On graduation

I think that one of the hardest feelings to describe is the one that you get when you go back someplace that you used to belong but have now outgrown.  The first time I remember feeling it was when I watched my high school's basketball team play for the first time after I graduated, but since then it has come and gone in a predictable fashion.  When I walk past my old dorm room, or go to a restaurant I used to take an ex to, or even just drive down a street in my old hometown it always hits me.  Everything is the same except for me.  The faces change but the jerseys on the players and the colors in the bleachers and the bunk beds and the menus don't.  It's a humbling reminder that the world rolls on without me.

It isn't really a bad emotion, but it does make me feel a little inconsequential.  Although President Obama would surely disagree, the world doesn't need any one person to function.  It would absolutely be slightly different if any of us were taken away.  Not everyone can be George Bailey, and while I feel like I can bring some solid stuff to the table every once in a while there isn't really a time when people say, "Wow I really wish we had a wannabe writer slash fizzled-out athlete slash unsure-of-how-he'll-get-where-he-wants-to-be-in-ten-years single dude with terrible hair right now.  That's exactly what we need."

Having recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame, I know that this feeling will come back every time that I go back to campus, which I will surely do probably hundreds of times for football games, to see my brother, to see my children when they attend (oh they will), etc, etc, and on and on forever and ever.  I'll think of all of the location-specific memories that will spring up on almost every square inch of that campus, from the quad to the bookstore courts to the stadium to the grotto to the lakes to the library.  It's not like they are things that will really go away either.  Sure, they'll obviously blur and the inconsequential details will go away, but the meaning of the moments will stay.  The nights spent on our balcony or on South Quad, the long walks back from the library at 4:00 am during midterms week, the times I've laughed and cried and smiled at the grotto, I can tell you when and why each place on that campus means something to me, but now when I come back, there will be someone else in those places, probably doing those things, and I wonder how it will make me feel.

The best backyard in the world

But before this turns into a look-at-me pity plea (which I do love to do), I'd like to describe just how not-sad I've been in the past few weeks and months.

I had been mentally preparing myself to be very sad before, during, and after senior week and graduation, and while there have been some moments, like the first day of spring and the hours after my last test, that I have gotten nostalgic, for the most part I have been able to be very even keel.  I know that I'm not representative of everybody in that regard, and I know that there will be more moments like the ones listed before, but even though I know that I'm done at Notre Dame, I also know that Notre Dame isn't over.

This seems silly and contradictory, I know, but let me explain.  The last person that I went to see at Notre Dame was one of my favorite priests (also: favorite people).  The first thing that he asked was explicitly, "Are you sad?"  I told him what I just told you, and he didn't seem surprised at all.  He went on to talk about my friends, and how good of people they are, and how he was sure that we would keep track of each other and, in doing so, take care of each other.  He talked about all the ways that Notre Dame had fostered (and stressed the importance of) community, and how I was (and presumably we were) more prepared for success than I could imagine.  That advice (and whenever you get advice it really should come from either your family or a priest, right???), combined with a three hour drive home, got me thinking, and I think that I finally understood why I haven't been all that sad.

First of all, like Father said, I have developed a friend group of incredible people.  At freshman orientation they tell you that you're going to make lifelong friends in college.  Friends who will be in your weddings, friends who you'll talk to every week, friends who...blahblahblah, and everybody kind of believes it by default because you'll be with them for four years.  It'd be impossible to not make a couple of good friends during those four years, but everybody also believes that statement is a little exaggerated.  Some of the closest people in my life are from home.  People who I've known for over a decade.  Some who I've known practically since my first conscious memories.  How could these people come even close to that in four years?

To be honest, I don't completely know when it happened, but at some point during the lunches and dinners and studying and slacking when we should have been studying and praying and playing and stress and fights and wins and losses and drinks you realize that you've stumbled across a group of people that genuinely love you, and that will do just about anything for you.  I consider people from Massachusetts and Missouri and New York and Virginia and Wyoming and California and Nebraska and Texas and Kansas and Florida and Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania who are going to write novels and save people's lives and do service work and help children and launch rockets and build airplanes and design buildings and make combined billions in investments and play professional sports to be among my closest friends, which is amazing, but on top of that they're also among the very most kind, caring, humble people I know and they'd all be willing to fight for me and vice versa.  That's pretty cool.

I also thought about the education I've received.  I've learned at the top Catholic institution in the world.  Only 2000 people every year get a chance to say that.  It's not something to be undervalued.  I've received a broad education as well, as has everyone at Notre Dame, due to their requirements of theology and science and math and literature.  College is a time for growing up, but it's also a time for expansion, for growing up in every area, and I've had an opportunity to do that, even if I didn't realize it exactly as it happened.

The point of education is not to receive a degree or a certification or whatever symbol of accomplishment is presented.  The point of education is empowerment.  Empowerment to do a job, yes, but also to do good things, to take care of people, to continue to learn, and to reflect all of the things that have been projected on me, explicitly and implicitly, over the past four years.  So while it may be clear that the world will roll on without me, and some 18 year-old, yet-to-be-humbled, ignorant kid will take my place at Notre Dame in the fall, and will walk on the quad that used to partially belong to me and pray in the grotto that used to be the nearest sanctuary for me, that doesn't mean that Notre Dame is over for me.  Notre Dame transcends its campus, as do all colleges.  Notre Dame is in the way that I've learned is the right way to treat people.  Notre Dame is in the brothers I've gained.  Notre Dame is in the success I've had.

I had it backwards.  For the past four years I wasn't a part of Notre Dame that could be replaced in any way but the physical sense.  For the past four years I've allowed Notre Dame to become who I am.  So graduating isn't defined by me leaving, but rather by me going forth with what I've been given and showing the world exactly how special all of it is.

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a strong mind." 
- 2 Timothy 1:7

On flushing it and hitting your free throws

Opening Day is one of my favorite holidays of every year for a few reasons.  First, the Indians are still in the hunt.  Second, there are few things more beautiful than those pictures of gigantic American flags being rolled out in the outfield while grown men line up in their whites and grays to play a boy's game.  Third, because it makes me fall in love all over again with the most beautiful pastime there is.

Opening Day 2013 in the Cathedral of the Bronx

My earliest memories are from the baseball field in our side yard, and the majority of my most important moments have happened on this and other ballfields, other places of learning.  Learning how to wait on a curveball and how to read a fly ball off of the bat, learning how to round first base to stretch a single into a double, learning how to wear my socks at just the right length below the knee, learning how and when to use a takeout slide, and most importantly, learning that nobody is above failure.

Every coach that I have played for has understood that failure is part of the game.  My high school  coach used to tell us to Flush It whenever we came back into the dugout after really screwing up.  Not like if you hit a line drive that turned into an out, but rather times when you made an error, or threw to the wrong base, or got fooled by a bad pitch, or hung a curveball that got belted into the stratosphere.  When these mistakes happened, my coaches made me realize that either I could dwell on them and let them eat at me, or I could face up to what happened, figure out why I had made the error, understand that there was nothing I could do to take back the throw that I'd made into the third row, there was no way to get the ball back.  Flush and move on.

Young William with a Flush It play (but great calves) - June 2008

Like all lessons that you can learn from baseball (which is only a game because it couldn't be a philosophy), the ability to Flush It can be applied in every setting in the world, from school to romance to work to anything else, and as I reach what is the biggest turning point that I've faced so far in my life (going from college into the real world/childhood into adulthood/with a support system to on my own), I've found it useful to think about when I look back on the most recent phase of my life.  In my years at college I've screwed up academically, athletically, and socially (not necessarily in order of frequency or severity), and I've done it more times than I can count.  I've bailed on potential relationships because I've been afraid to commit, I've lacked interest in subject matter to the point where I bombed tests and backed my way into passing grades, I've tested friendships because I don't have an off switch on the basketball court, I've been cut from the baseball team, I've lied, I've cheated, I've given up, I've compromised my morals, I've done pretty much everything that everyone would tell you to avoid doing.

College is a period of difficult transitions, and I've grown up more in this time than I ever thought I could have before I came here.  I've accomplished some things and I've screwed some things up, probably at about a .290 batting average with my slugging percentage is floating right around .500. But these numbers, in whatever dimensions they exist, belong to the past.  The damage has been done, or not.  There's nothing that I can do now except to accept that it's gone, Flush It, and then learn from it.  The people around me may or may not accept it, but I can become better, and in the end, that's what's important.  What's done is done.

Okay Young William, so what do you do after you flush it?

Young William at the stripe - February 2007

Because I'm unable to talk in any way but through sports analogies, I'm going to pull from the arsenal again here, but I'll spare baseball.  As my older brother once told me, "Sometimes you get to be Maverick, sometimes you have to be Goose, and sometimes you crash."  I've crashed my fair share, I got to be Maverick on the baseball diamond, but on the basketball court I was always Goose.  My senior year I led the team in minutes because it didn't really matter if I fouled out.  The only other statistical categories that I think I've ever led teams in are fouls and charges taken.  I stayed in games because I played good defense, I didn't turn the ball over, and I made my free throws.

There's nothing like free throws in any other team sport.  Nowhere else are you presented with an opportunity in the form of an unguarded attempt to score points on any regular basis.  There's just you and the hoop, the shot is always the same distance away no matter where you go, and so theoretically, if you've practiced enough, you should be able to make it every time with your eyes closed.  Watch any game in which a team shoots 50% from the free throw line: the announcer is right: free throws are of eternal significance.

There are free throws in life.  There are things that we know will occur and that we can control.  We need to be successful in these things.  We need to be nice to our girlfriend's parents, we need to be confident in interviews, we need to love and take care of our family and friends.  There are very few things that we can actually control, so when they're placed in our lap - when we're fifteen feet away and unguarded - we need to be automatic.

The world is a scary place.  It's manipulating, it's demanding, it's forceful, and it's cruel, but that does not mean that it owns us.  When the world beats us down, we can flush our mistakes and move on.  When we see openings to success, we need to make our free throws.  The world is hard but it is not impossible, and if we are willing to learn from things and then flush them, and if we can make our free throws, the future doesn't seem so daunting after all.

On senses of entitlement

Earlier today, I had a test in my Labor Econ class (it was tough, but I think it went well, thanks for asking!).  Before the test, the professor wrote "Stay calm and THINK" on the whiteboard in the front of the room.  It was interesting to me because of its simplicity and its power.  We, as a collective country (world?), fail to do at least one of those things, and all too often we fail to do both.

Later this afternoon, Notre Dame announced that the commencement speaker in May for the Class of 2013 would be Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, one of the most powerful people in the Catholic Church, and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.  Of course everyone was ecstatic.  Here we were, at the best Catholic university in the United States (and I'm assuming world but I can't back that up), getting the Cardinal of New York, a longshot candidate of being the next Pope, as our commencement speaker.  Live and in person.  Wow!

Wait, that's not what happened at all.

Before I get into the actual result, let's give a brief history of Notre Dame Commencement Speakers of Recent Memory (NDCSRMs).

2012: Haley Scott DeMaria, a former Notre Dame swimmer who was severely injured, and survived, the brutal 1992 bus crash that killed two of her teammates.  On the 20th anniversary of the incident you would think that Notre Dame students would be excited to hear her inspiring words of perseverence and the strength of the Notre Dame family.  Nope, everyone complained.

2011: Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, leader of two wars, former President of Texas A&M, the 7th largest university in the United States.  Pretty cool, right?  Nope, according to Patrick McDonnell, "I saw that a few students were excited, but most reactions were of indifference, simple acceptance or slight disappoint."

2009: Barack Obama, newly elected President of the United States.  The Leader of the Free World!  Whether I voted for him or not, this is amazing!  What an opportunity!  Nope, we complained because he was pro-choice.  We complained about the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD.  Would we complain if Jesus came back down from Heaven to give the address???

Notre Dame complaining about having to sit through a boring lecture from the President

Now let's try to stay calm and think for a while.

The point of college, when you strip it down, is education.  See: The University of Phoenix.  At the end of the day, we are paying for the quality of education.  Higher quality education = higher tuition costs.  Tuition is also inflated by research that the school does, the social and charitable work that the school does, and the quality of life on campus (basically all non-school, non-charitable benefits to a student) to break it down to an extremely basic level.  Let's see how Notre Dame does at all of those:

Education

• 17th best University in the U.S. - US News and World Report
• 12th best College - Forbes
• Best Business School - Bloomberg
• 10th highest median starting salary at $53,400 (across all majors) - PayScale
• An 11-1 student to faculty ratio
• 65 degree programs
• Excellent Career Center and Career Fairs
• Signaling effect to employers from a Notre Dame degree

Social/Charitable

• 53 Student Service Organizations
• 9 Student Religious Organizations
• Events such as Bengal Bouts and Bookstore Basketball that support worldwide charities
• Connections to local community service institutions
• Access to hundreds of Holy Cross priests

Quality of Life

• 19th best Food Services in the Country
• Prettiest campus in the world
• 385 clubs and organizations
• Over 20 Division 1 sports teams
• The 2nd best football team in the country in 2012
• New facilities (Mendoza, DPAC, Jordan, Rolfs, Purcell Pavilion)

When we pay for college, we pay for the access to all of these things.  We aren't entitled to any of them, we aren't guaranteed any of them, we are simply given access to them and the opportunity to use them.  Everyday, Notre Dame students take advantage of these opportunities without gratitude because we feeling entitled to them.  And maybe we are.  Maybe we deserve them because of the check that we write every six months.   I don't think that we deserve any of this.

The four years that I have had at Notre Dame have been, by far, the best four years of my entire life.  I've grown in academic ways, in social ways, in religious ways, and in personal ways.  Did I know I was going to go to a great school in August of 2009 when I first arrived at Alumni Hall?  Yes.  But I had no idea that I would become a better, more well-rounded person who was better prepared to go out and face the world.  I will be eternally grateful for what Notre Dame gave me.  College isn't about buying a diploma so you can get a job.  College is about growing as a person, and Notre Dame, more than any school in the entire world (research not needed, differing opinions ignored), allows, and forces, students to grow as people.

So back to my first point about Cardinal Dolan.  Every single review I saw of the choice of him as speaker was negative or sarcastic.  They pointed to how he wouldn't be funny.  They called him a homophobe.  They said it wasn't as good as Brian Williams from three years ago.

There are things that are wrong with Cardinal Dolan.  Most notably, he's a strong opponent to gay marriage, but so is the Catholic Church and we've all decided to go to their school.  He's strongly against abortion, which Notre Dame and the Church also agree with him on.  He investigated a sex abuse scandal and took priesthood away from the offenders, which we're all in favor of.  At the end of the day, he's a successful, and very powerful, religious man that we can all learn from.

So what do we think we're entitled to?  I've heard multiple people complain because Stephen Colbert turned us down (may or may not be a rumor, I have no idea), who was a former commencement speaker at Knox College and at Northwestern.  How dare he turn down prestigious Notre Dame?!?!?!  Who would have the gumption to do that?!?!?!  Now we're stuck with this Cardinal?  I can't believe I'm paying $50,000 for this.

If Notre Dame wanted to, they could mail us our diplomas and not have a ceremony at all.  That wouldn't change our standing as graduates, and it wouldn't take away what we had done, and how we had grown, during our time here.  Instead, they're throwing us a party on a beautiful May morning in the most storied football stadium in the world and we can invite whoever we want.  If you want a different speech, that's fine.  Here's Colbert.  Here's Will Ferrell.  Here's Brian Williams.  Here's Steve Jobs.  Are they any less meaningful words because they were directed at Northwestern or Harvard or Stanford and not the 2013 Class at Notre Dame?  Is Cardinal Dolan not going to say something interesting or inspiring as well?  Isn't a new speaker better than hearing a backup speech from someone who has already done it somewhere else?

What I'm trying to say is that we aren't paying $50,000 for a 20 minute speech at our graduations.  We aren't paying for our graduation.  We're paying it for our four years of experiences, of which graduation is simply a period on the end of a chapter.  Anyone choosing to speak to us should be something that we're grateful for, not that we feel entitled to.  So instead of complaining because we didn't get more whipped cream on dessert at the end of a beautiful, gourmet meal, how about we appreciate what we've been given already, and look forward to what Cardinal Dolan will say.

On Springtime

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Three minutes ago I was trying to figure out just how to get away from South Bend, which is ironic considering what I’m about to write but not so unbelievable considering the conditions at the time.  For the past week, in every spare minute I’ve had (and in some minutes that really shouldn’t have been considered “spare”) I’ve been refreshing Indians.com and @MLBastian’s twitter feed in order to keep myself as up to date as I possibly can on the Tribe’s progress in Spring Training.  It’s been the most exciting and productive offseason in recent memory, and I’ve been counting down the days (40!) until they open the season in Toronto.  The fact that they’re in beautiful Arizona with its sunshine and mountain backdrops while I’m in South Bend with its sleet and haze has only made me want to mentally move from here to there that much more.

That’s how we get back to me wanting to leave South Bend.  I went to map out the distance from South Bend to Goodyear, AZ, but before I could find anything out (1840 miles, 27 hours according to the speed limits) the picture below popped up to remind me where I am.

When I saw that picture I got a feeling not unlike the one that you get when you see a girl you’re into flirting with another guy.  Gravity loses a grip on your stomach, your shoulders fall, and you’d give anything to just be able to turn and look away but you know it’s pretty much useless to even try.  There’s a time bomb in your pocket and no matter what you do or say you know that eventually you’re going to lose them.  On this cold, windy, snowy-but-not-pretty-snow day in South Bend that picture showed me the warm-weather Notre Dame that's going to appear in a few weeks, and while I love everything about Notre Dame, that's the Notre Dame that I love best, and that's the Notre Dame that I'm going to miss.

Notre Dame is special in the springtime more than any other time of the year.  Springtime is when basketball games move outdoors, organized events slow down and free time builds out, and futons move onto the quad just in time for Sundress Day.  Springtime is when the afternoon sun hits the stained glass of Alumni Chapel perfectly, warms the balconies enough for a rooftop happy hour, and then slips over the top of the Rock in the prettiest sunset in the world.

Beat that.

Springtime is when you spend more time with your friends because you know you won't see them in months, it's when you stop spending so much time studying, either because you don't care or because you have the class pattern down, it's when you walk just a little slower to lectures because it's that nice out.  Springtime is when reading moves from library tables to lakeside benches, it's when Fridays and Saturdays become one long various-shades-of-drunk bonding session, and when you start to hear the bagpipes on the breeze in the late afternoon. Springtime is when shirts turn to tanks, it's when you trade cab rides for group walks, and it's when God washes over campus in the form of cool evening humidity.  Springtime is when Notre Dame comes out in full force to really ensure that you miss it all summer.  I've always loved it, except this time the summer away that follows South Quad Spring won't turn back into Football Fall.

Starting three months from now, South Bend won't be home ever again.  There will be springs wherever I go and I don't know what they will be like, but whatever they are, they won't bring what's coming in the next few weeks, and I hate knowing that, but at the same time, I've been blessed with the experience of springtime here that only a few get to know.  So while I'm going to have to part ways with it eventually, and while that feeling in my stomach might come back, I still can't wait for it to come.