By Richard
Conklin '59 M.A.
Last
November in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, I gave my 150th or so talk
to Notre Dame alumni clubs. I was only 29 years late.
My tardiness that night is one of many stories that grew out
of more than three decades of speaking at Universal Notre Dame
Nights (later, Notre Dame Celebrations). These annual forays of
University staff and faculty to alumni clubs nationwide were started
almost 80 years ago as a way of providing some balance to the
media-driven football image of the University. In fact, the first
Universal Notre Dame Night was broadcast in the early days of
radio, emanating on April 24, 1924, from the old Oliver Hotel
in South Bend, where the Saint Joseph Valley Club had gathered.
Intended for 40 cities in 20 states, the broadcast was marred
by weather and by interference from more powerful stations. By
1938, however, the evening was being carried on NBC's Red Network,
introduced by Irish tenor John McCormack.
The radio broadcast eventually morphed into talks by University
representatives appearing in person before alumni clubs across
the country. The tradition remains unique in American alumni relations,
an annual sounding of the grass roots by an institution with graduates
known for their proprietary feeling about their alma mater.
It was back in spring 1972 that I arrived at the mountaintop
Johnstown airport as an assistant director of public information
on one of my earliest UND Night trips. No one was there to meet
me. I called the club president, Dr. George Katter '41, at home.
"You didn't get the word from the Alumni Office?" he said apologetically.
"We had to cancel the event." Nonplussed, Katter said he would
round up the five local high school seniors who had been accepted
for the coming fall at Notre Dame, and we all would go out to
dinner. That's how I first met Gene Berry, T. Michael Crowley,
Ed Dropcho, D.C. Nokes and Ralph Trofino. The Johnstown Five received
degrees in 1976. Four went on to earn J.D.s, and Dropcho was graduated
from medical school. Two of them were in the audience last November
when, as a retired associate vice president of University relations,
I finally gave my talk to the Johnstown Notre Dame alumni club.
With the possible exception of Emil T. Hofman, emeritus professor
of chemistry, I think I have done as many UND Nights as anyone
alive, and I remain an advocate of a communications vehicle periodically
questioned as an anachronism in the day of the Internet. But UND
Nights are personal. Every year, in climates good and bad, Notre
Dame cares enough to send "a live someone" to give graduates an
oral snapshot of the University and -- equally important -- answer
their questions about a place close in their memories.
My first talk to alumni was a 1968 communion-breakfast format
in Flint, Michigan, where I first met Jack Kean '51. The train
cost me $4.95 to Durand, where Jack met the train. That began
a long friendship with him and his wife, Anne, which included
a stint for Jack on the national Alumni Board. He eventually came
down with an Alzheimer's-like illness, and Anne would bring him
to campus, where visits to the Grotto and walks around the lakes
would touch his clouded mind in a way nothing else could. One
September I returned -- this time in the University's plane --
to eulogize Jack at his funeral in Fenton, Michigan, not far from
where he had met me at the train 27 years before.
At no time was the personal visit more important than during
the Great Days of Student Unrest. In the late 1960s and early
'70s, going out to talk to restive alumni deserved battle pay.
I recall one particularly uncomfortable evening somewhere in Ohio
when I left the microphone and walked to the opposite end of the
room. I peered silently at the vacated lectern and then commented,
"I just wanted to see if a bull's-eye was there." The audience
laughed and settled down.
Although the themes of these yearly talks with alumni vary,
there are perennials. I recently came across my prepared remarks
for UND Nights in 1971. They were titled, "Notre Dame: How Catholic
Is It?" and could be delivered today without changing a word.
The obligatory cocktail reception preceding dinner often served
as an informal question period. People with athletics-related
questions often posed them over drinks, rather than after dinner.
And the reception is where the admissions queries came. On one
such occasion, an alumnus-parent presented me with the outstanding
scholastic credentials of his son, who had been denied admission.
I gave my standard answer, "I'll have admissions check on your
son's file, and someone will get back to you." When I contacted
the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, I received an unusual
explanation -- and one that could not be conveyed to the parents.
During his admissions interview, the young man had pleaded in
confidence, "Please turn me down. I do not want to go to Notre
Dame, but I can't bring myself to disappoint my father by telling
him so."
A more positive admissions-related story happened in Savannah,
Georgia, where I entered the private dining room of a restaurant
and found myself with the only other early arrival. This young
woman was trying to decide between admissions offers from one
of the Seven Sisters and Notre Dame, and financial aid was crucial.
I was so impressed with her poise and maturity that I called the
admissions office when I returned to campus and urged them to
be generous with our student aid package. Maria Carolina Duque
will be graduated from the Mendoza College of Business in May
-- and her sister, Maria Paula, is two years behind her.
The most bizarre incident in memory occurred in a Pennsylvania
city. It shall go nameless, although I remember it vividly. The
emcee for the evening began the post-prandial program with a long
joke that everyone in the audience, including the priest sitting
next to me at the head table, realized early on was heading to
an off-color punch line. There was only one thing to do. I reached
out with my right foot and disconnected the mike cord. This sudden
distraction was enough to bring the young man to his senses, and
the punch line was never delivered.
As the University has become more complex, going, as it were,
from a family-owned business to a multinational corporation, more
time has been invested in preparing UND Night speakers. A detailed
briefing paper now provides a uniform factual background on such
areas as the academic landscape, service-learning, admissions
and financial aid. I also had my own pattern of preparation. On
the road I read The New York Times for national news,
and on arrival I read the local paper. It was a sign of respect
if one came to conversations with some knowledge of burning local
issues, such as a teachers' strike. I always asked the local host
if there were some particular Notre Dame issue galvanizing the
club. If so, I tried to address it in my presentation. It also
helped to avoid being ambushed in the Q&A period.
The environments varied widely. I have spoken in the opulence
of a Santa Barbara, California, country club (and learned the
town had a homeless center). In the same state, I have greeted
graduates in the back room of a Basque bar in Bakersfield, a place
that served "mountain oysters" (sheep gonads) as an appetizer.
In Long Island I had to take the microphone between gigs of a
dance band. "When do I know when to stop speaking?" I asked the
club's event chairman. "When the tuba player comes back," he answered.
I have been booked into a casino twice in doing Las Vegas, where
I saw markers in the collection plate at Sunday Mass. In contrast
to Las Vegas neon, I have talked at an alumni club picnic on the
Snake River near Buhl, Idaho.
I have addressed alumni in 42 of the 50 states, and some of the
most relaxing tours of duty were in the days when alumni clubs
in a region were asked to schedule their UND Nights consecutively.
I still remember a spring stint several years ago when I went
up the Mohawk River and down the Hudson, stopping at several New
York state alumni clubs along the way. And I recall another leisurely
drive visiting clubs down the Pacific Coast Highway, ending up
in Orange County, California, where the club produced a full house
on, of all things, Oscar night. Short car trips between talks
were pleasant; plane trips were not. I once did six airborne UND
Nights in seven days -- Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle,
Spokane and Butte.
Until two years ago, I had never missed a scheduled talk to
alumni, but in spring 2000 my luck ran out. I missed three Notre
Dame Celebrations in a row because of plane problems. Weather
interfered with the first trip, mechanical difficulties the second.
Starting my third trip, I was relieved to note my flight arriving
on the runway of South Bend Regional Airport. Ten minutes later,
the aircraft had still not pulled up to the gate. I pressed against
the waiting room window -- the passenger jet had blown a tire
and gone off the runway. Sorry, Binghamton.
Despite the vicissitudes of travel, UND Nights and Notre Dame
Celebrations were for me always more energizing than enervating.
The loyalty of Notre Dame graduates, including alumnae who were
increasingly assuming leadership positions in clubs, made my office
more inviting and my administrative tasks more enjoyable upon
return to campus. I also could observe cultural change in the
hinterland -- football smokers disappeared, social service committees
started up, the "Notre Dame Man of the Year" became the "Notre
Dame Person of the Year."
The tradition of UND Nights/Notre Dame Celebrations is a gesture
of appreciation to those alumni of whom Jim Armstrong, the first
full-time director of the Alumni Association, was so fond -- the
graduates who quietly raise families, worship God and contribute
in small ways to the commonweal. I always ended my talks to alumni
clubs by recalling the time about midway through my speaking career
when a member of the audience came up afterward and said, "You
know, I left Notre Dame 25 years ago . . . but Notre Dame never
left me."
* * *
Richard Conklin recently retired as associate vice president for
University Relations.
