SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Marcus Freeman slipped into the football auditorium, taking a back seat in a room he usually leads. He was there to listen as Kevin Corrigan held a lacrosse team meeting, early in a season that would end with a national championship. Notre Dame’s head football coach didn’t speak up, didn’t insert himself. He didn’t need to be noticed.
Advertisement
As Corrigan spoke, Freeman took notes. Whether they were mental or written didn’t matter. The point for Freeman was to learn something from a colleague who was once a first-time head coach too, even if Freeman was 3 years old back then.
“They didn’t really know, but sometimes I sneak in the back and watch them,” Freeman said. “I really like to watch coaches coach.”
A few months later, Freeman flew on Notre Dame’s jet to Philadelphia to watch Corrigan go for his first national championship in his sixth Final Four. Freeman sat with his boss Jack Swarbrick and board of trustees chairman Jack Brennan, talking through lacrosse strategy with the man who promoted him and one of the men who championed it. Niele Ivey (women’s basketball), Salima Rockwell (women’s volleyball), Ryan Sachire (men’s tennis) and Deanna Gumpf (softball) came too, another opportunity to pick brains.
As Notre Dame survived Virginia in the semifinals and put down Duke in the national championship game, Freeman thought back to eavesdropping on Corrigan, how the Irish lacrosse coach had a sharpness in message worth importing to football. During preseason camp this month, Notre Dame football made “clarity equals velocity” a catchphrase. It’s not that Corrigan thought of it first as much as how he moved Freeman in that direction.
“I remember coming back and telling my staff that if you looked at our team and looked at Duke, probably shouldn’t have won. But our guys played extremely hard,” Freeman said. “And I believe there was a little bit of simplicity in terms of their guys knew exactly what they had do so they could play faster.”
As Notre Dame returns to Ireland to face Navy on Saturday to kick off Freeman’s second season in charge, bits and pieces of other Irish head coaches will come, too. For the past year Freeman has sounded out colleagues, looking for an edge. He’s attended matches in at least a half dozen other sports, because he’s a fan and because he’s a student. He’s also an advocate. Freeman will help in recruiting for other programs, meeting with high school prospects. At least once he met with a head coach Swarbrick wanted to hire.
Freeman watched Notre Dame win a lacrosse national title this spring. (Courtesy of Notre Dame Athletics)
There have been photo ops because nothing happens in college athletics these days without a social media account to document it. But that’s hardly the point for Freeman, no matter how many cameras find him. He’s at the lacrosse national championship game to support Corrigan and to learn from him. He’s in the front row at women’s basketball to cheer for Ivey but also to study her. He’s at Compton Ice Arena to show off his Notre Dame hockey jersey but to also understand how Jeff Jackson built a consistent winner.
Advertisement
For everything Freeman can take from Notre Dame’s other head coaches, he gives plenty back, too. That’s a reason why Freeman arrived in Dublin as a different head coach than the one who navigated a volatile debut season. It’s also a reason why those coaches are pulling so hard for him back on campus.
Freeman is one of them.
The head football coach may always be first in line at Notre Dame. It’s just that Freeman doesn’t act that way.
GO DEEPER How Year 1 changed Marcus Freeman and what it means for Notre Dame in Year 2 and beyond
Freeman skipped this month’s head coach’s meeting, an early August retreat Swarbrick organized to foster the cross-pollination of ideas across sports. Brad Stevens, the Boston Celtics president of operations, attended to talk to the staff. Freeman was excused on account of preseason camp. Still, he was conspicuous by his absence.
“He’s been at more head coaches’ meetings than any of the other head football coaches combined,” said Jackson, whose 18 hockey seasons span the tenures of Charlie Weis and Brian Kelly. “There would be times with some of the other guys that I would feel like I was standing in a three-foot hole when I was talking to them. That doesn’t happen with Marcus.”
Jackson asks Freeman to talk to recruits. He asks him into the locker room postgame to talk to the current team. When Freeman did his first public interview after being announced as Notre Dame’s head coach, he did it in a No. 22 Notre Dame hockey jersey during intermission of a game against Ohio State, his alma mater. During home games at Compton, the video board flashes a clip of Freeman explaining why he brings his recruits (including offensive coordinator candidate Andy Ludwig) to hockey games while selling Notre Dame.
“Because coach Jackson does an excellent job and that’s a great environment,” Freeman says.
The crowd eats it up. So does Jackson.
“That support, whether it’s complimentary support or just his presence being there, I think they both matter,” Jackson said. “When he gives you a shout out, yeah, certainly, that makes you feel good.”
Advertisement
Jackson has been there, done that, winning two national championships and making five Frozen Fours. Still, he attends football practices to learn from Freeman, often from atop one of the midfield towers. He’ll chat with Freeman to the side about leadership and culture.
When Notre Dame brought Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of the United States Special Operations Command, to campus in February, Jackson got a private audience that included Freeman. Jackson has met with Pete Carroll and Mike Krzyzewski when they visited Notre Dame as opposing coaches. Freeman met NFL head coaches in Denver and Minnesota when he hit Notre Dame events in those cities. Notre Dame’s hockey and football coaches may be a generation apart, but they’re kin in how they seek knowledge.
“The best way you learn is by doing. Sometimes by doing you make a mistake, and that’s how you learn,” Jackson said. “He’s in a much bigger high-profile situation than I was when I first started this. And so like, any mistakes you make, he’ll get recognized right away for it.”
During a national conference of college hockey coaches last offseason, Jackson bumped into an administrator from Ohio State, who asked how Freeman was doing after his first year as head coach. Jackson assured the administrator Freeman was doing just fine, that he was impacting the campus beyond football games.
“And he says, ‘Well, I’m glad you guys are warming him up for us,’” Jackson remembered. “I said, ‘Hey, listen. I can’t predict the future. But I got a sneaking suspicion that Marcus is here as long as he wants to be.’”
That feels like a decent bet considering Freeman was recruiting to Notre Dame before his first game as head coach. In the oxygen suck of changing football bosses two years ago, Swarbrick was also trying to hire a volleyball coach. Rockwell, a national championship assistant and former All-American, was his top choice. The problem was the only time her schedule could match Notre Dame’s for an interview fell around the Fiesta Bowl.
Rockwell was interested enough to fly to Arizona.
Advertisement
“I was prepared to talk to Father John (Jenkins) and Jack (Swarbrick). I knew that was coming. But what I was not excepting at all was to talk to Marcus. Not just talk to him, but he was part of the process,” Rockwell said. “I know what’s going on in sports and this is his first game as a head coach. Ever. What are we doing here?”
Rockwell and Freeman talked about the support she could expect from Notre Dame’s administration and the adjustment of living in South Bend. Freeman ended the conversation telling Rockwell that he’d get her his contact info. Rockwell figured it was a polite but potentially inauthentic end to their conversation.
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Rockwell said to herself. “Then I got his number and we’re in contact a lot. It’s awesome. He has helped me tremendously, even after that initial interview process.”
Like Jackson, Rockwell asks Freeman to talk to recruits during visits. She asked Freeman to say a closing word at one of volleyball’s summer camps, turning a few heads among campers’ dads. They’ll talk contracts, recruiting strategy and transfer portal on plane rides to meet donors. Freeman said he wanted to come to a match and showed up at Senior Day against Louisville, which finished 31-3 and lost in the national title game.
When Rockwell took the job, Notre Dame barely had a full roster. There were no delusions about what was coming on Nov. 23, the night before Thanksgiving and three nights before football would face USC. Still, Freeman showed up.
“Timeouts, I look over and he’s getting all fired up, jumping up, pumping his fist,” Rockwell said. “I think it makes it feel more real. He doesn’t want to be untouchable. He likes being down in it.”
Volleyball lost in three sets.
Afterward, Freeman sent Rockwell a 13-sentence text. He complimented her program for playing hard and referenced the “bumpy road” that’s a staple around football. He said he’d be back for more matches. And not to hesitate calling if she ever needed help.
Advertisement
Rockwell hasn’t hesitated.
“Every time he’s replied. Every single time. It’s not, ‘Got it,’ or him liking the message. It’s always a response,” Rockwell said. “I’m not naive. I always understand football has its own thing, they make the money. That’s fine. But if there are things that are being missed, I feel comfortable that I could say, ‘Hey Marcus. Take a look at this,’ And maybe he’d put in a word for me.
“He wants to help other sports. That’s huge.”
Freeman has a visible presence at Notre Dame women’s basketball games. (Matt Cashore / USA Today)
Niele Ivey walked into Notre Dame football practice on Aug. 15 to get a scouting report. She’d heard about Sam Hartman but didn’t know much about Notre Dame’s new quarterback. Jack Swarbrick filled her in between practice fields, Ivey fresh off a foreign hoops tour of Greece and Croatia. Everything else about Notre Dame football, Ivey had down. Nineteen seasons in South Bend, spread among playing for Muffet McGraw, working under the Hall of Fame coach and now leading the program she built, is quite a curriculum.
Ivey watched Freeman start practice the way he always does, going up and down the stretch lines, making physical contact with every player. Ivey does the same with her team, even if checking in with 14 players every day is easier than 117.
Of all the coaching spirits on campus, Freeman and Ivey may be the most kindred. The day of his introductory news conference, Freeman texted Ivey to start a connection. Basketball coaches attending football games is common, almost expected. But it’s never worked in reverse, until Freeman. He showed up to a home game against Connecticut last December.
And he just kept coming. Freeman even flew from South Bend to Greensboro, N.C., for the ACC Tournament quarters and semis to watch Notre Dame split games against N.C. State and Louisville.
“I don’t recall one time a football coach being at a game, when I was a player, when I was an assistant,” Ivey said. “That speaks volumes. It’s him showing up for women.”
No two coaches at Notre Dame share more commonalities. Both replaced their program’s all-time winningest coaches, although McGraw was also the Rockne of her program. Both are first-time head coaches. Both lead programs where success can be expected more than celebrated. Both are expected to recruit elite talent.
“We really connected because I understand what that entails for him,” Ivey said. “It’s such a high-pressure job and the eyes are really on us, but really, really on him.”
Like Jackson and Rockwell, Ivey leans on Freeman in recruiting. During official visit weekends, prospects will sometimes spend a half hour with Notre Dame’s football coach, who’s pitching the institution and the woman leading the program.
“Those visits, that’s your time to present the best of Notre Dame,” Ivey said. “I feel like he’s one of the best things here at Notre Dame.”
Freeman gets an education out of it, too, in terms of how other programs are using NIL and how they’re identifying talent that fits at Notre Dame. Recruiting against Alabama or Ohio State in football and Connecticut or South Carolina in basketball aren’t incongruous concepts. Ivey has a graduate level degree in identifying program fit at a place that usually weeds out those who don’t. Same with Corrigan and Jackson. Rockwell is just learning. Same goes for Freeman as football tries to hunt higher up the recruiting food chain.
“We’ve talked about winning culture. Exchanged conversations about what that takes,” Rockwell said. “You have to have talent, but dynamics are everything. You can’t get whoever you want. The academic standards, I knew it, but I didn’t really know it. It’s not easy.”
This is all part of the co-education of Marcus Freeman, how he’s learned from the coaches around him and how they’ve learned from him. Resumes don’t matter as much as rapport around Notre Dame, something Freeman has intentionally built since he arrived. Now it’s something that can help him take the next step as head coach while boosting Ivey, Corrigan, Jackson, Rockwell, etc., in all the little ways that add up over time.
“Any person in this room can say with experience you become better. Like, there’s no substitution for it,” Freeman said. “I could have planned 20 years of my life to become a head coach. And still the blueprint doesn’t work until you actually go through it and say, ‘OK, let’s make tweaks and adjustments to fit this team.’
“A blueprint doesn’t just work in any program, you got to be able to fit in around your team. And that’s what I’ve been able to do.”
With plenty of architectural inspiration along the way.
(Top photo: Courtesy of Notre Dame Athletics)
Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman is super fan and student of Irish’s other sports coaches
