Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM JUNE/JULY 2024 9 UNDER THE DOME Jana Eilers and Dave and Clare Butler as donors of the project, played mid- dle linebacker for the Irish. He was a member of the 1980 Notre Dame team that started the year 9-0-1 and ended it narrowly losing to Herschel Walker and the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs, 17-10, in the Sugar Bowl. Eilers and Butler also suited up for the Irish decades ago. Notre Dame also recognized former Irish foot- ball players Pat Kramer and Tom Carter, close friends of the Shields family, "for their generous leadership and support." "The Shields family's remarkable gift, together with the support of many oth- ers, will enable us to greatly enhance our ability to support student-athletes physically, mentally, socially and aca- demically," Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., said in a state- ment. "Notre Dame has long been com- mitted to both athletic success and care for the well-being of our student-ath- letes, and this new facility will help us to excel on the field while we advance the study of sports science, nutrition and medicine on campus, with benefits for athletes everywhere." "Shields Hall is more than just a foot- ball facility," Jack Shields added in his own statement. "Kathy and I wanted to provide a center that will provide re- sources for our players' minds, bodies and spirits during their time at Notre Dame and beyond. We want to ensure our team can play like champions today and live like champions for the rest of their lives." Inside the Gug, Notre Dame student- athletes infamously ate catered food de- livered in trucks. Now they'll eat meals prepared on site in a state-of-the-art cafeteria kitchen. Coaches won't have to cram into small office spaces in the Gug either. They'll be much more comfort- able in the new building. "We've outgrown the building we're in," Freeman said. "That's the No. 1 rea- son we had to create and build a new building. The numbers in college foot- ball have just grown in terms of the staffs, the players. It's just grown." The expansion will include, per the release, "an advanced training room, a stand-alone sports medicine facility, an equipment facility with body scan- ning and fabrication technology, a new and expanded locker room, meeting rooms, including a two-level, all-team auditorium and an augmented reality walkthrough room, media innovation spaces, including recording studios and photo studios, academic support spaces and a new player nutrition area designed to foster community between teams and model healthy eating." "We're getting state-of-the-art ev- erything, right?" Freeman said. "State- of-the-art just in terms of how can we truly provide our players with every possible opportunity for development? In what ways can we help develop? That could be in nutrition, that can be in re- covery and treatment, your classroom, how we're teaching in the classroom setting. "I think it's really important as we build a new building, it's about giving the current players and future players every possibility to really develop and reach their full potential. That's the vi- sion behind it." Coaches and administrators, includ- ing Swarbrick and Freeman, have always been adamant facilities have never been the main thing holding Notre Dame back from winning a national cham- pionship in football. But bigger and better is always preferred to older and smaller, and in the first month of new Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua's tenure the Irish are taking massive strides in putting their resources on par with the big-hitting programs across the country — and then some. There is a reason Notre Dame brought junior cornerback Benjamin Morrison to the groundbreaking ceremony and had him speak to onlookers for a cou- ple minutes. As an All-American in the trenches, his voice is loud. Prospective Fighting Irish players listen to players like him — literally; Notre Dame had recruits on hand to witness the ground- breaking live and in the flesh. Morrison, in a way, was speaking directly to po- tential future teammates. "Facilities do matter," Morrison said in his speech. "Notre Dame must be at the forefront of everything we do." "To our recruits that are out there, we want you to understand this is a reflec- tion of the commitment this university has to making sure our football program and our student-athletes have the most opportunities to have success," Freeman added in his address. ✦ Notre Dame broke ground on the Jack and Kathy Shields Family Hall during a ceremony April 20 before the Blue-Gold Game. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME