Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame's band

The Notre Dame players are coming. The gold helmets are coming. The ghosts of football lore are coming. Limping Charlie Weis is coming. Old Blood ‘n Guts Coach D — defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta — is coming.

But here’s the bummer, and it’s a big one. The Notre Dame marching band, the oldest in all the land, will not make the trip to North Carolina for Saturday’s game.

A Notre Dame game without the Notre Dame band just isn’t the way it’s supposed to go. But times are tight, and there are 380 members of the Irish band. That’s right — 380 folks.

“We’re probably only making one very long road trip this season, Southern Cal,” said Tina Durski, senior administrator of the band. “We’d love to go to Carolina, though. It’s just not going to happen, but it’d be a great trip.”

Here’s the part — the second stanza of the famous “Notre Dame Victory March” — that fans at the game will miss most:

“Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name
Send a volley cheer on high
Shake down the thunder from the sky!
What though the odds be great or small,
Old Notre Dame will win over all,
While her loyal sons are marching Onward to victory!”

That’s hard to beat if you really like college football and college bands. I’m a football band freak, and have been since the earliest years of my life.

Notre Dame has had a marching band since 1845, which was before I got into sports writing. That was before football in the most technical sense. Heck, it was before the Civil War, and the Model-T and before most of the world had even heard about Notre Dame.

In my opinion, the signature song and band almost go hand-in glove. The band can be great, but the song can be bad. But when you have the great band and the great song, you’re hitting for the cycle.

Here are my top-10 all-time in that regard:

1. Texas A&M, “Aggie War Hymn”
2. Notre Dame, “Notre Dame Victory March”
3. Michigan, “The Victors”
4. U.S. Military Academy, “Brave Ol’ Army Team”
5. Alabama, “Yea Alabama”
6. Georgia Tech, “Ramblin’ Wreck”
7. Ohio State, “Across the Field”
8. Southern California, “Fight on for Old SC”
9. Wisconsin, “On Wisconsin”
10. Tennessee, “Rocky Top”

Carolina’s band may be the best recognized from November through March, however.

But the classic basketball pep band standoff is on those rare Saturdays of the ACC Tournament, when you’re apt to hear “Tar Heel Born” from the Heels, or the “Red and White” from N.C. State, Duke’s “Devil in a Blue Dress”, Wake Forest’s “Sons of Wake Forest” but it’s really fun when that old “Tiger Rag” gets ripped out by the Clemson kids.

I know Choo Choo Justice would turn over in his grave and Bill Dooley might order me to drop and give him 50 push-ups on the spot, but I’d love to see the Carolina band come out Saturday in Kenan Stadium and reward Notre Dame with a big Southern “howdy” by playing that second stanza of the March.

What would it hurt? It would be a terrific gesture to the origins of the sport. And win or lose, what’s a Notre Dame game without a volley cheer on high?