About us

Being The Echoes

Our Story

Local Fans

What Does It Mean to be The Echoes

We want a culture change. We want Notre Dame Stadium to be the toughest place to play in the country. If you’re reading this page, then we hope you do too.

Wake up the Echoes. Shake down the thunder. We want to truly embody this as fans. We, are the echoes.

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“There isn’t anything to do in Northern Indiana” is a phrase heard often in this area. Anyone who says this doesn’t know what it’s like to be on campus for Notre Dame football in the fall. Locals can go anywhere in the nation, and if we say we’re from South Bend, close to The University of Notre Dame, everyone knows where this is.

Waking up Saturday morning to find a tailgate spot is like Christmas morning. You sit in traffic until you find your spot. Pile out of the vehicle and start setting up shop. Food, drinks, kids playing football, making friends with your neighbors, it’s a thing of beauty.

Then you’re in the stadium. Here Comes the Irish starts. You stand. You yell. And collectively 77,000 people become electricity. We become the echoes.

Game on.

Then what? Sit down on a metal bench and passively watch this event? NO. We’re here to help win a football game. Most of us played sports growing up. The games we remember most are the ones where everyone from both towns showed up. The ones where the atmosphere was electric.

Obviously we don’t get to put on the pads, but if you don’t think as fans we affect the game, you’re on the wrong website. We absolutely do.

We can get adrenaline surging in the players. We can help force offside and delay of game penalties for the other team. We can create a stadium atmosphere that rivals anyone in the country.

ND graduates, local fans, national fans – doctors, lawyers, scientists, construction workers, public servants, production line workers, you name it – from the time we walk in to the time we walk out, we are all the Echoes.

Our Approach to Fan Engagement

The Bend Changes

Restaurants, bars, shows, entertainment venues, you name it, nothing else matters that Saturday afternoon and evening. South Bend goes from a smaller, unthought of destination city, to one of the best places in the world to be. Hotels all the way to Goshen, IN fill up for fans coming into the area to watch a ND Football game.

Don’t Waste a Ticket

You can feel it as soon as the sun comes up on Saturday. Every breakfast place is full, hotels booked, and streets backed up with traffic. People flew in to watch this game from all over the country. Our city is humming.

If you are lucky enough to have a ticket to the game, don’t waste it. Stand, yell, win.

We want to foster a fan culture at Notre Dame football games that continues to uphold the values of the University, but once that ball is kicked off, we become fanatics. If you go to an SEC or Big 10 football game, fans stand and yell throughout. We may have lost this. Some say ND fans come to the stadium and “sit on their hands”. This can change, all it takes is a collective attitude.

I came, I stood, I yelled, we won.

We’ve been a top 10 team again for many years. Let’s not lose this. Don’t let Coach Freeman walk for another college program. Don’t let recruits pick another school because our atmosphere isn’t what they want to play in. We may not be a huge part of the football team’s success, but we are certainly a part of it.

We want ND Stadium to be known. We are not a fun place to come play. We are not a fun place to come watch as an opposing fan. We may not throw water bottles on the field, but we don’t need to. We, are the echoes.

“Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame,
Wake up the echoes cheering her name,
Send a volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky.
What though the odds be great or small
Old Notre Dame will win over all,
While her loyal sons and daughters
March on to victory.”