Welcome, Mom’s Choice readers! Our guest today is Tim O’Neill, who played football for the University of Notre Dame. He wrote an autobiography about being a walk-on for Notre Dame, then turned that into a Mom’s Choice Award-winning version for kids—showing what can happen when a person won’t accept the limitations others would impose. Read on to discover how and why that happened.

MCA: Thanks so much for joining us, Tim, and a huge congratulations on your Mom’s Choice Award. To start off our interview, why don’t you tell us something about yourself?

I’m currently a natural gas trader, residing in Katy, Texas, with my wife and five children. We are a very busy family and are enjoying this season in our lives.

I wrote Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream as a follow-up to my autobiography, Every Play Every Day: My Life as a Notre Dame Walk-on.

Through writing my first book, Every Play Every Day, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to various groups, from elementary school through high school. And through that process, when I would speak to elementary school kids, most of them were too young to read Every Play Every Day because it was geared more toward an adult audience. So, in the back of my mind, I always thought it would be nice to have a children’s version of my story, that was easier for kids to understand and had vibrant illustrations.

So, I wrote Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream as a way to show children, including my own five children, that dreams really do come true if you’re willing to put in the work.

MCA: Would you provide our readers a brief synopsis of the book?

Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream is based on the true story of my life as a walk-on football player at the University of Notre Dame and is geared to readers between the ages of 5 and 12.

At its core, “Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream” is a story about a dream and what it takes to make that dream come true. It starts out in my childhood bedroom, and Tiny Tim’s going to sleep dreaming of putting on that gold helmet and running out of the tunnel in front of 80,000 people.

I remember when I was in elementary school and it was show and tell day, and I brought a football and said I’m going to play football at Notre Dame someday. So that’s depicted in the book. When I’d get asked to write short stories in elementary school, they often revolved around three key plots points: Notre Dame, football, and me. I’m sure my teachers got tired of hearing it.

It shows some people laughed at Tiny Tim’s dream and didn’t think it was possible, but Tiny Tim stayed positive. And then I think, most importantly, when I speak to various groups, I always have them get up and do push-ups with me and I ask them to explain discipline to me. And I make the point that discipline is doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it, so that someday you get to do what you want to do when you want to do it.

So Tiny Tim does pushups and sit-ups every night before bed as he lays the foundation for what his goals are. You don’t just wake up one day and you’re living your dream. It’s the thousands of hours of work that goes into it when no one is watching. It’s like I tell my kids, if you have a dream but don’t take the action necessary to make it come true, then it’s really just a wish. There’s a great quote from Muhammed Ali who said, “the fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, in the gym and out there on the road before I dance under those lights.”

So, the message in Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream is to set a big goal. It doesn’t matter what your dream is—my dream was to go to Notre Dame and play football—but maybe you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, an actress. No matter what your dream is, you have to be willing to put in the work required to get there.

Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream is really about 3 things: First and foremost, you have to believe your dream is possible, because on the pathway to the dream there will be plenty of opportunities to give up. Second, put in the work to make your dream come true. And lastly, stay patient and positive and sometime your moment will come. And then ultimately (I don’t want to give the ending away), because Tiny Tim was prepared when his opportunity came, it worked out better than he could have imagined.

MCA: I love your point that discipline is doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it—so that someday you get to do what you want to do when you want to do it. What inspired you to become an author, and have your personal life experiences influenced your writing?

When I was growing up as a young boy, I was brainwashed to love the University of Notre Dame and its storied football team from an early age. While most little kids were learning their ABCs, I was also learning the words to the Notre Dame fight song. My dad went to Notre Dame, as did my grandfather and my great-grandfather, so I learned at a young age that Notre Dame was a special place.

But I went to my first Notre Dame football game with my dad when I was 7 years old, and in that game, I saw a player named Tim Brown—who would go on to an NFL hall of fame career—return back-to-back punts for touchdowns. That game basically won Tim Brown the 1987 Heisman Trophy. So, I got pretty lucky with my first game. The excitement in that stadium was electric, and I knew right then and there that I was going to play football at Notre Dame someday.

One of my favorite quotes is, “The two most important days in someone’s life are the day that you’re born and the day you figure out why you were born.” And for me, that first game with my dad felt like that in my 7-year-old mind: I had discovered why I was born!

Fast forward 14 years from going to that first game with my dad, and I’m running down that same field holding the ball in that same stadium and I can hear the crowd going crazy. It was a dream come true. So, I knew I wanted other people to be able to experience that feeling, to prove that it was possible. Not to say “Hey look what I did,” but to say, “Hey, look what you can do.”

So that was really the inspiration behind my first book, Every Play Every Day. I just wanted something tangible to be able to pass down to my future children that was proof that dreams really do come true. And I thought if one person reads it and is inspired by it, then my goal will have been fulfilled.

MCA: Was there a specific occurrence that moved you to write this book?

As I said earlier, when I spoke to elementary school kids about my first book, Every Play Every Day, I thought it would be nice to have a wonderfully illustrated children’s version of the story, one they could easily understand.

Then about a year-and-a-half ago, I was at my parent’s house in Michigan going through some old drawers and I came across a scrapbook my mom had made for me. As moms do, she started in pee wee football, kept newspaper articles, old banquet programs, etc. In that scrapbook I came across a poem I had written when I was 11 years old. The gist of it was: “Wearing the gold helmet, running through the tunnel, listening to the crowd scream, since I was little this has been my dream, but this isn’t a dream like wishing you were king or queen, this is a dream that will come true, I promise you, others have done so I can too.”

And that poem, ultimately became the first two pages of the book. I needed my 11-year-old self to motivate me to finally get the children’s book across the finish line, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

MCA: Can you share your creative process—how you generate ideas and bring them to life on the page?

I really hit the jackpot with my illustrator, Al Adha. He was able to take the vision that I had in my head for Tiny Tim and bring him to life. I knew I didn’t want my book to be done with AI images, and Al would hand-draw all the images first in pencil and send them over to me. It was really a collaborative effort. I even sent him actual photographs of my playing days, which he was able to turn into some of the illustrations. I knew I wanted to depict some of the campus and I wanted to show the struggle and discipline required to reach your goals, and I think Al was able to capture that perfectly.

Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream is a rhyming book, and I’ve always gravitated to books that rhyme even when I’m reading to my own children. I think it’s in my blood—my grandfather was class poet at Notre Dame in 1926 and I would write poems to my now-wife when I was in sixth grade that she still has! And I was a big Shel Silverstein fan growing up. I still think of Sarah Cynthia Siliva Stout when I take the garbage out.

MCA: A real classic! Tim, what do you hope readers will take away from your book?

I hope readers will take away the message to never underestimate yourself, your dreams, and what you’re capable of doing.

MCA: What do you find most rewarding about the writing process?

I think writing is therapeutic. It offers an escape from the day to day and is a chance to reflect and be creative.

MCA: Tell us how your book contributes to promoting family-friendly values or enhancing the lives of your readers.

Tiny Tim’s Notre Dame Football Dream promotes self-discipline and overcoming challenges. I think it embodies everything a parent is trying to instill in their children and is reinforced by the fact that it’s a true story, which I think makes it more relatable.

MCA: Can you share any memorable moments or feedback from readers that have touched you or reinforced the impact of your work?

I’ve received hundreds of emails from kids all over the country that have been positively impacted by the book. That is really the only reason I wrote it. If only one person had read it and been impacted by it, then my goal with writing the book would have been fulfilled. It’s truly an honor to receive those emails, and I draw more inspiration from those emails than their senders can imagine.

MCA: What advice would you give to aspiring authors who are just starting their writing journey?

First, write your story. And then explore all the different options to get it published. I think a lot of times, people want to write a book, but they never actually have a finished product. Write the book, come up with product, and then figure out how to refine it and market it. And finally, don’t take no for an answer.

MCA: As an author, what are your future plans or goals?

I want to continue speaking to elementary through high school students and organizations about my story so that kids out there understand that there’s nothing they can’t accomplish if they have faith and believe in themselves and are willing to put in the work.

There’s enough negativity out there. I want to be a source of positive energy and a resource for kids to know that they can accomplish anything they set out to do.

MCA: What a wonderful goal. Tim, it has been our great privilege to have you with us today. Thank you so much!