[...]... a plan, that we ve worked it all week and that on top of that we have contingency plans that are well thought out before the game so that we don’t have to make eighteen different adjustments at halftime We have Plan C if Plan B goes awry If Plan C doesn’t work, Plan D isn’t a bad way to go, either And if Plan E is necessary, by God, I’ve got that, too The sideline sheet is my crutch, my all-in-one tool,... that I got a call from my dad, who told me that Walter Booth, a cornerback on that ’73 Indiana team who went on to become a lawyer, wanted to talk to me about investing some of my money “Number six?” I said I can remember Trent Smock and Keith Calvin at receiver, Scott Arnett at quarterback, Mike Harkrader at tailback, Courtney Snyder at halfback and Rick Enis at fullback I can name the whole team, even... adamantly as I followed Notre Dame But we took some real head-kickings at Indiana Now we were on the other end of that Instead of seeing my dad sitting at the kitchen table on Saturday night with his head down, not even touching his meal, he’s going out to dinner and having alumni smacking him on the back And you have that fight song And you have that national ranking in the newspaper And you have everyone... he was talking about I knew that he had his players’ attention I knew that every year he was there, Notre Dame had a thousand-yard rusher It also was no coincidence that the backs my dad coached hardly ever turned the ball over He demanded excellence He set a standard that his players had to follow and they followed it—or they didn’t play for him What came through loud and clear from my dad was that... together a new coaching staff because all the assistants I had in Oakland were under contract Damn, we ve lost Marcus Jones, one of our defensive ends, for the whole year with a knee injury Geez, we haven’t had Anthony McFarland, one of our starting defensive tackles, for almost half of the regular season because of his broken forearm and broken foot, and now we won’t have him for the playoffs Golly, Brad... rules were the same for every kid with any connection to the IU team: no earrings, no jewelry, no tattoos and, unfortunately, hair above the ears When we would stop at a restaurant for dinner on the way home, everyone was reminded about table manners and proper conduct Assistant coaches were on top of every detail It was a class operation It was about how to become a man Coach Knight’s practices were... coached just as hard as Tom Abernethy and Jim Crews While basketball’s not football—maybe we ve got a lot more situations to practice because there are eleven guys on the field and a football field’s a lot bigger than a basketball court—the lessons I learned from being around the Indiana basketball team are still with me The most valuable: Teach your players how to practice That’s even more important... hear it or whenever I see the Fighting Irish on television I began playing quarterback as a freshman at South Bend Clay High School Dad would actually bring Notre Dame players to my football games Seeing those guys in the stands jumping up and down, watching me play man, I was in my glory When my dad was coaching at Indiana I had followed the Hoosiers’ football team as religiously and as adamantly... our starting quarterback, is going to miss the last two games of the season with an injured back I don’t want to be like that I don’t want anybody around me to be like that We re here for a very short time, and we re in the NFL Are you kidding me? What an ideal setting to have some fun If you don’t have fun coaching or playing in the NFL, where are you going to have fun in America? You travel on a 12... 29 game We had the yard markers and lines on the turf We had replicas of the national championship banners up We had the fighting leprechaun painted on our wall It was a shrine to Notre Dame Of course, with all the time I spent with my dad at work, the actual campus was my home away from home There were two reasons I shadowed him like that One, it was fun to be around the ultimate college football environment . plan, that we ve worked it all week and that on top of that we have contingency plans that are well thought out before the game so that we don’t have. make eighteen different adjustments at halftime. We have Plan C if Plan B goes awry. If Plan C doesn’t work, Plan D isn’t a bad way to go, either. And