Notre Dame might be tweaking the image of the eager, young graduate assistant coach.
The school appears close to hiring Bryant Young, a former Irish All-American and NFL all-pro, as a grad assistant to football coach Charlie Weis and has interviewed Tim Grunhard, an anchor on Notre Dame's offensive line in the late 1980s, for a similar position.
Young, who retired after 14 years with the San Francisco 49ers after last season, turns 37 on Tuesday. Grunhard, an 11-year NFL veteran who retired from the Kansas City Chiefs after the 2000 season and coaches high school football in the K.C. area, is 40.
The school has made no hires, athletics director Jack Swarbrick said Thursday. But he acknowledged interest in Young. Grunhard spoke with Blue & Gold Illustrated about interviewing Wednesday with Weis and the school president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins.
I've spent a lot of time talking with Bryant about it,
Swarbrick said. And it's a situation where you've got a (former) student-athlete who is representative of so much of what we hope our program is about: academic excellence, athletic excellence, a great citizen, a great family guy. He reaches out and would like to get reconnected, and we discussed a range of options (in coaching and in administration). ... For him, there was a coaching itch that he wants to scratch.
Swarbrick acknowledged the departure from the norm of the typical 20-something graduate assistant: The common feature is they're guys starting their non-playing careers. For guys who don't have a pro (playing) opportunity, that happens when they finish college. But for a guy who can play in the NFL, it happens when they're done there. And I don't think we should, in effect, hold that against them.
NCAA rules require graduate assistants to carry at least 50% of a school's minimum graduate studies course load and limit their pay to the value of a scholarship. There are no age specifications.
Former Baylor coach Grant Teaff, who heads the American Football Coaches Association, welcomed Notre Dame's move as a way of working more quality coaching prospects into the college ranks: Everybody would love to have a former pro guy as a GA, but most of them don't want to do it. ... They are grunt jobs.
Said Swarbrick: I'm not sure how big the pool is. But I do think others may see it as a pretty interesting model.
