Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Bank to return to the world of col- lege athletics after a 33-year hiatus. He played center on Notre Dame's basketball team for three seasons and made the All-America team as a senior in 1954. He hung around the game for two seasons with the Ft. Wayne Pistons before moving on to a more fruitful career. He didn't have time to be more than a casual fan of the Irish or the NCAA while working at the bank. When asked what he knew about the famous Proposition 48 in his inter- view for the athletics director's job he said, "Well I assume it's the one that comes after 47 and before 49." Rosenthal was the first Notre Dame athletics director who didn't rise through the ranks of college sports to reach his post. That raised eyebrows in South Bend, but new university president Rev. Edward "Monk" Mal- loy and his right-hand man, Rev. Wil- liam Beauchamp, saw the value in his professional experience. "The business end of athletics Dame's sports up to level of the foot- ball team in the late 1980s and early 1990s also led to what Rosenthal calls his toughest decision during his time in the director's chair — joining the Big East Conference. The school's in- dependence elicited as much pride then as the football team's indepen- dence does now. However, if sports like volleyball and soccer were going to compete on more than the regional or local level, they needed a way to play top teams and earn a ticket to the national tournaments. "We had aspirations to be competi- That desire to bring the rest of Notre WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? FINAL ACT uary, now lives a short drive from campus in Niles, Mich. He stays in touch with a handful of his team- mates from the 1954 Irish team that finished 22-3 and upset No. 1 Indiana in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Some of them still live close enough to get together for lunch. He stays busy by keeping up with his 32 grandchildren scattered across the country like Notre Dame alumni. Even after a quarter century of Rosenthal, who turned 82 in Jan- tive on a national level," Rosenthal said. "Our location didn't permit us to create the kind of schedules that would permit us to be nationally competitive without some kind of conference affiliation." So in 1995, in his final major act is certainly very important these days," Beauchamp said the day he announced Rosenthal's hire. "Dick Rosenthal has a great business back- ground." Despite his basketball roots and the public focus on football, Rosenthal's goal from the outset was to raise the level of the rest of Notre Dame's athletic programs. He decided very quickly, after seeing what Lou Holtz accomplished with the football team, that the best way to do that was to hire better coaches. Good coaches are attracted by a full deck of scholar- ships, good facilities and, of course, a good salary. Notre Dame needed a bigger budget. "We needed to spend more as athletics director, Rosenthal made another controversial decision and moved the majority of Notre Dame's sports into the Big East. And just like with the NBC contract, hindsight has shown it to be the right move. proof that he was ahead of the curve in college football, Rosenthal doesn't respond to those who criticized his moves as athletics director. He does, however, still defend his decisions. "I think there's nothing wrong with the level of income that col- lege sports are generating," he said. "Where schools maybe have gone in error is how they've utilized the resources that they're generating. For the television revenues to have increased is, I think, a good thing. What you do with the revenues that you have at your resources can be either good or bad." ✦ money," Rosenthal said. "But we tried to do it in ways that we could cover those expenses. In those days the athletic department had to be to- tally self-sufficient." With football, Rosenthal found his means. The excess money from the NBC deal all went to academic scholarships, but the national vis- ibility allowed Notre Dame to be- come the marketing giant that it is today, which allowed the athletic department to financially back all of its sports. Since that time, Notre Dame's Olympic sports have been the strength of the program. www.BLUEANDGOLD.com Rosenthal was the first Notre Dame athletics director who didn't rise through the ranks of college sports to reach his post, and he was instrumental in Notre Dame signing a deal in 1990 to televise its football games on NBC. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS PRESEASON 2012 97