On Thursday (March 19), the University of Notre Dame hosted an event celebrating 20 years of storytelling through the “What Would You Fight For?” (WWYFF) campaign.
Part of the , the panel discussion brought together leaders from the University and NBC Sports to reflect on the impact and evolution of this storytelling platform.
Notre Dame President , opened the conversation by positioning the WWYFF series within the broader theme of this year’s forum, “Cultivating Hope.”
“We know that there are many people in our world who find it difficult to hope,” Father Dowd said. “In order to be agents of hope, we need to take the challenges in our world seriously. And that’s essentially what the ‘What Would You Fight For?’ series is all about — highlighting ways that our faculty and students are addressing the greatest challenges in our world through their research and their scholarship.”
NBC Sports play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico moderated the panel discussion, which featured Rob Hyland, coordinating producer of NBC Sunday Night Football; Notre Dame 2011 alumna Lindsay Schanzer, supervising producer of NBC Sports; Meenal Datta, the Jane Schoelch DeFlorio Collegiate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Notre Dame; and Notre Dame undergraduate Lauren Eglite, a chemical engineering major.
Through 117 two-minute spots over the past two decades, produced in partnership with NBC Sports, the WWYFF series has showcased Notre Dame’s effort to build a better world and inspire hope through research, scholarship and service. Along the way, the series has won three Telly Awards and a 2024 Sports Emmy for outstanding public service content.
Tirico reflected on the unique power of pairing sports with storytelling.
“The campus community’s foundation is the faculty, professors and staff, and to be able to share their stories, not just of what it means in the Notre Dame community, but what it means globally — that’s the power of Notre Dame,” Tirico said. “And what better place to share that for the last two decades than the ultimate front porch of the University? Because athletics is the front porch. … When you can marry those two vehicles, now it’s more than just a football team and a little commercial during the game. It’s a story of what an institution is all about.”
For faculty members like Datta, whose innovative research on glioblastoma was highlighted in the WWYFF feature “,” the experience of being featured in the campaign offered a tangible, inspiring connection with those who benefit most from her research.
“I think what touched me the most was the communication from patients, from their families, from their loved ones, from Domers who emailed me and said, ‘My roommate passed away from this disease,’ from Notre Dame alumni who are still fighting the disease today,” Datta said. “And remembering that what we do is for people was a very important reminder. I think that that was the most valuable response that we received.”
The conversation also showcased the unique impact the series had on one future Notre Dame student. Eglite, now a sophomore, shared how watching the WWYFF piece in Notre Dame Stadium in 2017 inspired her to come to Notre Dame, and inspired her father to work alongside engineering professor to advance his research and create a safer future for millions living with allergies.
Her story was featured in the 2025 piece “.”
A reception following the panel discussion allowed participants to talk with more than 30 Notre Dame faculty who have been featured in WWYFF pieces and hear updates on their research and its impact.
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