"Every time I say that prayer that we had at Mass before every game, I think of Gerry Faust. It goes like this: ‘Dear Lady, this game is all for you, for all it makes me say or do. Give me the will to play it straight, smile and grit in any fate. Joyfully win and humbly lose. You are my Queen of Victory.’”
Welcome to a new series, "Fields Full of Grace: The Faith at Play," casting a spotlight on the devotional practices of college and professional athletes and coaches on and off the field.
By Jay Sorgi
Gerry Faust had no qualm in constantly leading his teams to say six-second Hail Mary’s to break sideline huddles.
He wasn’t afraid to tell a bench-warming quarterback he loved him, or to find a random student in the University of Notre Dame Grotto and minister to their deepest interpersonal need, or do whatever else would help the person in front of him feel like the most important person in the world.
Faust was not the most successful coach in the history of football at Notre Dame during his five years there (1981-85). But true to the Catholic calling of St. Mother Teresa, he perhaps valued faithfulness more than wins and losses, was the most faithful to the complete lives of his players, and was even more faithful to God and to the same mother Mary that Notre Dame is named after.
His example and legacy linger, two years after his death on Nov. 11, 2024, age 89.
Devotion to Mary
“Gerry was all about Notre Dame,” recalled Tom Thayer, an offensive lineman who played for Faust at Notre Dame before playing for the Chicago Bears on their Super Bowl XX championship team in 1985. He now serves the Bears Radio Network as an analyst.
“He was everything Notre Dame stood for. He was everything that everybody thought Notre Dame wanted their players to be like.”
Faust’s source for genuinely and sincerely living that mission came from his deep Catholic faith and devotion to the Blessed Mother, one formed from childhood to playing college football at Dayton before moving into coaching at Moeller High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, run by the Society of Mary (known as the Marianists).
“We probably said more Hail Mary’s at his direction than any team has ever. I know he always walked around with a Rosary in his pocket all the time,” said Mike Suter, a defensive back and team captain for Faust during the late 1970s at Moeller. He later played at Penn State.
“His devotion to Mary was incredible. One of the traditions at Moeller was that on the day before the game, he would take the four team captains, load them in his little car, get dinner, and drive down to the steps at Immaculata (now Holy Cross-Immaculata Parish in Mount Adams, Ohio). We would go down there, rain or shine, and we would say the Rosary with him. Without fail, we would do that.”
“People sometimes wonder why we ask for Mary’s prayers,” Faust himself told the National Catholic Register in 2013. “It’s similar to what happened to me as a child. I would ask my dad for something, and he would say, ‘No.’ Then I asked my mom, who in turn asked my dad, who then say, ‘Yes.’ Sometimes mothers have a way of getting things for their children that they otherwise would not have gotten.”
On-the-job learning
After winning 174 games in 18 years at Moeller, including a 71-game stretch where his teams went 70-1, Notre Dame chose Faust to take over for two-time national championship coach Dan Devine.
Faust had to learn college coaching on-the-job, something which proved to be a struggle in the win-loss column. But he never failed to evangelize his beliefs in his actions, all while carrying that Rosary in his pocket.
“If there were more humans like Gerry Faust, the world would be a much better place,” said Thayer, who played for Faust at Notre Dame from 1981-83.
“Faust is the type of guy that you would want him to be your father-in-law. He's got that type of effect on your life and how it pertains to you and the people around you, your life and how you can affect other people's lives.”
His concentration on imparting his faith, hope and love on the human beings he coached may have surpassed the strategies of football, leading to him having a record of 30-26-1 (.535 winning percentage), the second-worst percentage of any Notre Dame head coach with 20 or more games leading the Fighting Irish.
But his percentage impact on the human — and God’s impact through him — may have been among the greatest, and it’s why he was so beloved within the Notre Dame community until his death.
Always present
“It wasn't Gerry only being concerned about ‘How does this fullback play the position?’ It was also ‘How are you treating your family members and the people around you? How do you treat this little kid looking for an autograph as you're walking to the stadium or walking out of the stadium?’” said Thayer, who quipped that Faust only had to work on his propensity to curse and his eating habits, but often saw chances to be present to deep struggles in teammates’ lives.
“Guys that needed the advice they maybe weren't getting at home and didn't have the family surroundings that I did, Gerry took it upon himself to interject himself in that way to the person. That made him a better person and made him a harder working athlete and student to accomplish what they came to Notre Dame for. Gerry wasn't one dimensional. He was thinking about the whole surrounding of life. ‘Are you still going to do the little things that make you a better person?’ That's what Gerry was all about.’”
Faust finished his five years at Notre Dame (1981-85) with a 30-26-1 record. He may have only won 30 of 57 games with the Irish, but there’s no way to track the number of lives that he impacted during and after his coaching career, with both his encouragement and his devotion to Our Lady — both the mother of Jesus and the university she’s named after.
Power of prayer
“Years after his coaching days, I’m in a small group at church called Father’s Team,” Suter said. “He came and we were saying a Rosary before his talk. He walked in a third of the way through the Rosary, pulled out his Rosary right away, and just joined right in without missing a beat. That’s Gerry Faust. He wore it on his sleeve.”
“If we're ever in a group setting and anybody ever says, ‘Hey, does anybody want to say a prayer?’ I raise my hand all the time. I recently did it at a golf outing and I, and every time I say that prayer that we had at Mass before every game, I think of Gerry Faust,” said Thayer. “It goes like this: ‘Dear Lady, this game is all for you, for all it makes me say or do. Give me the will to play it straight, smile and grit in any fate. Joyfully win and humbly lose. You are my Queen of Victory.’”
Photos courtesy University of Notre Dame Athletics.
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