Reunion 2024: Cultivating Champions

What does it take to be a champion? How do we develop and cultivate a championship mindset? Immerse yourself in collegiate athletics with our expert panel.

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Transcript

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 0:08

All right, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to your home under the dome, as I like to say. thanks for joining us for this conversation this afternoon around cultivating champions. I've seen a lot of you with your faces already in the audience, but for those of you that I have not had the chance to meet, my name is Sarah Liebscher. I serve as an Associate Vice President, for Development. I basically oversee our regional, our international, and our athletics fundraising efforts here. Thank you. And, I'm a double domer, like some other person on this stage. I was an undergrad in 91, graduate in 93, and I had the real privilege of spending a lot of time in this facility because I played basketball and had a chance to coach the Muppet back in the day. I will be moderating today's conversation, and I'm joined this afternoon by two very distinguished Notre Dame alums. I will start. These guys are real legends in their own way here in the world of collegiate sports. Each brings An incredible track record of success, and a very unique perspective on this mindset of a champion. to my far Jack Swarbrick, class of 1976. He's here celebrating his 40th reunion, don't mean to sell you out on that one, but it was going to be inevitable. He's coming out here. Bubba, class, Bubba Cunningham, class of 1984, also earned his MBA here in 1986. Neither of these individuals need long introductions, and I'm always scolded for making mine too long, but I'm going to, so I'm going to try to be brief, but I do think in fairness to them and what they've accomplished, let me just share a little bit of their backgrounds with you. So I'll start with Jack. Most recently served for 16 years as our Vice President and James U. Rohrer Director of Athletics at the University, retiring earlier this spring. I will tell you, from the launching of Fighting Irish Media, to navigating our membership into the ACC, and turning Notre Dame Stadium into an asset that we're using 365 days a year, Jack's impact on his alma mater is unprecedented. Not to mention his leadership in the national, or on the national stage of collegiate athletics. but prior to returning to his alma mater, and I will say I've had the real privilege, I got a chance to work directly with him for a number of years. Prior to coming back, Jack, was a graduate of Stanford University, earned his law degree there, and spent 28 years as a partner at Baker Daniels. But just a real privilege, a real visionary, the guy who I always say, he's playing chess, everyone else is playing checkers. So Jack, thanks for being with us. Bubba! Current Director of Athletics at the University of North Carolina. A position that he's held since 2011. Prior to this, Bubba was the Athletic Director at both Tulsa and Ball State. And like Jack, a player on the national scene. He's served on various NCAA committees, on Olympic and Paralympic committees, and now on LEAD 1, which is a big industry committee for athletic directors. Helped launch the ACC network. In the fall of 2019, amongst his many other industry accomplishments. He got his start in this very building. So some years ago, but served as Notre Dame's Associate Athletics Director for Finance and Facilities, as well as the Associate Athletics Director for External Affairs. Also a member of the Irish Golf Team while an undergrad, and rumor has it you can still get your way around the course at ThinkND. with the lengths of a little bit of proficiency. So Jack, Boba, thank you both for being with us this afternoon. Super excited to sit down with this conversation, for this conversation with both of you. We know, those of us that are close to college athletics, that the sands, as I say, are shifting weekly, if not daily, right now in time, and there's a lot of hot topics. Given that, And I'm, and we're gonna have time for q and a later. And so I want you guys to be thinking if there's hot topics you want to talk about, that's great. But for this conversation, I really wanna start out and I wanna make the focus of our time here around this, the title of the session itself, cultivating Champions. And I don't think the panel could be any more timely. And Jack, I'm gonna start with you on this one.'cause we're coming off of back to back championships with our national, our men's lacrosse team with their national championship. Kevin Corrigan, he waits 35 years to get his first and then he goes back to back. Let's talk, tell this group, share some insights, on what has made that team what made them so incredibly dominant this year. How would you describe them as champions?

Jack Swarbrick ’76 4:38

First of all, thanks for pointing out everybody's graduation here.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 4:42

They're wearing theirs.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 4:43

I really do. The first thing that made them dominant was Mrs. Kavanaugh having children. There's no substitute for great players. You can do all the other things to support a team, but you either have talent at that level or you don't. And it's not just the skill to play the sport. Champions are different. They have a different mindset. They're different people. And you're very fortunate when you get one and with two Cavanaughs Lee we, we had three of them, but it's also a team had a really remarkable culture and Kevin said something to me, oh, about Midseason. He said, I never had a team that had leadership at each level of the team. That's effect as effective as this way. We have great leadership among the starting unit. But we've got great leadership among the second and third units. And that cultural dynamic makes all the difference in the world. And so, using them as an example. You, as I say, you can do all the other stuff, and you have to do all the other stuff. But you either get the cultural element right or you don't. The coach sets it, but the players own it. I've told the story a million times, but when I hired, when I was in the process of hiring Marcus, I, sat with the future leadership of the team, as I always do in the hiring process. And I, I made clear that I wasn't looking for them to identify candidates, but I wanted to know what characteristics they wanted in their next head coach. There were seven of them. Robert Hainsey spoke first, and Robert said, We'll get to that. We have something we want to say to you. I said, Okay. I love it. Robert said, We have friends in college, in programs all over the country, so we have a good sense of these programs. We believe we have the best culture in college football. And the coaches didn't create that. We did. So Mr. Swarbrick, Do not screw this up. And I really appreciated it. It didn't cause me to hire Marcus Freeman. There were a lot of other things it did. But it did put a finger on the scale. Because he wasn't going to change the culture. He was going to maintain

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 7:11

it. Fantastic. Love it. Between the two of you, it looks like you're both, 30 national champions, or more than 30 national championships between the two of them. So let me ask Bob about this one. you've matched 21 of them. Two even this year. Field hockey? Women's tennis? Okay. You talk a lot about culture. What's the secret sauce for some of the teams, and you look back and think about your national champions, and you've been a part of championship teams.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 7:36

Alright, First of all, let me thank you for inviting me to be back again. 40 years at, my first job, I graduated, we graduated, obviously, 40 years ago in 84. Left and came back and worked in the Alumni Association for three years. I have been with this group for a long time and enjoy it. welcome back to all of you in those five year increments. Enjoyed every minute of working in the Alumni Association. Before I was fortunate enough to switch over to athletics and it's fantastic. now sitting here 40 years later, I enjoy it. First of all, I never thought I'd make it 40 years later, but here I am. And it's great to be here. And Jack nailed it. And you mentioned about Jack playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers. I'm still playing checkers. I wish Jack was still in the room, because I lean on him a lot. And I will brag on Jack a little bit. When I first got the job at Ball State, he was still practicing law down in Indy. And I was trying to figure out, how do you make Ball State relevant? Or at least, how do you get on any kind of radar with Ball State football? And so we had a marketing summit. Skip Scherlecki, who's here today, Skip came down, Bill Scholl came down, Larry Williams. But a full time partner in a law firm that's building by the hour said, I asked him if he would come and join us. He spent the entire day with us for nothing, just to lend his advice and thought. And we barely knew each other at the time. And it's that kind of relationship that I think Notre Dame fosters. And then to, fast forward 20, 30 years later, to get to work alongside Jack in the ACC has been absolutely tremendous. I do want to congratulate Jack on an incredible career. And what he's, the Crossroads Stadium Project is absolutely his brainchild. It has come to life. It's absolutely fantastic. Jack, congratulations on an incredible career. Appreciate it. As it relates to championships, I do think he's exactly right that it is the culture. And he's mentioned it as the coach. It starts with the coach. The coach sets the tone, but the players, they're the ones, the student athletes, they're the ones that really carry that culture day to day. The coach isn't around all the time, so what's going on Outside of the locker room, outside the practice fields, quite frankly it's going on at night, at times where you can get a little bit off track. But the culture that is created by the coach, that's started by them, carried on by the players, is what it's all about. And we did have two championships the last year. And the first championship we had was women's tennis. And they won the indoor championship. And have never won the outdoor until this past year. And you may or may not know him, but he's coached by a Notre Dame grad, Brian Kalpas. And Brian's been there almost 20 years and has been an absolutely fantastic head coach for us. Then at the other extreme, just this past fall we won the national championship in women's field hockey. And we've had an incredible player for the last five years. She was the player of the year four times. She won four national championships in her five years as a player. She graduated in December. We hired her in January. The following year she won the national championship, and it's absolutely fantastic to see such a young woman do that. But what I think was missed, and a lot of it was the maturity of the team to respond to a teammate when she had a completely different role as a head coach and for them to buy into her leadership was something that really was special to watch. And she's going to continue to be a great leader for our program, and she fits in so well with all of our coaches, so she's been a real pleasure to work with.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 11:08

Nice. So Jack, I want to go back to you. I give you a lot of credit because you, when you came in, you set the stage and the bar that national championships were what the goal was across the board. You talked a lot about mining, mining the differences in key opportunities and key moments. Talk a little bit about that and what that means. relative to winning the big one or not.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 11:31

Yeah, first of all I'm really passionate about the only goal being national championships. All the other things are great, conference championships are great, awards are great, but if you don't articulate the national championship goal you never get there. And so we asked each coach at the start of each year to show the plan that could get them to the National Championship. You know you're rarely going to get there. But you still have to plan that way. And so we did. But Sarah's right. Tony Dungy told me years ago, Tony said, Most NFL games come down to not more than four plays. And that is absolutely the case across sports. I mean there's sometimes just such talent differences. It is what it is. But It's what can you do to put your student athletes in a situation where they win those four plays. And, it's everything. The margins are so small, whether you get that done or not. And, so you have to not leave any stone unturned. I'm probably doing the same stuff we are, but You wouldn't believe the amount of time we spend on recovery. So that you're as effective as you could be at the next practice. And when the game comes. And nutrition. And sports science. When I came here we didn't have any nutritionists or any mental health counselors. Now we've got a lot of them. And we need to have a lot of them. that's all part of making sure you've tried to address everything. That might allow you to win those four plays. Or drive in that winning run in the ninth inning. Or serve that ace when you win the tennis championship. you've got to invest in them. You've got to get the base right. Then you have to invest in all those other things. We have a head of sports science, John Wagle, that has an unbelievably, unbelievable impact on our program. It's amazing. The data he finds And he distills it down to two or three things for the coaches. And it really helps.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 13:47

Makes me think about the comment always, resources have to be commensurate with the expectations. So if it's going to be national championships, you've got to have those kind of resources available to your student athletes. So sports science, sports performance, a big part of it. Other than facilities, because we'll get to that here shortly. But Are there other areas that you've invested in specifically at North Carolina that you can share with the group?

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 14:06

Jack touched on it too. We have a leadership academy that most schools have. And we all have some version of a lot of the same things, whether it's mental health or athletic performance and those things. But the leadership academy is something that we're really proud of. The University of North Carolina had it before I got there. And, it is a great program. It's freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors. As he alluded to with the lacrosse program here. is you need leadership at every level of your team to be that successful. and we're continuing to develop those leaders. But, in addition to what we're doing for our students, we also do it for the coaches. And, we have 21, head coaches. They lead 28 different programs. TRAC counts as 6, and some of our teams are co ed. there's 21 head coaches, and they get together on a monthly basis. And they're the best leaders to show each other, to talk to each other, about how to help the young ones get better. And we do have a wide range of ages and success with our coaches. I, never in my wildest dreams, I'd ever think I'd hire a 22 year old to coach a field hockey team as the head coach. But, five years earlier, I'd hired a 72 year old to coach our football team. I've got, we've got a wide range of experience with our coaching staff. We've been fantastic. But, as Jack alluded to, National Champions is what we're all inspired to be. But as I was leaving here, as I was leaving Notre Dame to go to Ball State, I started thinking about, if I were going to run a department, what would it look like and how would I want to run that department? And I came up with the mission statement that we end up using at Ball State, we end up using it again at Tulsa. And the purpose of the athletics department is to enhance the educational experience of all students. Not necessarily the student athletes. But when you're in a place like Ball State or Tulsa, there are people that are going there that are proud of their place. But all of our funding was coming from the central part of the university. And if we're going to add value, if we're going to exist, we need to add value to the university. And so that was the mentality that I took to it. And now, when I got to North Carolina, we did a strategic plan to think about what value gives athletic departments to a university. And we came up with a mission for Athletics of Carolina, which is We educate and inspire through athletics. And so everything that we do is in that effort. Is we want to make sure we provide a great education to those students that we recruit to come to participate in athletics. And those kids are inspirational. They're inspirational to younger kids. They're inspirational to our staff, to alumni. And we want to make sure that we're true to what that mission and value is for our department. And then we also want to be good athletically and academically. So while We don't say we want to be a national champion in every sport. We have two things we want to do. We want to be top three in the conference in every sport academically and athletically. And we want to be top ten in the country academically and athletically in every sport that we have. And then every sport, which we try to evaluate commensurate with our resources. I ask for three goals in five different areas for every sport. I ask for, we have a competitive goal, we have an academic goal, we have a compliance goal, a financial goal. We have a Community Service Goal and a Student Athlete Experience Goal. Give me three goals in those six areas, and then based on our resource allocation, we'll judge your performance based on the resources that we provide and the success that you're having in those six different areas. it's a little bit different, but again, we're all aspiring to win and win championships.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 17:29

Yeah, I love that. Jack, do you want to expound any further on Kind of your vision of the role of athletics as it relates to the university, et cetera. First of all, I'm

Jack Swarbrick ’76 17:39

so jealous that Bubba got his coaches to teach each other. Because it's really hard. it's not that they don't have great relationships. But in my experience, they're never comfortable coaching their peers, if you will, right? Oh, they don't want to hear from me. they do, and one of the, one of the, Benefits you have as the Athletic Director is you get to see them all at work. You know that this one is brilliant, in the post game locker room. And this one is brilliant at dealing with a difficult student athlete situation, or whatever it may be. And one of our jobs is to always try and cause that to be cross pollinated, right? Can I get you to share that with your colleagues? And, we've had some success, but I'm really jealous that Bubba's gotten that program established the way it is, because that is so helpful. These are all great coaches. our schools like this attract great coaches. but helping them get even better is an interesting challenge. Um, there are two things that sort of stand out for me relative to that question. one is this is an extraordinarily integrated athletic program with the university. And I don't, that's nothing I did. I came here, was amazed to learn how many, how much time I spent in university meetings that had nothing to do with athletics. but that's the way it should be, right? you're You are part and parcel and treated the same as other parts of the university. And so while that makes operating more difficult sometimes, I love it and really embraced it and that helps with the dynamic of how you relate and interact to the campus. The other thing, very consistent with what Bubba said, that we always tried to stress was Too often people talk in terms of, and especially my friends at the NCAA over the years, about how athletics provides through the scholarship an opportunity to educate. And that's true and that's great, but it diminishes the fact that the sport educates. And without fail, when I have former student athletes come back and visit, and they do a lot, and that's one of the best parts of my former job, And you ask them, they're now doctors and CEOs and whatever they're doing, who here influenced you the most? It's almost always a coach. Not to diminish the role that their professors had or their rectors had, but they're with that coach so much. If you ask any member of our faculty, tell me the ideal educational environment. They'll say, give me a small group of students for an extended period of time. That's what athletics is. Those coach educators have a small group of students for as many as five years. Year round. And the lessons they impart are extraordinary. So I've always wanted to make sure we talked about it. Talked about our facilities as classroom. Talked about our coaches as coach educators. Talked about the lessons our student athletes were learning through sport. Because the message wasn't getting out enough in my judgment. And has been swamped in the past year by other messages.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 21:13

Jeff, I know you do it here, but a couple years ago we had Disney come to help us with Service to our students, service to the community, and we talked about hiring in that process. And what they said is, at Disney, they go overboard in the interviewing process about the culture of Disney, and you've got the doorknob that has Mickey Mouse on it. everything is just over the top. And they stress to the people that are interviewing is, this is who we are. If this is too much for you, then it's not the place for you. And they want to know that up front. In the interview process, as you recruit people to come to understand what the culture is why that integration is so important. And because it doesn't work that way in a lot of places, they are very separate entities. But the integration that, that you have here, the Crossroads is a real good example. It's a very visible example of the facilities, much less the culture and the spirit that goes along with it. it is something we try to do at Carolina as well.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 22:14

Yeah, I think both schools are really good at being very honest and clear during the recruiting process. both of us get to meet a lot of prospective student athletes. There are a number of them, I'll be five minutes into the conversation and I know he or she's not coming. because I've started to go through the expectations here. But if you're clear about that, you get the sort of student athletes that go to North Carolina and Notre Dame, Marcus's motto is, Choose Hard. And he's great at trying to get that message across to prospective student athletes. That this is the hardest choice you can make in your selection. But if you respond to that, it also gives you the greatest benefits at the end of the day. if your first question When you come in to meet the athletic director or the coaches, tell me about your name, image, and likeness program. You're not going to that double and dilla. Just not.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 23:13

that's

Jack Swarbrick ’76 23:14

fine.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 23:15

there was a former basketball player here who was recruited out of, New Jersey. And they walked him over to Stanford, and he looked into the dorm and said, Only two of us live here? I hope you aren't that

Audience 23:27

way.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 23:28

Alright, we could go a number of directions on that. That was great commentary. But I want to go back to the resources piece. Because you both alluded to the facilities part of this. And it's such a huge thing in today's world of keeping up with the Joneses on the recruiting side of things. you alluded and I mentioned earlier, Jack, you're very visible with the stadium. And then all the work that you've done around here with some of the Olympic sports. Boba, same thing, you've got a huge, I mean I read yours, just track record of various complexes from the Tennessee, you talked about track and field, practice facility for football, lacrosse, soccer, etc. Both of you, talk about the role that facilities play in that cultivating champions.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 24:08

They're significant, but you have to have a great place to play, and you look around campus, the Notre Dame campus is spectacular, it's beautiful. And you can't help but be impressed by facilities. So as you're walking recruits in, you want to make sure that they have a place to live, to eat, to train, so that they can be successful. And we did it best. We had a significant university campaign. Athletics was a part of it. And so we did enhance the vast majority of our Olympic sport facilities. Notre Dame was quite far ahead of us when it came to lacrosse and soccer and baseball and softball. And so we put a lot of money in the last ten years into our Olympic sport facilities. and, our soccer lacrosse stadium is absolutely spectacular, and the indoor facility is great. And we have the benefit of very good weather, so we have a lot of outdoor space that is beneficial to us. But, it's part of it. Although, with name imaging like this and transfer portals and other things that are occurring now, facilities are becoming less important than they were 8 to 10 years ago. It would be interesting to see, but they have to be serviceable, and they have to be functional. And, for us, we continue to grow. I don't know how you guys are doing it here, but our space is fairly confined on campus. And our campus is over 200 years old. It's the oldest public university in the country. And, we share facilities with our rec sports program and our physical education program. we get our indoor facility from 6 in the morning until 8. We turn it over to exercise and sports science from 8 to 2. We come back in from 3 to 7, and then from 7 o'clock on, we turn it over to RecSports. I walked in there a couple months ago, and I'm thinking, Nick Saban's not in here looking at Twitch. That's not happening in Alabama. It's working at our place, and we do a shared use facility, just because of our position on campus. But it works for us. Our coaches aren't great at sharing. But, occasionally they have to. I guess that's why you build, two look alike facilities behind me here. I guess that's why you do that.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 26:10

Were you suggesting we don't have the benefit of weather?

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 26:13

The benefit of weather. It's fantastic for hockey.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 26:15

Laughter Um, it's I'm not going to minimize the So you give me some facilities and I'm proud of what we've done in them. But you always hear about the arms race in athletic facilities. Keeping up with the Joneses. Our annual capital spend on facilities basically hasn't changed in my 16 years. The entire university spend has increased. Our percentage of that has stayed relatively the same. We're part of it. An environment where schools want to attract great students, not just their athletic departments. And Notre Dame wants to be excellent at everything it does. we want excellent residence halls. We want excellent labs. We want the beautiful new museum we just built.

Audience 27:11

And we want great athletic facilities.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 27:13

So it's not, again, it's not separate from the university mission and what it's doing. And what we had a special focus on starting with Compton is, how can we make our facilities serve a broader purpose than varsity athletics? Serve the community or the campus. And that's what we did with Crossroads and that's what we did with Compton. And, that was a real focus for what we were doing.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 27:39

Can you share a little bit about what's going on out right behind us here now? We're breaking ground floor.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 27:45

I'm directionally challenged, but I know what you're doing. So we're building a new, it's a perfect example of what I was talking about. We're building a new football operations center to replace the Goog. The reaction of everybody is, football arms race. It only is in the fact that the staffs associated with football have grown. And they didn't fit in the goog anymore. We had six people to an office. we could no longer have offensive and defensive unit meetings, because we had to repurpose that space. They had to meet differently. we just had to respond to that. We were out of space. Now what I'm really excited about is we're building it right in the shadow of the GOOG. But we're going to take the GOOG and make it our center for sports science and sports performance. So all of our strength and conditioning, all of our medical services, all of our nutritionists, all of our mental health counselors will now all be in the same space. And it's going to create a much better synergy among those. I'm going

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 29:04

to ask them a few more questions and then I'm going to open it up and turn it over to you guys. So be thinking about what you'd like to ask them. Jack, both of you have talked significantly about the impact, and I don't think it's, you can't really overstate the importance of the coach and the leadership of the team. Jackie likes to call them the coach educators. I'm gonna ask both of you, maybe share with the group, what are the qualities, the characteristics, the intangibles, what are you looking for when you hire? What's the process look like? What are non negotiables? Must haves? Where do you take chances? Where do you not? We're gonna walk us through your thought processes there.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 29:42

This

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 29:43

is when I

Jack Swarbrick ’76 29:43

take notes. as you're leaving and you're reflecting on it, there's some sports where I'm thinking, by golly, I hired a lot of head coaches during my time here, so I didn't do it so well. the one thing that we are super rigorous about, and it can be a big challenge here, is that I never allow a discussion about candidates until we've really developed a clear, Identity of the characteristics we need for this coach. you wouldn't believe who calls you with an expression of interest when you have an open football head coaching position in Notre Dame. You hear from governors and senators, and not that they're interested, but they're calling on behalf of somebody. We heard from two NFL head coaches. it's just amazing. And those become hard conversations unless you can really develop those characteristics. Some of you heard me talk about it before. The characteristics we developed in the process that resulted in hiring Brian Kelly were almost completely different than the characteristics we developed before we hired Marcus Freeman. when we were doing the first hire, it was a completely broken program. We had to rebuild the program from the ground up. And so first on our list was, can you demonstrate you built a program somewhere? Fast forward to after Brian leaving, the process program was in great shape by and large. There were things we could do better, but we didn't have those same challenges. We had other challenges, and those became at the top of the list. There are some that are always appeared. an unblemished record in compliance. I want to be sure this is a destination job for you. I don't want to hire anybody at Notre Dame for whom this isn't a destination job. And so we do that. there are four to five that are always core, but the others change from search to search. And I'm never quite sure how they're going to change until I start the process and do that. And then one final story about hiring I've got to share. Shortly after I got the job, Gene Corrigan visited me. Remarkable industry leader, former athletic director here, and in other places, ACC commissioner, NCAA president. He's a real giant in the industry, obviously. His sons are having, have had a major influence in college athletics. But Gene visited with me and said, Look, when I hired a coach I always made a point of going through the things that would never change at Notre Dame. I said, I'd actually write them down and give them to the coach. This is never going to change in your time here. He said, almost without fail, within the first 90 days, the coach would come into my office and tell me, Oh, we gotta change this. And he said, I'd just pull a piece of paper out of my drawer, hold it up, and say, Now that was number six here. I really embrace that piece of advice, cause, Coaches will always come in with an idea of what needs to be different. A lot of those differences will really help you. But a lot of them don't work at Notre Dame, so you just gotta be clear. Yeah,

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 33:04

that, you're exactly right. And fit is what, the word is overused probably, but I think you're right. Depending on where you are in your program, what's gonna be the greatest fit at that time. But it also reminds me of a couple of stories of hiring. One of which was, when we were looking for a basketball coach here, We actually ended up hiring Matt Doran, but we were interviewing another coach who was very successful at the time, but he was a younger coach, young family, and at the end of the interview, he said, it's always been my dream to coach under the Golden Arches. It was good. So I will say one other thing. so we hired Matt. Matt has the one year deal that goes to North Carolina. I don't know if you remember that time. Jimmy Dillon and Coach, or, or Martin Inglesby had started for two years. Matt came in, Jimmy Dillon started. Senior year, Martin's back coaching. Or not coaching, but playing, starting at the fun card. And he comes to the senior banquet and says, I'd like to thank the University of North Carolina. Which is fantastic. but Matt had a good career with us, got real fun aboard. And but important is trying to get to know people. I think when I was at Ball State, it wasn't like North Carolina, it wasn't like Notre Dame, we had a lot of turnover. What I actually did is I went to the post game, press conferences. So Both football and basketball and listen and watch the coach and how they responded and reacted to a win or a loss to really help understand the personality of that coach. Now you can do it all on YouTube and video and everything, but at that time I was trying to figure out, we're going to have turnover, so how do I make sure I hit the right pit at the place where I was at the time. that's another way to take a look at it.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 34:51

Yeah, the digital world is incredibly helpful at coach hiring these days. it is all those videos of them. Press conferences and clinics and other things. But also if they posted stupid stuff, you know, it's gonna

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 35:08

play a role. Social media makes, it makes it hiring hard, it makes the job hard. It is a difficult job because everybody is second guessing what you're doing. Coaches really do have a difficult job. And it is so public and it's every sport. It doesn't matter if it's football or fencing. There's a group of people that are passionate about it. Now, there's more passionate about some than others, but there's still a small group that's passionate about every one of the sports. But I think that's what makes these jobs great. And you mentioned it before. It's the different personalities and styles and cultures of the teams. Every team, every sport, has a different culture. Whether it's rowing and, or football or basketball, the people associated with it are very different. And, again, that's what makes what we do a lot of fun. Yeah,

Jack Swarbrick ’76 35:53

the common denominator between athletic directors and coaches is that everybody in the world can do your job better than you can.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 36:02

Okay, share just a quick story and then we're going to turn it over. Share a quick story on leadership from student athletes. Perspective. Something that you've seen in a locker room, on a practice, at practice. I know you have numerous ones. I've heard them, but, Bob, maybe that's one for you. Jack, I've heard them. I can probably tell them for you. Share one or two. Share one brief one. We can come back to it. I'll go

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 36:23

ahead, Jack. I'll have to think about it. Let me think of,

Jack Swarbrick ’76 36:25

it's

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 36:26

one leadership story is, as I mentioned, I feel like a coach. I will say that she came in before her last year. And came into my office and said, I'm going to play one more year, but I'd like to coach when I finish. And she, they've won three national championships. And I did say, go win another national championship and we'll talk about

Audience 36:45

it.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 36:48

Season's over, she's back in my office. I guess we're talking about it. So she is one that, She wanted to be our head coach and she did separate herself as a player. And she was going to be different that last year. And then, she actually did come back. And actually, when she left the office before she started her last year of competition, I said, it'll be interesting to see how she develops and we'll see if this really works out or not. And about two months later, I just happened to be walking over to the football office. I went in to see Mack Brown. She's in there visiting with Mac. And Mac doesn't really know why she's there, and I was in there going, I sure as heck know why she's there. But, and again, it was, so she's probably the, the one that really has stood out, and I've somewhat equated her to, I was talking with Barry Collier from Butler a few months ago, and someone asked Barry, what did you see in Brad Stevens when you hired Brad at Butler? And he, his response was, it was just obvious. And looking back with, Aaron Mastin, it's the same thing. There's a special quality about some folks that it'd be, it's just obvious when you meet them. And whether that's Marcus Freedman or any of the other coaches, there, there's something special about really great coaches.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 38:10

Yeah, that's true, but, man, you gotta be a really good AD to, Go with a 22-year-old Serious. I'm absolutely serious. you too many athletic directors, when they look at that, fast forward to the press conference, right? That's the last thing you should think about. What's the reaction gonna be when we announce this person? That never helps you, right? you gotta go with what, you know what you figured out when I read that. My first reaction was, oh, a tangbo. But my second one, how cool is this? That Bubba would do that. that just spoke volumes about him as an athletic director, and I was certain about this student athlete. The one thing I note on the topic, is what I've taken to calling the Swarbrick Paradox, but the challenge you often face is that student athletes who are best able to lead are the last to identify themselves as potential leaders. Because they don't need leadership. They're self starters, they do everything right, and so they're not looking for another student to play that role for them. And you've gotta help them understand it is them. The team needs you to do this, and will be better if you will. And then you've got to help them understand the things that they should do. But, the great ones are so good, and so spectacular. One of the things I've always noticed about our best ones, and I'll use Anders Lee of hockey as an example. Anders just won a really important award from the NHL this week. They know, they sense the issues with everybody in the locker room. They'll know if somebody's having a problem with a girlfriend or boyfriend. They'll know whether somebody's struggling in the classroom. they know it. They know it's impacting their fellow player. And they find the right time and the right opportunity to make sure they're okay. And whether they can help or not. And it's amazing to watch it happen.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 40:27

Bill Walsh wrote a book called The Game Takes Care of Itself. Is that the title of it? I think that's the title of it. I just read it two weeks ago. It's amazing, I can't remember the title of it. But there's a whole section in there about Joe Montana's leadership with the 49ers. There's probably a lot of things you could just comment on about he wasn't an outspoken leader, but he connected with everybody on the team in a different way. It's a really It's a real tribute to Joe's leadership. And it's interesting that a guy like Bill Walsh has given so much credit to Joe because it was all about Bill. It was a great book.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 41:05

Great. Thank you. Alright, let's open it up. Oh, great. I love this. Will you stand up, state your name, maybe where you're from, and In honor of Jack, tell us your class year, please.

Audience 41:16

1959. I'm a graduate. I live in Allegheny, New York, which is south of Buffalo and western New York. I'm a little disappointed that you haven't really addressed the issue that I feel is really important. Here's a picture in Soren Hall, 1959, third floor, of how we lived in those days, and that is that we the lights went out at 10 o'clock, as you probably have heard. And, we would

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 41:41

Can I get you to talk into the mic so we can hear you? So everybody can hear you?

Audience 41:44

Okay, so Is it on? Yeah. Hello, can you hear me? Okay. so we, if we wanted to study after 10 o'clock, we had to sit out in the hall, underneath a 60 watt light bulb and study. But I've got a picture here. of us doing that, laying around the floor, and there's a really super athlete there, Tom Hawkins, the Hawk. Great basketball player. And, what a good guy too. And, but I'm just saying that there's a student athlete that's a student athlete. That's the only thing I've heard you guys talk about, is student athletes. And what is going on today? what is the, this thing with the portals and, Students are going to get paid now, and can you explain a little bit about that? I don't think we've heard about that. Is that okay?

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 42:30

That's great. That's great.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 42:32

I don't think either of us can explain it. But, I do wanna go back to something both of us said, right? we work very hard We work very hard. When we're talking to prospective student athletes, to make sure that they understand our expectation is the same one it was for Tom. That, Marcus uses the expression all the time. To get playing time, you have to compete with the best players in the country on this team. But you're competing with all Americans in the classroom. And you better be prepared to compete with them. Or it's not going to work here. I mean, I can tell you how much I think those things are causing problems for us, and how much we didn't have to get in this position in exactly the form we're in today, but I guess I want to make sure you have an understanding that we have to deal with it, we have to manage the reality of it, But it doesn't change who we're trying to bring here or how we're operating. And that's the key part.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 43:41

I agree. Fundamentally, that's what we're doing. But I know your question is, where are we headed? But, I've been thinking a lot about it in the last couple of years. I know Jack has as well. I really started thinking about the start of college athletics. Was, what, a rowing championship up in the northeast? Sponsored by a hotel, so they could drive business to the hotel. So the very first athletic competition was corporate related to drive business to a hotel. Then in theater, Ted Roosevelt comes along, we have nine kids die playing football, so we're going to go to health and safety. We create a national governing body for health and safety. Byers comes along, Walter Byers starts the NCAA and comes up with the term student athlete, so that We're compensating them with scholarships, but not as employees. We then are told in 1984 that we're in violation of antitrust, because the NCAA has all the television money. So we're in violation of antitrust. So 1984, the industry is told you're in violation of antitrust. Notre Dame contract, Big Ten contract, SEC contract, the commercial activity absolutely starts to skyrocket. And so for the last 30 or 40 years, we've been making decisions based on two general principles. In 72, it's Title IX. So how are we going to have broad based programming? That we're going to have women involved in college sports, which we hadn't had prior to that. And, competitive equity. So to have competitive equity across the country, we limit the scholarships, we limit the coaches. We limit the number of games you can play. We set all kinds of limits while this commercial activity is taking off. The disparity today between the high end coaches salaries and the educational value is so great that kids are challenging it. So in 2021, 35 years later, Supreme Court on a 9 0 decision with an extra layer from Judge Kavanaugh says you're still in violation of, antitrust. Supreme Court. And there's basically no public good to what you're doing, we're going to be more punitive in the courts as we move forward. So we're in a position now, where we have to do something different than what we've done over the last 50 years. Because of the commercial activity and the growth. I don't like it, I think what we're attempting to do is make sure that the kids are part of the educational mission, graduating and doing those things. The educational support that we give students, the nutritional support, the medical support, all those things we've done a great job over those 30 years as a commercial activity group. But now it's just the disparity is too great. What it's going to do is what concerns me the most. Because if you look at youth sports, high school sports, college sports, it's a pyramid. And you get to pro sports, there's very few that can compete at that level. At the college level, 45 percent of the participants in Division 1 are women. If you add up all of the pro teams in the United States, 92 percent of the participants in the professional teams are men. And gender equity, competitive equity, is something that was built on. Now it's going to be built on a professional model that if I'm the best player on the best team, I'm going to be well compensated. And we're headed in that direction. So what it's going to mean, I think, at the collegiate level, we're going to have fewer teams playing, and we'll have fewer players on those teams, but the participants will be even better taken care of financially than they've ever been. Don't like it, but if I had to predict where we're headed, that's where we're headed.

Audience 47:30

Jim Rock, class of 64. one of the things that probably bothers a lot of us older people is the transfer portal, where it used to be that, that, college athletes playing for a certain college had allegiance to that college. And now it seems like they're there for the year and if they get a better deal somewhere else. How do you think that's going to affect not only college athletics but the public's perception of it? of athletics, where it's just, anybody's game.

Jack Swarbrick ’76 48:01

Yeah, I, there's little evidence of it affecting the public's perception. But notwithstanding that people are disappointed, college football's more popular today than it's ever been. In terms of ratings, attendance, a whole bunch of things. from a fan's perspective, the loyalty tends to attach to the school. As much as it does the individuals. We facilitate that by not letting you know who the individuals are by putting names on their jerseys. That's something else. And you're right. what, every school has to find its own way in that. There are some schools that have stopped recruiting in certain sports out of high school. They just build their teams off the portal. We obviously are not. I'm not doing that here, and can't do it. but we can find our way. So, very hard to transfer in as an undergraduate here. That's okay. Our focus is on recruiting out of high school. Little easier to have graduate transfers, and we've taken advantage of that. it helped Kevin win that first national championship last year in lacrosse. We filled key spots on the football team through that. there's a way for us to do it that's not inconsistent with what we believe in and what we do. And I want to stress that the vast majority of students who transfer out of here are in situations where we're fine with it. If you've exhausted your eligibility, And you want to transfer out, and that's more than half our transfers, because you're not getting playing time here, we're going to help you. We love that, right? We want to see that happen for you. For others, there are mutual decisions, or a mutual view that it was a bad fit. We missed, you missed, let us help you get somewhere. So, I was never in favor. of having student athletes lose a year of eligibility or sat out a year because they transferred. And that's really what the change is. We have tried very consistently here to apply a measure or analysis that says whenever we're creating a rule that draws a distinction between a student who's an athlete and one who's not. The reason for doing that has to be compelling. And so when in 2015, Father John was the first university president to say student athletes ought to have the right to their name, image, and likeness, that's why he said it. That's why we believed in it. Every other student on campus could do it. Why shouldn't a student athlete? We didn't expect it to come online like it did. We expected it to come online with some regulation, which didn't happen. But we took the same position on transfers. Every other student at Notre Dame can transfer if they want to. they by and large, by vast numbers, choose not to. But they have that right up in state attitude. And so we've tried to apply that consistently. And have been willing to live with the consequences of it when it's implemented in a rational way. NIL has not been implemented in a rational way.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 51:24

We like it when Notre Dame kids transfer to Monterey High School. David Cormack did a real nice job. He did a great job. And Andy Adavi, who was a lacrosse player, she came and won a national championship for us, so I do appreciate

Jack Swarbrick ’76 51:35

that. Two great kids, by the way. Yes, they were. Two great kids who left Notre Dame with their degrees. And had very good reasons for why they were moving. That is the positive. Very important.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 51:48

59.

Audience 51:56

We've heard stories about the financial consequences of paying players, and that there are suits out today that would require you to pay players that were here previously, and it sounds as if there's a whole lot of dollars being thrown around. Could you comment on what's actually happening? And what the financial consequences could be for this university?

Jack Swarbrick ’76 52:21

in a broad sense, the settlement, which is moving along and will occur, assuming Judge Wilkin is okay with it, is a result of the NHS lawsuits and will result in a payment of 2. 8 billion dollars to former student athletes. That I know sounds like an extraordinary amount of money, but absent the settlement, the risk was much higher. Much higher. the settlement was the right thing to do. The consequences for the individual schools, at least in our case, is still being figured out. as the, because the NCAA is paying the 2. 8 billion, and the immediate consequence for us is less money from the NCAA. So we have to factor that in. What does that mean? How much is that? What does it look like? Separately, the settlement allows schools to provide up to 20 million in additional direct benefit to student athletes. We have to figure out, what does that mean for us? What will we do? We haven't. Pete and team are very much engaged in trying to figure that out. I'm thinking, God, I'm retired.

Audience 53:35

That's the basis, right? And the money to pay current athletes.

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 53:41

That's the 20 million you talked about. That 20 million is a new cap that would go on top of what we currently provide student athletes. And loosely speaking, professional leagues, you share 50 percent of the money. Television, ticketing, and sponsorship revenue with the participants. You take the scholarship costs plus the 20 million, you're roughly at 50 percent of those, revenues that are going to go to students. So you can do it in scholarship, you can do it in NIL. We're still, as Jackie indicated, we're still working out how does, how do those benefits get, distributed back. We're not sure how that's going to happen. And it's only You don't have to do it.

Audience 54:25

I am Class of 13, National Championship of Fencing in 2011. I am clearly outside the settlement range, so I'm not going to get any of that money. But my question is, why don't they have other types of solutions that are more equitable for women and men that are in this situation? for example, a lot of us Would it be more beneficial to support student athletes in their future endeavors and scholarships that way instead of paying them back money? hey, you will finance your future graduate aspirations instead?

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 55:04

Yeah, the 20 million that we're allowed to use as the CAF can be used for all the things that you just mentioned. The damages are, will be settled by the attorneys with the class that didn't have the opportunity to make money on name, image, and likeness. that'll be a settlement between the class of students and the attorney. how that gets distributed or for what reason, I don't know. Our responsibility is to say, okay, we now have this new money that we're allowed to provide student athletes. How do we want to distribute the money to our current student athletes?

Jack Swarbrick ’76 55:39

I know we're running out of time, but I'd like to build off the very good explanation Bubba offered for how we got to this madness. because I think it's important, we're all not just crazy. this is what happened. So every sport requires a measure of competitive equity. It's not interesting without it. You may have a golf handicap, right? your high school sports have age and geographic limits. Pro sports have drafts and salary caps and transfer fees. That's all designed to create competitive equity. And it's critical to sports being interesting. On the other side, if America's colleges and universities got together and said, let's all agree we won't give more than X merit scholars a year, you'd all say, that's a clear antitrust violation. You can't do that. the intersection between those two realities is where college athletics found itself. Trying to create competitive equity, when, because precisely because we were educational associations, an association, not a sports organization. We couldn't justify the antitrust element of it. And as the money increased, as Bubba pointed out, we lost the implicit protection that youth sports and high schools have that you're seen as doing a public good. As opposed be as opposed to being engaged in a business. so that was the dynamic at play. How do you reconcile those? How do they come together? And then we did the dumbest possible thing in the face of that we insisted on trying to defend the system against antitrust on the basis of amateurism. Right? Amateurism was developed. in the 1800s at the Henley Regatta in England as a way to make sure that the commoners could not participate in the event. And so the rule, amateurism, was if you were a laborer who worked for a living you couldn't participate in the Henley Regatta. When Pierre de Couperton started the modern olympics in 1900, England wouldn't participate unless he adopted that rule. That's where amateurism came from. it, it never had a noble foundation. And I use the example all the time. why isn't it positive value? Whoever said the babysitter would have a much better experience if he or she weren't paid? and that's what amateurism is. You understand? And we chose to defend ourselves on that basis when court after court was telling us, stop it. Try defending it on educational grounds and we might listen to you. And we kept going down the amateur route. And precisely because we did, we avoided the thing Bubba talked about. We never went to the court and said, you bet we'll compensate them. You just don't like our form of currency. We're compensating them with scholarships and room and board and books. And we're paying them more than the average salary in minor league baseball, minor league hockey, and minor league basketball. we took just the opposite approach. We deserve the mess we got. And now, we can't turn back the clock.

Sara Liebscher ’91, ’93 MBA 59:27

Alright, I want to be sensitive to our time and our friends in the Alumni Association. Do we need to? Okay. there's more questions. I don't know if you guys can stick around for a minute or two. If anybody's around, come up and say hello. I want to say a huge thank you to you both, for being with us today. We referenced it, called it madness, but do we have any chance? To quote unquote fix or make this what we hope it can be, to have some sort of fighting chance in the world of collegiate athletics, it's going to be because of you two and your leadership. I'm really grateful that you're representing Notre Dame in the way that you do out there in the world of college athletics and all you've done for Notre Dame, both of you from your various positions. So

Bubba Cunningham ’84, ’88 MBA 1:00:11

Thanks, Sarah. It's great to be back.