Amid a sea of visitors wearing Notre Dame navy blue and Badger red, Mataya Watson stood out in her marching band uniform, marked by the gold monogram and Notre Dame plaid scarf.
Watson had only 30 minutes of free time before reporting for pregame at Lambeau Field with the Band of the Fighting Irish. She knew exactly how to spend it: at the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.
Joined by Fighting Irish and Wisconsin fans, Watson took in more than a century of football history thanks to a collaboration between archives at Notre Dame, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. The exhibit titled, From the Gridiron to the Archives: Documenting Over a Century of Notre Dame and Wisconsin Football brought together pieces from collections at the three institutions to tell a shared story about two of college football’s most storied programs.
“When I heard about this exhibit, I knew I had to make an appearance,” Watson said. “I think it is always important to share history with the public.”
Browsing the items on display and reading their descriptions, Watson—like many exhibit visitors—held up her phone to photograph some of her favorites, including an array of tickets from past Notre Dame-Wisconsin games.
“It’s such a gift to bring these items out, especially today,” Watson said. “You can watch a football game, and you can learn some of your team’s history.”
Over the course of the five-day exhibit, the Hall of Fame hosted nearly 7,000 visitors. Saturday marked the sixth-best single-day attendance in its history, and Sunday, even with limited hours, ranked as its second-busiest gameday on record.
“I am so thrilled we could share so many important items from our collections with the public at Lambeau Field,” said Margaret Meserve, Edward H. Arnold Dean of the Hesburgh Libraries. “It was terrific to see fans lining up to take in the exhibit, speak with our archivists, and learn more about the history of these major American college football programs. Whenever we share our collections beyond campus, we find a ready audience that’s eager to engage with them. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to mount this exhibit together with colleagues from Wisconsin and the Packers organization. We’ve laid a foundation for more archival collaborations in the future.”
Notre Dame Archives Brings Collections Beyond Campus
This marks the second Shamrock Series exhibit created by the University Archives. In 2024, Greg Bond, sports archivist for the Notre Dame Archives and curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, Patrick Milhoan, University archivist, and Elizabeth Hogan, senior archivist and associate director of University Archives, traveled to Yankee Stadium to display pieces from the collection prior to the Shamrock Series game against Army.
For Milhoan, presenting an exhibit at the Shamrock Series provides an opportunity to introduce new audiences to the University Archives.
“Historically, archives have been painted as gatekeepers to collections and knowledge, but nothing could be further from the truth,” Milhoan said. “The collections that we have in the University Archives are not only accessible, but they’re also meant to be used, researched, handled, analyzed, and discovered.”
The primary mission of the Archives is to engage with students and faculty throughout the year, but access isn’t limited to individuals on campus. Anyone can schedule an appointment to view items on the sixth floor of the Hesburgh Library.
“The most common question I got during the exhibit events was, ‘Where does this stuff live?’ and ‘Can I see it again?’” Bond said. “Whether you’re a tenured professor, an alum or a fan, if you want to learn from our material, you are welcome.”
Connecting Fans with Notre Dame Football History
Beyond campus, From the Gridiron to the Archives gave fans in Green Bay an opportunity to engage with University Archives collections in one of the most historic sports venues in the United States.
The exhibit didn’t just connect fans with history; it helped spur conversations—such as a mom explaining the concept of listening to a game on the radio after her son asked why people used a Knute Rockne-branded board game and game tracker.
“I think one of the things that I will take away from this experience is just how great it was to see people enjoying our exhibit and interacting with the fans and alumni who connected to it,” Mackenzie Ryan, assistant university records officer and compliance specialist at UW-Madison, said. “There were people looking at the photographs, and I remember somebody was saying, ‘My great-grandfather was on that Notre Dame football team in 1963.’”
Commonplace or one-of-a-kind, objects bring the past into the present.
“Exhibit visitors could see Rockne’s whistle from 10 centimeters away and the name ‘Knute Rockne’ engraved on one side,” Bond said. “Seeing something like that up close makes these histories, stories, and traditions real to people.”
And more than a century ago, Knute Rockne also highlighted the importance of emphasizing a school’s and team’s history and traditions.
In his 1925 book Coaching: The Way of the Winner, Rockne wrote, “A school without traditions will find it very hard to build up a successful football team, as tradition is a powerful factor.”
Notre Dame’s football history, stories, and traditions have been part of Liam Mooney’s life for as long as he can remember. The third-generation Fighting Irish fan, originally from Albany, New York, toured the exhibit with his father, Brian, excitedly talking about items and taking photos.
“I was raised as a Notre Dame fan before I could even walk, and it’s just been incredible to see not only this team come back, but to be here at Lambeau and experience the history,” Mooney said. “We hear about football history all the time, but it’s almost overwhelming to see artifacts from the very early days of the team and think about the context of all of the amazing players and coaches who paved the way for where we are now as a team and a sport.”
Preserving Today’s Memories for the Future
While visitors were spending the weekend making memories, the archivists were already preserving pieces of them for future generations.
“There were brochures from events that were happening at Lambeau Field and around Green Bay in anticipation of the Shamrock Series,” Hogan said. “I picked up a handful of those for us to put into the Archives. It’s those little things that people don’t think about saving.”
For Watson, Mooney, and the thousands of people who visited From the Gridiron to the Archives at the Hall of Fame, the “little things” preserved from seasons past created connections with stories from generations before them while creating memories of their own.
“What surprised me most about the weekend’s events was just the amount of gratitude that we received,” Milhoan said. “It speaks to the efforts of the team from all three organizations and to the broader Notre Dame community’s appetite to engage with its history.”