Longtime Notre Dame coach Mike Brey not retiring despite plans to leave Fighting Irish
Mike Brey has been in South Bend since 2000, and is Notre Dame's all-time winningest coach
Mike Brey isn’t done coaching after all.
The longtime Notre Dame coach, just weeks after he revealed that he would be stepping down after the season, doesn’t have plans to retire from coaching altogether.
“Definitely not done coaching,” Brey told Stadium’s Jeff Goodman on Monday.
Brey, 63, has been with the Fighting Irish since 2000 and is the program’s all-time winningest coach. He holds a 482-274 overall record in South Bend, and has reached the NCAA tournament 13 times.
While Brey has turned Notre Dame into a very solid program — the Fighting Irish hadn’t been to the NCAA tournament in 11 seasons before Brey was hired from Delaware in 2000 — the team has struggled in recent years. They were knocked out of the second round of the tournament last year, which was their lone appearance in the past five years.
The team is just 10-15 this season, and has lost 10 of its last 12 games heading into a game with Duke on Tuesday night. It holds just a 2-12 ACC record, too, better than only Georgia Tech and Louisville.
“It has been a great run for me and our program over the past two decades, but it is time for a new voice to lead this group into the future,” Brey said when announcing last month his plan to step down. “I want to thank our student-athletes, assistant coaches and support staff who have played such a key role in the culture we have created.”
It’s unclear where Brey will go next, though it doesn’t sound like he has a coaching job lined up yet. Despite their recent struggles, Brey is undoubtedly still capable of leading a high-level program and shouldn’t have an issue landing with a new team in the coming months.
