Brey Impressive at Press Conference
UHND.com - Frank Vitovitch
July 15, 2000

Notre Dame, Ind - Friday night Mike Brey was officially announced as the new head coach of the University of Notre Dame at a 6 PM ET press conference held at the Joyce Center.  In the course of his initial speech and the following questions, he left Notre Dame basketball fans felling a lot more confident and positive than they had been since the whole Doherty situation started.

One point that really stuck out to me was his comments on why he did not take other jobs that had been offered to him recently.  He said that he asked himself, "...can I be a good family man?"  That statement alone shows that he is a Notre Dame man.  He could have been a head coach at other schools that are more esteemed than Delaware but said he couldn't see him being a good family man anywhere else until Notre Dame came calling.

He also stated that he had "fallen in love with two coaching positions."  Right away I though we were going to hear Duke and Notre Dame - which would have gotten a plethora of boos.  Brey however said, "...and that was Notre Dame twice."  He fell in love with Notre Dame last season when he was in the running for the coaching position left after John MacLeod resigned from Notre Dame.

Brey's ties to Duke however were not left unasked by the media however.  He stated however that he does not have any ideas of returning to Duke and that following up Coach K is not something he would like to do.  On the contrary, he stated that taking a team that hasn't experienced success and building it into a perennial winner, having something that he did himself was what he wanted.

He also said however that Notre Dame is not going under a rebuilding process.  He said they have enough talent to win right away.  While he said he wanted to build Notre Dame into a perennial winner, he said this would not be a long process and that come selection Sunday "....we got to be high fiving, not hanging our head" referring to the scene last year on ESPN when the Irish were not named to the field of 64.

In his opening statement he also touched on the type of commitment he made with Notre Dame.  The contract he signed is for seven years and said he told Dr. White that he thinks he "can give him 15 great years."   Joking after that he said he would have to look around after that.  He got his point across however that he intends on being at Notre Dame for a while.

Overall he gave Irish fans some hope after many of the lofty expectations that they had prior to this week had been questioned.  He made it a point to say that he wants to win right from the start.  He said he wants to be in the tournament this year and that the talent is here.  He said that the team knows they are good and said he can take them to the next level.

The last point that he made that I really liked was that he is going to sacrifice a few recruiting days to get to know the players.   Recruiting is very important, especially if Thomas and/or Cornette decide to go elsewhere now, but getting to know the players is going to be a big task for Brey since he will be their 3rd coach in 3 seasons and 4th coach in 4 seasons for the juniors who all had different high school coaches.

Irish fans rest assured that this program is going to continue to improve.  Mike Brey knows what he is doing and has tournament experience as a head coach  as well as championship experience as an assistant.  He has lofty goals and the right attitude and is prepared to take Notre Dame back to the top and not use the post as a spring board to another coaching position.