Irish Illustrated Insider subscribers. This is Drew Mentock, and I'm here to bring you the 13th episode from our bi-weekly podcast series in the feed, Irish Illustrated interviews. Today, we're sharing my conversation with Shane Wallen, a former Notre Dame cornerback who is a Consensus All-American, team captain, and team MVP in 2002.

Oh, and he's also a former all-bigie soccer player for the Fighting Irish.

We discussed growing up as one of the nation's top youth soccer players,

why he picked football at Nordame and how he transformed himself into one of the nation's top defenders on the gridiron.

Our conversation also explores why his professional career didn't work out as planned

and the importance of stepping away from football after retirement to fall in love with the game once

more.

Here's my interview with Shane.

What's up, everyone?

I'm here with Shane Walton, a former Nardame All-American defensive back in football and second team all-biggy soccer player in the late 1990s and early 2000s. You're drafted in the fifth round by the then St. Louis Rams. Today, you're the head high school football coach at the Bishop School, your alma mater. You're also my wife's first favorite Nordian football

player, which she wanted me to make sure I told you. Thank you so much for being here today, Shane.

Thanks for having me, brother. I appreciate you being on, and I'm glad I could be your wife's first favorite

nerdane football player. Definitely. And so you're from the San Diego area. I'm kind of curious, what's your first

recollection or memory of Nordame before you, obviously, even for getting recruited by the school?

It's funny. I've told this story at the Notre Dame Club of Orange County. So my mother and I lived

out here. My mother's from Oklahoma. So I was born and raised

out here. And so it was just her and I. We had no family out here. So for Thanksgiving, we used to go up

to Disneyland because it was cheap and no one was there. And so we'd take the train up. We'd stay in

a hotel. And we just so happened to stay at the hotel when

Notre Dame was out at USC every year. And I remember asking my mom, why do they keep singing

that same song? Because they were singing the fight song, and I had no idea who Notre Dame was,

what it was. I wasn't even into football at that time, but I just

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