This year’s Sugar Bowl in New Orleans was an experience that Jen and Jim Talich will always remember, and not because their son was playing in the big game.
The Taliches arrived in New Orleans earlier in the week to watch their son Luke, a Cody, Wyoming, standout, who now plays defensive back for Notre Dame.
They had a low-key New Year’s Eve—playing cards and watching fireworks from the roof of their hotel. Hours after they went to bed, a terror attack would claim the lives of 14 people and injure dozens more when a truck plowed into a crowd in the French Quarter, just a couple blocks from where they were staying.
They didn’t realize what had happened until the next morning.
“I woke up at six and had a text from a friend at home asking if everyone was okay. And so that was the first we knew about it,” Jen Talich says.
The Taliches say they knew the football team had an early curfew, but they were concerned about another son who had talked about possibly going out to celebrate.
“That was the thing we worried about instantly was the older brothers and sisters of the boys on the team,” she says.
Fortunately, they were all right.
The attack forced the game to be delayed for one day, and the Taliches said security was very tight afterward.
“There was police tape, barricades up, and what looks like military people as well,” Jim says.
Despite the tragedy, the Taliches were happy that the game went on that Notre Dame took another step toward the national championship game—but that isn’t the only thing they are thankful for.
“I think it hits home as to how lucky we are to live where we live. We just feel in Montana and Wyoming, we feel so much safer,” Jim says.
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