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At Notre Dame, the first 'America's Team,' they wake the echoes on a run to another national title

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At Notre Dame, the first 'America's Team,' they wake the echoes on a run to another national title
News

News

At Notre Dame, the first 'America's Team,' they wake the echoes on a run to another national title

2025-01-20 00:21 Last Updated At:00:31

ATLANTA (AP) — Between Touchdown Jesus, “Win One for the Gipper," Rudy, and, yes, even the forward pass, there are those who believe football wouldn’t quite be football without Notre Dame.

With the Fighting Irish waking up the echoes and playing for a title again after a generation-long retreat from the limelight, now might be the perfect time to admit it — maybe they were right.

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FILE - Notre Dame's Joe Montana tries to brush off Reggie Wilkes of Georgia Tech during his six-yard gain in first quarter of an NCAA college football game, Nov. 7, 1977 game at South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame's Joe Montana tries to brush off Reggie Wilkes of Georgia Tech during his six-yard gain in first quarter of an NCAA college football game, Nov. 7, 1977 game at South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011, file photo, the hallway between the locker room and the field at Notre Dame stadium shows the sign "Play like a Champion Today" in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Joe Raymond, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011, file photo, the hallway between the locker room and the field at Notre Dame stadium shows the sign "Play like a Champion Today" in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Joe Raymond, File)

FILE - In this 1924, file photo, Notre Dame's infamous backfield, "The Four Horsemen," from left, Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley and Harry Stuhldreherare pose on the practice field in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this 1924, file photo, Notre Dame's infamous backfield, "The Four Horsemen," from left, Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley and Harry Stuhldreherare pose on the practice field in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame's head coach Lou Holtz and the Fighting Irish walk onto the field of the Los Angeles Coliseum to warm up for an NCAA college football game against Southern California Saturday, Nov. 30, 1996 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

FILE - Notre Dame's head coach Lou Holtz and the Fighting Irish walk onto the field of the Los Angeles Coliseum to warm up for an NCAA college football game against Southern California Saturday, Nov. 30, 1996 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

FILE - Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, left, and team captain Clem Crowe watch the team practice in 1925. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, left, and team captain Clem Crowe watch the team practice in 1925. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - The Virgin Mary atop the "Golden Dome" on the Administration Building is seen through nearly bare trees before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

FILE - The Virgin Mary atop the "Golden Dome" on the Administration Building is seen through nearly bare trees before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

FILE - A Notre Dame flag waves in the wind in front of the The Word of Life Mural, aka "Touchdown Jesus," on the Hesburgh Library before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Northern Illinois, Saturday Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

FILE - A Notre Dame flag waves in the wind in front of the The Word of Life Mural, aka "Touchdown Jesus," on the Hesburgh Library before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Northern Illinois, Saturday Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

Ever since 1913, when an end named Knute Rockne helped a small Catholic school based in South Bend, Indiana, pull off a stunner by beating Army, Notre Dame has stood as one of the main shapers of college football.

“They were really the first ‘America’s Team,’” says Jack Nolan, the longtime radio personality for the Fighting Irish. “They were the first team that played on both coasts. I’ve told folks, and even told a couple of recruits, that Notre Dame is Broadway.”

Rockne didn’t invent the forward pass in that win against Army, but by catching throws in stride — up to then, receivers ran to a spot, stood there and waited — he introduced the pass as a dynamic, game-changing play that now needs no explanation.

Rockne went on to coach at Notre Dame, which featured a backfield famously nicknamed the Four Horsemen. Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley and Elmer Layden were immortalized by Grantland Rice in what is widely recognized as the best lead sentence in the history of sports writing: “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again.”

And it was Rockne who, after the tragic death of running back George Gipp, (maybe) uttered the words “Win one for the Gipper” to motivate his team. That line became more famous when an actor-turned-politician named Ronald Reagan recited it the 1940 movie, “Knute Rockne, All American,” then used it as a campaign slogan that helped propel him to the presidency in 1980.

When Rockne himself died tragically in a plane crash in 1931, it cemented a legend that already had taken on mythical proportions.

Politics. Sports. Religion. The history of Notre Dame football covers all that. Especially religion.

Legend has it that the Big Ten’s rejection of Notre Dame in 1926 — resulting in an outsider status the Irish later embraced — was steeped in anti-Catholic sentiment held by Michigan’s athletic director, Fielding Yost.

Time marched on.

By 1964, with football firmly established as another sort of religion on campus, the school president, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, wanted to make a grand statement about Notre Dame’s singular standing in American education. He instructed architects to think big with the construction of a new campus library.

That’s how the “Word of Life” mural came into being. It’s a 134-foot-tall painting of Jesus with his arms upraised to bless a group of teachers and doctors below him.

That you could see the painting of Jesus from anywhere in the south end of the nearby football stadium is how the mural became known as “Touchdown Jesus” — as iconic a college football landmark as there is.

“Sometimes in practice, I’ll kind of look up and see that,” receiver Jordan Faison said. “And it reminds me of how far I’ve come, and how far some of my teammates have come on this journey, and that the place where we’re doing this is Notre Dame.”

Ever since the Big Ten turned down Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish have mostly gone it alone. Their status as an independent has always been unusual and, now, makes them virtually one of a kind in a sport dominated by megaconferences with 16 and 18 teams.

Exhibit A is media. Of all Notre Dame's media deals over the decades, the most famous is the one it cut with NBC that started in 1991 and still exists today. It places financial heft behind a program that doesn't benefit from multimillion-dollar media rights payouts from any conference.

The independent status also allows Notre Dame flexibility with its own schedule, giving it the ability to play games coast to coast — unheard of in the 1920s and ‘30s, and not as common until the last decade or so ushered in the era of conferences that stretch across three time zones.

In a nod to the realities of the times, Notre Dame does, however, play basketball and other sports in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and has a deal to play four football games a year against opponents from the ACC.

Notre Dame's independence also gave it a decades-long head start on the now-common art of recruiting across the country instead of just regionally.

“I think there’s long been a feeling of not wanting to just be a Midwest institution,” said John Heisler, a longtime sports information director at the school who has written 10 books on the Fighting Irish.

Any list of the 10 most important figures in Notre Dame football history would have to include Lou Holtz.

The irrepressible coach is now 88 and still needling the opposition. His digs at the Buckeyes before last year’s game — questioning their physicality and throwing shade on coach Ryan Day — are taking on new meaning now that the teams are meeting for the title.

Just last week, Holtz was back on social media predicting a Notre Dame win on Monday night.

“Remember, we’re Notre Dame and they ain’t,” said Holtz, who plans on being in Atlanta for the title game.

Holtz, who spent a career putting chips on his players' shoulders and making every opponent sound like a world beater, and whose bromides — “When all is said and done, more is said than done” — were so darn true they bordered on corny, is the living embodiment of the reason there isn’t much neutral ground about Notre Dame.

You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em.

Maybe worse than loving or hating the Fighting Irish would be if people just didn’t care.

That is the precarious place Notre Dame had been flirting with since Holtz led the Irish to their last national title in 1988, then left after the 1996 season.

Some say the days of “Catholics vs. Convicts,” the 1988 pseudo culture war between Miami and Notre Dame that is the subject of its own book and documentary, simply couldn’t happen anymore in this more professional-looking era.

And maybe neither could the ripped-from-the-headlines underdog tale that led to the 1993 movie “Rudy,” about the undersized Notre Dame walk-on who finally gets his chance to play, then gets carried off the field on his teammates' shoulders.

Regardless, since Holtz left and college football turned into a battle of once-regional programs taking their acts national, Notre Dame has bordered on becoming “just another program.”

With coach Marcus Freeman in charge, this year marked the first time since 1994 the Fighting Irish got a “W” in a major bowl game. This season’s run, which included a victory over Indiana in college football’s first-ever postseason game on campus, is sparking a frenzy of nostalgia and reigniting all those ancient feelings about the Irish.

“The further Notre Dame pushes into the playoffs, the more crowded our parking lot gets,” said Wren Martin, marketing manager for Notre Dame’s on-campus bookstore.

This season is reminding us once again that, even as winning comes and goes, Notre Dame finds new spins on a story old as time.

The year was 1964, and the Fighting Irish, after struggling for about a decade in the wake of coach Frank Leahy’s departure, were coming back to life under the direction of an eager outsider — a Protestant of Armenian descent named Ara Parseghian — who had toppled Notre Dame four straight years while he was coaching Northwestern.

Some believe the “Era of Ara” truly kicked off the day the Irish beat Stanford 28-6 to improve to 5-0.

The great sports scribe Dan Jenkins was in town that week writing for Sports Illustrated. He kicked off his tale by noting that the school had recently regilded its iconic golden dome to keep it glowing.

Then, Jenkins wrote: “The dome on the main building seemed to be giving off beams of inspiration as it did in the days of Frank Leahy and Knute Rockne. Notre Dame is winning again.”

It was true back then. It's true again today.

AP freelance writer Curt Rallo in South Bend, Indiana, contributed to this report.

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FILE - Notre Dame's Joe Montana tries to brush off Reggie Wilkes of Georgia Tech during his six-yard gain in first quarter of an NCAA college football game, Nov. 7, 1977 game at South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame's Joe Montana tries to brush off Reggie Wilkes of Georgia Tech during his six-yard gain in first quarter of an NCAA college football game, Nov. 7, 1977 game at South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011, file photo, the hallway between the locker room and the field at Notre Dame stadium shows the sign "Play like a Champion Today" in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Joe Raymond, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2011, file photo, the hallway between the locker room and the field at Notre Dame stadium shows the sign "Play like a Champion Today" in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Joe Raymond, File)

FILE - In this 1924, file photo, Notre Dame's infamous backfield, "The Four Horsemen," from left, Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley and Harry Stuhldreherare pose on the practice field in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this 1924, file photo, Notre Dame's infamous backfield, "The Four Horsemen," from left, Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley and Harry Stuhldreherare pose on the practice field in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame's head coach Lou Holtz and the Fighting Irish walk onto the field of the Los Angeles Coliseum to warm up for an NCAA college football game against Southern California Saturday, Nov. 30, 1996 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

FILE - Notre Dame's head coach Lou Holtz and the Fighting Irish walk onto the field of the Los Angeles Coliseum to warm up for an NCAA college football game against Southern California Saturday, Nov. 30, 1996 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

FILE - Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, left, and team captain Clem Crowe watch the team practice in 1925. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, left, and team captain Clem Crowe watch the team practice in 1925. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - The Virgin Mary atop the "Golden Dome" on the Administration Building is seen through nearly bare trees before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

FILE - The Virgin Mary atop the "Golden Dome" on the Administration Building is seen through nearly bare trees before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

FILE - A Notre Dame flag waves in the wind in front of the The Word of Life Mural, aka "Touchdown Jesus," on the Hesburgh Library before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Northern Illinois, Saturday Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

FILE - A Notre Dame flag waves in the wind in front of the The Word of Life Mural, aka "Touchdown Jesus," on the Hesburgh Library before an NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Northern Illinois, Saturday Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina, File)

KAFR AL-LABAD, West Bank (AP) — The call came in the middle of the night, Mohammed Shula said. His daughter-in-law, eight months pregnant with her first child, was whispering. There was panic in her voice.

“Help, please,” Shula recalled her saying. “You have to save us.”

Minutes later, Sondos Shalabi was fatally shot.

Shalabi and her husband, 26-year-old Yazan Shula, had fled their home in the early hours of Sunday as Israeli security forces closed in on Nur Shams refugee camp, a crowded urban district in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.

Israeli military vehicles surrounded the camp days earlier, part of a larger crackdown on Palestinian militants across the northern occupied West Bank that has escalated since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza took effect last month. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has announced the expansion of the army’s operations, saying it aimed to stop Iran — Hamas’ ally — from opening up a new front in the occupied territory.

Palestinians see the shooting of Shalabi, 23, as part of a worrying trend toward more lethal, warlike Israeli tactics in the West Bank. The Israeli army issued a short statement afterward, saying it had referred her shooting to the military police for criminal investigation.

Also on Sunday, just a few streets away, another young Palestinian woman, 21, was killed by the Israeli army. An explosive device it had planted detonated as she approached her front door.

In response, the Israeli army said that a wanted militant was in her house, compelling Israeli forces to break down the door. It said the woman did not leave despite the soldiers’ calls. The army said it “regrets any harm caused to uninvolved civilians.”

Across the West Bank and east Jerusalem, at least 905 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Many appear to have been militants killed in gunbattles during Israeli raids. But rock-throwing protesters and uninvolved civilians — including a 2-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy and 73-year-old man — have also been killed in recent weeks.

“The basic rules of fighting, of confronting the Palestinians, is different now,” said Maher Kanan, a member of the emergency response team in the nearby village of Anabta, describing what he sees as the army's new attitude and tactics. “The displacement, the number of civilians killed, they are doing here what they did in Gaza.”

Mohammed Shula, 58, told The Associated Press that his son and daughter-in-law said they started plotting their flight from Nur Shams last week as Israeli drones crisscrossed the sky, Palestinian militants boobytrapped the roads and their baby's due date approached.

His son “was worried about (Shalabi) all the time. He knew that she wouldn’t be able to deliver the baby if the siege got worse,” he said.

Yazan Shula, a construction worker in Israel who lost his job after the Israeli government banned nearly 200,000 Palestinian workers from entering its territory, couldn't wait to be a father, his own father said.

Shalabi, quiet and kind, was like a daughter to him — moving into their house in Nur Shams 18 month sago, after marrying his son. “This baby is what they were living for," he said.

Early Sunday, the young couple packed up some clothes and belongings. The plan was simple — they would drive to the home of Shalabi’s parents outside the camp, some miles away in Tulkarem where soldiers weren't operating. It was safer there, and near the hospital where Shalabi planned to give birth. Yazan Shula's younger brother, 19-year-old Bilal, also wanted to get out and jumped in the backseat.

Not long after the three of them drove off, there was a burst of gunfire. Mohammed Shula's phone rang.

His daughter-in-law's breaths came in gasps, he said. An Israeli sniper had shot her husband, she told her father-in-law, and blood was flowing from the back of his head. She was unscathed, but had no idea what to do.

He coached her into staying calm. He told her to knock on the door of any house to ask for help. Her phone on speaker, he could hear her knocking and shrieking, he said. No one was answering.

She told him she could see soldiers approaching. The line went dead, said Mohammed Shula, who then called the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service.

“We couldn't go outside because we were afraid we'd be shot," said Suleiman Zuheiri, 65, a neighbor of the Shula family who was helping the medics reach their bodies. “We tried and tried. All in vain. (The medics) kept getting turned back, and the girl kept bleeding."

Bilal Shula wasn’t hurt. He was arrested from the scene and detained for several hours.

The Red Crescent said that the International Committee of the Red Cross had secured approval from the Israeli military to allow medics inside the camp. But the paramedics were detained twice, for a half-hour each time, as they made their way toward the battered car, it said.

When asked why soldiers had blocked ambulances, the Israeli military repeated that it launched an investigation into the events surrounding Shalabi's killing.

It wasn't until after 8 a.m. that medics finally reached the young couple, and were detained a third time while rushing the husband out of the camp to the hospital, the Red Crescent said.

Yazan Shula was unconscious and in critical condition, and, as of Tuesday, remains on life support at a hospital. Shalabi was found dead. Her fetus also did not survive the shooting.

Mohammed Shula keeps thinking about how soldiers saw Shalabi's body bleeding on the ground and did nothing to help as they handcuffed his other son and marched him into their vehicle.

“Why did they shoot them? They were doing nothing wrong. They could have stopped them, asked a question, but no, they just shot,” he said, his fingers busily rubbing a strand of prayer beads.

Israeli security forces invaded the camp some hours later. Explosions resounded through the alleyways. Armored bulldozers rumbled down the roads, chewing up the pavement and rupturing underground water pipes. The electricity went out. Then the taps ran dry.

Before Mohammed Shula could process what was happening, he said, Israeli troops banged on his front door and ordered everyone — his daughter, son and several grandchildren, one of them a year old, another 2 months old — to leave their home.

The Israeli military denied it was carrying out forcible evacuations in the West Bank, saying that it was facilitating the departure of civilians who wanted to leave the combat zone on their own accord. It did not respond to follow-up questions about why over a dozen Palestinian civilians interviewed in Nur Shams camp made the same claims about their forcible displacement.

Mohammed Shula pointed to a bag of baby diapers in the corner of his friend's living room. That's all he had time to bring with him, he said, not even photographs, or clothes.

Mohammed Shula poses for a photo inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula poses for a photo inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula displays an undated picture of his son Yazan, while inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula displays an undated picture of his son Yazan, while inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula displays a picture of his hospitalized son, Yazan, while inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula displays a picture of his hospitalized son, Yazan, while inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula displays a picture on his cellphone of him, center and his sons Bilal and Yazan, inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge in the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula displays a picture on his cellphone of him, center and his sons Bilal and Yazan, inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge in the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula speaks at a relative's house, where he and his wife have taken refuge, in the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mohammed Shula speaks at a relative's house, where he and his wife have taken refuge, in the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

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