After a stroke ended his career, Will Schweitzer changed Notre Dame Football anyway

More than a year after surviving a stroke but losing a dream seemingly forever, Will Schweitzer showed up for a routine follow-up medical exam and walked out with a second chance.

The congenital hole in his heart, discovered after the stroke in 2022 and that helped lead to it, had completely disappeared. And football was back on the table for the then-Notre Dame senior if he was willing to transfer, reverse his medical retirement …

And break the promise the defensive end from Los Gatos, Calif., had made to himself in the hospital bed just after a blood clot had been dislodged from his brain and before a definitive medical prognosis or football ramifications were offered up.

“I came to Notre Dame with two goals,” Schweitzer told Blue & Gold. “The first was to play in the NFL someday, and the second was to kind of leave Notre Dame better than I found it. I wanted to make an impact there.

“I just remember sitting in the hospital bed thinking, ‘You know, maybe football’s not in the cards for me anymore. You go through this massive thing, maybe it’s not smart to play.’ And I was just super bummed out, distraught, honestly.

“I finally came to the conclusion, with my family and the coaching staff, that life was bigger than football. And I decided to get my Notre Dame degree and take the competency that I learned on the team to go do great things.”

And so, when football came knocking unexpectedly in 2024 with a pathway to what masqueraded as redemption, Schweitzer realized he was already living it. 

Making a difference

Reality hadn’t bullied his dream after all. Instead, however twisted, it gave Schweitzer the opportunity to put it in a brand new frame. And share it. And let the ripples reverberate out and touch other lives and other dreams.

And change life trajectories, just like the promise hinted it would.

Thus, the transfer from Notre Dame never happened. But the transformation did, and continues to this day for the player who decided to stay put and change the context around his circumstances.

Today Schweitzer, at age 23, is thriving with a Notre Dame business degree in management consulting, living in Chicago and for a little over a year working at Databricks, a software development, data and AI firm.

He was recently promoted to Gen AI sales specialist, and it all came about through a connection through former Notre Dame linebacker and 2014 Irish MVP Joe Schmidt via the 4 for Forever program Schweitzer had a hand in creating and developing after making the decision to medically retire from football.

Former Notre Dame wide receiver Amir Carlisle, ND’s director of player development at the time, worked closely with Schweitzer when it came to integrating the new program with the football team.

“The 4 for Forever program encompassed a few things,” Schweitzer said, “but some things I’m proud about were, as NIL came to be, we made a partnership with Betterment Investments and got, I think, 90% of our team using investment accounts and helped them become financially literate in that sense.

“We made a lot of connections in the field, for jobs. Like, I used it on myself with Joe, and people like that. But helping other people understand what life after football could be. And I really just think that Amir and I got across the message that I now understand more than ever that  you can never control your last play.

“Whether you get eliminated from the playoff and you don’t play in a bowl game for those seniors, right? They played their last play. Whether it’s an injury, whether it’s a sickness, you never know. But you can always control how you show up every day and prepare yourself for something else. So, that’s something I tried to embody when I realized my situation [of football ending] and really took it into account.

“And I think that left a profound impact on some of the players who never really thought about that before, because I certainly didn’t before, and I wish I had. Kind of my point of sharing this story is that it’s not a sob story to me anymore. It’s a story of triumph in transition. And I think it’s something that a lot of people need to learn how to do.

“And it’s a skill to be practiced, and it doesn’t take knowing your last play to start preparing yourself for it.”

How Freeman supported him — and still does

For the record, Schweitzer only ended up logging 37 plays in his Notre Dame football career — 17 on special teams and 20 as a reserve spread out over his freshman season in 2021.

The stroke happened in 2022, and Schweitzer never played football again.

By that time, Marcus Freeman — who was his defensive coordinator in 2021 — was now the head coach, taking over for Brian Kelly. 

“I had great support from coach Freeman and the whole staff and my teammates right after the stroke and the months that would follow,” Schweitzer said, “A few short months later, Freeman called me into his office. And, I’d say we were close at that point, but I’d never seen him like this.

“He’s very emotionally mature, I would say. He handles situations that are tough all the time very well, and always gets his message across. But for the first time, I saw, like, genuine sadness in his eyes.

“And, you know, he had to retire from [football because of] a heart condition as well. And he told me, ‘After speaking with the doctors and the team, they came to the conclusion that, at least at Notre Dame, it wasn’t going to be football for me anymore. There were too many question marks and too many risks involved.’

“I talked to doctors, saying that there probably would be teams who would look past it.”

But that’s when he kept the promise he had made in the hospital bed for the first time. But it didn’t come without some frustration at first.

“I definitely want to highlight coach Freeman in a good light here. It’s something I want to make sure — he was of the more ‘in my corner’ type of people. And he was there for me through it all and he understood and he continues to impact in my life. Like I just texted him [in December], when I was going through the interview process for the job that I have now in my company.

“I texted him the whole premise of my interview presentation — the golden standard, something I learned from him at Notre Dame. Like, how I do everything is how I do that. And that’s continued past Notre Dame.

“So I definitely don’t want to put the coaching staff in a bad light there, but there was a bit of frustration but that ended up turning into thankfulness and really being able to cherish those moments.”

Why Notre Dame in the first place?

Getting to Notre Dame, though, and the entire football journey once he arrived was never easy.

Schweitzer had originally verbally committed to Nebraska, but once Notre Dame started to show some interest, he was open to a change of heart. The problem was the COVID-19 pandemic made the whole recruiting cycle for virtually everyone at every school a wonky process, with no national or regional camps, no coaches able to go out on the road to evaluate, no officially hosted campus visits or meeting with coaches on campus or anywhere but a Zoom meeting.

Safety Khari Gee, a member of the same recruiting class, never set foot on the Notre Dame campus until moving into his dorm room in June of 2021. Cornerback Chance Tucker gleaned his scholarship offer by doing cone drills on video that assistant coach Mike Mickens had designed for him, then sending the video to Mickens.

Of the 27 players in the class, eight were flipped from other schools’ classes, including Schweitzer. Fifteen of them ended up transferring. Four others, beyond Schweitzer, walked away from football but not from their Notre Dame education.

Defensive tackle Jason Onye, who in January was granted a petition for a sixth year, and linebacker Kahanu Kia, whose NCAA clocked paused during a two-year Mormon Mission (2023-23), are two from that class still on the Irish roster.

Schweitzer showed up every bit the 6-foot-4 he was listed as being on his high school roster, but he weighed just 204 pounds. As a defensive end.

He enrolled early, and got injured early — the eighth practice of the spring in 2021, in fact. In a practice drill, Irish offensive tackle Michael Carmody awkwardly landed on Schweitzer, resulting in a fractured tibia, a torn quadriceps muscle and a torn medial patellofemoral ligament in his left kneecap.

Yet he was able by November of his freshman season to earn some cameos.

But in December, Freeman — the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach — was promoted to head coach. And he brought in Al Golden as the new defensive coordinator and James Laurinaitis as a grad assistant linebacker coach, both of whom determined a then-230-pound version of Schweitzer was a much better fit at linebacker than at defensive end.

But he never was.

“I was struggling in the linebacker room,” he said. “Like, I hadn’t played that position in a while. I was getting the reads wrong. I was trying to learn two or three different positions in that room, and I ended up not making the bus for the Ohio State game, which, you know, I had made the bus my whole freshman year.”

Adversity forces an inflection point

That was Notre Dame’s 2022 season opener, and the regular-season debut for Freeman as Irish head coach — with the game at his alma mater, no less.

“That was tough,” Schweitzer said, “and as I was still settling in, the message from the coaches was like, ‘OK, we’re a little bit disappointed in your growth, but we’re not discouraged.’ So, I wasn’t either, but we were playing Ohio State, and I went to the game to be on the sideline with the team.

“And after the game happened, I was back home, and I was with my girlfriend at the time. I was walking around, and suddenly I was just drifting super hard to the right. Like, I couldn’t get it into control. Then my voice stopped working.

“In my head, I thought I was speaking clearly, but one of my friends was like, ‘What are you saying?’ My girlfriend was great. She went to the store, got me some powdered donuts and had me drink some water.

“She’s like, ‘You’re probably dehydrated, stressed about the game or the situation you’re in.’ So I ended up going to bed, and I woke up the next day, and I still couldn’t really move my right hand, I was still having trouble getting out my words. And that’s when I told the staff and my mom, and they sent me to the hospital.”

It took a few days for the medical personnel to determine Schweitzer had suffered a stroke.

“How does this happen to such a young, healthy person who’s in peak physical condition?” Schweitzer shared of his initial thoughts. “From that point, they did a bunch of scans. They were having a hard time figuring it out. But they ended up going into my heart and it turns out I had a small hole in part of my heart, which I have come to understand one in three people are actually born with. It’s called PFO [Patent Foramen Ovale].

“So, it doesn’t cause too many problems. The theory is either during one of my lifting sessions or a contact-based drill, a lot of stress was put on the heart and pushed the clot through, and it ended up being shot into my brain shortly thereafter.

“So that’s why that had happened. And obviously, I had surgery to fix that, and then there was a recovery period there. But, you know, by the grace of God, I was totally OK.”

Promise made, promise kept

And now he’s more than OK — with both the destination and the contorted path that brought him there.

“I don’t know if I believe that everything happens for a reason all the time,” Schweitzer said. “But I think looking back at this, it’s actually one of the best things that ever happened to me.

“The resilience I brought from it, being able to look forward, being able to overcome obstacles, being from where I’m from. And, you know, I’m very blessed to say this, like my whole life, I didn’t really have much struggle, right? I grew up with two parents. I grew up in a somewhat wealthy household where I always had three meals.

“I came to Notre Dame and I’m on top of the world there. And, you know, for the first time, I really faced some true adversity. And that’s how I was able to define who I am every day going forward.

“Before this, I complained sometimes. I didn’t appreciate every day, but now I wake up every day and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m lucky to be here. You know, I’m going to make every day the best possible. And I think because of that, yes, this has had a profound impact in a positive way on my life.”

Promise made, promise kept. 

And not a single second thought about what might have been had he answered when football offered him that second chance.

“I kind of made the decision that my life trajectory was better without football at that point,” he said. “And I actually did before, the moment when coach Freeman said this, and the doctors were saying X, Y, and Z about the risks, no, I did not think about transferring then either. My next thing was, ‘OK, how can I still help this team?’ Which I continued to do through player development.

“And we instilled some player programs and really tried to achieve that second part of my goal that I talked about earlier, which was leaving Notre Dame better than I found it.

“And I think, in an abstract way, with Amir Carlisle on the player development side, I was able to do that. So I was really proud of myself for sticking around and doing that instead of turning a cold shoulder to something I didn’t necessarily agree with at the time.”

Notre Dame never took away Schweitzer’s scholarship or even his locker in the locker room through his May 2024 graduation. He went to practices intermittently and games usually, but his investment in using the lessons of football in life was a constant in his words and his actions.

And still are.

“Going back to that concept about not being able to control your last snap,” Schweitzer said, “I think it was important for me to talk to players about using the competencies they learned on the football field to do great things in life.

“I think it has set me apart at work, being able to be the guy who can get up at 5 a.m., and start working and leave late and not have to complain about it — because you’ve been doing that your whole career. And knowing that in football — or whatever sport you play — you’re going to get knocked down, just like in the work world. You have failures.

“You can get back up and keep going, and use the skills you’ve learned. So, though these games end — and they will always end for whoever it is, whether you’re all-pro or you never make it to the League — it’ll end.

“But the impact that you can have because you did it doesn’t have to. I think it’s the big thing that I’ve learned throughout all of this.”