The 2.0 version of the most visible and most defining player in Notre Dame athletics’ name, image and likeness game issued a press release earlier this week, extolling its latest evolutions.
For those hoping for a shift to the dark side of the NIL movement — or even the exploitation of some new gray area — by the FUND collective won’t even find a hint of it between the lines.
Instead the 13-month-old organization founded and fueled by former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn is essentially betting on itself, with more resources and more of the school’s best and brightest behind them, that enough of the college sports world will come around and see the NIL through its lens. Sooner than later.
And buy in.
Jordan Cornette, like Quinn, has been with FUND (Friends of the University of Notre Dame) from the start. And the former Irish men’s basketball player and current show host/college basketball analyst for ESPN and ACC Network is on the revamped and expanded board of directors.
He can speak on the most nuanced facets of FUND’s mission as well as its mechanics in pairing student-athletes with local charities. But the 40-year-old from Cincinnati also knows many of those who have an emotional investment in where NIL is headed — particularly among its fanbase — want it all boiled down to one thing:
Is Notre Dame, and the independent FUND organization in particular, doing enough in the NIL space for its football program?
“Look, if people want to look at it as an arms race, that's certainly not what we're doing,” Cornette said, a day after taking in and processing the drama at the three-day Atlantic Coast Conference spring meetings in Amelia Island, Fla.
“I'm not speaking from my perspective saying, ‘We have to do what everybody else is doing.’ That’s just never been Notre Dame's way, but there's an understanding that you have to be progressive and that the times are changing.
“That doesn't mean you have to give up what your core values are and sacrifice anything to still play the game and have your feet in the sandbox. After very much consideration, that's where we've gotten to. We're not going to be pay-for-play. You're not going to get X amount of dollars just to come to Notre Dame and play a sport.
“What you are going to get is fair compensation. You can make great money, but you're going to be contributing to the community, to making — quite frankly, not to wax poetic — the world a better place.”
Skeptics have their own scorecard: Football recruiting news and rumors. And the NCAA’s almost two years of flailing since NIL’s inception at trying to get Congress involved to close the loopholes as vast as those created by Irish left tackle Joe Alt’s textbook blocks.
The heavy hitters that FUND has assembled feel that there will be enough self-correction in the system that acquisition fees in advance during the recruiting process, high school prospects and transfer portal travelers alike, will eventually lose their shine for something more sustainable and tangible.
“I'll just say this to you, if somebody would have come to me back when I was being recruited, and said, ‘Not only will you have a full scholarship to go to a place like Notre Dame, you can also make money there’, I think I would have soiled myself on the spot,” Notre Dame’s career record-holder for blocked shots said.
“And so, to think about that kind of scenario, that's how being presented to these young men and women. You're going to get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and education second to none and athletic experience on the biggest stage. And oh, by the way, you'll be compensated, and people that are eager to make sure that you can be compensated. That's incredible.
“For us, there's got to be service hours put into this, and so that's the approach at Notre Dame has taken. We don't just want to say, ‘Hey, here's a boatload of money. Come to Notre Dame.’ It's:‘This is what you make of it.’ I mean, obviously, it’s about your ability, but also mix that in with your commitment to want to do things in the community is kind of how we look at it. We're very adamant that this is not a pay-for-play situation.”
And it’s certainly not getting any pushback from the Notre Dame leadership.
In fact Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick is quoted in the release.
“I'd say having that endorsement from the senior leadership and [Notre Dame president] Father John [Jenkins] and Jack Swarbrick is a massive change that speaks to a unified/fortified front,” Cornett said.
“Now, they're not working with us. Obviously, that would be against the rules, but they're in support of what we're doing. And then the other big thing is you now have some of the most prominent names in Notre Dame that are involved on our board. I mean, it's a who's who on that list. These are real movers and shakers.
“Our approach is different from a lot of places, and it was before NIL was ever around. Notre Dame's willing to play this game too. And to understand that Notre Dame will spare no efforts to provide the ultimate experience for a student-athlete should be something that makes this an obvious choice for people.”
The FUND'S Board of Directors
Jordan Cornette, former Notre Dame men's basketball player and current ACC + ESPN media personality
Greg Dugard, former AVP of Principal Gifts at Notre Dame and current partner Sator Grove (newly elected chair of Friends of Notre Dame)
Jimmy Dunne, vice chair and senior managing principal Piper Sandler (newly elected vice chair of Friends of Notre Dame)
Pat Eilers, former Notre Dame football player and current founder, managing partner, Transition Equity Partners
Jay Flaherty, founder and managing partner, Corby 2.0, LLC
Tracy Graham, former Notre Dame football player and current founder, managing partner, Graham-Allen Partners
Karen Keyes, former Notre Dame women's basketball player and current Notre Dame women's basketball color commentator
Chris Reyes, chair, Reyes Holdings
Brady Quinn, former Notre Dame football player and current FOX sports media personality
ACC Rumblings
Cornette heard ACC commissioner Jim Phillips acknowledge earlier this week the league’s angst over the widening revenue gap between the SEC/Big Ten and everyone else in the college sports world, and seven of its 15 schools responding by probing how binding the league’s grant of rights deal actually is.
Because of its membership in most sports beyond football, that deal affects Notre Dame as well, contractually through 2036.
Phillips, though, left the three-day spring meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., declaring, “We are unified.”
An ACC source told Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, “We’re not unified. … “We’re unified until someone offers a school more to go somewhere else. Everyone is going to grab it.”
Cornette’s read on the situation?
“I mean, it's kind of the world we're in,” he said. “I’m not going to get caught up in any doomsday presentation of the sky is falling and this or that. I think, more than ever, it needs to be a conference that is unified. And I know there's reports of a fracture there and things like that, but I'll say this: Control what you can control.
“For me, I don't try to pay too much attention to the outside noise. I know this Florida State is going to be a top five team this year [in football], and Clemson is Clemson. There's a ton of talent in this conference basketball-wise on the men's and women's side.
“Beyond that, I can't control that other stuff. I don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what's going to happen. The people writing these articles don't know what's going to happen, because they would have told us UCLA and USC were going to the Big 10 years ago. Anything's possible. You just don't know.”
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swabrick is confident the school’s next media rights deal (the current NBC contract runs through 2025) will provide the Irish programs with enough of a payday to keep it from having to give up its football independence and give a strong look to conference membership in the SEC or the Big Ten.
But a fractured ACC, if it ever came to that, might mean having to find a new home for the school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams and most of its Olympic sports programs, which might come with a price for football.
Currently that price is an arrangement where Notre Dame football players on average five games a season against ACC competition.
“I am all about what's best for Notre Dame,” Cornette said. “And if Jack Swarbrick and Father John believe independence is the way, then great, independence is the way. If they believe that a conference is the best way to go, then I sure hope like hell it's the ACC that they elect to join.
“Again, prognosticators don't forecast that being the play. So, wherever they end up, I'm happy with it. I'm going to support the school. I bleed the blue and gold, like I'm all in. So whatever makes sense, I support it. Right now it seems like independence is that play. I just want our programs to be winning programs and I want our athletes to feel like this is the best possible experience they could get when they chose this place.”
Early impressions of Shrewsberry
Cornette was a huge proponent that Micah Shrewsberry should be Mike Brey’s successor from the moment Mike Brey on Jan. 19 announced his 23-year run as the school’s men’s basketball coach would end in March.
He’s even more impressed with the former Penn State’s first two months on the job, in which the 46-year-old has reassembled a men’s basketball roster.
“Active, aggressive, assertive. And it's everything I knew it would be,” Cornette said. “I mean, the guy's built a roster from scratch, and he's got real talent coming in. I think it's not going to be a team this year that goes and wins a championship, but it's a team that’s going to be very competitive. It's a team that’s going to be fun to watch this year. And I think that's a miracle in its own right.”
Shrewsberry inherited just four players from a 2022-23 roster that went 11-21 overall and 3-17 in the ACC. That includes one walk-on and no one who averaged more than 1.7 points or 1.2 rebounds per game.
He was able to retain November signee Markus Burton among ND’s original three-man recruiting class, add three Penn State signees and transfers Julian Roper II (Northwestern) and Kebba Njie (Penn State) as well as secure his first verbal commitment of the 2024 class in 6-foot-5 guard Cole Certa from Bloomington, Ill.
“He was able to stack that kind of talent, where this is going to be a team that is no easy out this year,” Cornette said. “That's a win in itself. And the building blocks are just beginning. The foundation is being set in what was nothing short of a scramble to provide a team.
“He's gone above and beyond that with the pieces he's putting in. He's got guys coming in for next year's class. I love the [coaching] staff that he's put together as well. I’m over the moon with what he's done very early on, in a spot that was nearly impossible to achieve, what he's done already.”
What's the ceiling for Notre Dame's men's basketball program?
“Call [Notre Dame alum and trustee and FUND vice chair] Jimmy Dunne and tell him that there's a ceiling for anything at Notre Dame,” Cornette said, “and I'd love to hear what he says back to you. And I say that like this: The people that are involved in this, this operation to see Notre Dame be excellent in all facets — men and women on this {FUND] board — only know excellence.
“And so, if that was the mentality a few years ago, maybe that was because the resources weren't there, I can assure you those resources are there on 10s. There is no ceiling for any sport at Notre Dame right now. There's not.”
More on FUND from Brady Quinn
EDITOR'S NOTE: Last week former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn was our special guest on the Inside ND Sports Podcast. Quinn is currently a football analyst for Fox and CBS Sports, chairman of the 3rd & Goal Foundation for veterans and the face of Notre Dame’s FUND Foundation for student-athletes. This excerpt transcript helps explain in more detail how FUND plans to win in the NIL game:
“You’re not allowed to be talking to kids in the transfer portal. They’re prospective student-athletes. That’s just how it works — or even high school student-athletes. They’re prospective student-athletes. As a collective, you’re not allowed to have those conversations with them.
“But the University of Notre Dame is in as good a place as anyone. And I can promise you that from the work that we’ve already done — and not just with the football team, but with the men’s and women’s basketball teams and other sports.
“We would like to believe we have a very unique approach where it’s not just about NIL. I think so many people make it about that. And in the case of all of these athletes, you’re never going to make as much in NIL as you will as a professional athlete. You’re just not.
“So it’s short-sighted if people are making decisions based on money now and potentially sacrificing their growth and development in the future, where you would be able to play in the NFL, in the NBA, in the WNBA, where you’re going to be making more money then.
“I think the long view is you need to factor that in: Where am I best going to be developed for that opportunity? But also where am I going to be developed for when that day ends, in the NFL, the NBA, the WNBA? Do I have a degree, a foundation of education to help me with that transition into the professional world? ‘Cause most athletes are so competitive, they’ve got to do something when they’re done.
“And figuring that out and having a degree to do so makes it a lot easier. Especially with the Notre Dame alumni network. So, I would say this from our collective, we’re in a great spot. We’ve been incredibly involved and active with student-athletes at the University of Notre Dame, championing so many different charities in the South Bend area. And so, I think that’s the biggest thing.
“We’re making a real impact with student-athletes and a lot of nonprofits, a lot of charities, helping those student-athletes understand the power of their brand and of Notre Dame’s brand and combining those two to help create an identity of what they’re really about. And more than just a student-athlete, but a charitable cause that they’re passionate about and they’re about to help out with.
“So, we take pride in that in making this conversation about more than NIL and what someone’s being compensated for, but what someone’s really doing with the time that they have during their time at Notre Dame.”
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