If you thought that "We are ND" video had a certain '80s lameness to it, well, you're not only a discerning fan of awful music videos, but you're also completely correct!
Turns out, Notre Dame grad Ted Mandel, class of '86, really loved '80s funk and remembered fondly the glory years of 1988 and 1993 (you know, 22 and 17 years ago, when ND football was last relevant) and wondered why that funk wasn't being brought to Notre Dame Stadium anymore. Why, it was just as recently as 1974 that Notre Dame was #1 in both football and basketball! A mere 36 years ago!
Why couldn't fans be as cool and funky and passionate as they were back then, wondered Ted. Or, more accurately, why couldn't fans be as cool and passionate as Ted remembered them being in his imagination? As we all know, it's human nature to remember things a bit more fondly in retrospect, especially when we want to. I think it's fair to say today's college students are at least as well-versed at partying as Ted and his crazy Jordache-wearing buddies were in the mid-'80s. Back when men were men, Notre Dame football was sub-.500, and Mike Golic was on scholarship.
Anyway, Ted decided to write the lyrics to "We are ND" and include the current students and faculty in producing it. As Ted puts it:
Just a crazy idea by one faculty member to inject that Notre Dame 1970s plaid passion I experienced as a kid… through the song of a funky 70s throwback musician…into the student body of 2010.
Who knows, maybe it’ll be a song to get fans participating again, chanting from the stands, dancing in the aisles. A “have fun, who cares if I look silly dancing” song you spontaneously sing in the parking lots after knocking off the number one team in the country.
Wait, let me just compose myself here.
Okay, I'm good. So, Ted is basically like someone's really lame sitcom dad who wants to show everyone how cool he is by doing something he remembers as cool from the '70s.... which, of course, he wasn't even in college during. I also love the giddy idea of "dancing in the aisles" that Ted puts forth -- he can barely contain himself! He's probably dancing as he writes his story!
More from Teddy:
The student athletes loved it. Fresh, funky….different.
Or tired, old, contrived and horrible. The first thought most people we know who saw it had was that it looked like a bad '80s promotional video for something.
It’s not a recruiting tool. Not a contrived, underground marketing attempt to make ND look hip. Just a fun video shown at a student athlete banquet.
Oh. Really?
September 4th, I hope the students wear wacky facepaint, and crazy wigs, and dance, and sing, and rock Notre Dame Stadium, and party in the parking lot. And get all ‘70s again.
We hope the students dress like the "band leader" in the video and play air guitar in the aisles, too. Because the comedy gold will be heaping.
Because WE ARE ND.
Which -- as lame as it is on its own -- is a rip off of Penn State's "We are Penn State."