We continue our celebration of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse seniors with a chat with midfielder Auden Menke!

World events kept us from the chance to follow this team on its journey to a national championship, so ND-Atl 2.0 will instead use the time he would have spent writing previews and recaps to catch up with as many of the Irish seniors as he can to introduce them in new ways to their fans. We hope you enjoy our talk with Auden, who is a great example of what it means to be a teammate.

Auden Menke

#8 Auden Menke is a midfielder for the Fighting Irish.  Auden is a product of New Hampton School in New Hampshire and is from Sandy, Utah, outside of Salt Lake City.  He first took the field for Notre Dame against Duke in 2018 in a game we happened to be covering live for 18 Stripes.  Auden went on to make six appearance in Blue and Gold.

Auden will graduate from the Mendoza College of Business.  As a student, he had opportunities to intern at Eastdil Secured and at Vivint SmartHome.

Our Chat

We had the chance to ask Auden some questions.  We hope our followers in the youth lacrosse community take careful note of his answers.  Taking pride in being a teammate is a important lesson for all of us.

1. We understand you are from Utah, and went to high school is New Hampshire. Where was it that you first learned to play lacrosse and what inspired you to take it up as a sport?

I am from Utah, but I actually grew up in New Hampshire on the campus of the high school that I attended. My dad was the headmaster, so I was always around campus watching games when I was younger. I played baseball up until 4th grade. I never really fell in love with baseball because of how slow it was. I was always much more interested in faster paced sports. I have tried playing just about every sport at some level and baseball was the one I could not stick with because of the pace. My dad had coached lacrosse before and he thought I would enjoy it. I picked it up in the spring of 4th grade and absolutely loved it.

2. Why did you choose to go to Notre Dame?

I made my decision to go to ND the summer going into my sophomore year. I was really close to committing to Penn State, but my parents thought I should just make sure I explored all of my options. I visited ND and committed a week or so later. I felt that ND gave me the best opportunity to play lacrosse at a very high level and challenge myself academically as well. I also loved the athletic culture and the coaching staff. Coach Corrigan, Coach Byrne, and Coach Karwick really did a great job selling me on the ND experience without even trying to. I could not be happier with my decision

3. Here in Atlanta online learning is hard to get used to, how are you adjusting to online learning and being away from your friends?

My professors have been awesome in this period of adjustment. They have been flexible and communicated very well. I miss being in class and being on campus with my friends, but the learning itself has actually been surprisingly effective. I really applaud ND for how they handled the situation. They gave students and professors ample time to prepare and have made necessary changes in order to best accommodate us.

4.What is your favorite practice experience at Notre Dame?

My favorite practice experience at ND will always be playing scout team man down. It is a thankless task but, so much fun to be playing with house money. We were not expected to stop our man up often, so when we did it was a lot of fun talking trash and just trying to emulate what another team will do on man down. It was also very rewarding when our man up would score in a game because we played a role preparing them during the week. 

5.What was your favorite game experience at Notre Dame?

My favorite game experience would be beating Maryland my junior year in Loftus. It was an overtime game and was very exciting all the way through. I am not really sure why that one sticks out to me but it was just such an intense fun game.

6.Who is the hardest to defend, and to be defended by, at practice?

Many people would probably say Bryan Costabile is the hardest to defend on our team but I actually think Wheaton Jackoboice or Mo Mirer are more difficult to defend for me. They are too fast for me to even get my hands on them. Hardest to be defended by would be John Sexton or Eric Restic. They both have active sticks and incredible feet. Sexton took my stick out of my hands more times than I can count.

7. What are your plans for the summer?

This summer I plan to see family and friends from back in New England and I am hoping to go on a road trip with Jacob Kanak, another senior on my team. I start work in July, so hopefully I will have time for all of that before I start.

8. We looked on the map at saw your high school isn’t far from Wolfboro, New Hampshire. Did you ever play Ryder Garnsey in high school?

I played against Ryder for 3 years when he was at Brewster and 1 year while he was at Andover. He was my high school’s rival for lacrosse. Whatever team he was on, we circled that game every year. We never won against him unfortunately. It was fun playing against him though. He is a crazy competitor and a talented lacrosse player. 

9.What is your favorite part about Notre Dame?

My favorite part about Notre Dame is the guys on the team. I was incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to go there and play lacrosse. It has given me 80+ life long friends over my 4 years and the guys in my class are some of the most motivated, fun, hard working people I have ever met. I did not play a meaningful minute in a game in my time at ND but I would do it all over again because of the awesome teammates I had. 

 

If we needed any further confirmation that Auden was committed to being a good teammate, we came across this clip from before his time at Notre Dame where he expressed his desire to do the less glamorous work on the lacrosse field:

Thank you, Auden, for speaking with us and for representing the University so well!

#GoIrish

Seniors Project:

Jack Zullo