Touchdown Jesus: Faith and Fandom at Notre Dame

by Scott Eden

An account of the Fighting Irish's 2004 football season explains how the team's seventeenth consecutive year without a national championship culminated in a fan rebellion against high-profile coach Tyrone Willingham as well as the school's clerical caretakers, in a chronicle that offers insight into Notre Dame's multitudinous and faith-motivated fan base. 75,000 first printing.

Genres: Sports

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 4, 2005

Reviews

[Mickey Mantle · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who did not attend the University of Notre Dame, this wonderful book will make anyone, football fan or not, want to get to a game there.
This book captures the quasi mystical aspect of an Autumn afternoon in South Bend.
The famed Subway Alumni are featured throughout....people who worship the Institution who have no tie to the University other than emotional.
It is difficult to generalize the throng at a football Saturday.....and the author certainly doesn't.

[Kb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I was hoping for more of a critical approach to "faith and fandom at ND," but this author is clearly a part of the fervor himself, so everything is shown through that lens. This is still pretty revealing at times.

[Kristy · Rating 2 out of 5]

All you ever wanted to know about the fan trails and politics involved with college football at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.