The Chosen One

Among the dozens of letters, phone messages and faxes stacked in a box inside Bob Davie’s office at Notre Dame is a note from an old colleague at Texas A&M.;

“Congratulations,” Bob Toledo wrote Davie. “Your life is about to change.”

Davie, anointed last weekend as the 26th football coach at Notre Dame and keeper of everything hallowed, holy and Knute, suspects Toledo might be right, and hopes to get a free minute soon to be able to sit back and see for himself.

“We were talking in the locker room after practice about what’s been going on here the past few weeks,” Davie says. “We’ve been to Ireland [to play Navy]. We get back from Ireland and go to Boston College, right when the Boston College scandal is breaking. Then we play Pittsburgh and we start to hear reports about Coach Holtz contemplating retirement.

“Then Coach Holtz resigns and I’m given the job the day before the Rutgers game--I had it then, but I couldn’t tell anybody--and now we have to get ready for USC.”

The overflowing box in Davie’s office is one reminder of the gold-and-navy tsunami cresting over his head in his last days as defensive coordinator.

So too is the green leprechaun’s hat worn last Sunday by the preacher at the Pittsburgh church that Davie’s parents attend.

“My parents,” Davie reports with an amused chuckle, “have kind of become media celebrities back home.”

Davie, 42, is the first Notre Dame assistant to be promoted to head coach since, well, the year he was born. In 1954, assistant Terry Brennan was named to succeed the legendary Frank Leahy. Brennan lasted five years, went 32-18, won no national championships. At Notre Dame, this was regarded as a failed experiment and the notion of promoting from within was shelved.

Now, after Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine, Gerry Faust and Lou Holtz, comes Davie, a collegiate assistant coach for 20 years and a head coach for none. He got the job after Northwestern’s Gary Barnett chose to ignore the calling when it came--and after Notre Dame figured out that if it didn’t hire Davie, Maryland or Boston College or Purdue most likely would.

Toledo, who worked with Davie on R.C. Slocum’s staff at Texas A&M; before moving to UCLA, calls Davie’s hiring by Notre Dame “an interesting marriage.

“You know, he’s never been a head coach before. Like anything else you do for the first time, there’s going to be trial and error. When you’re an assistant, you think you’ve got all the answers. Then you become a head coach and find out it’s not quite the same. You’ve got to stumble a little bit before you start running.

“That’s not to say he can’t do it. But Notre Dame is a very difficult job. You’re talking about the Subway Alums and all that. Bob loves to coach. As an assistant, that’s all you do--coach. As a head coach, you spend less time coaching and more time talking to alumni.”

Of course, many of the Subway Alums are saying much the same thing, when they aren’t muttering about how Barnett got away or why the Irish didn’t go harder after Bobby Ross.

To them, Davie offers this succinct counterpoint:

“I am totally confident that I am the best person for this job.”

Despite the lack of previous head coaching experience?

“I coached at places, high-profile places, where I was delegated a lot of jobs,” said Davie, who was assistant head coach at Tulane and Texas A&M.;

“You can be head coach at a lot of places, but that doesn’t necessarily prepare you for being the head coach at Notre Dame. My three years at Notre Dame matured me in a lot of ways. You watch Coach Holtz, day in and day out, and you learn about the mental toughness it takes to do this job. . . .

“In a lot of ways, I’m more prepared for this job than anyone they could have brought in from the outside. Notre Dame is different. It’s not for everyone. It takes time to understand what Notre Dame’s all about.”

Davie got a taste last September when Holtz had spinal surgery to remove a bulging neck disk. Holtz appointed Davie interim coach and handed him the game plan for the game against Vanderbilt.

Notre Dame won, 41-0, and afterward Davie left the field on the shoulders of his players.

“It was really unique,” Davie said. “I walked in Monday morning to meet with the coaching staff at 5:30 and Lou walks in and announces he has to have back surgery. Right away you’re thinking he might be out for the season. That’s serious surgery.

“By 10 a.m. I was sitting in a press conference and thinking I might be head coach at Notre Dame the rest of the season. It’s something you’ve never prepared for. But as I did it, I found out I do enjoy being a head coach.”

Holtz missed only one game. Davie had taken care of the shop. The dome didn’t melt. More than that, Davie tacked together some credentials Rockne couldn’t match: unbeaten and unscored upon as Notre Dame head coach.

Average margin of victory: 41 points.

“That’s why I wasn’t sure at first to take the job,” Davie says, laughing. “I wanted to keep that intact--’the only coach with an undefeated record in Notre Dame history.’ ”

Technically speaking, Davie began his coaching career in 1977, when he was hired as a graduate assistant at Pittsburgh. But ask him about his playing days at Youngstown State--Davie was a heavy-footed tight end--and he’ll amend that starting date.

“I was the kind of guy people told, ‘You’re going to be a good coach one day’--and this was long before my eligibility was up,” Davie quips. “I was slow, but I could block and catch the ball. I was one of those player-coach type guys.”

From Pittsburgh to Arizona to Tulane to Texas A&M; to Notre Dame, Davie spent two decades coaching linebackers and coordinating defenses. He made his first national splash at A&M; with a blitz-crazed defense known as “The Wrecking Crew.” And this year, Davie’s defense has already broken the school’s season record for sacks.

“He’s a defensive coach,” says Toledo, who laughed when told Davie planned to build his first Notre Dame offense around the running game.

“That sounds about right,” said Toledo, who was offensive coordinator at A&M; while Davie was there. “When I was throwing the ball, he’d be yelling at me on the sideline, ‘Run the ball! Run the ball! Keep the defense off the field!’ ”

Smash-mouth defense?

Up-the-gut offense?

What, Davie asks, isn’t this Notre Dame?

“This program was built on toughness and discipline,” Davie says. “That’s how you win. That’s Notre Dame.”

Davie knows his assignment, and he has chosen to accept it. In the meantime, keep those cards and letters coming. Davie knows the tone will be friendly, as long as he keeps winning games, 41-0.