With Notre Dame Down, Phelps Bows Out : Basketball: After a 12-20 season, he says 20 years with the Irish are enough. Former assistant Gillen said to be candidate.

Six weeks after ending one of his worst seasons at Notre Dame, Digger Phelps ended his college coaching career there.

Phelps ended months of speculation Monday when he announced his departure after 20 years of coaching the Irish.

“For the last two decades it’s never been a job,” Phelps said at a news conference on campus. “Every day, even with the ups and downs, was like Christmas Day, where you opened up the present you wanted most.”

Last season was anything but a present. The Irish, hit by a rash of injuries and academic woes, fell to 12-20. It was Phelps’ worst season since Notre Dame went 6-20 in 1971-72, his first with the Irish.

Phelps, who led Notre Dame to 14 NCAA tournament appearances but reached the Final Four only in 1978, gave no indication that the pressures of a losing season drove him to step down.

“It’s time to move into the next decade,” said Phelps, 49, adding that he won’t take another Division I coaching job but was leaving open NBA options.

The search for a successor has not officially begun, said associate athletic director Roger Valdeserri, but it is expected that Xavier’s Pete Gillen--a former assistant under Phelps--will become a leading candidate. Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewksi have said they are not interested.

“If there is any interest in Pete Gillen, I’m sure Notre Dame will use the proper channelsand contact me first,” Xavier athletic director Jeff Fogelson said. “We are planning for next season with Pete Gillen as our basketball coach.”

Phelps, who had a 393-197 record at Notre Dame and a 419-200 collegiate head coaching record, including one season at Fordham, said his immediate plans are to spend more time on his hobby, painting.

Phelps’ son Rick, sports editor of the University of Toledo student newspaper The Collegian, on Monday wrote that his father said 10 years ago that he did not plan to be coaching at the age of 50 “because there were other things that he wants to do in life.”

Phelps turns 50 on July 4, and his son wrote that he plans to spend time with a soon-to-be-born first grandchild.

Phelps leaves with more victories and losses than any other Irish basketball coach.

In 1990-91, the Irish opened with two victories but then dropped seven in a row. Notre Dame took on a schedule that included 11 games with ranked teams, seven against Top 10 teams. As the losses mounted, Phelps was regularly booed at home games.

“It was tough breaks, one right after another,” guard Tim Singleton said as the season ended.

In Phelps’ first season, Notre Dame suffered its most humiliating loss--94-29 to Indiana. But he quickly revived the program and two seasons later--in 1974--Notre Dame broke UCLA’s 88-game NCAA record winning streak with a 71-70 victory.

The victory over the Bruins cemented Phelps’ relationship with fans, whom he gave other moments of high drama. At Notre Dame, Phelps beat No. 1-ranked teams seven times.

But the most recent of those victories came four years ago in a 60-58 defeat of top-ranked North Carolina. Despite a wealth of talented players who moved from Notre Dame to the NBA in the 1970s and 1980s, the Irish under Phelps never returned to the Final Four.

The 1990-91 season ended a string of six consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament.