Dear Irish Legends: I was a Notre Dame fan at birth.  Growing up, whenever Notre Dame played on television, it was a national holiday. My dad would blackmail me into raking leaves by threatening not to let me watch the Irish.

As a kid, I dreamed of one day becoming the radio broadcaster for Notre Dame football. Well, I did become a broadcaster but not for Irish football games.

For 11 years I was part of the Army Football Radio Network, conducting pregame and postgame interviews as well as scoreboard updates and spotting for the legendary play-by-play voice of the Cadets, Bob Outer. Bob and color analyst Dean Darling didn't mind (too much) that I was more interested in how Notre Dame was doing than in how Army was playing.

On October 14, 1995 luck would have it that Notre Dame was set to play Army at Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands. It was a game I was looking forward to for years. I even told Bob to name his price to let me do the play-by-play. He thought I was joking. I wasn't.

Many of the fine folks at West Point, knowing how much I loved Notre Dame, figured I would put that aside for a game and pull for the Cadets. Nope, sorry, I could never root against the Irish. While I am not a cheerleader, inside I was hoping Notre Dame would blow out Army.

Notre Dame came out of the locker room holding a 21-7 lead over Army. The Irish took the second half kickoff and here is where I will be forever grateful and indebted to Bob Outer. Outer briefly mentioned how much I liked Notre Dame and then said, "Now with the play-by-play, for this drive and this drive ONLY, here's Bill Rogan."

Unreal. I couldn't believe Bob's generosity and I felt guilty because I was half hoping Bob would come down with the flu before the game.

Sure enough, Notre Dame drove down the field and scored on a 47-yard touchdown pass, Ron Powlus to Marc Edwards. So my brief, but glorious career announcing Notre Dame football, came to close. Bob returned to play-by-play and nearly had the last laugh when the feisty Cadets came back and nearly upset the Irish. Ivory Covington's great tackle on Army tight end Ron Leshinski on a two-point conversion try with less than a minute to play saved a 28-27 Notre Dame victory.

So I lived a dream of announcing a Notre Dame football game. I would love to have that opportunity again someday. Are you reading this Tony Roberts?

Bill Rogan
Artificial Turf
America's Internet Sports Talk Show