By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Viruses, not victories, define two of my most memorable college football seasons. One is the unusual COVID-19 season of 2020. The other was forty years ago, when Notre Dame endured one of its greatest losses—the unexpected passing of beloved campus minister Father Bill Toohey.
I was a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame in the Fall of 1980. I had heard of Father Toohey, but did not know him personally. Toohey, a Holy Cross priest, was a popular figure on campus. He was born in Racine, Wisconsin, but Notre Dame was his true home.
The former marine graduated from ND in 1952, taught homiletics (preaching) there, and led a dynamic and diverse group of campus ministers. Because of Toohey’s striking Midwestern good looks and undeniable charisma, my clever friend Joe Caulfield—a theology major—called him the “video vicar.”
Toohey also was a passionate Notre Dame football fan. He watched each home game, armed with binoculars, from a corner of the stadium press box. In 1980, the presidential election contest between Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, and then Carter and Ronald Reagan, roiled the usually peaceful campus. Every Saturday, however, we all put our differences aside and shared Toohey’s gridiron passion.
After beating the Purdue Boilermakers, Dan Devine’s undefeated Notre Dame team faced a bitter rival on Saturday, September 20—the 14th ranked Michigan Wolverines. I was not at the game. Notre Dame offered thousands of seats to students, but I lacked the spare funds to buy even the steeply-discounted tickets. I watched on television instead.
Later, I joined my fellow Fighting Irish in another weekend ritual—Sunday Mass. Notre Dame provided many options for church services, but each Sunday night at 10:30 p.m., the men of my own Howard Hall gathered in our dorm chapel. It was a monastic-like event, with a hundred tenor and baritone male voices praying and singing songs such as Dan Schutte’s “Glory and praise to our God, who alone gives light to our days, many are the blessings he bears to those who trust in his ways.”
Another Holy Cross priest served as our hall rector, but often we invited guests to celebrate Mass with us. On Sunday, September 21, 1980, the video vicar himself—Father Bill Toohey—joined us. His charisma, extensive homiletics education, and verbal skills were on vivid display that night.
He started by talking about the big football game the day before. He mentioned the contest’s exciting back-and-forth nature. He recounted his anxiety and fear as Michigan pulled ahead by one point late in the fourth quarter.
Toohey reminded us that Notre Dame trailed near the end of the game because the new Irish placekicker— Harry Oliver—had missed the extra point on an earlier ND touchdown. The priest recalled his great hope, however, as Notre Dame got the ball one last time, and drove down the field, frantically seeking a comeback win.
Although we all had watched the game too, Toohey held our rapt and undivided attention as he described how that last drive stalled and Harry Oliver ran on for a 51-yard field goal attempt: “Although the day was blustery, just before Harry’s kick the wind inexplicably stopped. The ball travelled only about 50 of the necessary 51 yards, but then barely crossed the bottom goal post, miraculously carried that last few feet by the collective force of thousands of Notre Dame fans at that end of the stadium, who all sucked in their breath with anxious anticipation watching the ball fly through the air.”
Oliver’s kick was good as time expired. Notre Dame won the game 29-27. As Toohey talked about it more than 24 hours later, we cheered wildly in our dorm chapel, as if it all had just happened, right before our eyes, at that very moment. Skilled homilist that he was, Father Toohey immediately pivoted and turned serious.
He reminded us that we never can predict the moment when we, like Harry Oliver, must step up and do something to make a difference in the life of someone else. He warned that the moment may arrive right after a previous failure. He explained it may be quite unexpected and likely will be inconvenient for us.
“For you see,” he said, “Jesus always comes to see us, and calls upon us, at the wrong time.”
That moment, in the darkness of our small candle-lit chapel, would have been memorable under ordinary circumstances. The events that followed, however, made it simply unforgettable. Within two weeks, Toohey was stricken with viral encephalitis. He collapsed at a meeting and was hospitalized.
An anxious sense of dread and worry gripped the entire Notre Dame community for the next several days. Finally, the student newspaper, The Observer, reported that Toohey had passed away on October 13, 1980. He was only 50 years old. Our residence hall Sunday night Mass with him was one of the last places where the campus minister had ministered on campus.
Just like the viral-infected year of 2020, Notre Dame had a great football season in 1980. The Fighting Irish went on to beat Bear Bryant’s Alabama Crimson Tide in Birmingham before losing by just one touchdown to the top-ranked (and eventual national champion) Georgia Bulldogs on January 1, 1981 in the Sugar Bowl. Several ND players from that team went on to play in the NFL. Bill Toohey, however, was the season’s MVP and had what I think is the viral moment.
The day after Toohey died, Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh briefly eulogized him at a faculty meeting. Father Hesburgh noted how his Holy Cross brother priest liked to talk and write about “the people who make us feel more alive because of what they bring to life in us.”
Giving life. It was the central theme of Toohey’s campus ministry in 1980. I have thought about it often in the ensuing four decades.
The last time I heard him speak, Father Bill Toohey was not casually bantering about exciting Notre Dame football, about wonderful Notre Dame friendships, or about lovely Notre Dame church fellowships. He was teaching. And at arguably the worst possible moment for him—on the eve of his own death—he still managed to show us how to bring something to life in someone else.
He was right. Jesus always is there at the wrong times.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press in August 2021.
