RISE AND STRIKE (AT THE THROAT OF THE FIESTA BOWL)

How about “Stoop and Suck”

The “Bend and Spread” shirt would be especially true Notre Dame actually did make it to the Fiesta bowl, where they would probably be gently raped with a chainsaw by a SEC or Big XII team.

Or, WSP, by Oregon State.

Yowsa!

Who’ll be laughing when Meyer inevitably bolts for ND? At least our players can read our shirts! You wouldn’t get it, the Shirt is a tradition only we understand.

I throw these out there premptively in the hopes that any ND fan who might have otherwise replied will not see fit to do so.

No “Comeback and UNNNNDEFEEEEAAAATEEED!”

Wow, I’m glad that ND players can read, so when they’re not drafted they can actually do the taxes of the players who make it to the big show and make positive contributions to society! Hooray learning!

Wasn’t anyone else reminded of “Duck and Cover” from those old Civil Defense films? Maybe it was the concern that ND would not cover.

“Run and Hide” “Wait and Pray” “Transfer and Win” “Learned and Lofty” “Pretentious and Douchy” “Astroglide and Broomsticks” “Cluck and Tuck” “BCS and Fail” “Crash and Burn”

@ 4 – Claws, you forgot, “this proves we are still relevant.”

Carry on.

. . . fresh shrimp, handguns, and infants . . . .

Eerie. It’s as if you stole the shopping list right out of my pocket.

@ 9 – damn, how could i have forgotten about that one. shame on me.

@ 4 – Claws: Urban says never, ever. So take that, Finebaum.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090713/ARTICLES/907139947/0/ENTERTAINMENT02

i can basically get the fresh ingredients for a damn fine meal via road vendor on my way home from work…and i have before. delicious!

When I was a freshman at Miami U, we had a home game against Ohio U. There was a coterie of OU fans wearing shirts that said, “I’d rather fuck a goat than go to Miami University.”

Two points for honesty, as they say.

“DAWGS LICK BALLS” was my favorite shirt from the Coke Orgy last year.

We are in the presence of greatness in this thread — Most of you probably know poster “Tom Kazanski” by his nom de guerre, “Iceman,” the coldest bitch ever to pilot a Navy jet. “THAT’S RIGHT, Iceman, I am dangerous…” You know you love it.

Ever the punching bag, ND should actually be pretty good this year. Not UF good, not stupidass chest-thumping good, not Holtz marching out 10+ first day picks good, but pretty good. At some point when you have a ton of returning highly recruited starters….and you aren’t in Tallahassee, you tend to win games. Shrug, we’ll see.

Would have been a good idea to probably recruit some DTs somewhere though. And not have the fucking T-shirt.

You can debate whether The Shirt was ever cool, but I believe it has been largely disowned by large portions of the Alumni base since the late 90’s. I think Michigan and others have copied the idea, so it can’t have been all bad. But I for one agree with all of the criticisms above. I’ll add one-at least they didn’t go with “Return to Glory” III as a theme.

It started out as a neat student-run project with good graphics design that became a university-run money grab with all of the panache of processed cheese spread. As with many formerly great things at ND (i.e., tailgating), it is diminished by the fact that the University feels that it has to be involved.

And what the hell color is that thing?

The Shirt has become part of tradition just like everything else here at Notre Dame. It was actually initially started to be a fund raiser for student government, but soon after raised money for medical expenses for a foreign student here at Notre Dame and goes towards a similar fundraiser today. Admittedly the shirt theme this year is pretty weak being only marginally better the Coach Weis’ first year (http://www.pasttimetees.com/PICS/college/ndspirit.jpg) Since Adidas has gotten their money loving hands on it (cough cough http://www.fanblogs.com/notre_dame/007224.php) the shirt design is still in the hands of the students, however the shirt quality has become worse than something I can get for free at any of the other sporting events here on campus. There have been quite a few grumbles against this years version, especially the defending our honor part on the back. How about “Bringing back our pride by beating up on a bunch of middling to low opponents and hopefully not blowing a game we should win.”

Or Charlie Weis’ favorite – Eat and Fart.

This reminds me of the question from last summer’s visiting lecturer series, "What historical nation and period do you resemble most right now?" Apparently Notre Dame is the Philippines in 1944 (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/filmmore/reference/primary/macspeech03.html).

Phil Steele also says Clemson is going to win the Atlantic, so yeah let’s go with the Phil Steele is almost always right angle.

Seriously, spot on with the ND analysis, though, as that schedule is weak other than SC. Weis should have them in a position where they can go 11-1 this year, even though they will not.

@ Chuck: As an OU alum, I feel my educational experience was irreparably cheapened because I don’t have that shirt.

Re #23: Perhaps we can track one down for you on EBay — and the goat to go with it.

Double Dawg – you are the first person to figure it out

+100 to you sir!

Someday, somewhere, someone may come up with a new, creative way to trash Notre Dame. This not the day.

I believe you meant a repeat of the ’05 and ’06 seasons. ’07 was the year they lost to Navy because Weis decided to go for it on 4th and 8 instead of attempting a go-ahead 40-yard FG.

@26 – Tommy Kilborn, is that you?

They need a sense of clubiness about everything, so one “official” shirt makes sense.

“They rejoice in the unrestrained exhilaration of victory and solemnly embrace the humility of defeat.”

Really?

“The Shirt has become part of tradition just like everything else here at Notre Dame.”
So, has failing in BCS bowls become a tradition also at Notre Dame?

“Shit or Get Off The POT”

8 – ‘Transfer and Win’: Both very funny and disturbingly true.

“Past Tense”

Since the ND fans and players are so bright, they’ll get the secret hidden meanings, but I’ll help everyone else out…

Past: Ancient, Old, Yesterday’s News, Obsolete, Obsolescent

Tense: Nervous, Agitated, Sensitive

Now doesn’t that do an excellent job of describing Notre Dame Football?
(Apologies to Coach Tenuta and Rudy)

From The Shirt’s web site: “Sister Jean Lenz, an Assistant Vice President in the Office of Student Affairs, recognized the success of The Shirt 1990. At the time, Sister Lenz was providing support to Zhengde Wang, a Chinese doctoral student who was seriously injured when he was hit by a car in November 1989. Thus, Sister Lenz approached Joe Cassidy, then Director of Student Activities, with the idea of selling another shirt and using all proceeds to defray the cost of Wang’s increasing medical expenses.”

http://theshirt.nd.edu/history.html

What it should say is: “Zhengde Wang, a Chinese doctoral student who was seriously injured when he was hit by a car driven by a drunken Notre Dame undergrad in November 1989.” Not that it at all invalidates the charitable aspect of The Blue Shirt, but it’s interesting how these details get forgotten.

The powers behind Irish football can trot out all the annual shirt designs they want. Or do anything, anything at all, if someone will just PLEASE MOTHER OF GOD stop laying out those dinky-ass diagonal lines inside the end zones at ND Stadium.

Just STOP IT! Leave it empty, paint in a facsimile of the Sistine Ceiling, I don’t care, just KILL the diagonal lines once and for all. They haunt my days and nights. They ruin karma worse than a “new” Crayola crayon sharpener ad.

I can’t imagine this schedule being less difficult than any team in the Big Ten or Big East. Every year for my birthday for the last ten years my aunt that lives in South Bend gets me The Shirt. I’ve never worn them and they’re all at Goodwill.

How ’Bout These Dept:

a) Dumb ’N Dumber
(Charlie ’N ND Admin for giving him 1,000-year deal)

b) Mouse That Roars
(for ND scheduling more and more cupcakes each year and bragging about winning more games)

c) ND: We are Fredo, or
(ND: We get on all fours for BC)
 
(now, back to our regularly scheduled de-programming….)

“a great idea visually given how many mascots have sharp carnivorous animal-type incisors”

On the other hand, Brutus gives excellent blowjobs. Just ask Albert, Mike and even Traveler.

Hippocrite @38: Well that’s a good schedule if you want to be considered equivalent to the middle of the pack Big 10 or Big East teams. But not so much if you want to return to elite status.

Uhhhh… Notre Dame doesn’t really get excited over the shirt. Maybe the older alumni do when they come back for the game with the kids, but the students tend to think it’s dumb. The older you get an ND, the less likely you are to actually buy/wear the shirt.

#20: I’ve got a better one for Cheeseburger Charlie – “I like mine with lettuce and tomato….”

I like http://theshirt.nd.edu/riseandstrike.html says “If there is one thing that unites the global Notre Dame community, it is football.” Football is an interesting choice. I would have gone for Catholicism.

@31 – losing in bowl games in general is the new tradition. they strayed last season by accidentally winning one, but we’re all hopeful that ND upholds this bowl game tradition.

3 comments here:

1: It’s almost unbelievable how full of itself the official site is: “”http://theshirt.nd.edu/face.html" rel="nofollow">Without a doubt the face of The Shirt has also become the face of the Fighting Irish."

2: It was a neat little thing in my days as a student before all this “blackout”, “whiteout”, “redout”, “greenout” etc. kind of crap took a foothold that the student body all wore the same shirt (to the first game), but these days, they just need to discontinue the damn thing. The last ~10 have all been crappy. Probably going back to Davie’s first year. (Oddly, I still wear the ones from 95-6).

3: Why’d they change the number on the back of the thing?

http://theshirt.nd.edu/back.html

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6722/691/400/Irish_Impact.jpg

As an aside, I wish I still had the poster of the play depicted, though that was a sideline angle.

“Red Sox”
It’s been Red Sox gear for the last five years. Get with it.

The only thing worse than The Shirt are those embarrassingly godawful Gameday shirts sold for an un-Christian-like markup at the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore.

Is someone really gonna shell out $20 for a shirt commemorating a November matchup between Notre Dame and UConn in frigid South Bend?

If you’ve ever been to the ND Bookstore during a football weekend, the answer would be YES.

Someone needs to rewire a Predator drone to take out Chuck Lennon.

It’s college football. Cheesy traditions are everywhere.

Rubbing a rock and running down a hill before hitting the field.

An old rivalry game where the winning team gets a big axe or milk jug.

Doing the hokie pokie or swaying at the end of the 3rd quarter.

The only reason you do it is b.c. the alumni, students, and fans have been doing it for decades.

Let ND have their goofy shirt. It’s not going to be very helpful when they play Southern Cal.

“The Shirt” was a bad joke even in the early 1990s. I worked for the campus paper back then, and I recall the “upcoming events” column wittily had “Freshmen: remember to wear The Shirt!” as the last sentence of every paragraph.
I will say the “shake down the thunder” shirt with the lightning was badass, though…

Yeah, maybe Notre Dame can upgrade their schedule by playing traditional SEC non-conference powerhouses such as Troy, Charleston, Tennessee Tech, UT Chattanooga, SE Louisiana, Northern Arizona, Furman, Jackson State & Florida Int’l.

It’s difficult to gauge how good a team is going to be several years out… unless it’s one of the above cupcakes. Talk about a sure thing.

crazytom:

2. what’s wrong with continuing a tradition that happens to raise thousands of dollars annually for student organizations and charity funds? if you like the shirt, buy it. if you want to donate money separately, donate it. if you dont want to do either, dont! it shouldn’t be a problem.

3. good eye! the numbers were changed for legal purposes—kind of like needing permission to publish a photo of someone.