"I grew up in a single-parent household. It was always my mom and me--and, of course, I was a Mama's Boy. There were gaps in my life where a father figure would have been. I couldn't drive stick shift. I didn't know how to tie a tie for prom. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom. She's very much a girly girl, though. When it came time to look at colleges, I was set on going to UT Austin. They had a good engineering program, all my friends were going there, and it was close to home. But then Notre Dame reached out to me. They weren't just catering to me; they focused on my mother as well. That struck me: that Notre Dame was not just about an individual, but about family, my mom included.
"Being at Notre Dame has meant time spent in an all-male dorm, around kids who had that whole-family experience--and creating a new family here. Looking back to freshman me, I would tell him, 'Don't worry. Notre Dame is going to take care of you.' I've learned what it means to be a man, what it means to take responsibility, what it means to grow. And of course it's still far-off, but when the time comes, I honestly do feel prepared to be that man, that father figure, to my own family someday."

(Note: this is the first interview that has ever made me cry.)