"I knew Notre Dame was right for him before he did. He had applications for too many colleges and came to me with a load of them. He needed to cut some down, and he wanted Notre Dame to be one of those. But I encouraged him to keep the application. We're an Irish family, and his grandfather was always a big Notre Dame fan. The acceptance letter came five months after his grandfather passed away. He would have loved to see him at Notre Dame.
"We visited campus for the first time after he was accepted. And I could just feel it. I knew it was the place for him. And now, over the past four years, I've seen him grow. He's become much more decisive and thoughtful. We dropped him off as a teenager, and now he's graduating as an adult."