Editor’s Note: THE NEXT WAVE | This is the first in a series of recurring stories about some of the June-arriving newcomers for the Notre Dame football team.
If all goes according to plan, the first weekend in June will be joyfully hectic for future Notre Dame tight end James Flanigan.
On June 7, his hope is to be in Lacrosse, Wis., finishing up two days of competition in the Wisconsin Division 2 state track and field meet and then hopping in the car for a near-six-hour drive to South Bend, Ind., where his reporting deadline for Irish head football coach Marcus Freeman is the next day, June 8.
Summer school classes start June 9 for the freshmen, with the veterans and transfers getting underway with their summer curriculum the week before.
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Ideally, Flanigan would like to be arriving with a couple of gold medals in his possession, one in the shot put, an event in which he’s the defending state champ and 2023 state runner-up. And one in the discus, an event he finished second in the state meet last season and won in 2023 at the state level.
As convoluted as his trek from his home in Green Bay, Wis., to the Notre Dame campus might turn out to be, the son of former Notre Dame defensive line standout and 10-year NFL vet Jim Flanigan may have the clearest path to the field among the 12 June-arriving freshmen in the 25-player class.
That’s based on opportunity as well as skill set.
And Flanigan’s track and field résumé offers one clue as to the latter.
Up through his junior year, he also ran sprints for his Notre Dame De La Baie Academy track team, with a personal best last season of an 11.44-second clocking from an athlete who was 6-foot-5. 230 pounds when he signed with the Irish back in December.
The fact that he’s 243 now only adds to what that straight-line speed and nasty streak might look like when he starts competing with holdovers Eli Raridon, Kevin Bauman and Jack Larsen and fellow newcomer and Arkansas transfer Ty Washington.
None of the returnees, including injured junior Cooper Flanagan (Achilles tear), have more than six career catches.
“I just want to really improve and get settled down at Notre Dame,” Flanigan said of his freshman-year goals. “I don’t know if special teams is something that will be a possibility for me, but I’d love to be on the field in any capacity that’s possible. I just don’t know what’s realistic to expect.”
And so he stays focused on finishing off an ambitious spring semester of his senior year in the classroom, hanging out with younger brother Richie Flanigan — a 2027 Notre Dame defensive line recruiting target, going through the workout regimen that ND director of football performance Loren Landow sent him, and training to win two more state titles in track and field.
“I have a meet coming up [Friday night] that I’m pretty excited for,” he said. “I’ve had a good week of practice, and I’m expecting to throw around 200 [feet] in the disc and like 60 in the shot put, so I think I should do pretty well.”
Both of those would qualify as personal bests.
And when he needs a little extra motivation, he doesn’t have to look for — well, not anymore. For years, James couldn’t find any game film of his father Jim, but recently he found a five-minute highlight reel online from his time with the Chicago Bears, a team he played for during the first seven seasons (1994-2000) of his 10-year pro career.
“I love watching it every now and then,” James said. “It gets me fired up, because I see a little bit of nastiness that I haven’t seen before. It’s fun to see.”
And observers see a similar nasty streak in James, who was a four-star prospect, per Rivals, and the No. 10 tight end in his class. He was also a standout hockey player in high school.
“I had a nagging injury from football that I wanted to get right, so I didn’t play as much hockey this year, but I really enjoyed playing that sport.”
But his first love is football, and it’s a family affair. Beyond brother Richie and father Jim, grandfather Jim Sr. played linebacker collegiately at Pitt, then four years in the NFL. He won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers.
“I just saw him last weekend — he only lives 30 minutes away,” James said. “It’s pretty cool to have generations of football players in the family. And with my dad, he definitely expects us to do well and pushes us hard.
“Like last season, he was coaching me and my brother at D-line [James played both ways, doubling at defensive end last season]. He always made sure that we were pushed hard and he’d coach us and be there for us. But at the end of the day, it’s just fun.
“And I think it’s going to be fun this summer, learning and getting to know [offensive coordinator and tight ends] coach [Mike] Denbrock better and all the other tight ends too. I can’t wait to be a part of it.”
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