In hindsight, Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Niele Ivey isn’t surprised that football coach Marcus Freeman was one step ahead. Knowing him as well as she does now, it tracks.
But in December 2021, when Notre Dame promoted Freeman from defensive coordinator to head coach, she had asked someone in her office to get his number so she could congratulate him. In his first season on campus, their paths had not yet crossed, but as a fellow Fighting Irish coach who thought they could connect on quite a bit, she wanted to extend a hand in his first days as head coach.
But before anyone could return with Freeman’s number, a text message popped up from an unknown number.
Hey, this is Coach Freeman. Here’s my number. Would love to connect.
“Of course,” Ivey said, “he was already on top of it.”
Even before sitting down, Ivey noticed their Venn diagrams of experience in life and coaching overlapped. They were former college athletes who also played professionally. They were new first-time head coaches (Ivey was hired as head coach at her alma mater in 2020) and young Black coaches in professions that lacked Black coaches but predominantly featured Black players. Additionally, Ivey and Freeman were in the challenging positions of following the winningest coaches in the…
