An Emotional Faust Presides Over Final Notre Dame Football Function

SOUTH BEND, Ind. —  Gerry Faust gave an emotional goodby Wednesday night to Notre Dame and his five-season career as football coach.

Faust, his voice trembling occasionally, spoke at the university’s 66th annual postseason football dinner, the last at which his name will appear on the program as head coach.

“I cherish these five years more than you can imagine,” Faust said. “We’ve had some adversity but we’ve had some great times. And I hope that in the years to come I can be in some small way part of the Notre Dame family.”

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, guest speaker at the dinner and a man who has readily fired baseball managers who don’t produce winners, told the players and Faust, who compiled a 30-26-1 record, that won-lost records don’t matter.

“Gerry Faust, your record as coach may not have been the best in the country, but your record as a man has no parallel,” Steinbrenner said.

The Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, the university vice president who hired Faust out of Cincinnati Moeller High School, where he had coached one of the finest prep programs in the nation, said Faust came to Notre Dame with “unparalleled enthusiasm,” adding: “One difficult year followed another, but he never lost his buoyancy or optimism. He has given all of us a lesson in how to accept adversity in a grace-filled manner.”