The loyal son

Gerry Faust died the other day at the full-to-the-top age of 89, and suddenly it was a football Saturday at Notre Dame again. Out in the parking lot, latecomers weave around tables groaning with brunch and high-shelf booze, broken out just for the occasion; across the campus, gawkers wearing the colors of the day's opponent are taking in all the postcard sights they've heard so much about.

Look, Maude, there's the Golden Dome! And Fair Catch Corby! And, wow, Touchdown Jesus is REALLY TALL!

Up in the press box, meanwhile ...

It's about time for Gerry Faust to check in.

He passes through almost every game day, and in his wake bobs all manner of goodwill. The school never had a better ambassador of feel-good, truth be told; it never had a more hail-fellow-well-met fellow, nor one so many Domers were so happy to hail.

Which always amazed me, in a way, because this was the same Gerry Faust the Domers wanted gone once upon a time.

That was when Gerry Faust was the football coach at Notre Dame, though not a very good one. The school hired him straight out of Cincinnati Moeller High School, where Faust had built a national power. Still ...

Still, a lot of alums, subway and otherwise, immediately decided the administration had slipped a cog. A high school coach? Overseeing the most storied college program in America?

Confirmation on the cog-slipping came when Faust went 30-26-1 across five beige seasons before he resigned to spare Notre Dame from firing him. The Irish never won more than seven games in a season under Faust, lost four in a row to a school (Air Force) that had never before beaten them, and were humiliated 58-7 by Miami in Faust's last game.

In other words, he failed. Spectacularly.

But only as a football coach.

That's because something remarkable happened in the years after he resigned: Faust remained the most loyal of those loyal Notre Dame sons of song and lore, and the Domers loved him for it.

Even in his coaching days he'd had this unquenchable exuberance that drew people to him, with the consequence that even those who grew disgruntled with his coaching found it impossible to dislike him personally. He barged around campus like a one-man joy dispenser, and it was impossible to resist. Even if you were still pissed about the latest loss, you couldn't help walking away from him with a smile on your face.

 "I had only 26 miserable days at Notre Dame; that's when we lost," Faust said once. "Other than that, I was the happiest guy in the world. I loved walking on the campus, loved being there, loved being a part of Notre Dame."

And Notre Dame was a better place because he was.