The passing this week of former Notre Dame football player, assistant coach, administrator and ambassador Brian Boulac brought back a flood of memories.
To me, he was my generation’s version of Edward “Moose” Krause. For 50 years, from his freshman year as a football player for head coach Knute Rockne in 1930 until he announced his retirement as Notre Dame’s athletics director in 1980, Krause earned the moniker “Mr. Notre Dame.”
There forever will be only one Moose, but Boulac carried on the torch as the consummate “Notre Dame man and gentleman” with his own 50-year stint, first as a freshman football player in 1959 through his retirement as an administrator in 2009.
No man I ever met possessed a more genuine love for Notre Dame than Boulac. It was his heaven and haven on earth, and like Moose, he could regale an audience with endless, fascinating stories.
There were many others in athletics administration during his era — fellow football assistants and Notre Dame graduates such as Joe Yonto, George Kelly, plus Mike DeCicco, Roger Valdiserri, Jim Gibbons, Joe Sassano, among many others — who were not driven by money but what they referred to as a “vocation” when it came to serving Notre Dame.
One didn’t even have to be a Notre Dame graduate, a la a Parseghian, Tom Pagna, Paul Shoults, Colonel Jack Stephens, and in his own way, Digger Phelps, to imbue the Notre Dame spirit of charity, community and devotion.
The motto of Boulac and his colleagues was if a new visitor came by his office, that might be the individual’s sole memory of Notre Dame, so make it one they will cherish forever.
Here are some of my own recollections of “Coach Bou.”
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As an 8-year-old who was born into a strong Catholic upbringing in Walla, Walla, Wash., Boulac’s first experience with Notre Dame was its 27-7 victory at the University of Washington in 1949 under head coach Frank Leahy’s third national title team in four years.
“My father took me to Seattle to watch the game, and on the way back I said, ‘I’m going to Notre Dame,’ ” said Boulac, who devotedly listened to all the Notre Dame games on radio thereafter.
A star athlete first at Gonzaga Prep and then Olympia High, Boulac won 10 varsity letters in four different sports, and was first contacted by Irish head coach Terry Brennan in 1958 before enrolling at Notre Dame as a tight end/lineman under first-year head coach Joe Kuharich in 1959.
During the four-year Kuharich era, the Fighting Irish never had a winning record (17-23 overall) — but his affinity for the school only grew.
“I was amazed by the spirit on the campus even though we had such a poor record,” Boulac recalled. “One of the strengths of Notre Dame is that your roommates are not varsity athletes. When we walked into the dorm, we were part of the dorm. We were every bit part of the student body: we went to class together and went to eat together.
“There was no, ‘You’re a football player and you guys are lousy.’ They may have said that in the dorms when we weren’t there, but we never sensed that. We knew we weren’t successful, but I don’t think that diminished our love for the game or the way we practiced and played.”
••••
One day in September 2006 I stopped by Boulac’s office in the Joyce Center — one of 12 he had through the decades — to inform him that former Fighting Irish All-American teammate and long-time NFL star Monty Stickles had died.
“How well did you know him?” I asked.
He gave a smirk … and then pulled out a dental bridge in his upper mouth to answer the inquiry
During one of his first practices as a freshman, Boulac’s intensity was frustrating Stickles so much that Stickles walked behind Boulac, turned him around by the shoulders and clocked him in the mouth, dislodging two of his teeth. (Years later, the multi-talented Stickles wore “the dirtiest player in the NFL” label as a badge of honor.)
Boulac and Stickles were then involved in a melee before senior captain Ken Adamson gave the business to Stickles and took Boulac’s spot to close out the practice.
He also more fondly recalls his first start, as a sophomore versus Navy and Heisman Trophy winner Joe Bellino.
“I remember vividly in the second half how the guy across from me said, ‘You’re the biggest 195-pound guy I’ve ever seen,’ ” Boulac said. “I was actually 225, but that was a [sports information director] Charlie Callahan thing. I weighed 195 one day as a freshman after I had the flu, and that’s how I was listed most of my career. I was 240 as a senior, but still listed at 200.”
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A physical education major with a desire to pursue a coaching career, Boulac graduated with 152 credit hours, or 32 more than required, during his undergraduate years. He was in the last Notre Dame graduating class (1963) with a PE major.
After trying out for the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals, Boulac was released just in time to return to graduate school at Notre Dame to pursue his master’s degree in educational administration.
He also served as a graduate assistant for that year’s freshman class that featured one of the two or three strongest line harvests in Notre Dame history, led by future first-round picks Alan Page, Kevin Hardy, Tom Regner and Paul Seiler, as well as All-Americans Pete Duranko and George Goeddeke.
When Ara Parseghian was hired as Notre Dame’s head coach in 1964, he asked Boulac to remain on the staff as a second-year grad assistant and mentor the freshman team.
“The most fortunate moment of my life,” Boulac said.
As soon as he started working for Parseghian, Boulac had an epiphany on why the talent-laden Notre Dame teams from 1959-63 underachieved with a 19-30 ledger.
“(Parseghian) was maybe more at ease in communicating with young kids, whereas Kuharich was used to working with the professional athlete,” said Boulac of the former NFL Coach of the Year. “Kuharich knew his Xs and Os, and he and his staff worked hard. But I felt the difference immediately when Ara arrived, with his enthusiasm and preparation, the way we approached the game, and the way you could pick that us as a player.”
Boulac remained at Notre Dame to pursue a doctorate and continued to work on the staff as an assistant coach of the freshman. The lone interruption of him time at Notre Dame occurred in 1968-69, when he served 20 months in the Army Medical Service Corps at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.
By then, he had established himself as an astute judge of talent and avid recruiter for Notre Dame. So when one of Parseghian’s two assistant offensive line coaches, Jerry Wampfler, departed to take the head coaching position at Colorado State, Parseghian didn’t hesitate to turn to Boulac as the replacement.
“I had been very involved with the football program from 1964-67, went to all the meetings with the coaches, ran the defensive prep team, so I had a pretty good handle of what to expect,” Boulac said. “And one of the things I do remember Ara telling me is he wanted me as a recruiter. Because of my Notre Dame background, he felt I would be a good recruiter for the university. So I got an early release from the service and started working Feb. 1, 1970.”
During Parseghian’s remaining five seasons, Boulac instructed primarily the tight ends and offensive tackles, while Wally Moore handled the centers and guards. The two had served as the Notre Dame freshman coaches in the mid 1960s.
Parseghian’s projection about Boulac becoming a renowned recruiter proved clairvoyant. In its March 3, 1975 edition, Time magazine profiled Boulac in an article entitled “Brian’s Pitch.”
By then, Dan Devine was a few months into having succeeded Parseghian as the head coach. There was an early schism between Parseghian players and Devine’s recruits, but three bedrocks firmly remained in place during the transition from Parseghian to Devine: Defensive line coach Yonto (1964-80), linebackers coach Kelly (1969-85) and Boulac (1970-82) were all kept to maintain continuity and some peace within the infrastructure.
During this time, Boulac mentored consistently productive offensive lines and tight ends — led by College Football Hall of Fame inductees Dave Casper and Ken MacAfee — who were also national champions in 1973 and 1977 — and became the first Notre Dame coach to receive the title of recruiting coordinator (1976).
From 1964-80 under Parseghian and Devine and with Boulac as a cherished assistant, Notre Dame recorded a 148-33-5 (.809) record, won three consensus national titles, shared another and seriously vied for several more.
••••
So valued was Boulac’s work, when Gerry Faust was hired as the new head coach in 1981, Boulac was given the “Assistant Head Coach” title, and also handled the defensive line and special teams in addition signing top-rated classes in 1981 and 1982.
Unfortunately, when it became evident to Notre Dame athletic director Gene Corrigan that the Faust era probably was not going to thrive, he recommended Boulac for an opening in the athletic director’s office.
After the 1982 season, Boulac opted for the administrative role, similar to Krause, who had served as a line coach in the 1940s for Leahy.
“It was a very difficult decision,” Boulac said. “I looked at the situation and thought, being the assistant head coach, I probably would not be retained by whoever came in as the next coach. My children were at the age where they were starting to think about college, and back then assistant coaches weren’t making what they are making today. I had to think of it as a great opportunity to pay for my children’s education at Notre Dame.”
Indeed, all four of his daughters — Dawn, Denise, Debbie and Dyan — earned Notre Dame degrees, while wife Micki was a 1983 graduate of the Notre Dame Law School.
From 1983-2009, Boulac worked in a variety of capacities in service to Notre Dame, from serving as an athletic department liaison with the admission and financial aid departments, to working in student development.
And the coaching bug never left. When Boulac worked with athletic director Dick Rosenthal on helping form the women’s soccer and softball programs into varsity sports during the late 1980s, he received a surprise.
“We went out and got our soccer coach for the fall season, and I remember telling Mr. Rosenthal, ‘Now it’s time to look for a softball coach for the spring,’ ” Boulac recalled. “And he just said, ‘We’ve already got him.’ ”
Rosenthal had tabbed Boulac for the role because he had coached in the American Softball Association for 17 years, and three of his daughters would play for the Irish. It was supposed to be temporary to get the program on its feet, but instead Boulac was named the Midwestern Collegiate Conference Coach of the Year in his first season (1989) and took the Irish to conference and/or regular-season titles the next three seasons before the school finally hired Liz Miller.
“Working with young people, it’s a lot of work but it’s a lot of fun,” Boulac said. “I can’t think of a better way I could have spent my young adulthood. The relationship with athletes becomes a very important factor in coaching. You can’t be in it just for wins and losses. You have to be in it to watch young people grow and mature.
“You work with someone more gifted, the Dave Caspers or George Kunz … and then you get someone like a Pat Pohlen (1972-75 offensive tackle). For three years it was, ‘Coach, what am I doing wrong, what am I doing wrong?’ And all of a sudden his senior year, he’s a starter, he plays well for us … that’s what makes it a great profession. There are so many stories like that.
“People assume that in recruiting Notre Dame gets everyone it wants, and we’ve been fortunate to get a few great athletes. But with most of our players, they worked so hard, and their hearts are bigger than they are.”
••••
My first interaction with Boulac was in August 1981 when as a sophomore I was previewing Notre Dame’s special teams for the campus newspaper.
No coach ever at Notre Dame had a more booming voice on the practice field than Boulac, whose inflections I described as “one octave above stentorian.” I was intimidated to even approach him.
When I did after practice, he was in a rush to his office and told me to talk along the way. I rushed through some questions before excusing myself — and then he stopped me and politely with a smile told me to calm down and that I had forgotten to ask certain inquiries that were important. He then proceeded to give me a thorough breakdown of each position group on his units while making me feel much more at ease.
As gruff as the exterior seemed on the field, he was a gentle, caring soul off it, and quite unassuming in a profession where egoism is a prerequisite.
Even when Boulac was a top administrator in the building where he worked, an usher at basketball games in an upstairs press row marveled how Boulac would regularly ask him permission if a certain seat was available for him.
“You don’t see guys like that much anymore,” he said.
Upon Boulac’s retirement in 2009, Notre Dame president emeritus Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., the school president from 1952-87, summed it up most succinctly:
“When you consider all that he has contributed for so many years, Brian is one of the reasons Notre Dame is the kind of place that it is. He stands for what Notre Dame is all about.”
Rest ye well, great and faithful servant/ambassador to Notre Dame.
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