|
Traditions
Notre Dame Monogram Club
MISSON STATEMENT The Notre Dame Monogram Club is comprised of individuals who have earned the University's varsity athletic insignia for their athletic or team support endeavors or who have been Honorary Monogram recipients. The Notre Dame Monogram Club supports the primary goal of the University, which is the spiritual, intellectual and physical development of its students and alumni. The Notre Dame Monogram Club provides its members the opportunity to foster and maintain relationships across different sports, generations and geographical locations. In this way, the club aspires to contribute, through the common bond of sport, to the social and professional enrichment of its members and provide a means for ongoing association with the University. As an integral part of the Notre Dame family, the Monogram Club endeavors to uphold and enrich the great tradition of Notre Dame athletics. CLUB NEWS
• Monogram Club 2004 Summer Update
• Monogram Club Mass And Dinner
• Monogram Club Golf Outing
• Monogram Club Summer Party MONOGRAM CLUB PRIMARY EVENTS AND FUNCTIONS One of the Monogram Club's primary functions is providing aid to children of Notre Dame Monogram Club members to attend Notre Dame, through the Brennan-Boland-Riehle Scholarship Fund. The fund is named in honor of Joe Boland, Rev. Thomas Brennan, C.S.C., and Rev. James Riehle, C.S.C. Club members donate to the fund and the University handles the principal funds, with interest providing scholarship money. The fund has grown to approximately $3 million, making it one of Notre Dame's largest endowments. Since the Fund's inception in 1979, there have been 116 recipients whose combined scholarship allocations are more than $1,661,000 - including 36 sons and daughters of Monogram Club members who attended Notre Dame in 2002-03. In 1976, at a meeting called by 1949 Heisman Trophy winner Leon Hart, the Monogram Club developed its bylaws, recommending that the purpose of the club was to foster all the principles of the University in its academic, athletic, religious and social endeavors along with promoting camaraderie between former athletes and alumni. During the Monogram Club presidency of Harvey Foster in 1981, he recommended that an endowment fund be started for the express purpose of aiding the University in continuing non-revenue sports. During the next 15 months, nearly $8 million was pledged and paid into the endowment fund. Endowment contributions still are accepted but more recently the Monogram Club's efforts have been directed to increasing the Brennan-Boland-Riehle fund. In 1984, during the presidency of Jim Lynch, the club received permission to construct a Sports Heritage Hall in the concourse of the Joyce Center. The first phase was to provide a ring of gold which names each monogram winner, alphabetically by decade, with those plans reaching fruition in 1987 when some 4,300 names were placed in gold letters on the oak panels (nearly 1,700 names later were added in 2001, honoring monogram winners from the 1990s). The second phase of the Heritage Hall involved building display cases showing various pieces of memorabilia, pictures of individuals and teams, trophies of various awards and other interesting objects detailing the history of Notre Dame athletics. An interactive web-based kiosk recently has been added to the Heritage Hall, with the kiosk's offerings including data on every all-time Notre Dame monogram winner and an elaborate searching mechanism that can sort monogram winners based on a wide variety of biographical categories. The Monogram Club's ever-growing lists of activities and projects are founded on a dual mission that seeks to benefit both former and current Notre Dame student-athletes, with those endeavors including: • Sponsorship of student-athletes who participate in various domestic and international summer-service projects. • Providing laptop computers to the Academic Services for Student-Athletes, with student-athletes able to check out these computers for use during official team travel. • Sponsorship of the varsity monogram awards program, which includes items such as monogram letter jackets, blazers, blankets, rings and watches. • Funding and presentation of BIG EAST championship rings and NCAA participation awards for Notre Dame teams and individuals who achieve such levels of conference and national success. • Sponsorship of the O.S.C.A.R.S. (Outsanding Student-Athletes Celebrating Achievements and Recognition Showcase), an event held at the end of the academic event that recognizes the accomplishments of all 26 Notre Dame varsity teams (including a popular multi-segment, all-sports video). • A joint effort with the network of local Notre Dame alumni clubs, providing team hosting events (such as receptions and cultural events) for Notre Dame varsity programs as they travel throughout the country • A series of football-weekend receptions for Monogram Club members and their guests, held in the Joyce Center prior to each home football game. The final home game also typically includes a unique thrill for all former monogram winners in attendance, who form the pregame tunnel as the Irish football team takes the field. • Sponsorship of the annual alumni flag-football game that precedes Notre Dame's Blue-Gold spring scrimmage, with some 60 former Irish football players participating in the 2003 event that also included an interactive dinner with the program's current players and coaches. • Honorary monograms also are awarded on an annual basis to a select group of individuals who have demonstrated exceptional service to Notre Dame. The Monogram Club of today is comprised of some 3,500 dues-paying members and current student-athletes are awarded the block ND with a jacket or blazer. Yearly dues entitle members to: annual golf outing and dinner; membership card; the Inside Irish publication, with first-class mailing; members' children eligible for Brennan-Boland-Riehle scholarships at Notre Dame; and ticket applications for home football games. The Club's annual golf outing, mass for deceased members, dinner and meeting typically is held in early June on the Thursday of the Notre Dame Alumni Reunion Weekend. Associate athletic director Bill Scholl serves as the Monogram Club's executive director while the current president is former Notre Dame football All-American and two-time Super Bowl champ Dave Duerson. The Club's first vice-president is former volleyball player Julie Pierson-Doyle while former basketball player Marc Kelly has joined the officer rotation as second vice-president.
|
    
|
||||||||||||||||
