NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Traditions are hard to manufacture.

Syracuse, for example, tried this year by creating a football team walk from the College Place bus stop through the Quad to the Carrier Dome on game days.

Fans paid little attention to the barely 3-month-old tradition. Maybe 30 years from now, thousands of Syracuse fans will line the Quad and actually care, but for now it’s a marketing ploy that needs a successful team more than anything else. Nobody is really craving the sight of SU athletes wearing their warm-ups on the way to the Dome.

Syracuse Director of Athletics Daryl Gross and Chancellor Nancy Cantor should have paid attention this weekend while at Notre Dame for examples of how to create traditions.

Even when the Notre Dame football team is bad, its stadium still sells out, dating back to 1973 – a span of 185 games. There have been a share of bad seasons mixed in, but alumni, students and Irish fans still make the trek.

People all over the country grow up and watch Notre Dame football on NBC. They see the mystique, they learn about the history and they become fans. And the desire burns strong to make at least that one trip to South Bend, Ind.

Saturday’s 34-10 victory over Syracuse was no different. A sellout crowd of 80,795 filled Notre Dame Stadium. Thousands of fans littered the campus throughout the morning. Some visited The Grotto, lit a candle and said a prayer.

Others visited the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and waited outside the chapel doors for Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis to lead his team, clad in suits, into the church for a pre-game service.

There were other fans who posed for pictures in front of the Golden Dome Main building or in front of Touchdown Jesus, a large mosaic that fills the wall of Hesburgh Library and reflects into a rectangular pool below. The mosaic faces across a quad to the stadium.

At one point Saturday morning, a father and son stood around taking pictures. The son wasn’t a student. The father wasn’t an Irish alum. They weren’t even from a surrounding state.

The two made the pilgrimage from Montana to see one game at Notre Dame. The father always watched Notre Dame on television and his son grew up doing the same. They were both fans without any real ties to the school.

And they both loved the experience.

They were no doubt just a few of many others making that same trek. Some do it every year, others just once. Thousands do it every home Saturday.

On Friday at 6 p.m., the Joyce Center filled to capacity for Notre Dame’s weekly pep rally. When the Irish played Southern California earlier in the season, the pep rally was moved to the stadium because the demand was so great.

Friday was just an average full venue, with some people standing at the tops of rows to catch a glimpse. Students wore different colored shirts based on what dorm they live in. A student team manager led the rally, dedicated to the seniors before their final game. Each senior was announced with his parents.

At the end, Weis, to the crowd’s great anticipation, came out and gave a short speech. The student section chanted Weis’ name and made a ‘W’ with their hands as the ‘1812 Overture’ played.

Weis spoke for a few moments, interrupted only by the crowd’s applause for the man who’s led Notre Dame to an 8-2 record and No. 6 national ranking. None of the fans seemed to care Friday or Saturday that Syracuse, with a 1-8 record, was the opponent.

The fans go to every game because the experience is more than the opponent. It’s more than just the game itself.

The Irish have 126 years of football tradition, none of which were manufactured overnight. It’s evolved. There are plenty of great marketing ideas for SU sports, but a Quad walk is simply just that: a marketing concept. You can’t just call it a tradition and expect people to treat it the same way.

If you do that, people will see right through it for what it really is. Fans want to get excited about a team and a program. Experiences must be built slowly and, most of all, people have to want to follow.

There will always be Notre Dame fans making that trip every Saturday, 80,000 strong showing loyal support. Most schools, like Syracuse, don’t have that same luxury.

Notre Dame is the exception.

Scott Bisang is a staff writer for The Daily Orange, where his columns appear occasionally. E-mail him at smbisang@syr.edu.

Published on November 20, 2005 at 12:00 pm