Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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60 NOV. 7, 2016 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? BY LOU SOMOGYI Thirty years ago, New Orleans' Brother Martin High School produced two of the premier student-athletes of their time, or any time. Outside linebacker Rod West was named one of the nation's top 100 high school football prospects by Sporting News, while defensive end Warde Manuel earned first-team All-America notice in the high school ranks. Shortly after their Sunday-Monday visit to the Notre Dame campus, they were told, heading to their Tuesday morning class, that Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler awaited them in the football office at Brother Martin. "I walked left to go to 8 o'clock phys- ics class, and he turns right to the foot- ball office," recalled West this October. "I didn't see Warde for two days — and the next time I see him he's wear- ing a Michigan sweatshirt." Manuel flipped to the Wolverines, where this January he was named its athletics director. Meanwhile, West re- mained with the Irish, even though he was a little bored with first-year head coach Lou Holtz's magic tricks during an in-home visit. Holtz was hired as the Messiah Coach two months earlier after Notre Dame struggled to a 30-26-1 mark the previous five years and ended 1985 with a 58-7 loss at Miami to finish 5-6 and with a three-game losing streak. When Holtz saw he wasn't making an impression on the brilliant scholar West — who was seriously contem- plating enrolling at West Point — he went into his oration that West recites verbatim to this day. "Rod West, I'll give it to you straight," Holtz said. "You come to Notre Dame and you'll get a world- class education and be part of the turnaround of America's most storied football tradition. Or your ass can go somewhere else and you can watch it happen on television and regret it for the rest of your damned life." Such salesmanship kept West in the fold and set him up for what already has been an extraordinary life, includ- ing getting named to Notre Dame's Board of Trustees in May 2009 — where he joined his host on that 1986 trip, 1987 captain and fellow business/ community titan Byron Spruell. TRIUMPH & TRAGEDY The start of West's journey began in the summer of 1986 when he enrolled at Notre Dame in an enrichment pro- gram for incoming minority students who had declared an intention for the engineering program. "Because I was a student-athlete, Notre Dame offering that benefit to me was against the rules and considered an 'extra benefit,'" West said. "We self-reported it and I had to do community service hours." Those service hours included being a Spanish and sign language interpreter for the Panamanian delegation at the International Special Olympics held at Notre Dame in the summer of 1987. Imagine that? Being penalized for being an actual student. As Holtz promised, Notre Dame rose to the summit, producing a national ti- tle in 1988 and a school-record 23-game winning streak in 1989. West switched to tight end after his sophomore year and became a top blocker there and as an H-back/fullback, playing for the national champs and earning his third monogram as a senior in 1989. Although West was invited back for a fifth season in 1990, he opted to attend Law School at Tulane, and by 1996 he became president of Notre Dame's national alumni board, the first African-American to hold that post and the youngest overall by nearly two decades. Content with his law career, West said his life changed on April 20, 1998, when his father, Felton, who played at Grambling under coach Eddie Rob- inson, was electrocuted at age 49 in a backyard accident. West joined Entergy Corporation as senior regulatory counsel in April 1999, and on Aug. 13, 2005, he gradu- ated from Tulane's MBA program. Two weeks later his native New Orleans was ground zero after Hurricane Ka- trina, one of the worst natural disasters in American history, put 100 percent of the city's electrical grid out of service and put 80 percent of the city under water, forcing the evacuation of about 85 percent of its population. At that time West was serving as manager of the metro New Orleans region with responsibility for the city's electric infrastructure. "What helped me guide myself and others through it were all the lessons I learned at Notre Dame — and I've told that to Coach Holtz and I've told that to former players," said West, who had to change his engineering major during his time because he couldn't devote the time he wanted to it. "There is something about having worn a hel- met, gone through two-a-days, having played competitive sports. "That part of you, that reservoir that you don't know exists — until you've been forced to go there — I knew that I had it in me to make it through the calamity. "I didn't know how. I knew how to lead, and I knew what I knew and knew what I didn't know. So I sur- rounded myself with people who knew what I didn't know. "We were able to put together a game plan, like a football game. What are the strengths and weaknesses? What's the objective, short-term, long- term? You break the game up into pos- sessions, into quarters …" After ensuring the safety of his workforce, many of whom lost homes to the storm, West and his team over- saw a $250 million reconstruction. In 2007, as president and chief exec- utive officer of Entergy New Orleans, West led the organization out of Rod West, 1986-89 Tight End/Outside Linebacker West, shown with daughter Simone, was named to Notre Dame's Board of Trustees in May 2009. PHOTO COURTESY WEST The Notre Dame Board of Trustees member has distinguished himself in various fields