Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman: ‘I Want Players to See Coaches as Fathers’

When Marcus Freeman was introduced in 2021 as the 30^th head coach of the University of Notre Dame football team, one of the first people he acknowledged and thanked was his beloved Joanna.

“My wife, my partner,” he said. “Thank you for your unselfishness. Thank you for always being there in your support. Thank you for just being there.”

The eyes of the college football world will be on Notre Dame Stadium tonight as the Fighting Irish square off against the Indiana Hoosiers in the post season’s first playoff game.

Earlier this week, Marcus Freeman agreed to a four-year contract extension, a deal that will keep him on the famed South Bend campus for the next six seasons.

Interviewed last week, the 38-year-old Freeman was asked about rumors the NFL’s Chicago Bears were pursuing him. Would he jump to the pros?

“I love this place, I love these guys, I love 18-to-22-year-old’s,” the veteran coach replied. “I don’t know what that [NFL] life is like. This is the life I’ve been coaching for 15, 16 years now, and it’s a joy.”

Here’s how Coach Freeman has described himself:

“I’m the son of a man who was in the Air Force for 26 years. I’m the son of a woman who was born in Korea that came over here in 1976, but I tell you that because that’s who I am. I get my discipline, my work ethic, my honesty from my father. I get my unselfishness and other-centered focus from my mother.”

Marcus met Joanna in 2005 after the spring football game at Ohio State, where he played. Drafted by the Chicago Bears in 2009, he had to retire from football after doctors discovered he had an enlarged heart. Joanna and Marcus married in 2010.

“He was pretty calm about it,” Joanna reflected. “He could have gone into quite a depression. But he took it with such grace. He knew it was a blessing that we found out about this, whether it was a week before our wedding or not. He knew there was a different plan for him and he trusted.”

Marcus and Joanna have six children together: Vinny, Siena, Gino, Rocco, Capri and Nico.

Life as a head college football coach is demanding, but Freeman has managed to balance his roles at home and on the gridiron by making his children and the kids of other staff members feel welcome during practices and around the sprawling athletic facility.

“I want your families to feel like they can come to any practice, come to the office, and be a part of what we’re doing,” he’s told his coaches.

Coach Freeman sees this arrangement as something that benefits not only the children, but the players, too.

“I want our players to see their coaches as fathers,” Freeman has said.

“I think there’s power in that. Yeah, we’re going to help you with football, we’re going to help you be great football players, but I hope that you’re a better husband and father because of the time you spent with us. It’s not the things we say as much as, hopefully, the actions. They see us playing with our kids. They see us as husbands. We have them at our house.”

Marcus Freeman has also acknowledged a difficulty reality, specifically that many of his players come from homes where there isn’t both a mother and father.

“For some of our kids, they don’t know what it means to have a father,” he said. “They don’t know what it means to be a husband. There are single parents, single-parent moms, so they don’t know. We have to be the example for our young people.”

More than anything else, though, Freeman is eager for his players to be drawn to His Savior:

“I want our guys to wonder about what it means to embrace Jesus Christ,” he’s said. “We continue to find ways to learn more and dive deeper into our Christian faith.”

Image credit: Marcus Freeman / Instagram