2025 Cheer Her Name Weekend Recap

In late July of 2025, the University of Notre Dame announced the “Cheer Her Name” initiative to celebrate 50 years of women’s varsity athletics.

Throughout the course of the 2025-26 academic year, Notre Dame Athletics plans to shine a spotlight on the history and accomplishments of its women’s varsity sports programs and to engage with key stakeholders through special campus events, connecting student-athletes, alumni and fans. 

The highlighted celebration of the year took place on campus during the weekend of September 19-21 when the Notre Dame football team defeated Purdue. An invitation was extended to all female former student-athletes and others who have supported Notre Dame women’s sports to return to campus to be recognized and celebrated. Over 300 former student-athletes returned for the event to be honored by the University. 

The weekend began with a reception before the Notre Dame vs. Michigan volleyball match on Friday, September 19. University Vice President and James E. Rohr Director of Athletics Pete Bevacqua welcomed the group for the weekend in an event held in the Joyce Center’s Heritage Hall. 

The timing of the event, starting about two hours before the match against Michigan, allowed volleyball head coach Salima Rockwell to deliver remarks to the group and look ahead to the challenging match against the Wolverines. 

One of the features of the Joyce Center’s Heritage Hall is that each individual who has earned a Monogram at the University of Notre Dame has their names affixed on the wall. In this picture, a group of former Notre Dame Monogram winners locate their names and names of their teammates in the display. 

Also taking place on Thursday night before the Friday festivities was No. 6 Notre Dame women’s soccer thrilling victory over No. 2 Duke at Alumni Stadium. The Irish donned “Cheer Her Name” warm up shirts before the game, shown here by Annabelle Chukwu, Grace Restovich and Lily Joseph.  Chukwu scored one of the three goals for the Irish in the 3-2 win. 

The activities on Saturday began with ‘Pregame With Pete’ which was held on the Joyce Center main floor with three special guests. 

Haley Scott DeMaria (second from the left) was the 2012 University of Notre Dame Commencement Speaker and former Notre Dame swimmer who survived a deadly bus crash and devastating back injury while at Notre Dame to return to the pool as an inspiration to the teammates she lost and the University at large. 

To DeMaria’s left was Karen & Keven Keyes Family Head Women’s Basketball Coach Niele Ivey who played a part in nine Final Four appearances for the Irish women’s hoops teams as a player and assistant coach, reaching the national title game six times and winning two national titles (one as as student-athlete, one as an assistant coach). 

Finishing out the amazing panel to Ivey’s left was Kate Sobrero Markgraf, a 1998 Notre Dame graduate, national champion for the Fighting Irish in women’s soccer (1995) who also won a World Cup title with the U.S. National Team in 1999 and two Olympic gold medals (2004 and 2008). Markgraf also served as the President of the Notre Dame Monogram Club in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The recognitions continued at Notre Dame Stadium before kickoff when Ruth Riley Hunter was selected to present the national colors. Riley won a women’s basketball championship at Notre Dame (2001), two WNBA championships (2003, 2006) and an Olympic gold medal in 2004.

Ruth Riley Hunter was not alone on the field before the game as those who returned for the “Cheer Her Name” weekend were provided pregame field passes and were there to support Hunter and represent all of the former Notre Dame women’s varsity student-athletes.  

Perhaps the key highlight of the weekend was a special group of current student-athletes, Notre Dame coaches and University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., gathering on the field as they were honored on the video board in Notre Dame Stadium during one of the pauses in action.