Week One, Part 6 - Rudy!

I find the Hammes Bookstore on the south quad, next to the Knights of Columbus building. An elderly man at the doorway says no backpacks allowed. Students seem unperturbed by the rule and toss their Timberline bags – hundreds of them – up against the cream-colored brick.

Inside, the bookstore buzzes with conversation and cash registers. Each aisle is packed with undergrads, and I’m bumped or jostled every few steps. There are only 10,000 students at Notre Dame, and it feels like most of them are right here.

The movie “Rudy” is playing on a dozen TV’s suspended at strategic points from the ceiling. I can’t hear the dialogue, though, because “U-93, today’s best music” drowns it out.

My mother is the bookstore manager at Pillsbury College, my alma mater, so I’m sympathetic to the hectic nature of a first week. Still, I’m impatient. The other law students bought their books last weekend. So while they’re briefing Pennoyer v. Neff, I’m stuck in Aisle Three.

It’s soon apparent that a better name for the bookstore would be the Notre Dame Clothing & Souvenir Shoppe. The entire first floor is rack after rack of sweatshirts, neckties, umbrellas, and, of course, footballs – leather, rubber, and Nerf. There’s even garbage cans and soap dishes, all with the Notre Dame logo. I don’t see textbooks anywhere. Those, I’m told, are on the second floor.

I make my way up a narrow staircase. In the book rows, students are shoulder to shoulder, like a goal line defense. The lines to the cash registers at the far wall extended all the way across the room. I run off tackle to the legal section.

All told, my bookstore visit sucks up three hours. Half the time to find my books, the rest to stand in line. I spend $287 on texts and $3 on a diskette holder, blue with a gold monogram on the cover.

Near the exit I stop and catch a bit of “Rudy.” The groundskeeper, Fortune, is telling the walk-on, “You’re five foot nothing, 100 and nothing, with barely a speck of athletic talent. Yet for two years you hung with the best football team in the land. And what are you going to get? You’re going to get a degree from the University of Notre Dame! Now that’s worth it’s weight in gold.”

Yeah! I turn and walk out into the sunshine. Like Rudy, I had little chance of getting into Notre Dame. No alumni connections. No Ivy League degree. No letters of recommendation from famous people. Yet here I am, hoping to hang with the best.

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