A Reflection by Brennan Harvath

The idea for The Shirt came a few years prior to the 1990 Fighting Irish football season. As a member of the Notre Dame Marching Band, I always thought it would be really cool to see the student section in uniform, too. With that image in my mind, was there really a better way to support the “Best Football Team in the Land” than with the unified voice of the “Best Student Body in the Land”? Where else could The Shirt Project have started than at Notre Dame?

As Chairman of AnTostal (1990-1), I had a position on the Student Union Board that allowed me to work with many departments at Notre Dame. It also offered me the unique opportunity to raise funds that would be used to make AnTostal ’91 a spring festival to remember! After school let out for the summer, I set about communicating the idea to the Student Activities Office, as well as representatives of the Student Union Board, Hall Presidents’ Council, and each residence hall staff at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College.

With their valuable feedback and support for the fundraising project, and without having a clue how many shirts we might sell, we agreed the most appropriate color would be Fighting Irish green as we were playing the maize and blue of Michigan for the home opener on September 15, 1990. Next, in order to properly sell the idea to the campus at large when we arrived back on campus for the fall semester, we had to have marketing materials posted on campus. So, I printed about 3,000 fliers and sent them to each RA and Hall President.

Once everyone arrived back on campus, the timing of taking orders and printing shirts was extremely tight. I recall that we only had about two weeks to take the orders (the students pre-paid), print the shirts, and distribute them before the home opener. Then, when the orders came in well above our wildest expectations (over 7,500), we were not sure we could make the shirts in time. A local t-shirt printer in Mishawaka supplied the shirts and even supplied an additional 1,500 to be sold to friends and alumni arriving on campus that weekend.

The weekend started with the pep rally on Friday night at the JACC. I’ll never forget, after selling 500 shirts before the pep rally started, people started offering top dollar for the green "The Shirt" caps we had printed for those that would be staffing the tables! Then the remaining 1,000 shirts allocated for gameday were sold out before noon on Saturday even though the game did not start until 8:00 P.M. that evening. While it would have been great to have sold a few more shirts that day, it was the terrific victory over the Wolverines that made the day all the more special! Plus, AnTostal was sure to be a huge hit the following April.

If I had to do it all over again, I would not change a thing. Perhaps a bit of Irish luck was involved too, because getting several thousand people on board to wear the same shirt and pay for it was not an easy task. But the idea was simple—raise money to support a good cause and show our Notre Dame spirit at the same time. In my opinion, that combination embodies what makes Notre Dame so special. It has been truly remarkable to see my alma mater, the greatest and most-distinguished college one could have the fortune to be educated by, embrace The Shirt as one of the many traditions that make it the truly unique institution that it is. I am honored and humbled to have been a part of it from the beginning.

Brennan Harvath