Working for 13 years at Notre Dame as its assistant athletics director of athletics alumni relations, Reggie Brooks’ primary responsibility was organizing events around the country that would bring together hundreds of former university students and athletes to mingle, celebrate and reminisce about the good old days.
This interesting and enviable occupation kept Brooks — an Irish tailback who was a second-team All-American and a Heisman Trophy finalist in 1992 — busy and on the move for more than a decade, until pandemic precautions put the entire operation on hold in the spring of 2020.
With plenty of time to reflect on his years and experiences at Notre Dame, and wanting to keep busy when there wasn’t much to do, Brooks decided this was the perfect opportunity to share the moments and memories he enjoyed at the university as a player and an administrator.
So, in a collaborative effort with former longtime Notre Dame senior associate athletics director, John Heisler, and renowned Irish tailback Jerome Bettis, Brooks recently released a 333-page book titled “If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Sideline, Locker Room and Press Box.”
“With the pandemic shutting everything down, this became the perfect time to tell some great stories, reconnect with some people, and have an opportunity to reflect and share those experiences,” Brooks said of his motivation.
Brooks left his position as Notre Dame’s alumni frontman about a year ago and relocated with his wife and three of their five children in Fort Worth, Texas, where he took a job as the executive director of the Holtz’s Heroes Foundation (formerly Lou’s Lads).
The non-profit organization keeps connected the guys who played under iconic Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz through the late 1980s and early 1990s, and at the same time, it provides financial assistance for the educational needs of underprivileged students and the charitable organizations that former Irish players are involved in today.
Brooks, 50, admits to the irony of him building a career around and writing a book about Notre Dame, considering how badly he wanted to transfer away from the school as a sophomore there in 1991.
Told by the Irish coaches that he was being moved from running back to defensive back that season, Brooks became lost, disenchanted and homesick.
“I was just miserable because defensive back wasn’t the position I wanted to play and I was struggling,” recalled Brooks, a native of Tulsa, Okla., who was considering a move to nearby Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. “I hadn’t played DB since my freshman year in high school.”
But raised in a no-nonsense, old-school household, Brooks said that a transfer wasn’t an option.
“My father told me that I made a commitment, and I was going to honor it,” Brooks shared. “That was a pivotal moment for me because it forced me to really examine myself and realize that I needed to be a man of my word.”
By his own admittance, Brooks was short on self-confidence at the time, but if he was going to stay and survive at Notre Dame, his course wouldn’t include playing defensive back, and a meeting with the big boss to discuss the matter was needed sooner rather than later.
“I had to talk to Coach Holtz, and to do that was tough,” Brooks explained, emphasizing how intimidating the hall of fame coach could be both on and off the field. “If you had to go talk to Coach Holtz, you were usually in trouble. This wasn’t going to be easy.”
With surety and conviction, Brooks won his appeal with Holtz and returned to running back as a Notre Dame junior, then rushed for 1,372 yards and 13 touchdowns as a senior in 1992 and became a second-round draft pick of the Washington Redskins in the 1993 NFL Draft.
In hindsight, maybe father knew best all along.
“If it wasn’t for the support of my teammates, and my dad putting his foot down, I would have left Notre Dame,” Brooks said. “Ultimately, it worked out for me because, while it wasn’t easy, I learned a lot about being able to stand up for myself. It’s a meeting with Coach Holtz and a moment in life I’ll never forget.”
Brooks enjoyed a four-year NFL career that included a 1,000-yard rushing season with three touchdowns as a rookie in 1993. And about a decade after his football career ended, he returned to work at the same school he once so desperately wanted to leave.
“Notre Dame is not going to change for you,” Brooks said in reflection. “It will, instead, enhance and expound on the values and principles that you have. It also taught me the importance of value in self, which I will carry forever.”
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