The town of Cody has been buzzing the last couple of days as news that one of their own – Cody High senior Luke Talich – turned down multiple full-ride scholarships to Division I schools to chase his dreams to play football at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana.
No one was more thrilled – except maybe Luke and his family – than Tessa Binkley and her parents.
The Park County native has been among the Fighting Irish faithful for years.
“Between my mother and I, we each have probably a dozen different hoodies,” Binkley told Cowboy State Daily. “So yeah, we’ve got the swag. I took my son to his first game this fall at South Bend, and that was the second game that I’ve been to.”
So when word got around that the team’s head coach, Marcus Freeman, was going to be in Cody to visit Talich this week, Binkley got just a bit excited.
“We all decided to make sure we wore our swag that day just to make sure, you know, in case we saw him,” Binkley said.
Thank Goodness For Coffee
Binkley said when she, her mom and children walked into the Cody Albertsons grocery store, her attention was immediately drawn to the man sitting at a table near the Starbucks kiosk.
“I was gonna grab a cup of coffee, and he (Freeman) was just sitting right there,” she said. “And we all freaked out.”
Well, they freaked out silently, that is – until Freeman looked up and saw an entire family wearing Notre Dame gear.
“My daughter Peyton, she was wearing her Notre Dame sweater too,” said Binkley. “And he saw her and pointed at her, and then looked at us and he was like, ‘I didn’t think I’d find any fans out here.’”
Binkley said they chatted with Freeman for a few minutes, then asked him for a photo, to which he graciously obliged.
“He was very open, very friendly,” she said. “He was very excited to meet some fans, and that was really cool.”
Inspiring The Next Generation
Binkley said her 10-year-old son, Gavin, was thrilled to meet the head coach of his favorite college football team.
“He’s had a grin on his face for the last 48 hours,” Binkley said.
She said that while her son is more into baseball, knowing that someone as high-profile as Freeman would come to Cody, Wyoming, to meet with a prospective player gives him something to strive for.
“He thought that it would be super cool for a coach to maybe come and visit him someday,” she said. “It really kind of got his mind going of his future and what it could look like.”
