By now, Ron Powlus already has clicked off his alarm clock, which shooed him out of bed at 5 a.m., made his way to Notre Dame, had a pastry roll and glass of orange juice, and then boarded a 6:30 team bus to O’Hare. After that, a nine-hour flight to Hawaii, followed by a case of jet lag, a Thanksgiving dinner at a Honolulu hotel, an evening team meeting and then a bed check at 3 a.m., Chicago time.
This is Powlus’ life and and he wouldn’t change a thing. Not his decision of five years ago to choose Notre Dame. Not his decision of a year ago to return to Notre Dame. Not his decision of a month ago to keep his mouth shut as his status as starting quarterback was dissected more than a biology lab frog.
Any of the notoriously fickle Domers who booed Powlus in October now owe him thank-you and apology notes. Without Powlus, there probably wouldn’t be a four-game (soon to be five) winning streak and a likely invitation to the Sun Bowl. The Irish would be home for the holidays.
Powlus, who kept his composure while those in and out of the program were losing theirs, isn’t much for I-told-you-so’s. Life’s too short. So are the days remaining in his remarkably eventful Notre Dame career.
“Coming here, playing quarterback . . . it is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but probably the best thing I’ve ever done,” Powlus said. “I realize that what I’m doing–being quarterback of Notre Dame–is very special. This is many, many, many people’s dream.”
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Tennessee’s Payton Manning has been hailed as the poster boy for all that is good and right in college football. Respectful, modest grounded, an actual student-athlete, Manning is worthy of whatever praise you would like to heap on him.
But Powlus was just as respectful, as humble, as grounded, as committed to football and academics a season before Manning ever set foot on the Tennessee campus. Manning is the better quarterback, but few players have handled five years of Notre Dame with more dignity, maturity and grace than Powlus.
Only at Notre Dame do you have Beano Cook unfairly predicting a pair of Heismans for a quarterback three months removed from high school. Only at Notre Dame do you have NBC attached to your hip. Only at Notre Dame does a nation critique your every pass attempt.
And Powlus has loved every nanosecond of it.
“The biggest message I try to get across to these young recruits is, if you don’t want to be part of the spotlight, if you don’t want to be the center of college football–and I don’t care what our record is–then don’t come here,” Powlus said. “You have to be willing to deal with all those things. If you don’t, you can get flattened real quick.”
Powlus retains his shape because he didn’t give in. He embraced the pressure and attention and understood its dangers. He was touched enough by Notre Dame’s mystique to return for a fifth season, but smart enough to enjoy it for what it was: an opportunity, a learning experience, another chance to be Joe College.
He came to South Bend when he was 18. He leaves, he said, feeling somewhere between “35 and 43”–but in a good way. Powlus has dealt with expectations, with injuries, with coaching changes, with pressures, with criticism. He is wiser, but not hardened. There’s a difference.
“I’ve said this before–and it almost makes me laugh when I say it–but with all due respect to the NFL, as far as handling situations, I don’t know if there’s a situation I’d be presented with that is any more difficult than what I’ve faced here,” Powlus said.
He’s right, of course. Notre Dame puts hair on your chest. It is the double bourbon, no ice, of college football.
Powlus owns a marketing degree, but he has a historian’s appreciation of Notre Dame. He will miss its quirks and its aura. Never once, he said, has he regretted his choice of schools.
I asked him to select the lowest low and the highest high during his career. Powlus didn’t need much time. Both the low and the high came during the same season. This season.
“The lowest low was coming back from Stanford,” he said. “We were 1-4 and realized we were a struggling football team. But the highest high is still happening. We’re finishing strong. It’s a very meaningful season to Notre Dame football.”
Don’t be fooled by Powlus’ detached analysis. He is capable of sentimentality. You just have to look for it, that’s all.
Remember the waning seconds of last Saturday’s victory against West Virginia? There was Powlus, all joy and smiles, taking the snap and then taking a knee as the Notre Dame Stadium scoreboard clock did its march toward zeroes. Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t, but Powlus didn’t hand the ball to the referee at game’s end. Instead, he clutched it as if it were the winning Lotto ticket.
“Yeah, I kept it,” he admitted. “It was a meaningful day, a meaningful game. I was holding onto a piece of my past.”
Notre Dame followers ought to do the same. So what if Powlus didn’t win a Heisman or a national championship? He won and lost with dignity. He endured. He made a school proud.