God has spoken -- Georgetown defeats ND

Through a confluence of events i've had Georgetown, Notre Dame and Catholicism on my mind in the last twenty four hours. I don't normally believe in signs from God, in fact i've only had one such event in my life...more on that later, but i can't ignore this any longer.  (it might help to have 5 large beers before reading this like i did this afternoon if you really want to follow this)

Let's start at last night.  I went to a Georgetown event in nyc last night.  I never go to these things, but they were honoring my roomate and he's a great guy.  I sat next to President DeGoia(he's very conversant on the basketball team btw.) and caught up for Father Donovan who was at the next table.  I even spent a few minutes with Father Hentz who taught me about the problem of God even though i had to remind him i was a student of his many years ago.

Then this morning on the train, i passed my idle time casually reading the best blog on the internet and rereading dave marsh's springsteen biography.  The casual subject today was obviously the shortcomings of the fighting Irish.  It forced me to confront a long ago past conflict with the most religious person i've ever known, my grandmother.  A daily church- goer, my grandmother never quite came to terms with the fact I didn't go to Notre Dame.  And i mean that literally.  Her health failing my first year at Georgetown, she aggresively told the doctors and nurses at the hospital two things about her only grandson -- he was a Notre Dame graduate and he was currently in Rome at the Vatican as the personal assistant to the Pope. (For fact checkers -- I was a sophomore at Georgetown during these months.)

Ok so where does God guaranteeing a Georgetown win come in....i'm getting to that.  When i was at Georgetown i was a pretty serious student.  How i got there had something to do with it.  I applied to Georgetown as a high school senior and was rejected.  I remember a nice note with the forwarding numbers to the admissions office at Villanova and St Johns as more acceptable schools for a student of my "capabilites." 

After working hard at an obscure college in SW Virginia for a year, I applied to Georgetown as a transfer student.  Again I was rejected with a nice note suggesting that i look at more "realistic" schools for me.  Not to be deterred, I found our that a guy name Deacon was the head of admissions.  So i sent him a letter explaining the obvious mistake the school had made and informing him that despite the "miscommunication" i was still willing to attend Georgetown in the fall.  Of course he agreed and the letter of acceptance came about two weeks before school started.

Why am I telling this part of the story?   To underline how serious a student i was.  Being a serious student i was determined to ace the first big test at school.  The problem...the night before the test Bruce Springsteen was playing at the Capitol Center.  I had never seen Bruce, nor had i ever taken a test at Georgetown.  After much soul searching I went to the concert....and it was unbelievable and it went 4 hours and it required nearly a keg of beer to get through and, much to my dismay i had nothing left for that first test at Georgetown.

Enter the divine spirit. I showed up for the test severely hungover and ready to go back to SW Virginia.  As the teacher was passsing out the exams a swarm of bees, seriously, attacked the classroom.  Before you knew it, everyone had to evacuate the classroom and the exam the postponed.  From that moment on i believed there was a God.

So what does that have to do with tomorrow.  Driving home tonight from the office I was thinking about he game, about Georgetown and Notre Dame.  i put my XM radio on the E Street Radio Channel and they were playing an excellent live concert. When i looked down at the dial i couldn't believe it...it was November 2nd, 1978 at the Capitol Center...the very concert i attented 32 years ago.

Mark it down.  God doesn't mess around with Bruce and Georgetown.  He's decided.  We win tomorrow.