DAILY DOMER, OCT. 4: KUNTZ IS RAW IS WAR

It all began with a nice intro/tribute to Notre Dame's nine Olympians from Beijing, five of whom appeared in person. Then everyone's favorite Mexichaun, Juan Muldoon, introduced sophomore quarterback Jimmy Clausen. I cannot remember the last time that a sophomore spoke at an Irish pep rally (guessing BQQB), but Clausen was better than you'd expect...especially if you're a regular at his Wednesday afternoon press conferences (maybe Juan Muldoon should attend those, too).

"What's goin' on, ND?" Clausen began, before giving a shout-out to his dorm, St. Ed's (but not to any 3rd-grade classes). "We got the belief, we got the swagger, and most importantly, we got the Notre Dame tradition back."

Then Clausen asked if we all were ready to take it "to another level" with the team. This was where the school's witty, smart-alecky student body began to inject themselves into the festivities. Clausen singled out whose help the football team was enlisting: "The students, the fans, the alumni--"

At the word "alumni", there was a roar from one segment of the student section, a group of young men dressed in forest-green T-shirts. An outsider might have wondered what was up. The answer is that it was the gang from Alumni Hall (or "AlumniSucks", as we used to call them in neigboring Dillon Hall), who are Pavlovian in going nuts at any mention of the word "alumni" (in fact, they're probably doing so right now at the mention).

Good humor.

Next, Clausen invited Brown and Smith to help him get the crowd going. Clausen wanted to introduce a new spin on a relatively new cheer, the "Crank Me Up!" cheer. Basically, he said, in key moments, he needed one big drum beat followed by a single and loud intonation of "Crank Me Up!" The crowd pulled it off pretty well on the very next try.

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Next up was Terrail Lambert, who harkened back to his first pee wee football game at age 8 and asking his coach what the contact would feel like. "It boils downs," Lambert's coach told him, "to who's gonna be the hammer, and who's gonna be the nail."

"Let me get one thing clear," Lambert said, pulling out a large hammer from behind the podium (then quickly being wrestled to the ground by half a dozen members of the South Bend P.D....okay, not really, but you could see that happening, right?) and sweeping his arm toward his teammates. "There ain't no nails on this side of the fence."

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By now the crowd had more froth than a double-grande latte whipped. And here comes Kuntz, who's already well on the way to his next 'do, a Mohawk. After the bit where Parris pulled off his suit (I wish this were on YouTube for you....but it will be on the NBC broadcast), Kuntz began with, "Now Stanford's coming into town tomorrow--"

And this elicited a roar from another student section, because they are the men from Stanford Hall.

Kuntz grinned as if to say, "Cheeky lads", but in mock anger intoned, "Keep it down."

He began again, and once again used the magic word, "Stanford", and again the kids from that North Quad dormitory went nuts. This time Kuntz glared at them menacingly and simply said, "SHUT....IT!"

The crowd loved that.

Anyway, he then went off on everyone's favorite Cardinal offensive offensive lineman, Chris Marinelli. He read a few of Marinelli's quotes ("gash the [bleep] out of them"?) and that is when teammate and fellow off-campus housemate Kyle McCarthy took the mic from Kuntz, asking what he was going to do to this behemoth who'd be lining up across from him tomorrow. "I'm gonna rip his head off!" Kuntz replied.

By the way, you can scroll down on this story to read Marinelli's apology, which is as flush with the kind of heartfelt sincerity that only a university-issued press release can have.

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Final note of worthiness on the rally du pep: Charlie introduced gold medalists Mariel Zagunis (a fencer) and Kate Markgraf (soccer), who actually both have now won gold in each of the last two Olympics. They had sat next to Charlie the entire rally. Both spoke, but Markgraf, who has a magnetic charm to her (okay, she ain't hard on the eyes, you know?) gave a stirring speech about how she'd been lightly recruited out of high school. The Notre Dame coach, though, told her he thought she belonged at Notre Dame because she had, "Character, integrity and so much heart that you never quit."

After they both spoke, they doffed their gold medals and put them around Weis's neck. Charlie was cool about it. He let them do it, but quickly took them off and returned them as if to say, "I didn't earn these; you did."

That's when the best unscripted moment of the rally occurred. The Mexichaun approached the mic to introduce Charlie and he said, "I'm surprised he gave them back. I wouldn't have. Then again, he (Charlie) couldn't get very far with them."
It was said almost as an afterthought, but the crowd heard it, and there was some good-natured booing. The Mexichaun may want to be careful the next few days.

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Final note on the rally. When it concluded, and I'm sure Charlie had ordered his team to do this, every last Irish player stood in line to shake hands with both Zagunis (still an ND student) and Markgraf (graduated in '99). It was a "Stay Classy, ND" moment. 

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Saw Ghost Town the other night. Loved it, and highly recommend. If I can go Hollywood on you for a moment, "It's The Sixth Sense meets Groundhog Day." My buddy Mike and I were analyzing this and we both decided that a movie set that had Greg Kinnear, Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Kristen Wiig may just have been the greatest set to hang around and shoot the breeze that has ever been. We imagined them writing and filming extra scenes just for an excuse to hang out together for another week. That was no David Caruso, Sean Young, Matthew Perry-in-his-dependency days set.

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And finally, before I head over to Notre Dame Stadium, a very, very, very, very, very HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY to the funniest woman I know, Katie McCollow.