When Catonsville High girls soccer coach James Fitzpatrick asks his son, Jay, why he chose to go to college at Notre Dame, the half-joking reply is “for six home football games a year.”
The Fitzpatrick family members are die-hard Fighting Irish football fans and plan on being part of the 70,000-plus in attendance when Notre Dame faces Navy for the 80th straight year Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium. Despite the game being played just outside Navy?s Annapolis home, there is a good chance more of the fans will be like the Fitzpatrick family, making the game more like a road contest for the Midshipmen.
“Baltimore is a fun place to play,” Navy coach Paul Johnson said. “It?s a great stadium. I just hope our fans turn out. Last time we played them there, they had more fans than we did. Sure, I would like to have a partisan crowd on our side, but it is what it is. They are a national team, too, I think.”
A number of other fans ? about 3,500, to be exact ? bought their tickets through the Notre Dame Club of Maryland. Club board member Michael Muldowney estimates there are 5,000 Notre Dame alumni in the Baltimore-Washington area.
He said he expects Notre Dame fans from throughout the mid-Atlantic region to root on the Fighting Irish Saturday since most don?t have the opportunity to travel to South Bend, Ind. The game represents the first time the series has been held in Baltimore since 2002. It will return to the city in 2008.
“We sold all of the tickets allocated to us, and we have a lot more people with their friends and family looking to find tickets of their own,” Muldowney said. “We treat this game with reverence, and we want to honor Navy as much as Notre Dame.”
As for James Fitzpatrick, he did not go to Notre Dame, but the program was the only college football team he followed growing up in Baltimore County.
“It?s a stereotypical Irish thing,” he said. “My father was aNotre Dame fan, so I became a Notre Dame fan and then my son became a fan growing up, too.”
Also in attendance during the game will be members of five families who have lost a loved one to active duty in the military. They will watch the game in a food-filled suite purchased by current Raven and Notre Dame alumnus Gerome Sapp. The gesture is part of Project Open Armed Forces, a program created by Sapp and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. TAPS is a nonprofit veteran service organization that offers comfort to families who lose a loved one in military active duty.
Rivalry notes
» Notre Dame Club of Maryland board member Michael Muldowney said many Notre Dame fans? respect for Navy runs deeper than just their gratefulness for the Midshipmen?s military service. He said that in 1942, the U.S. Navy opened the Naval Reserve training facility on the Notre Dame campus, which helped keep the college afloat while its enrollment plummeted during World War II.
