We Made It, Grandpa

Welcome to my new newsletter ... plus a dispatch from South Bend, Indiana.

Hello! Just over a year ago, the Washington Post moved me to a new beat, which took me from baseball to the wide, wacky world of college sports. We — me, my editor — initially called the assignment “college sports business,” a catch-all term that still fits. Often, though, I fumble through explaining what I focus on, whether I’m chatting with a source or annoyingly talking about my job at a bar. Yes, it’s college sports business in a macro sense. But I also find myself saying I cover the future of the industry … the way college athletes make money … the reason John Tyson, food magnate, University of Arkansas mega donor, got a standing ovation at John Calipari’s into press conference last spring while a large crowd clapped along to Zac Brown’s Chicken Fried … all of that, from Capitol Hill hearing rooms to courts and fields across the country.

My hope, then, is that this newsletter will be a place for us to untangle modern college sports together. I will use it to deliver, highlight and add to my articles for the Washington Post (hi there, friends and family who’ve had trouble tracking my stories over the years, I present your new favorite newsletter!). I will sometimes write exclusive musings, breakdowns or essays on college sports, too. This is and will remain FREE to read. Please pass that along to hundreds of your friends, especially the ones who say things like: I wonder if Bill Belichick will be a successful college coach; or: Gee, I sure am curious about name, image and likeness (NIL) and how it all works.

But seriously, thanks for being some of my first readers here. Please email whenever — jessedougherty1@gmail.com — with any thoughts, suggestions, uninhibited praise. I’ll start with a short essay from South Bend, Indiana, where on Friday night I covered the first ever on-campus College Football Playoff game (Notre Dame 27, Indiana 17).

We Made It, Grandpa

I know very little about my dad’s dad.

There are reasons for this, some of them better than others. By the time my dad was born, Francis Charles Dougherty was 42 years old, though life had added a decade or two on top of that. He died when my dad was only 24, the victim of a ticker that never could tick right. They never grew close, as my dad tells it, describing his old man as quiet, tired, head always in a newspaper. More than anything, though, I just haven’t asked enough.

But here’s what I do know: Born in Glenside, Pennsylvania, Frank made it all the way to western Europe, where he fought for General George Patton in the Battle of the Bulge. Back home after the war, he worked as a custodian, earning a $25 pocket watch when he hit 20 years in the same school system. Every day, he read the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Bulletin, no matter how much the stories overlapped. And few things meant more to him than the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

This summer, my dad and I were driving between Philadelphia and Cleveland, the highway all ink-blank in front of us. Some way or another, we got on his childhood, joking about how his mom would yell at his dad for spending money they didn’t have on newsprint.

“He didn’t smile or say much,” my dad said. “But I do remember him smiling every time the Notre Dame fight song played through the TV on Saturday. His dream was to see a game in South Bend.”

A few beats of quiet in the car. Maybe a turn signal.

“Of course, he never got there.”

Then on Friday, I did.

It’s painful, to a degree, to admit I’ve never felt much need to connect with someone because I never met them, no matter how responsible he is for my very existence. Youth is a strong drug. But thanks to the first ever 12-team playoff — plus a pretty dope work assignment — I could start making up for a lot of lost time. So I walked where Frank wanted to walk, stopping to look sideways at Touchdown Jesus. I sat where he might have sat, too, in a back pew at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, where I asked a kind old man if he was praying for the Irish. And then at 8:10 p.m., on a 27-degree night, Notre Dame’s kicker booted the ball downfield, end over end over end.

A whole football game followed. The home team won.

There was, throughout the day, something weird about carrying Frank Dougherty with me: I didn’t know what to call him in my head. Because he died before my siblings and I came about, we never settled on pop pop or granddad, making him dad’s dad to us. I kept it simple, then, while imagining what I would have told him about the trip.

Yeah, Grandpa, the paper even paid for me to travel here.

No, I flew to Chicago.

What was that?

Oh, yeah, I rented a car.

No, no, Grandpa, Notre Dame couldn’t get a bye because they’re independent, and the byes had to go to the four best CONFERENCE winners.

I know, I know, they’re still bastards.

They’re definitely against the Irish, I know.

Hey, Grandpa? We made it, all the way to South Bend.