By John Brice
Special Contributor
They had discussed it, dreamed it, willed it toward reality years ago; at sunrise and late hours leaving the office.
As they taunted one another through radically competitive games of ping-pong, half-court staff basketball games and even car-pooled rides to the team hotel on Friday nights before a home game.
See, Gerad Parker and Marcus Freeman had a vision that their intertwined coaching careers would not be finished on a shared sideline, even after four years at Purdue ended in the Boilermakers’ transition to Jeff Brohm after the 2016 season.
Parker, during a recent midday trek around Notre Dame’s picturesque St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s lakes, was so struck about those old moments and these current ones that he kept walking past the Irish’s ever-relentless recruiting staff of Chad Bowden, Carter Auman and Jeremy Larkin around those same lakes to call his brother, Eric.
“It is surreal,” said Parker, Notre Dame’s first-year tight ends coach who’s reunited as a key cog on head coach Freeman’s first-year Irish staff. “And I know a lot of times people think you’re maybe giving the interview answer, but I walked this campus and I was talking to my brother on the phone, and I still have moments, and I hope I do as long as I’m here, of walking this campus and seeing these lakes and you’re like, ‘I coach football at Notre Dame? I’m coaching football at Notre Dame.’
“And then add that in to do it with a guy where for years we’ve been so close and now to be back here doing this with Marcus, it’s an ‘Aha!’ moment. It is, it’s just something where you’re like ‘Wow!’ because you normally don’t get to live this out.”
Life probably would have required a belief in unicorns after that four-year Boilermakers run entailed 39 losses to have foretold that Freeman and Parker might reunite in a head coach and key assistant roles at college football’s globally iconic brand, Notre Dame.
The Boilermakers dropped their final six games in 2016; four of those six contests saw Purdue opponents blister a distracted Boilermakers squad for 44 or more points.
Still, Parker’s faith in their collective and divergent paths –specifically in that of Freeman – never once wavered. He remembered all the times he told his wife, Kandi, how he would stake his reputation on Freeman’s inevitability as a head coach.
“We just had a really good rapport, and he was special,” said Parker, a former All-Southeastern Conference academic selection from his decorated playing career at Kentucky. “I knew Marcus was special, and I told my wife all the time ‘He’s going to be a head coach.’
“So, I was right on that one.”
Further, Parker was right on Freeman’s list of desired staff additions in the weeks that closed out 2021 and opened 2022 after Notre Dame transitioned to the electrifying Freeman.
Our time we spent together at Purdue — those were four rough years,” Freeman said. “We won nine games in four years, but the things we learned from those four years, I think, are really important for the growth of us as individual coaches.
“I told Gerad (earlier this week), it’s like you think back six years when he was the [interim] head coach at Purdue for the last six games. I was laughing that you don’t have to change as a head coach. You have to be who you are. Your responsibilities can change. Sometimes the way people view you changes, but who you are at the core of your heart, you don’t have to change. You have to lead and be the same person that you were six years ago, seven years ago, eight years ago that you are today.
“Do the responsibilities change? Yeah. I’m not the linebackers coach. I’m the head coach and so I have to lead, but I think who you are at the core of your heart and for me, that’s discipline, toughness, a teammate. I say all the time I’m a teammate.”
Freeman and Parker have carved roles as teammates; a dynamic shifted from peers to ultimate voice and valued subordinate. Theirs is a bedrock formed without pretense.
“We would fight a little bit, too; get after each other and push each other,” Parker said of their time together at Purdue. “We got into our workout habits, he would push me to get up and come in and work out. We just had a really good rapport, and he was special.”
After Purdue, the sport’s cutthroat nature necessitated an intentional purpose from both coaches – an element of authenticity, frankly, that carried Freeman atop the Irish program and ultimately rewarded Parker with “this surreal thing.”
This “thing” actualizes in front of the home fans Saturday when Marshall visits Notre Dame Stadium, kick-off 2:30 p.m.; Freeman, Parker and the nationally ranked Fighting Irish debuting on campus some 277 days after Freeman’s introduction as head coach.
“Marcus did a great job, and I’d like to believe I did too of staying in touch,” Parker said “I’ve got other mentors and colleagues, very happy and proud I’ve got these relationships with other coaches that are important to me, guys I’ve met in this profession. What a great life it’s been. But Marcus just always did a great job of staying in touch, which takes work. It does, with what we do for a living. We reciprocated that both to each other. Mutual respect and love for each other as friends.
“We grew close quickly when we got together at Purdue, and we dreamed and talked about moments like this. So to be living it, no matter how old I get, I want to appreciate what we’re doing together and how it’s come true and what he’s been able to accomplish. So that makes me just thankful and grateful for the process.”
The stuff of dreams.
“I’m excited for my first home game as the head coach here in Notre Dame Stadium,” Freeman said. “It’s something you dream about.
“Ever since I had been named head coach, I’ve been looking forward to this moment.”
The vision, though, well Freeman and Parker began that journey years ago.