Everything Notre Dame basketball GM Pat Garrity said at introductory press conference

On Thursday, new Notre Dame men’s and women’s basketball general manager Pat Garrity met with the media for the first time in his new position. He was introduced by athletics director Pete Bevacqua.

Here’s everything Garrity had to say.

Opening statement from Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua

“Well, it’s great to see everybody here. I was joking with Micah [Shrewsberry] and Niele [Ivey] and Pat that I feel like Pat should be introducing me, because everybody today knows Pat, knows him well and I’ve been sharing stories of Pat’s time here at Notre Dame. But I think this is a really exciting day for Notre Dame Athletics and for our men’s and women’s basketball programs.

“This has really been a process, conversations I had with Niele and Micah and our sports administrators. And people were asking the why. Why, at this point in time, as we end the school year and head into a new school year, to create this role, this dual-GM role for the men’s and women’s basketball programs? And I think the answer is pretty obvious. There’s so much change going on in the college sports landscape, when you think about name, image and likeness. The House settlement, which could be approved here, any day. The transfer portal. The whole system of college athletics is just undergoing so much change, that you need to make sure your head coaches and your staffs are really surrounded with the resources they need to succeed in 2025 and beyond.

“You see some of the changes we made with our football program, with people like Ron Powlus and Mike Martin. And conversations I had over the course of the season with both Micah and Niele, we were talking about what resources are needed, what skill sets we can bring in to continue to modernize our basketball programs here. And I think if you were to ask Micah or ask Niele, they got into this business — as did their staffs — to coach basketball, to win games, to develop players. But there’s so much going on in the space right now that you need to be thinking about not once a week, not a couple times a week, not once a day, but 24 hours a day, seven days a week to be a top program in the landscape. And that’s what we intend to do.

“We want to continue to have the very best women’s programs, the very best men’s basketball programs we can possibly have here at Notre Dame. These two programs are absolute priorities for the athletic department and the university.

“So once we got through the rationale on the why, then it became the who. And I think people in this room would agree with me that if you kind of went into a laboratory and created the perfect person for this, it would be Pat. Pat is a Notre Dame alum, a magna cum laude Notre Dame alum. Obviously an unbelievable star on the basketball team when he was here, a top-20 draft pick. Had a marvelous NBA career, playing for a decade in the NBA, a series of front-office roles in the NBA. Got his MBA — MBA, not NBA — from Duke.

“So as we were thinking about the perfect person to come in and do this, Pat is the consummate Notre Dame student-athlete. Somebody who excelled athletically, to the highest degree possible, but also utilized his Notre Dame degree to continue to excel. And to have Pat come in here at this time and to help us take these programs to really unprecedented levels of success, which is what we intend to do over the next decade, we just knew that he’s somebody who could come in here and make an immediate impact, and help Micah and help Niele and help me and the rest of the staff.

“Pat’s also a Notre Dame dad. His son, Henry, is here. He’s a student-athlete at Notre Dame. I was asking Pat if Henry is okay with this. He said he is. He’ll be seeing a lot more of Dad around campus. But I couldn’t be more excited, Notre Dame couldn’t be more excited, so I hope you all join me in welcoming Pat Garrity back to Notre Dame.”

Opening statement from Pat Garrity

“Alright, first, thanks everyone for coming here. I didn’t know what kind of turnout we were going to get in late May, cold weather. So, it’s good to see that this is a basketball school now that we’re able to fill the room here.

“First, just a couple of thank you. No. 1, I just wanted to express my gratitude to Father Bob and to Pete, for not only creating this position but thinking of me for it. I think people who are casually familiar with college sports think that there’s all this money flying around, and coffers are full. And I think the reality of most places, if you talk to people who work there, there’s never been more pressure on athletic departments to try to do what they originally set out to do. So, to create this position, to think of me as someone to come in and to lead, really means a lot.

“To Micah and Niele, a big thank you for your openness and welcoming. They weren’t just okay with it, they were embracing me with open arms when the news hit. I played for a lot of coaches in my career, worked with coaches, friends in the coaching profession. It’s always been a hard profession, but I can’t imagine the challenge now. Because before, when you were a college coach, you had a long time frame. You put the time in to recruit a kid, you develop the relationship with them, you think you have three or four years to be able to develop them and to help your program. That all changes. So your aperture and your time frame is so narrow now, that hopefully I’ll be able to come in and help them think about the long term, when they’re oftentimes having to think about the short term, which is incredibly difficult.

“And then just the last thanks is obviously to my family: My wife, Paula, and my son, Henry. As Pete mentioned, I think Henry was the one we had to get on board the most. Three and a half hours seemed like a pretty good distance from us to him. He could come home when we wanted to, but we were still away. We didn’t know too much of what’s going on; all the word got back to us. [laughs] So they’ve been nothing but excited about this opportunity for us and it’s really gonna be fun to get together. We told him anyway, wherever he goes in life, we’re not gonna be too far from him anyway. So this is just an early preview of that.

“In closing here, before I take some questions, just wanted to hit on a little bit of why this job was attractive to me and why I’m so excited about it. And obviously, after I retired, spent a little time outside of basketball, came back into the NBA. I really thought my career afterward was going to be in the NBA. This was really attractive to me for a few reasons. No. 1 is the place. This place means so much to me. And I told Pete this when we started having the conversations: I can’t really think of any place outside of my home that means so much to me as this place here. And it’s both because of what it was able to do in terms of my career, how I was able to develop as a student-athlete, but really the relationships that I have. My best friends in the world are still all people that I lived in Soren Hall with and went to Notre Dame with. So, No. 1, just to be able to come back and work at a place like that was extremely attractive.

“No. 2 is the impact that you can make. In the NBA, it’s a tremendous lifestyle. It’s a lot of fun. You’re working at the highest level of basketball. You’re making an impact sometimes in players’ lives, but it’s just such a big enterprise. Your actions to the impact on the people on your team is a little bit wide. Being able to come back to not only college basketball but a place like Notre Dame, where we can bring in young student-athletes, develop them to the best of their abilities as athletes, set them up for when they stop playing. Being able to have an impact in that way, now that I’m no longer someone that can play basketball. I think that looking at my career, this will maybe be the most meaningful thing I’ve done outside of playing basketball. So that’s really why this was attractive to me, why we’re making the move out here to South Bend, and couldn’t be more excited. So with that, I will open it up to everyone.”

With having to do three jobs: GM men, GM women and sports administrator, how do you divide your time?

“Really good question. I think the way this job is designed is maybe a little different than some schools’ approach. Some schools’ approach is solely like a personnel, is the heavy focus of the job. So I think obviously, if I were to sequence, getting up to speed on the sports admin side is the most important, because that’s a lot of the operational stuff of the men’s program right away.

“But dealing with specifically the commercial aspect of the personnel side. Dealing with two teams is a lot, but I don’t think it’s anything too overwhelming. You’re having conversations with agents and parents and figuring out who’s at risk of leaving and where you potentially need to shore up your roster, that kind of thing. So I think it’s going to be a lot to learn. I think for me, though, really getting up to speed on the sports admin side first. We have two coaches right now who have been running their programs for a long time. So I don’t think there’s any real urgency right away to change anything they’re doing.”

How will the communication work between you and Micah and you and Niele?

“I think it’s very similar to the way it works in pro sports. I worked for a guy named Jeff Bower in Detroit. He was in Stan [Van Gundy’s] office, who was the head coach, every day after games. That’s how the communication works, is you’re just physically there and you’re around. The conversation of dialogue is just ongoing, because you’re always with each other.”

What are your initial thoughts on the NIL/transfer portal landscape and what Notre Dame basketball needs to succeed in it?

“This summer, I think, is maybe a bad example to develop any thoughts on it because it was probably the most unregulated that it’ll ever be. You had the ending of the collective era and everyone preparing for the revenue-sharing era.

“I think the larger perspective that I have on it is there are a lot of student athletes that are making good decisions for them, that they’re rewarded financially, but they’re also gonna get through college connected to a place and being remembered at a place. And I think there are a lot of people that are making short-term decisions that maybe financially look good now, but maybe looking back in 10 years, they’re asking, ‘What am I left with? Where was really my home? What am I remembered for?’

“So I think that’s one of the big things that we gotta focus on here, just in terms of retention, is just selling the point that there’s the money aspect of this thing. It’s just a reality in college sports right now, but there’s more to that. Being remembered as an all-time great at a college means something when you hang it up, eventually. And so I think that we have to be able to demonstrate to our student-athletes that we can get you there, and that’s ultimately the important thing. And that includes bringing the past all-time greats around to get that message across.”

What did you learn during your time as the Piston’s assistant general manager that can translate to Notre Dame?

“I think No. 1, when you’re talking about the front office’s work with the coaching staff, when those relationships are at their best, it’s when you’re in constant communication and you’re honest with each other. And when those break down, it’s when those communication lines break down. When you run into disagreements, you don’t confront them. I think all the other stuff takes care of itself. You’re gonna have disagreements about personnel and players. Those are basketball types. But when you really break down communication, you can really see that happening all the time in pro sports. That’s what you have to avoid.”

What does your short-term to-do list look like as you walk in the door?

“Short-term to-do list is immediately getting up to speed on everything you need to know about college sports in terms of the compliance piece, right? That’s going to be a new world for me. I think No. 2 is really spending time with the coaches and learning things as, you know, ‘What’s your terminology? How do we think about players, like your style of play?’ So just really getting up to speed and knowledgeable so we’re all speaking the same language.

“In terms of personnel, both rosters — we’re far enough along, going into next season. The rosters are both set. So, after all the nuts and bolts, getting familiar with what kind of players we value, how we want to play, what’s our philosophy in terms of that, then I think it’s, as you go into the season, starting to prepare for the next series of roster turnover.”

Notre Dame doesn’t have as wide a pool in the transfer portal as some schools. How do you address that, and how do you work on retention so the culture matches this place?

“Yeah, it’s a great question. I actually look at it as an advantage in a couple ways. No. 1, if you’re going to a school as a young player that is doing business in the transfer portal and winning with seniors, every year, you’re coming in and worried about someone coming in and taking my job. When you’re a team and a program like we have here, the word is development. We’re bringing in freshmen, we’re developing them physically, on the floor, into roles where they can grow and excel. That doesn’t mean the portal isn’t going to be a part of it, but I think as we’ve seen, it’s gonna be more limited than a lot of other places.

“I actually look at it as an advantage, because when you have a conversation with a young player and their family about your plan to develop them into the player and where you think they can get, they can pretty much take that to the bank if they come and put the work in to get there.”

Could you lay out some of the tasks that you had in Detroit that you think will help you in this role?

“So from the salary cap standpoint, if we ever get to a point where there are rules and transparency that we all understand, I think there could be some crossover.

“My role the last four years in Detroit were strategy, salary cap and then I oversaw our medical performance group and our analytics groups. I think the one similarity is, when you’re looking at your cap sheet, preparing for free agency or trades, when you’re running a bunch of different scenarios, none of them turn out and you end up going down a path that you haven’t planned for. I think that’s a little bit of a reality. The difference is here, it’s really hard to plan past one year because we don’t have multi-year deals. There’s no restricted free agency. The ability to retain players is totally different than in pro sports. But outside of that aspect, one of the parts that I really did enjoy was working with our performance group and medical team.

“A little bit different in college, how you approach the analytics side, but I think that those are all areas when you talk about building a world-class basketball program, you have to figure out where you’re gonna make those investments and how you wanna do things.”

Do you expect to have a role in evaluating players and recruiting?

“Personnel is gonna be important. It’s probably less important in this particular role than some other places are approaching. I’ll obviously be involved in knowing who we’re recruiting and weighing in on personnel and what I see. But as far as recruiting, being out on the road, that’s not a part of it. But the personnel, that’s the fun part about it.”

What are some of the difference in what you need to do between men’s and women’s basketball?

“I don’t see a ton of — obviously, both coaches who are running their programs have differences in the way they want to play, they talk about players. That affects the way that you approach personnel. So I think, No. 1, to my answer earlier, getting up to speed on style of play and terminology. Learning that difference and being able to communicate and contribute by knowing that, I think, is the big one.

“Obviously, I think the programs have historically been at different places. And so, I think having that historical context and knowing that, getting up to speed on the legacy of each program, I think that’s another important part. But as far as the day to day and helping them execute their visions, the most important thing is understanding what those visions are, their priorities and helping them go out there and execute.”

When you were approached about the job, did you always have the dual role in mind?

“Yes.”

How invested in Notre Dame basketball have you been since you stopped playing, and how helpful will that be in knowing what you’re getting into?

“Yeah, we have been coming back since I left. Under Mike [Brey], who was always very welcoming, and then when Micah got the job, and Muffet [McGraw] left and Niele got the job. Niele and I are two years apart here. So just throughout time when I was able to, have always been come back. I think it’s a little bit different now, obviously. As a fan, someone who wanted to come around, know what was going on versus actually going in there and helping solve problems and carry out the vision is a little bit different.

“But yeah, this place has always been a special place to me. And it’s probably even more special now, having a son that goes here and then seeing the impact that going here as a student and being a student-athlete and all the stuff that they do with player development off the field has done and impacted them.”

Has it sunk in that you’re wearing that logo again?

“Yeah, it is a little strange. Coming back, there’s so much that’s new. But I was walking around the back of the Joyce [Center], and I’m like, ‘Wait, that door is the same door.’ It’s nice to know that some of those things haven’t changed.

“To a broader point, forgot to mention this earlier: I was very lucky to have personal success here, but we didn’t really win in my era. I think if you go back and look at the record, we were like .500, maybe. Coach [John] MacLeod, if he had gotten to stay, that was kind of the class that got him over the hump and got him going a little bit.

“So I think more than anything, being able to come here, even though it’s not playing, but being able to contribute to winning would be the capstone for me.”

You weren’t a big-time recruit. What happened in your development that you can bring here now and help current and future players?

“I don’t think that this is unique to me, but if I look back on the way I developed from the time I was stepping foot on campus to the end, it was never like — my goal when I stepped on campus was never to get to the NBA. It was to get in the lineup first. And then after that, it was, ‘This is the hole in my game, so I’m gonna add this.’ It’s like taking these short-term steps along the path and not getting distracted with what’s gonna happen three or four years down the road.

“I mean, again, not unique to here, but I think that’s one thing in talking to players is just focus on the next day, the next time you’re in the weight room or the next time you’re on the floor, what are you trying to get better at? Then, if you put your heart and soul into that, everything takes care of itself down the road. And if it doesn’t work out, you don’t have any reason to hang your head, because you put your heart and soul into it, and it either worked out or it didn’t.”

How much of a believer in analytics are you, and how much of that do you bring to this job?

“I think it’s a really good question when it comes to, particularly, the difference between the college and the pro game. When you’re projecting out players in the NBA, you’re willing to put investment into that, because you’re able to retain and you have it for a long time, right? And there’s past data to be able to base those evaluations on. It’s a little bit different in college, because how do you project 16, 17-year-olds based on EYBL game data? It’s really hard.

“I think that some of the stuff related to coaching analytics, I think there’s stuff that’s directly relatable of how impactful some of the decisions you’re making in terms of coverages and how you’re playing things and attacking things. Those kind of things, I think, are directly relatable. So I break it up. I still don’t know the answer when it comes to personnel evaluation and use of analytics. Coaching analytics, I think there’s a lot of crossover.”

How long after you left the Pistons did you think, ‘I miss the game and I want to get back in it?’

“For the first few years, I tried the media game for a while. Did a weekly show with Shams [Charania] and those guys at Stadium, which was fun. But no, it was really over the last couple years when Henry left, it was time to get back to work. Looked at a couple opportunities in the NBA, some that weren’t the right fit at the time, some that could’ve materialized. But yeah, it was pretty much within the last couple years of, like, it’s time to get back to work unless my wife’s gonna… [laughs]”