As a student-athlete, I spent a considerable amount of time in the JACC. I had noticed the amiable-looking, mustachioed staff member often near Gate 6, where our locker room is located, and I wanted to write about a male staff member for Who’s Who anyway.

When Tim Ferguson told me over the phone that he had told his story to the New York Times and South Bend Tribune, I didn’t know what to expect. So as I sat across from him in the Robinson Community Center, just south of campus, one afternoon over fall break, I was prepared for anything. I was surprised nonetheless when he began the interview by saying, “I was addicted to crystal meth.”

Tim grew up in nearby Plymouth, Indiana. After attending Plymouth High School, he enlisted in the Air Force and flew “all over the world” while on active duty. After being honorably discharged, he attended Indiana University – South Bend for three and a half years, but dropped out prior to graduation.

Since his high school days, Tim had been experimenting with drugs; first it was marijuana during his Plymouth days, then heavier drugs during his time in the Air Force. When Tim moved out to Phoenix, Arizona, with his first wife, with a job at General Electric’s travel center and intending to finish his degree at Arizona State, things went downhill.

Tim became addicted to crystal meth, a highly addictive methamphetamine stimulant. It consumed his life. His first wife divorced him because of the addiction, and, after he remarried a year later, his second wife shortly did too.

“I lost everything,” Tim recalled. After 15 years in Arizona, Tim packed a single suitcase  in 1995 and flew back to Plymouth to live with his parents and to overcome the addiction. He left a “nice house” behind (it was repossessed shortly after he left). When he got to his parents’ house, the first thing he did was lay in his dark bedroom “for 5 or 6 days straight, just detoxing.”

Tim couldn’t beat the addiction by himself, however, and his parents eventually asked him to move out. Tim became homeless in 1999, and entered the South Bend Center for the Homeless shortly thereafter. It is there that he first met a man who would change his life forever: the then-director of the Center, who is now a vice president at the university.

This man helped Tim secure a job at the bookstore in September of 1999, and then in the Athletic Department in May of 2000, where Tim has been ever since. In 2000, after the Center for the Homeless asked Tim to move out, he also helped Tim find Notre Dame-owned housing.

“How did that relationship get off the ground?” I asked.

Tim married a third time upon returning to South Bend, he said. Things didn’t work out, and Tim received a call one day that his wife was dying of melanoma. She was pregnant.

His wife didn’t want Tim raising their child, he said, so a custody battle ensued after his son Paul was born. Tim’s wife passed away in November of 2000, and Paul went to the Center’s director for advice in how to attain custody of Paul. The director supported Tim and helped to procure legal counsel from Notre Dame for the custody battle. On December 13, 2001, a Plymouth judge granted Tim custody of Paul. The two have supported each other through difficult circumstances ever since.

“Paul is my rock, and I am Paul’s rock,” Tim said.

The Homeless Center’s director has continued to be a close friend and supporter of Tim and Paul. Many other members of the Notre Dame community have reached out and formed a network of support, solidarity, and charity for Tim and his son. This network includes the former director but also John Anthony of Anthony Travel, athletic department employees and staff, and weight trainers and doctors – all part of the Notre Dame network. Tim gives much credit to his support network for helping him to beat his addiction and come clean. He especially is grateful for Heather Dover, a coworker at the JACC and a good friend, who has helped raised Paul and would get Paul if Tim were to die suddenly.

“I’m very fortunate to be here,” Tim expressed. “I’m lucky. I’ve been blessed. I thank God every day that I can be there and bring Paul up under the Dome. If it wasn’t for Notre Dame, I wouldn’t be here today.” Paul is now a freshman at Saint Joseph High School in South Bend, where he runs cross country, and aspires to attend Notre Dame someday.

“Paul’s a celebrity here in his own right!” Tim laughed. When Paul was younger, the two used to walk around the campus lakes together, feeding the ducks. As Paul grew, they would ride bikes around campus, and Paul developed an attraction to praying at the Grotto.

“The thing I’ve done for my son is lay out a path for him,” Tim said.

Apart from working on the athletic department staff, Tim gives talks at the Homeless Center and in Elkhart about his story, encouraging those struggling with addictions to maintain hope. The blessings of being a part of Notre Dame are not lost on him.

“Notre Dame is a very special place,” Tim repeated often throughout our talk. “I’ve been all over the world in the Air Force, and Notre Dame is truly special. You students have no idea of the opportunities you have.”

“Notre Dame is God’s country. There’s so much blessing here, it’s unreal.”

When asked what he enjoys most and least about his job, Tim replied: “What I like most is dealing with the athletes and joking around with them. What I don’t like is the fact that I’m 57 years old doing this kind of work. I’m not a spring chicken anymore!”

Tim wrapped up his story by telling of his visit to Father Edward Sorin’s grave. Tim recently went for a solitary walk through the cemetery on the northwestern edge of campus looking for the grave of the man who founded “God’s country.”

“The humility of Sorin’s grave touched me,” Tim said quietly. It was a regular, unremarkable tombstone – the man whose vision flourished into the great university that has played an essential role in restoring Tim’s life occupies the simplest possible plot of earth.

“Every student, every alum, should know where that grave is,” Tim said. “Say a prayer by the grave.”

We shook hands and eventually parted ways. I’ll see Tim often over at the JACC, but I’ll never see him the same way again. His story is a testament to the power of his own spirit, but also of the goodness and blessings of this university, and the change which we can affect in the lives of those around us through simple charity.

Michael Bradley is a junior majoring in thinking and reading. Direct envious comments to mbradle6@nd.edu.