Remember Trick Shot Monday? My friend made it an international sensation.

Trick Shot Monday became somewhat of a tradition of the members of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish team in the 2010s. This past season, it stopped with not much explanation of why. It might have had something to do with Joe Schmidt graduating. He kept it alive, and maybe it became something not many other members of the team took as fun.

For those who haven’t seen it, Trick Shot Monday began with the Golic brothers (Jake and Mike, Jr.) who started to throw a ping pong ball into a cup of water in the most interesting ways possible. It would occur every Monday after a win and before the next Saturday’s game. I was even (kind of) included in one. It was even featured when the team went to the 2013 National Championship Game. I enjoyed the players doing it, and I know other Fighting Irish fans did as well.

Even if the tradition has ended, it has lived on. My really good friend from Notre Dame, Kyle Witzigman, a fellow classmate and band member, is currently teaching English in Vietnam as a Fulbright Scholar. It’s an awesome program, and I’m glad Kyle still talks to me, a plebeian compared to him and what he is doing. (side note: my other great friend, Adam Henderson, is doing the same thing in Malaysia. I guess I’m glad I surrounded myself with very smart people.)

Kyle told me recently he began to do an American sports series and lesson, of course naming it “Play Like a Champion.” He taught his Vietnamese students American football, baseball, ultimate frisbee, and dodgeball. Kyle taught them English words about each sport through different movie clips. Naturally, he showed Rudy and then showed them Trick Shot Monday video clips. His students took to the activity immediately.

Kyle then had his students perform a Trick Shot Monday shot, and they had a blast with it! Kyle told his ND friends about it, and I figured you good people who read our amazing blog would appreciate it.

Great job, Tuyen Quang School!

If you would like to contact Kyle to ask him about his program, what he has done, and to support him or the school in any way, please feel free to send him an email.

Thanks to Kyle and all Fulbright Scholars for their work, especially those from Notre Dame.