Make Love Kool Again by Nat Freeman
The first official recruit of Marcus Freeman's coaching career, inferior college linebacker C.J. Malauulu, transferred to Kent State in 2011. Malauulu soon realized he drastically underestimated the seismic culture shift that comes with moving from Southern California to Northeast Ohio.
Malauulu showed up on a wintertime recruiting trip dressed in slippers and shorts, the wind chill welcoming him to a new globe. When seeking a burrito afterwards arriving, he was stunned when teammates directed him to Taco Bell. When Malauulu'due south teammates held jam sessions, he'd play his ukulele while they strummed country tunes.
"From the civilisation that I come up from, there's a lot of brown people," he said. "When I came there, it wasn't the same. I was a little nervous."
About a decade before Freeman became the head coach at Notre Dame, he'd just turned 25 as a member of Darrell Hazell's first Kent State staff in 2011. He took his first recruiting trip as a full-time bus to meet Malauulu in Oceanside, California, and Freeman unknowingly hatched a gameplan of forging deep and indelible relationships that accept enabled his meteoric career ascension.
Recognizing the stark cultural differences for Malauulu, Freeman immediately began scouring campus to observe anyone of Polynesian heritage. Somewhen, he tracked down a custodian of Tongan descent. Malauulu never really met the custodian, but he recognized Freeman's extreme effort.
Freeman's wife, Joanna, would set up Hawaiian barbecue mix when the Kent players came to his cozy condo and then slip Malauulu a container of leftovers. Freeman later organized the linebackers to perform the Haka, a ceremonial trip the light fantastic with Polynesian roots. They showed more heart than art. "We weren't exactly looking like the All Blacks out at that place," Malauulu recalled with a chuckle, comparing them to the famed New Zealand rugby squad who helped popularize the Haka in sports.
When Malauulu skipped a pre-practice meeting to go his driver's license, Freeman realized that he needed to teach him correct from wrong within the programme more than than punish him. The totality of the effort by Freeman forged a bail of trust and respect that resonates a decade after Malauulu'south two All-MAC seasons.
"Marcus Freeman is like the best big brother ever," Malauulu said in a recent phone interview. "He makes you feel like family, and yous know that he cares near you. On the field and, more importantly, off the field, you can tell he cares about the whole person."
'He'southward non phony, he'southward not contrived and he's not made-up'
Marcus Freeman's thunderclap arrival to the mainstream sports world came in early December when the Fighting Irish team institute out formally that he would be named Notre Dame's caput omnibus. The players mobbed, hugged and bee-hived into a euphoric mosh pit upon hearing the news, as information technology became clear he had built the same caliber of bail with them as he did Malauulu.
The clip instantly went viral, and information technology exudes the type of poignant raw emotion and spontaneous elation that could never be choreographed.
That organic joy stems from 1 of the gifts that has divers and propelled Freeman'southward career — a deep and authentic connection to his players that started at Kent and followed him through stops as an assistant bus and coordinator at Purdue, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.
"I'll go to my grave maxim he was the all-time and most relatable coach I've always had," said former Purdue linebacker Garrett Hudson, who at present coaches high school football in Indiana. "You can line up anyone in the NFL, and he'south going to be my No. 1 until they coffin me 6-feet under."
Glimpsing back at the journey of Freeman, 35, to become the autobus at Notre Dame also offers a peek into the profession's time to come. Freeman's ability to push players past their limits and maximize their potential through authentic relationships comes without any of the bullying, patronizing and berating so often associated with coaching.
Could his surprise elevation exist remembered as a bellwether for what the profession volition look like in the adjacent generation?
As Freeman embarks on i of the biggest jobs in college football, he's going to be intentional well-nigh not diffusive from the gameplan that got him hither — deep connection with players, recruits and the customs. I at a fourth dimension, Freeman has built relationships that immune him to coach hard, recruit successfully and foster a strong civilization. "He'south non phony, he's not contrived and he'southward not made-up," old Notre Matriarch coach Brian Kelly told Yahoo Sports.
Heading into his debut confronting Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday, Freeman's rent has brought an aura of freshness to one of higher football's stuffiest brands. Can the energy and involvement nudge Notre Matriarch college than the peaks it reached under Kelly? He played in one case for the BCS title and twice reached the Higher Football Playoff. Can Freeman's power to connect enable Notre Dame to link back to its title lineage?
"Ultimately, it's about the relationships." Freeman said of lessons reverberating from coaching Malauulu and across. "That's why y'all do it. Yous can change someone's life."
Freeman's lords of subject area: His mom and dad
Every weekday forenoon during the late 1990s, Michael Freeman's voice echoed through the pre-dawn darkness in a modest iii-bedroom house in suburban Dayton. In the booming bass befitting a former Air Strength sergeant, Freeman would rouse his sons: "Go your butts up!"
That prompted Mike Freeman, xiii, and Marcus Freeman, eleven, to join their father in the living room as he grunted out his final sets on the family weight bench around 5:15 a.m. Their mother, Chong, left for her mill chore around the same time.
Marcus and Mike started their winter mornings running in place in front of the piano. The boys would somewhen execute demote presses, knee bends and squats, with the pianoforte demote pulling double duty. "If your butt didn't touch that pianoforte bench doing squats, you were going to hear almost information technology," Marcus Freeman recalls with a laugh. "We learned to practice things right, or we were going to accept to do them over."
Marcus Freeman never quite knew the destination, but he learned early on that waking up at the crack of dawn and running would lead him there. He awoke every morning, legs driving toward an unknown horizon. "You amend become upwardly early," Michael Freeman Sr. warned him. "Your opponents are getting up early on."
Every bit the years wore on, that living room of the family's "lower middle class habitation" became crowded with trophies and medals the Freeman boys won from football, baseball and taekwondo. The awards lived where the success was rooted, mile markers to the eventual destination.
The twin pillars of Marcus Freeman'south ascent — discipline and other-centeredness — can be traced dorsum to what he learned from his mom and dad at home. The most important relationships of his early life setting the tone for how he'd somewhen forge his ain.
As Freeman kept running, the accomplishments escalated in scope — starring at Ohio Land, getting drafted into the NFL and a moonshot coaching career. But they came from the same place. The same people.
Michael and Chong Freeman didn't only need discipline, consistency and hard piece of work. They demonstrated it. (Mike Freeman ran far, also, every bit he's an acquaintance director with the Section of Veterans Affairs in Austin, Texas.)
Later Michael Freeman Sr. retired equally an Air Force Senior Master Sargent Eastward-viii with 26 years of service, he didn't leave behind the military ethos. He worked for the Dayton Metro Housing Authority after his retirement but kept a cadet mentality.
Dad wasn't the merely one exhibiting extreme subject and selflessness. Chong Freeman worked three jobs at times — a factory job at Mound Manufacturing that necessitated her to leave earlier sunrise, a part-time janitorial job at nights and a weekend chore at a friend's store, TNT Fashion. Marcus Freeman recalls occasionally going to the offices to assistance his mother clean.
Michael Freeman Sr., 78, grew up in Columbus, worked as an usher at Ohio Stadium while in the Boy Scouts and joined the Air Force shortly after loftier school.
The Air Force stationed Michael Freeman at Osan Air Base in South korea in the 1970s. While there, he met Chong. They married in 1977 and moved to Abilene, Texas, around 1979. When Michael left for a twelvemonth on assignment in Turkey, Chong stayed in Texas to piece of work at Texas Instruments and took classes to acquire English.
"She e'er wanted to put others get-go, she never wanted the spotlight on her," Marcus Freeman said. "She came from Korea and didn't know a lot of people, and so she was always going to put her family first."
Chong Freeman signed both her boys upwardly for taekwondo, the national sport in Republic of korea, and her actress jobs helped pay for the lessons. The boys thrived, equally Marcus Freeman said he learned the ability of extreme accountability when looking in after a sparring loss when at that place'southward no 1 else to blame.
Fifty-fifty the family unit dinner schedule adhered to a strict regimen — fried chicken on Monday, steak on Tuesday, spaghetti on Wed, pork chops on Th and a variety on Fridays. Chong would often brand huge meals for the family, always putting others first, and cook herself some kimchi.
What began as running in place eventually allowed Marcus Freeman to sprint ahead. And the lessons from his most important formative relationships set the stage for him to become the all-time version of himself and demand that from others.
"What I learned most was the routine," he said. "Get upwards no thing how y'all feel and get to work. It's something that's been instilled with me forever."
Life after NFL meant embracing 'chameleon' qualities
The stop of Marcus Freeman'due south football playing career came swiftly and harshly in 2010. After earning second-team All-Big Ten honors twice at Ohio State and getting selected in the 5th circular of the 2009 NFL draft, Freeman bounced through three different teams — the Chicago Bears, Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills without taking a regular season snap.
As he headed to exist signed by Indianapolis a few days after the Super Bowl in 2010, Colts doctors constitute an enlarged heart. He was medically disqualified, which essentially drove him directly into the coaching profession. Marcus Freeman fights the notion to embellish the sudden circumstances.
"It sounds so cracking when you read it — a guy got his NFL career cut short and so started coaching," Freeman said. "Simply really, my NFL career was cut short because I wasn't good enough. That'south OK. At some point, everyone is going to be not proficient enough. To me it was a approving in disguise."
As a thespian, then-Ohio State linebacker coach Luke Fickell nicknamed Freeman "The Chameleon," a complimentary term for his ability to navigate the team's different social groups. "He had a well-roundedness and an intelligence," Fickell said, "that always gave him the opportunity to thrive in any social situation."
Freeman besides appreciated football's strategic side. Former teammate James Laurinaitis remembers he and Freeman bonding over Fickell's verbal lashings. "Some of my favorite conversations with Marcus equally a player," Laurinaitis said with a laugh, "nosotros'd be sitting on the bench midgame and predicting what play Omnibus Fickell was going to absolutely crush us on."
Freeman knew enough to spend his NFL career keenly aware of his professional limitations. That included calling Fickell nigh starting a coaching career while languishing on the Texans' practice squad in 2009. He was engaged to Joanna at the time, who remained in Columbus working at the CBS chapter every bit a reporter.
The medical disqualification gave Freeman a linear focus on coaching. He attacked it the only way he knew how — he got up early on and started running. The same player who annoyed his roommates in higher with 5:15 a.thou. weekend wake-ups – and eventually Joanna — didn't know whatever other way than pre-dawn subject.
Fickell coached Freeman all five of his years at Ohio Land (2004-08) and grew close enough to him that he'd tease him for his analogousness for nice shoes, diamond earrings and the rims on his hunter-green Expedition, which was nicknamed The Green Monster.
Freeman'southward dedication showed right away, as Calvin Pruitt, his best friend, recalls Freeman making just a cameo appearance at his available party in Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. Freeman, the best man, drove Pruitt up in the Lexus he bought with his $180,000 NFL signing bonus, hung out for a while and took the concluding ferry off the island.
Pruitt was a bit miffed, every bit Freeman drove iii hours dorsum to Columbus and slept an hour or two in the office before Buckeyes summer camps. Pruitt recalls Freeman telling him: "This is very of import to me, I can't miss this opportunity that I have in front of me correct now."
It shouldn't take been a surprise that Freeman kept strict priorities. And Freeman, predictably plenty, began impressing his superiors with his work ethic and ability to connect with players. The same chameleon ability that allowed Freeman to weave seamlessly through campus showed support when dealing with players and recruits.
"Marcus has a gift that he can chronicle to kids and families, regardless of if they are from cities or the suburbs," Fickell said. "Information technology'south natural to him."
Multiple quondam players noted that Freeman rarely recalled his NFL experience, never dwelling on information technology. And that'due south one affair that impressed Hazell about Freeman'southward relationship building, it was rooted in the players' journeying. Not Freeman's.
"Players had an instant connexion with him," Hazell said. "It wasn't a guy pounding his chest saying, 'This is the way that I did it.' But it was a relationship of, 'If you do information technology this way, this tin can assistance yous be the best player you can be."
Defining and refining the 'actor's autobus' tag
Back in 2018, Cincinnati's Ryan Royer helped form a gritty crew of Bearcats walk-ons who nicknamed themselves "The Show." Equally in, "I'm about to go put on a show," which can exist a tricky proffer for a 3rd-stringer.
No coach at Cincinnati recognized, nurtured and attempted to grow The Show more than so-Bearcats defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman. He highlighted the energy, lobbied for Royer to get special teams reps and ultimately understood and delivered the validation all walk-ons seek.
"He embraced it and he'd attempt and recruit guys on the squad, saying, 'You need to be a role of The Show,'" Royer recalled. "He was the No. 1 coach pushing for information technology and supporting it. Information technology was a smashing example of how he treated everyone the same."
For Freeman, all the relationships mattered. And that theme weaves through his rise up the ranks from Kent Country to Purdue to Cincinnati and, finally, Notre Matriarch over the past decade.
He'd ask most players' girlfriends, insist on coming together their families and play "trash brawl" — a hybrid of football and basketball that uses a trash can — while talking smack to the linebackers the whole time.
All the while, Freeman remained firmly in charge, yet all the same relatable enough that he endured gentle teasing about his shaved legs, scented function candles and owning 50-something pairs of white Vans sneakers. (He cleans them with a toothbrush, according to Joanna.) He claims to be the strongest bencher in the Notre Dame linebackers room, pushing upward 315 pounds five times.
From Royer's apprehensive ancestry in The Show, he emerged as a special teams linchpin, somewhen earned a scholarship and became i of the plan's nigh respected players while earning a caste in mechanical engineering science. Royer likewise emerged as a flake of a nightlife ringleader, a function that Freeman relished learning about subsequently beingness introduced to The Fan Game.
Royer helped invent a game that involves two guys boosting up another, who would stick their head in a moving ceiling fan until it stopped. This would play out to the blaring backdrop of "I'm Aircraft Upward to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys. Royer insists the fan moves slow and there has been no injuries, but admits the game can have plenty participants for the song needing to exist played multiple times.
Freeman delighted in the existence of The Fan Game, reveling in the frivolity inherent to college life.
"He'd inquire, 'Did yous do The Fan Game this weekend?'" Royer recalled with a laugh. "He'd tell the whole defensive staff about it. He loved it. It was never just nearly football. He was involved with everything, and nosotros loved him for that."
At Purdue, Freeman one time brought in a onetime Navy Seal for a special workout in the wrestling room that featured tug-of-war, assail bike rides and battle ropes. He got and so close to the players at that place that he could push them further. "He's in your face, just it'due south all positive reinforcement," Hudson said. "And later that dark he texted, 'I love you guys more than than annihilation.'"
Perhaps about impressive is that Freeman forged those bonds as Purdue slogged through a 9-33 record over 4 seasons. "We didn't take the most wins, we weren't the most liked team," Hudson said. "Simply because the guys liked Coach Freeman and then much, nosotros were the most tight-knit group."
Function of Freeman's early resonance nationally subsequently getting the job came when describing his coaching style to The Players Tribune: "I don't have to walk around like I have to put fright in their hearts, that doesn't mean the demands aren't going to be extremely loftier … Yous tin can be very enervating, and still brand people experience good and yet make people feel important."
From finding a Tongan janitor to auspicious on The Prove to capturing the hearts of his Purdue players, Freeman lived those words. And it's non surprising that Malauulu and Hudson are both coaching now and channeling Freeman every day
"He'southward a player'south jitney," Royer said. "That's 100 percent true. But that doesn't mean he takes it like shooting fish in a barrel on his players. He's very demanding, but yous want to work hard and exercise everything you lot can for him considering you know that he cares about yous."
Strongest lobby for Freeman at Notre Dame — his players
A few hours after Brian Kelly told the Notre Dame players he planned to leave for LSU in a 7 a.m. team meeting, able-bodied director Jack Swarbrick met with the squad's seven captains in a conference room in the Guglielmino Athletics Complex. The 2 p.thousand. coming together set the grade for the adjacent generation of Notre Dame football.
Swarbrick chosen the meeting seeking characteristics the captains wanted for their next coach. He chuckles now at the calculated luminescence of the players, who basically ignored Swarbrick's ground rules.
The 7 captains — wideout Avery Davis, safety Kyle Hamilton, defensive linemen Kurt Hinish and Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa, offensive lineman Jarrett Patterson, linebacker Drew White and running back Kyren Williams — took turns all explaining in "bright, clear and passionate" terms a different version of the same message.
"This is our culture," Swarbrick recalled them saying. "It's not the coaches' culture. Nosotros congenital this affair. It's really good, and we think it's the all-time in college football. Nosotros want to protect that.
"Basically, they told me: 'You lot don't go to screw it upwardly.'"
Notre Dame finished this regular season 11-i, and the 5th-year seniors in the program take gone 54-9 with two College Football game Playoff appearances. Notre Dame's players didn't desire an outsider coming in and telling them how to win games.
Swarbrick didn't ask specifically for double-decker candidates, but the players fabricated information technology clear — "forceful and unanimous," from both sides of the brawl — that they wanted Freeman. It struck Swarbrick that Williams, the star tailback, mentioned that he'd plan his route through the football offices to poke his head in the offset-year defensive coordinator's corner office. The same knack for relationships that defined Freeman'due south rise permeated every corner of the Notre Dame program.
"He was the guy I was rooting for and and then many of the guys were rooting for," said JD Bertrand, a inferior linebacker. "It brought a calmness to our program."
Still, in that location's doubtfulness about Freeman's age, lack of head coaching experience and the size of the stage he's inheriting. Information technology'd exist naïve to think at that place won't exist missteps and growing pains. In one case at that place's a few losses, the same reputation he's lauded for equally a players' coach will inevitably see-saw to criticism.
Notre Dame boasts a strong roster and staff stability with strength coach Matt Balis and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees equally linchpins who preceded Freeman'due south elevation. Freeman's hire a twelvemonth ago helped kickstart a 2023 recruiting grade that ranks No. 1 nationally in Rivals.com rankings. Kelly built a house with cracking basic, and Freeman's job is enhancing that.
"Marcus' greatest strengths play peculiarly well to what's needed to take that adjacent step," Swarbrick said. "A lot of that has to do with recruiting and histrion evaluation and civilisation edifice. The things you meet with Lincoln Riley and Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban.
"I think his natural skill set lends itself to the things that have become the near important in college football."
Freeman immediately pushed some of the recruiting paradigms at Notre Dame upon his hire in Jan, but did so in the spirit of the program'southward uniqueness — tradition, academics and close-knit campus — beingness an advantage for the schoolhouse. "He was enlightened of our differences and embraced them," Kelly said in a phone interview this week. "He also brought an energy and a thinking outside the box related to recruiting. Both of those things will serve him well."
The players bought in apace upon his arrival last winter, as Bertrand said Freeman hung a mini basketball hoop in the linebackers room and played a game of Knockout — merely with the messages ND — every bit guys entered the room to bring energy and competition to meetings. Bertrand's blood brother, John Michael, is a lefty pitcher on the Irish baseball game squad and Freeman went out of his way to build a relationship with him when they'd lift weights.
Freeman'south coaching rhetoric fifty-fifty fabricated its style to the linebackers' Hugger-mugger Santa, equally inferior Jack Kiser bought Freeman an engraved golden whistle, a tribute to the Golden Standard theme he introduced in the leap. (Freeman gifted linebacker Shayne Simon a pair of white Vans, a nod to Freeman'southward own drove.) "He'due south not changing," Bertrand said. "He's the aforementioned Coach Freeman that we knew."
And that has resulted in a new aura and vibe for the Notre Dame programme that was peradventure summed upwardly by Hudson, who played for Freeman at Purdue and admits it "breaks my centre" to say this about a rival school.
"Coach Freeman is going to make Notre Matriarch cool for young kids, for kids coming out of cities, kids that don't typically think of Notre Dame are going to say, 'I want to go play for that man,'" said Hudson who is an assistant at Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers, Indiana. "He's going to brand Notre Dame take that next step. I truly believe that with all my center."
Big happy families
At Marcus Freeman's introductory news conference in December, Joanna Freeman entered with the family's six children — Vinny, 14; Siena, 9; Gino, eight; Nico, half-dozen; Capri, 4; and Rocco, 3. She pleaded with the iv boys to sit still for xx minutes while their dad spoke, and then they could go throw the brawl around in the fieldhouse.
Freeman'southward parents were in attendance as well, a full-circumvolve moment for the culmination of what they instilled. As Marcus Freeman soared into the American consciousness afterwards getting elevated to the head job in early December, his robust family both accompanied him and offered a window into the person behind the coach.
Marcus and Joanna met while Marcus played at Ohio Land, as they lived in the same housing complex in Columbus. She went to nearby Otterbein, and they were introduced by Pruitt. Joanna grew up in a tight-knit Italian family in Massillon, a football-crazed town where Sundays included trips to watch the Browns in the Dawg Pound and family dinners. She describes the couple as two public school kids from Ohio who are close to their families and proud of where they are from.
"Nosotros don't have a super romantic love story," Joanna said. "Nosotros had a lot of breakups and make-ups. We roughshod hard. Nosotros brutal fast. We were really immature when we met, and a lot of ways, nosotros actually grew and matured into adults together."
Virtually a twelvemonth later on they got married, Marcus got offered the linebackers job by Hazell at Kent Land for $42,000 a yr. They already had their first child, and Joanna'south chore as a television reporter for WBNS in Columbus paid a majority of the family unit'due south bills.
They talked about Joanna sticking around in Columbus to keep working. But Joanna had faith in Marcus and clear direction that she wanted the family together. "If you're going to do this," Marcus recalled Joanna saying, "nosotros're going to do this together."
The family grew every bit they hopscotched the Midwest. The Freemans stayed grounded, as Joanna said one thing that defines them as a couple is that they don't serve every bit "bobbleheads" for each other.
"She has the virtually pure heart," Marcus said of Joanna. "She's loyal to her family and people that she loves. It hasn't e'er been easy. At times, I tin have her for granted. She'south an Italian pistol. If I'thou a jerk, she'southward going to be ready to fire dorsum. Just she's then loyal.
"At that place's no one else I'd rather do life with than her."
The Freemans got a reasonable facsimile of a caput coaching life with six kids from Luke and Amy Fickell when Freeman reunited with his quondam position jitney at Cincinnati in 2017. The Fickells also have six children, and the families, who'd known each other for more than than a decade, grew so close they vacationed together on the Outer Banks and in Hilton Head and even took "family portraits" together.
They became known equally the FickMans, Amy Fickell said with a laugh, and the Freemans fifty-fifty moved into the Fickell business firm for a few months while the Freeman's home was being renovated in 2020. "Information technology was wonderful," Amy Fickell said. "Some people think it's crazy, just I dear her kids. It couldn't have been a more than comfortable state of affairs. My kids loved it."
When Capri Freeman broke her arm a few years ago, Joanna called Amy Fickell and they met at the hospital. Rocco was yet a baby, which meant Amy Fickell stayed in the room with Capri and held her while Capri'due south arm got casted.
That story is indicative of the coaching reality that Freeman's deep investment into his players, long hours and time away recruiting ways that he is often going to spend more time with other people'south kids than his own.
"If I idea as his wife, his heart wasn't in the correct place, it'd exist hard for me to deal with the absence of him," Joanna said. "Merely I know he'southward making a positive bear on, he wants to make people ameliorate and truly wants best for the people effectually him."
And that leaves Joanna Freeman with the main responsibility for many of the details, needs and activities of their half-dozen kids. Laurinaitis calls Joanna "the true hero at dwelling."
Amy Fickell sums Joanna upward this fashion: "She's mentally tough, a strong person. As coaches' wives, y'all have to be the dad as well as the mom nigh of the time, so this makes her perfect for both jobs — double-decker'due south wife and mother."
Joanna's dual part at home allows Marcus to pass on the lessons of his childhood and fatherhood through the broader context of team as family. The twin pillars of field of study and other-centeredness are being dispensed both at domicile and in the locker room.
The wake-up calls from his male parent set the structure of his career ascent.
The empathy from his female parent taught Freeman how to touch players' hearts. His coaching journeying gave him a design to connect, inspire and motivate. His sprawling, rollicking and loving family unit provides the back up, motivation and inspiration.
And now Marcus Freeman has arrived at a destination job because he invested in every relationship along the style.
"I never aspired to exist the head motorcoach at Notre Dame," Freeman said.
"I wanted to exist the best teammate, the all-time linebacker coach and the defensive coordinator I could be, wherever I was at. And being the head coach at Notre Dame is the result of that."
Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/notre-dames-marcus-freeman-can-redefine-what-it-means-to-be-a-players-coach-051153865.html
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