It takes my family and I exactly one hour and 18 minutes to get from our driveway to the University of Notre Dame. Last Friday, the short trip seemed painfully long because the weekend my class and I have been waiting for had finally come.

Abby Sweet, Riley Wester, Sarah Genz, Morgan Ryan, and myself traveled from all over the country to come together for this very exciting weekend. We are literally from across the nation for Abby and Riley are from California, Sarah is from Minnesota, I am from Indiana and Morgan is from Pennsylvania which gives our class quite the range of backgrounds. We all met up on Friday morning for breakfast to kick off our Official Visit Weekend!



The coaches took us out to The Original Pancake House, which is a local and campus favorite. This was a great opportunity to catch up with the coaches, my future teammates, and their families before we really started what would be a whirlwind of a weekend. It was already a great trip because the chocolate chip pancakes were delicious! I can definitely see why all of the students love it so much! So make sure you stop in if anyone ever finds themselves in South Bend!

After breakfast, we all headed back to the softball stadium to meet with Derin McMains who is considered the first of his kind at any university. He is the Director of Mental conditioning which sounded pretty complicated and a little intimidating. Derin works with all of the coaches at Notre Dame and teaches them about different strategies about how to prepare the mind before class, practices, and games. He was really cool and told us all about his days, both as a player and a coach, with the San Francisco Giants. He was their mental conditioning 'coach' when they won the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014.



It was really cool to hear him talk about guys like Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, and Hunter Pence and how they would mentally prepare before games and how they were each different types of leaders both on and off the field. I am just glad Notre Dame was able to convince him to bring his talents to South Bend!



We then had to rush off after meeting with Derin because we had to get to class! Morgan and I attended a Physics 2 class because we are both into math and science. The other girls attended classes like Election 2016 and Business and Accounting courses. Each time any recruit visits campus, they always go to class because that is such an important part of the University. We are all called Student athletes and not athlete students for a reason. Any athlete at Notre Dame is always a student before we are an athlete. I expected to go in and be completely lost, but I actually picked up on a couple concepts and ideas throughout the lecture, so shout out to my awesome high school physics teacher!!!

The day continued with another meeting with the softball academic advisor, Amanda, where we talked about scheduling for our freshman year schedules and all of the exciting information we will be receiving this summer. I think this is where it started to set in for all of us that we were going to be students here the next fall. It was crazy talking about college classes and life, but also so exciting at the same time!

Even though we were all still stuffed from breakfast, we went to the dining hall for lunch which is always a highlight of the trip. The dining hall looks oddly like Hogwart's dining room in the Harry Potter movies!



After lunch, we made a stop at the bookstore where the five of us might have bought everything in the store for us and our families!

When we got back to the softball stadium, there was a surprise visit from Steve Harvey from Family Feud! OK, maybe not the real Steve Harvey but Jamie, who is another coach on staff, dressed and acted the part in order to host a Notre Dame edition of Family Feud! All of the questions were about campus, its students, and random information that we will need to know as incoming freshman.

The team that Sarah and I played on won, so we got the ultimate bragging rights!!! This little activity made me realize how awesome both the coaching staff and all of the current players really are! I don't know of many coaches who would dress up as Steve Harvey just to put on a game for their players! This was just a testament to how close the team and the coaching staff are and myself, Abby, Riley, Sarah, and Morgan are all so lucky to be able to be apart of this family!!!



We then got sized for our jerseys and other issue gear that we will receive next fall which was amazing! This just got all of us more excited for what was coming next year! We got to go to the pep rally in preparation for the football game on Saturday night and then went out to eat yet again.

The dinner was just as good as the breakfast and lunch. The dessert menu was out of this world and the cheesecake was delicious! Our parents went to the hotel for the night while the rest of us went back to the stadium for team bonding which just solidified the family like bond that the whole team has! After our long day, we went back to the dorms for the night so we could be up the next morning ready to go for the football game.

The next morning, we were able to watch a practice and then got to tailgate at the stadium before the game. Football Saturdays on campus bring a new kind of life to campus. Watching the excited fans and dedicated students cheer on the football team is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.



What is unbelievable is that even though everyone knew with about a minute or two left that Notre Dame was not going to get the win, not one student left. Everyone stayed until the very end just to soak up every last second. It is amazing to be able to say I will be a part of such dedication and spirit in the coming years.


(Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports)

Even though the football game did not end the way we wanted, it was still an awesome and unforgettable weekend. I know that myself, Morgan, Sarah, Abby, and Riley can not wait to step foot on campus next fall as official freshman! The University of Notre Dame will become our homes for the four years to follow and it will be four years that we will never forget. We will get to experience so many new things together and get the privilege to travel the country while playing the sport we all love!

I can truly say there is no other place I would rather spend my upcoming college career, both athletically and academically, than the University of Notre Dame!

GO IRISH!
Alexis Holloway