[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7csGhMQoQms]
WRITER: Michael J. Shea and John F. Shea
YEAR WRITTEN: 1908
HOW YOU PROBABLY KNOW THIS TUNE: Slowly building in the background as Pat O’Brien gives his “win one for the Gipper speech” in Knute Rockne, All American (or a parody of the speech in Airplane!).
FORWARD, “MARCH”: There are many great college fight songs — like “On Wisconsin” or “Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” or “Washington and Lee Swing” — but there is only one “Notre Dame Victory March.” With a brass-friendly melody that recalls a bygone era of raccoon coats and hip flasks, it has transcended the leafy tranquility of South Bend, Indiana and has become synonymous with football played anywhere on crisp fall afternoons. Thing is, it took several decades before the song, written by brothers Michael (N.D., class of 1905) and John Shea (’06), was widely embraced on campus. And it was never intended to celebrate gridiron glories; the march was initially associated with baseball, which was the popular collegiate sport of that time. When Notre Dame’s football program began its storied climb in the late 1920s, the school’s band director tweaked the song’s original arrangement and both entered our national consciousness.
MEMORABLY USED IN … A practice scene from Rudy
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTK-M9YAnU8]