‘Embrace it as best as possible’: How Mike Brey is processing his final home game at Notre Dame
On the day of his last home game as Notre Dame head coach, Mike Brey will also accomplish a first. He has, somehow, never stepped foot in the Linebacker Lounge since his 2000 arrival in South Bend.
He plans on changing that Wednesday night following the Irish’s game versus Pittsburgh (7 p.m. ET, ACC Network). A never-got-around-to-it task in his early years became a badge of honor as his tenure hit decade Nos. 2 and 3. Now? The hell with it. The last time is a great time for something new. Brey and the ‘Backer will finally meet, and it won’t be a brief stay.
“We’re closing that sucker,” Brey said. “There ain’t no curfew tomorrow.”
There might be no more fitting last call for Brey’s 23-year run. His tenure will officially end sometime next week in the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C., but this is all on campus. Tuesday was the final practice inside Purcell Pavilion. Thursday and Friday’s sessions will be inside Rolfs Hall, then the Irish will head to the Southeast for the regular-season finale Saturday at Clemson. They will travel to Greensboro from there, begin the ACC Tournament Tuesday and stay until they lose.
About 30 former players will be in attendance, Brey said. They will include some of the biggest stars from his days and those who came before him. On the opposite sideline will be Jeff Capel, now the Pitt head coach and once a former Duke player during Brey’s years as a Blue Devils assistant. Purcell Pavilion, now a fresh arena no longer known only as the Joyce Center, looks nothing like it did when he coached his first game. Gone are the mismatched purple and green seats and the practice court called “The Pit.”
“It has been cool the last 48 hours,” Brey said. “You’ve had time to reflect, and it has been awesome. I have no regrets and have been honored to be the guy here. One last time in this building.”
Finality won’t bring out the emotions, though, he insists. He has known this day was coming ever since the Jan. 20 announcement he would step down at season’s end.
Maybe the end of the season will evoke more feelings as he ends his final locker room talk in Greensboro and steps off the last team flight. But not this one. Four decades in coaching have brought their share of emotional games and taught him to approach each one with a level head. Notre Dame’s 10-19 overall record and 2-16 mark in the ACC is a humbling backdrop to it all. Pitt (21-8, 14-4) can clinch a share of the ACC title with a win.
Brey was self-aware enough to know Year 23 should be the last. He’s not going out on top. But he won’t lose sight of the moment, even if there’s a degree of numbness.
“It will be cool,” Brey said. “I’ve mentally prepared myself for it. I’m going to embrace it as best as possible. Hopefully we can play well against a really good team. Maybe my emotions have been maxed out after 23 years.”
More likely, they’re tapped out because of the personal messages former players sent him or said to him when he announced this year was the end. Those had emotion-provoking power nothing else can match, in Brey’s eyes. Hearing about his impact on a player from the player himself hits in a way that an ovation from Wednesday’s home faithful or one final “Notre Dame, Our Mother” can’t.
“The emails and texts from the heart I got from former guys, that’s when you get emotional,” Brey said. “That’s the wow, you really touched people. Those things mean the most.”
Before Brey walks out the arena doors and down Angela Blvd. to the Linebacker, he will sing the alma mater arm-in-arm with his team and mill around the court to say farewell to familiar faces. That’s not just former players. It’s colleagues, arena staff, longtime season ticket holders and donors. Even Digger Phelps, a fixture at home games in recent years after some time away from the program.
“After all these years,” Brey said, “there’s a lot of key people.”
He wouldn’t mind buying them a beer at the ‘Backer.
