Tide, Irish supporters embrace tradition

There will be a football game tonight, and the people who know about such things say it will be a slugfest.

The defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide, the powerhouse of college football's most successful conference, will face Notre Dame's Fighting Irish, the powerhouse team that climbed its way to the top of the national polls this season, in the Bowl Championship Series title game.

The Tide, a heavy favorite, is going for its third national championship in the last four years, while the Irish are back in the title game for the first time since the 1988 season.

Tens of thousands of people will converge on Sun Life Stadium in Miami. Millions will watch on television.

Many thousands of them will be in Las Vegas, where both universities have active alumni groups.

"For me, it's all about tradition," said Maggie Vann, an Alabama native and Tide alum who moved here for health reasons four years ago.

Irish fans say the same thing.

Jacki Miller, president of the Notre Dame Club of Las Vegas, said she was lucky enough to get tickets to the game, so she won't be at the group's game-watching party tonight.

"I can't imagine how Miami will be," she said.

Both groups are having parties, as they do for every game. The Notre Dame fans will be at the Pub inside the Monte Carlo, while 'Bama fans will be at Nacho Daddy in Henderson.

Both groups expect dozens of people to show up. They also say anyone is welcome, whether they are part of the group or not.

Brian Scroggins, an Alabama native who has been in Las Vegas for 25 years, said there is something captivating about being a fan of 'Bama, the top team in the Southeastern Conference.

"Back in Alabama, I don't want to say it's religion, but it's something like that," he said.

Scroggins went to the Alabama-Auburn game when he was 12, back in the 1970s, when legendary coach Bear Bryant took the Tide to three title games.

That clinched it for him. He would be a 'Bama fan forever. And this year, he passed that tradition along, taking two of his sons to the annual rivalry game over Thanksgiving weekend.

Despite attending Brigham Young University, and despite the fact that none of his kids went to Alabama, they're all 'Bama fans.

"I've raised them that way," Scroggins said.

Elise Luquette, who started the local Alabama alumni club, said she has raised her kids the same way. "They're 100 percent in. They're completely brainwashed."

Miller, with the local Notre Dame group, said tradition is big in her family, too. Her dad was the original Notre Dame fan in the family, even though he didn't go there.

When she was accepted there, she considered not going because it was too expensive and she had scholarships elsewhere. But it was so important to her dad, she said, that he mortgaged his house to pay for it.

She met her husband, a Las Vegan and Bishop Gorman High School grad, while there, and they moved to Las Vegas in 2008.

For fan Lyndee Cichon, going to Notre Dame was already a family tradition. When she visited the school during football season, she was taken aback. She just had to go there.

She moved here in 2008 and joined the alumni group to meet people with common interests. She quickly became involved, even though football isn't her first priority.

She'll be at the party tonight, though, watching the game on TV and rooting on her team.

Just like thousands of other Irish fans, and just like thousands of Tide fans.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.