Dear Jack,
This letter may come as a surprise (unless as AD and Monogram Club member you receive communications from the Monogram Club). I write to offer you praise and bid you good tidings. As I walk past the new center of campus on the far south end of campus, I cannot help but reflect upon your impact on the school you went to before Stanford.
From the start, you announced yourself as a man with a plan. Many would have acted rashly and fired a coach with ten wins in two years. Steady, you said. Give me six hours to rebuild a program, and I shall spend the first four wooing the Big East Coach of the Year. And indeed you would. I cannot speak for that man, but if I could, I would thank you for providing him the stepping stone he needed.
Imagination could not have foretold how many hats you would wear at Notre Dame. Endowed Director of Athletics, Swarbrick family career-placement officer, deponent, architect, and even meteorologist. But at your core, you remained the master negotiator Fr. Jenkins hired after Indiana, Stanford, Ohio State, Arizona State, the Big XII, and the NCAA did not. And I do not just refer to Our Lady's stake in Under Armour or our partnership with a conference Florida State is suing to leave. Through force of will, you have parried reality itself. In late 2016, we were prisoners of the moment, forgetting that just one year earlier, we had witnessed the finest coaching job in 35 years. Even then, we might have thought three losses and a 16-point bowl defeat had cast a pall over that season. But we lacked your vision, perhaps because we lacked the Facebook coupon code needed to buy your spectacles.
I am now past the shadow-bathed statues of coaches hired by your predecessors, so I will draw to a close. I measure a man not just by what he does, but by how we carries himself. You displayed grace in allowing Notre Dame sports teams to grieve privately after losses. You personified joie de vivre in victory, finding the camera gracing the lads and lasses with your presence. You revealed your wit, in both spoken word and emails to alumni. As you said in your introductory press conference, arriving at Notre Dame was like coming home. Or visiting a former home, while still living elsewhere. The exact words escape me, but of course I never went to Stanford.
Ups, downs, highs, and lows -- I will take them all, Jack. As Garth Brooks said at the only concert to grace our multi-purpose stadium, I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance.
Farewell.