Earlier this year newspapers around the country reported that
the last of Knute Rockne's players was gone with the passing of
Cleveland's Al Grisanti '31 at age 93. Not true. At least two
alumni coached by the immortal Rockne survive: Jack Yelland '30
and Fred Reiman '31. Neither saw game action, but that was also
the case with Grisanti, who died in June. Yelland lives in Minneapolis,
Reiman in La Crosse, Wisconsin. . . . "Invasion is forever," biology
professor David M. Lodge told the House Subcommittee on Environment,
Technology and Standards in June. He was talking about invasive
species of aquatic life like the zebra mussel. He told the congressmen
the government should invest more to control and prevent invasive
species because, as he put it, "Biological invasions are the least
reversible form of pollution." . . . Notre Dame finished 13th in this past year's Sears Directors' Cup competition, which measures
college athletic success across all sports. The only private university
to finish ahead of Notre Dame was Stanford, which won the cup.
. . . If basketball games were decided by graduation rate instead
of points scored and allowed, the Irish men would have gone to
the Final Four last season instead of being eliminated in the
second round of the NCAA tournament. Pulling the top graduation-rate
teams from the four regions in the tournament would have produced
a Final Four with three Catholic schools -- Saint John's from
the East, Notre Dame from the South, Xavier from the West -- to
go along with Stanford from the Midwest. . . . Each
year when they left school for the summer Christopher Fuchs '01
and Xavier Helgesen '01 couldn't help but notice how many books
their classmates simply abandoned in the dorm. They came up with
an idea: Collect the books, liquidate them for cash through bookstore
and used book wholesalers, and donate the money to a charity.
This past spring semester they tried it for the first time. Operating
under the name Irish Community Outreach, they placed collection
boxes in all the dorms. All students had to do was throw their
books into the boxes on their way out of town. The effort, which
they plan to continue, raised more than $1,200, which was earmarked
for an after-school reading program for kids at the Notre Dame-sponsored
Robinson Community Center south of campus. As a reward the hall
that donated the most books, Keough, won a picnic with the kids
in the fall. . . . Siegfried Hall has become the cradle of leprechauns.
The Mod Quad dorm has now produced three of the past four varsity
sports leprechaun mascots. The latest is junior Michael Macaluso,
who was promoted to varsity leprechaun after serving as leprechaun
for the Olympic sports teams (everything but football and men's
basketball) last year. . . . Business majors often joke about
what they imagine to be meager job prospects awaiting Arts and
Letters graduates. Times are changing. Lee Svete, the Career Center's
director since 1999, has worked hard to find more job opportunities
and internships for students pursuing a liberal arts education.
And the college has noticed. It recently presented Svete a new
award that honors "an outstanding colleague outside the college
whose work adds immeasurably to the college and enriches its life."
. . . The former chief executive officer of the California Center
for the Arts has been hired to be chief administrator for the
Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts, which is under
construction and expected to open in August 2004. Before becoming
involved in arts administration John A. Haynes worked a dozen
years as a television programming and production executive with
CBS in New York City and Los Angeles and with Viacom in Beverly
Hills. . . . For the time being, the remains of the youngest of
the Holy Cross brothers who accompanied Notre Dame founder Edward
Sorin from France will remain where they are -- in southern Indiana
-- instead of being removed to Notre Dame, as at least one current
Holy Cross brother has suggested. Brother Anselm Caillot was 15
when he traveled to southern Indiana from France in 1841 with
Sorin and five other Holy Cross brothers. The following year he
and one other brother were left behind when Sorin journeyed north
to start Notre Dame. The other brother joined Sorin the following
year, but for some reason Sorin wouldn't let Anselm come. The
area bishop sent Anselm instead to teach in Madison, Indiana,
on the Ohio River in the southeastern part of the state. The following
year Anselm died in a swimming accident in the river. Anselm's
gravestone in Madison was lost for decades, apparently sunken
into the soft earth following a flood in the 1930s. It was rediscovered
only last December. Brother Richard Gilman, CSC, president of
Holy Cross College, suggested publicly that Anselm's remains be
removed to Notre Dame to be with the rest of the community, as
Anselm had wished. But a spokesman for the order said no decision
has been made on a possible move. . . . The Indiana Province of
the CSC priests has purchased the former home of Charles O. Finley,
the flamboyant late owner of pro baseball's Oakland A's. The property
is about 25 miles west of South Bend in LaPorte, Indiana, and
adjacent to the Indiana Toll Road. The order paid $1.5 million
at auction for the 50+ acres and its12-bedroom, 11-bathroom home,
which features stained-glass windows of Oakland A's symbols in
the stables. The CSCs plan to transfer to the property continuing
education programs, workshops and meetings for Holy Cross religious
that were formerly held at a site on a lake in the mountains of
western Maryland. The LaPorte property is more central and accessible
and, unlike the Maryland property, is winterized, so it will offer
the community year-round use. Finley grew up in Gary, Indiana,
and made his millions in insurance. He died in 1996 at the age
of 77. . . . Notre Dame, other colleges and universities, and
a number of paper-gobbling businesses like Kinko's decided to
stop buying paper from Boise (formerly Boise Cascade), the giant
timber company, until the company stopped cutting centuries-old
trees in some undisturbed forests. The boycott apparently worked.
Earlier this year Boise reportedly began telling its customers
that it had ceased old-growth logging. . . . The creator of the
large abstract steel mobile in the Mary Loretto and Terrence J.
Dillon Courtyard between the Snite Museum and O'Shag died in July
at age 95. George Rickey, a South Bend native, became an internationally
renowned sculptor. The museum has a second kinetic sculpture of
Rickey's and hopes to install it in the courtyard by year's end.
. . . The internationally known Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, which began in South Bend in 1973, now calls Notre Dame home.
The event was held on campus for the first time this past May,
drawing more than 60 ensembles from 22 countries. . . . Joshua
Rich '02 designed the new Notre Dame vanity plate for Indiana
that features an interlocking N and D inside an outline of the
Golden Dome. The old plate just had the interlocking ND. Six other
states -- Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania
and Virginia -- offer Notre Dame plates. The extra fees motorists
pay for them support public service initiatives of Notre Dame
alumni clubs. . . . That fellow pictured in the spring issue of
this magazine holding his young son in his arms in front of their
new house on Notre Dame Avenue is now director of the University's
Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. Tim Matovina,
associate professor of theology, succeeds R. Scott Appleby, who
had directed the center since 1994. Appleby is now director of
ND's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. . . . Student
Activities censors Bookstore Basketball team names that the office
deems offensive. There are always plenty; the censored teams get
a numerical designation instead. This past year the staff drew
criticism for censoring any name incorporating the name of their
boss, Father Mark Poorman, CSC, vice president for student affairs.
When questioned by The Observer, the head of Student
Activities said they were only following the general rule of not
allowing team names that include the name of an actual person
in the campus community unless that person has granted them permission.
That's why teams were permitted to include campus names like Britney
Spears, Donald Rumsfeld and, alas, George O'Leary. . . . Speaking
of familiar names, there's a new one on the Notre Dame Board of
Trustees: Gallo. Stephanie Gallo '94, granddaughter of famed wine-maker
Ernest Gallo, is brand manager for the Turning Leaf and Turning
Leaf Coastal Reserve brands of the E&J Gallo Winery. . . .
Hollywood is well represented on
a new campus Advisory Council for the Performing Arts with directors
Sydney Pollack (The Way We Were, Out of Africa) and Martin Scorsese
(Raging Bull, Goodfellows) and actress and Saint Mary's graduate
Cathering Hicks (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and the TV series
Seventh Heaven). . . . Senior Pat Amato, an accounting major from
Toledo, Ohio, made his television debut June 24 on the WB network's
elimiDATE show. Amato was one of four suitors systematically
eliminated by the female date-chooser; he was the second to get
the boot. Initially spotted by a recruiter on a beach in L.A.
two summers ago, he survived several rounds of interviews before
being selected to be on the program. His show, taped in July 2001,
followed him and his date on visits to such hotspots as the LA
Comedy Club. He says the experience wasn't a total loss. It allowed
him to miss a day of work, and he was relieved to be eliminated
just before the round that required dancing.
(October 2002)
