There’s no doubt about it: 2020 has been hard on all of us. Whether big or small, COVID-19 is a real presence in our lives. Even with two vaccines slowly beginning to be rolled out, they’ve come too late to prevent many of us from spending Christmas away from our loved ones. It’s one more loss in a year that’s taken so many things away from us.
I was no exception to any of this. On Easter, I lost my 95-year-old grandmother, the wife of a proud Notre Dame alumnus whose ties to the university are why I embrace the gold and blue. Over the summer, the uncertainty caused by the virus led my fiancee and I to postpone our Nov. 7 wedding and our life together by a year, though that allowed me to cover an Irish upset of Clemson that ranks near the top of games in the program’s history. On Oct. 14, we had to mourn the sudden death of my fiancee’s father who, despite being an avowed Notre Dame hater and loyalist to Nick Saban and Alabama, gave me his blessing to propose to his daughter the year before.
But through all of that and much more, I had Fighting Irish Wire to come back to, and it’s a community I’ve been proud to be a part of. I want to thank Nick Shepkowski for bringing me aboard a year ago and running this site as smoothly and professionally as possible. I also want to thank Michael Chen and Jeff Feyerer for writing with such quality that I’ve been encouraged to raise my own game. Special thanks also goes to Patrick Sturgeon, our managing editor, for his leadership and always giving us guidance to make this a site with content to rival that of more prominent outlets in sports journalism.
Most of all, I want to thank the readers for coming back here, trusting us and spreading the word about us. You make it worth the time we spend to inform you of all things Notre Dame. We always wonder what it is we’ll write next that resonates with a lot of people. Because of you, we’ve had pieces make rounds all over the internet, and that gives us great pride and gratification.
Wherever you are, stay safe as we celebrate a holiday season none of us has experienced before. We want 2021 to be a year in which you continue to come back here. More importantly, we want it to be a year in which we’re able to keep doing things we love and get back at least some of what we had in 2019. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!