Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY ANDREW OWENS M ost afternoons, senior captain Sheldon Day can be found honing his craft at LaBar Practice Fields on the out- skirts of the Notre Dame campus. A couple times per week, he can be found later that evening on Riehle Fields near the Stepan Center. On these occasions, he's traded in his helmet for a whis- tle to coach the Pas- querilla East Pyros women's interhall football team. Day shares his football knowledge with the all-female dorm to help them in their quest of an interhall champi- onship. Inside the Guglielmino Ath- letics Complex, Day has transformed as a leader for the Irish with the program eyeing a College Football Playoff berth. "I'd say more than anything else leadership this year [has improved]," head coach Brian Kelly said. "I couldn't be more proud of a guy in the way that he has matured and taken hold of his captainship in a manner that I didn't know that he could. Specifically, his room and the defensive line room, that's not an easy room. Those guys are a little salty. And that's a good thing. He's able to bring all of those personali- ties together. "He's now not afraid to hold others accountable, which is just a huge step in being a great leader. His play has been really good, but what I've been most pleased with is the way he's practiced. He sets a standard for practice and I couldn't be more proud of him." Day is in his sec- ond season as a captain, but Kelly noted the leader- ship styles between the two years have been vastly dif- ferent. The head coach said Day was sometimes afraid to step on the toes of players more expe- rienced than him in 2014, but that con- cern has subsided in the Indianapolis native's final season in South Bend. "I would say so," Day replied when asked if it was chal- lenging to develop his leadership style. "You have got to learn about your teammates and learn what makes them tick and what makes them get over the hump. "Just being around those guys. We stay in camp together. We go out to din- ner Monday nights. We go and do a lot of things together just to make sure that everybody knows each other." A NEW DAY Sheldon Day's leadership has expanded in ways his head coach never could have imagined