any other class secretary (most of the older guys inherited the job from someone else), and he still holds the Featherweight Championship in the Bengal Bouts--they stopped boxing featherweight after his sophomore year :)

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Babingtons, and I had a great time. After a brief tour of the house, Corey and I sat down and talked ND football for two hours. Not about this season, of course, but Corey's freshman year was 1989, and he actually was friends with Rocket Ismail and Tony Rice. The Rocket even told him the locker room story of the 1988 Miami game, which I had never heard before, though maybe some readers of this blog have. For those of you unfamiliar with ND football history, in 1988, when I was 8 years old, the Irish won the National Championship, with Rice at qb and Rocket as our punt returner/running back/wide receiver/what can he not do. The guy was INCREDIBLE--even now when I watch the tape on YouTube (yes, I watch the tape on YouTube), I can't get over how fast he was. I used to daydream that girls would be allowed to play when I got to college, and Lou Holtz would recruit me to play with the Rocket. The idea that he would graduate, or that I would completely lack hand-eye coordination when I got older, never occurred to me. Anyway, in 1988, Miami came to ND for what became known as Catholics vs. Convicts. The Hurricanes were coached by Jimmy Johnson, known around campus as The Pig-Faced Satan (hey, I'm just telling it like it was.) Anyway, Miami was #1, and they were known for intimidating their opponents before the game. In that spirit, they came out of the tunnel and ran through our players' pregame workout. The Irish weren't having it, and the brawl that ensued was ugly. According to the Rocket, when they got back to the locker room, the players were a little worried about what Lou would say, because he did not like any shenanigans on or off the field. But Lou just looked around, told them he didn't think they needed much of a pregame talk, but just go out there, play hard, and take them down, but "save Jimmy Johnson's butt for me." The players were so amped up that they actually broke the locker room door down and went out and won 31-30 in what many consider to be the greatest game ever played at Notre Dame Stadium. ND has had many great football teams, but that's the team I grew up with, and as you can probably tell by reading this, I could talk about them all day. So Corey and I hit it off right away, and when Tyra came home the three of us just hung out and ate pizza and drank beer and had a great time. I got to interview them the next night after eating the best lasagna I've ever had in my life (the secret ingredient: cream cheese instead of ricotta--so good!), and it was another fantastic how we met story, plus it turns out Tyra didn't learn about football until after they got married (after she graduated), and now she even has her own fantasy team. How cool is that?

The next morning, they were off to San Francisco for the Stanford game, and I headed up to the Grand Canyon. More soon.