Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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"I didn't know what in the hell I was doing when I first took the job," said DeCicco, in a 1988 interview with Blue & Gold Illustrated. "I'd sit down with a kid and ask how his schoolwork was going. He'd say, 'Okay.' I'd say, 'Fine.' And that was that. Then when grades would be posted, I'd discover a lot were not doing as well as they said they were." DeCicco's "on-the-job-training" included recognizing that some athletes had the "last-minute comeback" mentality in the classroom, and he became a martinet when it came to demanding consistent academic success. And woe to the student-athlete whose professor reported an unexcused absence from class. DeCicco always credited Father Joyce and 1952‑87 Notre Dame president Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh for being ahead of their time when they created his position. "They recognized the constraints and time-factor difficulties studentathletes would eventually have with the increased emphasis on intercollegiate sports," DeCicco said. Ironically, DeCicco's position was originally met with derision among some members of the academic community because it was perceived as the coddling of athletes. The two priests and DeCicco had a different perspective: Notre Dame is asking the athletes for their services and energies, and to act as national representatives of the school. Therefore, it is the university's duty to try to Victory Was His Although the Notre Dame fencing program did not give out grant-in-aids during Mike DeCicco's reign with the program, it consistently excelled as a national power in part because of international recruiting, but also because of the tradition it built through infrastructure development. "We convinced [students] that even without a lot of experience, if they came out for fencing they would earn a monogram and represent the university in intercollegiate competition," DeCicco said after the program's eighth national title in 2011. "That was the drive for a lot of these kids. "You get kids that are athletically inclined — they like to get involved in sports, they like competition — once you teach them the basics they go on their own. That's the luck that we have had." DeCicco's fencers won their first national title in 1977, the same year he also created the women's program. The men also won titles in 1978 and 1986, while the women captured their first in 1987 under head coach Yves Auriol, with DeCicco overseeing the operation. In 1990, the NCAA merged men's and women's fencing as one title, and in 1994 DeCicco and Auriol were the coaches when the Irish won it all for DeCicco's fifth and final national title. Here are the Notre Dame coaches with the most career victories: Rk. Coach (Years) Sport Record (Win Pct.) 1. Mike DeCicco (1962-95) Fencing 680-45 (.938) 2. Muffet McGraw (1987-) Women's Basketball 626-217 (.742) 3. Tom Fallon (1952-87) Tennis/Wrestling 579-268-4 (.683) 4. Jake Kline (1934-75) Baseball 558-449-5 (.554) 5. Yves Auriol (1986-2002) Fencing 525-33 (.941)