A football tradition that made Notre Dame unique nationally is coming to an end. Interhall tackle football will no longer be played at the university.
Based on what I remember from the only official campus tour I ever took in the late-nineties, it was the only fully padded, tackle football intramural program at a college in the United States.
According to Notre Dame’s student newspaper The Observer, a decline in numbers and a lack of students with tackle football experience led to the demise.
In 2017, 370 students participated in the program. That number fell substantially over the next few years, with just 269 students participating last fall, according to the letter. Additionally, the study found that 44% of participants had no prior organized tackle football experience prior to playing in the ITFB.
Listen, I didn’t go to Notre Dame and will not pretend I have a personal connection to this specific tradition. However, I remember being on a campus visit there in the late-90s, learning of it and thinking how cool that would be to participate in. Forget flag football, actual real tackle football with helmets and pads.
Oh well.
While 269 students seem enough to make something work, if roughly half of them are being taught to play tackle football for the first time that’s another beast. I don’t like seeing traditions die but honestly this feels more like a “I’m surprised it even lasted this long” type of thing.
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