Last week I filed a story for my former employer, the Knoxville News Sentinel, on Knoxville’s Harrison Smith, a football player for the University of Notre Dame. He’s a junior starting on the defensive side of the ball for the Fighting Irish.
The parallels are many. Smith, the subject of a recruiting battle between Notre Dame and the University of Tennessee, picked ND and moved three years ago to South Bend, Ind., my hometown. I lived in Knoxville for nearly five years, and in mid-September moved to Valparaiso, Ind., an hour east of South Bend. And I’m freelancing for notredame.scout.com covering football, so it was a natural to write a story for the News Sentinel on Harrison, who was a good sport.
I agree with him 100 percent on one subject.
Smith does admit that he’s struggled a bit to adjust to one aspect of life in the Midwest: the much colder weather.
So in his third year in South Bend, 100-some miles east of Chicago, has he gotten used to the bone-chilling winters?
“No,” he replied. “That was one thing I kind of worried about when I was getting recruited, and then I thought, ‘It’s not a big deal.’ But actually, it’s kind of worse than I thought.
“And it lasts until summer pretty much. You’re in April and it’s snowing.”
