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If I didn’t already understand the strict standards at the University of Notre Dame, I got a quick lesson in my first conversation with Father Joyce. After he offered me the job as head coach, he said: “Before you accept, there are a few things you need to consider. We have certain rules that might not apply at other universities, but that are nonnegotiable here at Notre Dame. First, we will not redshirt an athlete, and we will not accept a transfer from another school or junior college. The head football coach has nothing to do with admissions. In order for a student-athlete to be accepted at Notre Dame, he will have to have good college boards and solid grades with at least sixteen core curriculum credits. Our athletes live in the dorms on campus, and come under the sole jurisdiction of the dorm rector. Also, you will never be able to talk to a professor about a student’s academics. That is the job of the academic counseling office. Do you understand?”

“I do,” I said. This came as no surprise: I knew that the standards at Notre Dame were high and the rules were rigid; still, to hear them laid out in such cut-and-dried detail made me realize what an exacting and different place the university really was.

“That’s not all,” Father Joyce said. “We will always play a difficult schedule, the most difficult we can find. And we expect to win. Your players will miss or be late for practice if it conflicts with classes or labs. And finally, the head football coach will never make more than the president of the university.”

I gulped at that last one. The president of Notre Dame, Father Hesburgh, was a priest who had taken a vow of poverty.

“If you can accept those terms, we would love to have you join us at the University of Notre Dame,” he said.