Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview
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BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2015 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ✦ 81 the master's program," said Day, who is still planning graduate studies this fall. "It was giving me options and opening doors to bet- ter situations for myself. It was the chance of becoming a better man, to challenge myself and to see how much I changed in the cycles of my life. "It's just the determination my mom's [Carol Boyd] given me. She was always pushing me to be better. The fact that I can be driven on and off the field is something I want to hold myself to. She went to col- lege but had some bumps along the road and raised several children as a single par- ent. She wanted to make my life easier by making sure things get done right now and make sure everything was in place for the next step." Yet to make things "easier," Day did it the hard way. Taking 12 credit hours in a semester qualifies as full-time student status, but Day had a couple of 17- and 18-hour semesters, including during football season. "There were some long nights where it definitely was, 'You can drop this class and just take it at a later date,'" Day admitted. "I'd be staying up until 2 a.m. studying, and then sometimes I'd have to be up at 6 a.m. for workouts. But somewhere in my mind it was, 'You have to persevere, you have to get through this, you have to keep fighting.'" A finance class particularly unnerved him, leading to extra tutorial sessions, but this May he was only 1.5 credit hours short in management consulting after three years (he won't walk with his class in the ceremony until May 2016). "It was a special feeling that you put in all this hard work, all these hours, all this time, and the day finally came where you can call yourself a success for achieving it," Day said. "You were chasing this dream for so long, when you finally get there it's a self-reflecting moment, because I come from the lower side, the east side of Indianapolis, where it could get pretty rough. To see how much I've changed and how much I've given … just graduating from this university is pretty special." The impending early graduation further validated former Notre Dame defensive co- ordinator Bob Diaco's claim during Day's freshman season that for someone so young, Day possessed an "old soul" because of his maturity, balanced perspective and outlook. This fall, Day's studies will have a con- centration in data analysis. "I feel like I have the physical traits to become one of the best defensive tackles in the country." DAY