From John Mandico:
One incident that does come to mind right away and was pretty
funny (at the time, anyway): We were on our way to Miami that Spring of
'76, driving (of course) with a couple of large rented vans. We were in
northern Florida and had been driving a long time and stopped to get
something to eat. I believe Jay Williams was driving, going pretty fast (of
course), when we hit some kind of pot-hole or speed bump and the van went
flying about six feet in the air (at least that what it seemed like in the
back of the van). We landed safely, but I'll never forget this: while the
rest of us were checking for broken bones, the first thing out of Capo's
(Tom Capotosto) mouth was, "Did my pizza land safely?"
Speaking of driving -- John (Mandico) you were driving O'Leary's van down the stretch
in Florida while we were watching ND v. Cincinnati in the NCAA tournament on
the portable TV in the van. ND was losing when I believe it was Toby Knight
scored the winning basket in the final seconds, and you were so absorbed in
the game that you drove the van completely off the highway into the grass.
Recall? (Another of those memories that make you shudder...) And didn't we
end up on the way back spending the night sleeping in the van at a gas
station in Georgia because Rich's van broke down? I believe Jay Williams
was at the helm.
In 1976, I drove down (to Miami) and took Dan Welch, PJ Kane (a female team
manager) and I believe Mark Carberry. We went a week early to ensure a long
stay in Florida. We had some great tans before the rest of the team showed
up. I didn't study as planned and I flunked my P. Chem test the day we
returned (which was dicey for a pre-med). Before we left South Bend, Dan and
I took my car out into the country to change the oil. Dan crawled under and
by mistake drained the transmission fluid by mistake. We added four quarts of
oil before we realized his mistake and had a thoroughtly disabled car. On the
way back we had a blow-out, the result of having studded tires in Florida.
Recollections of the 1976 Season
From Tom Capotosto:
From Chris Bowe:
I had a great time playing. The guys were great, a lot of real
characters. Almost everyone had a nickname. Mine was LeBeau. We performed an
exhibition during halftime of the Blue-Gold game one year (?76) which was
awesome just to be playing in ND Stadium. The roadtrips were the best part. I
remember playing at Wisconsin, when they had a brand new stadium. We were
televised locally and they introduced us individually in front of the camera
which was hilarious, as there couldn't have been fifty spectators at the
event.