Next step for Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman: Become a force for change

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

ATLANTA — This is not the ending Marcus Freeman planned: A 14-win season in only his third year as Notre Dame’s head coach. Making history as the first Black head coach to play for the national championship then watching the season end with a 34-23 loss to Ohio State.

There were so many compelling narratives during the first-ever expanded version of the College Football Playoff. Freeman became the most consistent, compelling narrative. Thoughtful and approachable, Freeman, 39, was the second Black head coach in Notre Dame football history and the first to play for a national championship. He made the Fighting Irish likeable.

But after Monday’s game Freeman was simply a young coach who had lost a big game.

“We obviously didn’t play the way we needed to play the get the outcome we wanted,” Freeman told reporters after Monday’s loss. “What I said to the guys in the locker room, there’s not many words to say when everybody is hurting.”       

Throughout the tournament, Freeman’s press conferences were filled with philosophical and religious references. He spoke about his love for the university and his respect for the coaching profession. He was not particularly keen about discussing race.

Freeman’s ethnicity — Black father, Korean mother — was thrust into the spotlight earlier this month when he and Penn State’s James Franklin became the first African American head coaches to lead their teams to the College Football Playoff semifinal game. Both coaches are biracial but Franklin, at age 52 and with more than 20 years of head coaching experience, embraced the milestone.

Freeman was a bit more circumspect, choosing to speak broadly about being a beacon light for all so-called minorities.

We need a little more.

Freeman’s presence in Monday’s title game was fitting on a day celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King.

Dr. King was Freeman’s age, 39, when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. His life and death are reminders that the push for freedom justice and equality for Black Americans has been and continues to be an unending and perilous road.

Freeman epitomizes the dream Dr. King articulated during the March on Washington in August 1963, when King expressed the hope that, as African Americans, the color of our skin would not be used against us — that the content of our character would eventually trump racism and that resistance to progress would give way to greater diversity, equity and inclusion.

Monday’s championship game was the first College Football Playoff game to fall on Martin Luther King Day and the first to be held on the day of the presidential inauguration. The new administration has promised to order an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government. Such an order will impact hiring practices, equity-related grants and agencies’ equity action plans.

In an anti-DEI climate, Notre Dame could have been attacked for hiring Freeman, a young Black man with no previous head coaching experience. He could have been called a “diversity hire.”

Freeman was not alive in 1963, but the beauty of archival footage — coaches call it “game film” — is that that the past can be recalled and studied in order to prepare for the upcoming game.

Football coaches like Freeman and Ohio State’s Ryan Day make sure their players watch several hours of game film each week. The film they watch is 100 percent of the past — last week’s game, last week’s practice. On Sunday, each coach agreed that film study of the past is a crucial component of success.

“There’s a tremendous amount of time spent watching film,” Freeman said. “It’s more important than ever to watch film. There’s only so much you can do physically, but mentally I think there’s always a nugget you can grab as you prepare and watch film.”

Day amplified the point: “The more film you watch, eventually you find something,” he said. “You find a way to get a first down, you find a way to get a stop, you find a little tip that may help you get that one inch. And for young players to understand how important that is, that can help you win the game.”

If Freeman were to watch Civil Rights game film of the United States in 1963, the year Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, he would barely recognize the country he calls home.

A Black man in the South who looked like Freeman, would have been relegated to the back of the bus, to colored only drinking fountains, to the world of suffocating segregation that constricted the hopes and aspirations of generations of young African Americans. The idea of coaching at a place like Notre Dame — or at any predominately white institution — would have been a pipe dream.

Freeman would watch film of marchers being met with water hoses and snarling dogs, brutally beaten by police, all because they were petitioning for what we now call diversity, equity and inclusion. Freeman would eventually turn off that game film, relieved that things have changed.

But things didn’t just “change.” Change was forced by generations of courageous, often faceless, nameless men and women who chose not to live neutral lives and fought for the change they wanted to see.

Representation matters.

Unless they played at an HBCU, the majority of the NFL’s Black players never had the opportunity to play for a Black head coach in college, especially at the Power Four level. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Justin Fields, who played at Georgia then Ohio State, never had a Black head coach until he joined the Steelers coached by Mike Tomlin.

Last week, Fields told me felt that having a Black head coach makes difference.

“I think it does,” he said. “For me, personally it’s just kind of funny when you have a coach who kind of relates to you more, can crack certain jokes. White coaches, they can’t necessarily crack the same jokes as a Black coach. That’s just what it is. It’s definitely a different perspective.

“He almost has the same mindset as we do as players, so I think that’s another reason why Coach T gets a lot of his players who like him, who can relate to him and can build those relationships with him.”

Baltimore Ravens safety Kyle Hamiliton was in the same boat until he went to Notre Dame and Freeman was his defensive coordinator. Hamilton, whose father is Black and mother is Korean, agreed that representation matters.

“Success by any minority in a position of power, is cool to see, especially at an institution like Notre Dame,” Hamilton said. “A predominately white, Catholic school to have a Black Korean head coach leading the team to a championship is pretty cool when you step back and look at it.”

During Freeman’s media interactions throughout the College Football Playoff, what became clear is that he lives in the here and now. He is laser focused and myopic.

During a coach’s news conference on Sunday, Freeman was asked about a return match next season with Texas A&M.

“I have no clue who we play next year. I’m not thinking about that. Right now, you just try to figure out a way to get your team prepared for this opportunity you’ve got right in front of you,” Freeman said. “That’s what the focus is on, this opportunity, and we’ll deal with next year and opinions on the playoff structure once this thing is over.”

Notre Dame’s season ended on Monday. Freeman can decompress and reflect on an historic season.

“We didn’t get it done and it hurts. My job is to figure out why and I will,” Freeman said. “The outlook for Notre Dame football is extremely high. As long as the people in that locker room that come back understand what it takes to work these guys have put in, there’s a lot of success in our future.”

As Freeman gains traction and moves forward in his career, he should recognize his significance and speak with greater force about being a Black man leading an iconic football program at one of the nation’s leading college institutions.

The championships will come. Freeman’s next step is to become a force for change.