Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/259072
MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY W ith all the inspired quotes hanging on the walls inside the Guglielmino football com- plex at Notre Dame that first spouted from the mouths of legendary coaches, world leaders and activists, it's fitting that athletics director Jack Swarbrick began his first announcement of 2014 with a man he called a "great Ameri- can philosopher" — Ferris Bueller. The '80s cult hero movie character wasn't afraid to buck the establish- ment. Life moves pretty fast, Bueller warned, if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it. "That has never been more true, in my view, of our industry than it is today," Swarbrick said. "What is ahead of us in college sports is a pe- riod of change unlike any of us have ever lived through or had to try and navigate." Notre Dame, it seems, is at long last ready for some change, too. After four years of building trust, Swarbrick has been tackling moun- tains recently. The 1976 graduate is gracefully bulldozing the stubborn hurdles of tradition that have allowed other schools to pass the Irish in a race toward the future. With conference af- filiations, apparel deals and stadium renovations, Swarbrick is giving Notre Dame the resources it needs in unprec- edented ways. Innovative thinking is the most time-tested tradition in Notre Dame athletics, and the only one that makes all the others hold any value. From the barnstorming schedule set up by Knute Rockne in the 1920s to the revolutionary NBC television contract signed in 1991, many of the brightest spots in Notre Dame football's history were immediately preceded by radical ideas. The Irish have been slow to embrace Embracing Change At Notre Dame With conference affiliations, apparel deals and stadium renovations, athletics director Jack Swarbrick is giving Notre Dame the resources it needs to compete in unprecedented ways. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND