Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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selfish, team-first basketball. "We had played together and had the familiarity of being in a lot of battles together playing for Coach Brey," Kurz said. "We had an idea of how to play together, and that was a big advantage for us, especially in the final game. We had a full roster of guys to plug into the game and could play seamlessly. They only played six guys, and that helped us wear them down. "The familiarity definitely helped us win. Defensively, offensively, we really played well together, especially for not having practice and not having played together in years." As a sign of their gratitude for Brey, the team donated $100,000 of its win- nings to Coaches vs. Cancer. They split up the remainder of the prize money evenly, depending on the number of games each could attend. For players like Kurz that made it to each one, they departed with $50,000. "The money's great, but that's not what it was about for us," he said. "It's a true testament to Coach and what he's built. We had guys that hadn't even played together on the team. Tory Jack- son [2006-10] and Chris Thomas [2001- 05] might've met a few times, but never played together. Chris Thomas never played with anyone on our team ex- cept Colin Falls [2003-07], Torin Fran- cis [2002-06], Russ Carter [2003-07] and me. He hadn't played with any of the younger guys. It's a true reflection of the program." For Kurz, one of the lasting memories of the month-long experience was when the players and their former coach spent some time together in Boston leading up to the championship win. "It was so much fun getting to go out and eat with him and relive all the times he was yelling at us in the locker room," he said. "We had a great time talking about old times. For a lot of us, the col- lege years are the best years of our lives and the best memories we'll have. It was fun to be together with such a great group of guys. We're still really close friends. "Coach Brey is a big part of our lives still, and we feel really fortunate to be a part of a program like Notre Dame where the head coach has been there for 15 years now and has done a great job. We all feel the connection to the school, and a lot of it's because Coach is there." As for the tournament, which re- ceived a considerable amount of media coverage — ESPN3 televised the final — it hopes to expand in the future and increase the prize money. "The plan is to make it into a reality show," Kurz said. "They filmed a lot of footage. They want to make a pilot out of it so they can televise these over the next year. Their plan is to make it the third biggest basketball tournament after the NBA Playoffs and the NCAA Tournament." Kurz said to expect to see more out of the Fighting Alumni in the future. "I'm going to start my training next week," he quipped. "Especially if it's for the money they're talking about now. We'd love to get together and even have more Notre Dame guys reach out and be a part of it next year. "Hopefully we'll get the opportunity to play in it again. It was a great experi- ence. If we could do it a couple more years and play together and have a great week, it would be a lot of fun." ✦