When I was in New York this
summer I received an unexpected call from my friend Stonewall.* He was driving from the southwest up to
Bethesda, Maryland where he would soon be starting med school, and had an
interesting question for me as he barreled his truck across the deep south.
“Could you find out what
restaurant Todd Blackledge went to in Athens [home of the University of
Georgia] for his Taste of the Town?” he asked, knowing that I was almost always
near my computer. While we talked about
our summers, and made plans for me to meet him in Maryland in a few days, I
quickly found that Todd Blackledge ate at Weaver D’s when he was in Athens, and
Stonewall decided he would check it out on that night when he stopped over at
the University of Georgia.
For those of you who don’t know,
Todd Blackledge is a former National Champion Quarterback for Penn State who is
currently working as a college football analyst for ESPN. Blackledge has done an evening game on ESPN
for quite a few years now and is most memorable to my friends and me because of
his Taste of the Town segment that
usually appears during the 3rd quarter of the games he calls.
During this segment, Blackledge
goes to a local eatery in the town of the game and samples its most famous dish. They give some history of the restaurant
(almost always a greasy spoon), and then they show clips of Blackledge tasting
the delicacy and telling the audience how delightful it is. This segment has inexplicably become the best
prerecorded bit that is aired during any sporting event, and has made
Blackledge far better known for his food reviews than for his quarterback play.
Because I am in China (where it
is a tedious task to get video feeds of American football), the only games I
have watched this year are Notre Dame games.
For the first three weeks of the season, my roommate and I woke up at
3:30 AM Sunday morning to watch the Irish raise our blood pressure and take
years off our lives, and we had been highly anticipating our night game with
Purdue that would start at a much more reasonable (post-sunrise) time of 8:00
AM.
Once we were able to find the
feed online, after several failed sites and a brief stint with the Purdue radio
feed, I was incredibly excited to see that Todd Blackledge was calling the game
and that I would get to see his Taste of
the Town in a city that I had visited before. I sent an e-mail to Sharky, my college
roommate** saying, “I can’t wait for Blackledge’s Taste of the Town, I hope
Fazoli’s is the best option in West Lafayette.”
You see, if you haven’t been
there, Purdue and West Lafayette suck***
We went to Notre Dame’s last game at Purdue, and while we had some good
times at a Frat Party, I can’t see any reason to ever return. The one meal we ate there was at a
Fazoli’s Italian chain, and my hope was that Purdue’s best option for the
segment was a chain restaurant you could find at rest stops along I-80.
The restaurant Blackledge ended
up going to made me even happier, because he went to BRUNO’s.
As he stated in the segment,
Bruno’s is an Italian restaurant that actually opened its first location in
South Bend. While Bruno’s is now widely
considered to be the second (or even third) best Pizzeria in South Bend, it was
somehow the best restaurant that Blackledge and ESPN could find for their
segment. While this might have been fine
if Purdue had been playing any other team; they were playing Notre Dame. Blackledge essentially came on in the middle
of the third quarter and stated Notre Dame’s supremacy to Purdue in matters
that went far beyond the football field.
The signature eatery of Purdue
(and West Lafayette) is the same Pizzeria that is second best in South
Bend. While I didn’t think it was
possible to be more pleased with this turn of events, they then announced that there
is a contest on ESPN.com to win a $100 gift certificate to the restaurant if
you write the best essay about it. Here
is what I sent them:
***
Dear Mr. Blackledge,
My name is Bob Kessler and I am a
2009 graduate of the University of Notre Dame.
I am currently teaching English in China where I wake up early Sunday
mornings to follow my beloved Fighting Irish football team compete every
week. While I have always been a fan of
your Taste of the Town segment, I was
pleasantly surprised this week when you featured Bruno’s, a restaurant that I
frequented many times during my four years at Notre Dame.
I first started going to Bruno’s
during my freshmen year with people who lived near me in the dorm. My most vivid memory of Bruno’s in my first
couple years was when a friend promised to take the entire section out for
dinner if he did well enough playing online poker during winter break. I’ll never forget the look of terror on his
face when, after promising that he’d pay for thirty of us, the waitress told
him that they didn’t take credit cards.
She was joking, of course, but the look was still priceless.
We continued to frequent Bruno’s
most Thursday afternoons, and it was actually the restaurant where I ate dinner
(as well as drinks #9-11) on the night of my 21st birthday. While I spent more time focusing on my beers
as opposed to eating my pizza that night, it was worth it. Despite the fact that I’ve only been to
Bruno’s twice since then, each time was fun because they were for The Observer
pizza party (where the newspaper staff that I was only marginally a part of ate
lots of pizza and drank lots of beer).
Each of these nights was great for different reasons, but the second is noteworthy
as it was the single best night of my college career (Wind!).
However, a gift certificate
should not simply be awarded to me because I have great memories of
Bruno’s. I’m sure a lot of people have
great memories of pizzerias around the country.
I deserve your gift certificate because I am writing this to you from
China where there are no pizzerias, and college football games are played
between the hours of midnight and noon.
I am a truly devoted college football fan, and I will be sure to use the
gift certificate to treat friends and family to a great night at Bruno’s to celebrate
my return to Notre Dame from China when the Irish take on the Michigan
Wolverines on September 11th 2010.
Thanks.
***
After writing this letter I found
out two things in the rules
and regulations of the game on ESPN.com.
The first was that submissions cannot exceed 50 words, a word limit that
I would never be able to abide by. The
second was that ‘essays’ must be submitted before the end of the 3rd
Quarter of the game. Because I clearly
didn’t write my letter at the same time that I was watching the Notre
Dame-Purdue football game, I suppose I am ineligible to win the cash
prize.
Oh well. As much as I would like to have a $100
Bruno’s gift certificate, anybody that knows anything about Notre Dame, South
Bend, and/or pizza knows that Rocco’s is far superior and that arguments can be
made for Polito’s (but not, under any circumstances Vesuvio’s). While Bruno’s might be the best that Purdue
has to offer, I’ve had better; and I anxiously await my return to South Bend
(or anyplace with Pizza worth eating) so that I can enjoy it once again.
*I thought of using his actual
name, Jack, but seeing as two of my writing influences (Bill Simmons and Tucker
Max) use nicknames when discussing their friends, maybe I should start. . .
** [gasp] That’s the first time I
have ever used that phrase, being graduated sucks.
***My apologies to the Gesualdos,
you know I’m just joking (but am I?)
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