Pat Garrity Notebook | Returning to Notre Dame
Notre Dame basketball general manager Pat Garrity spoke for the first time on Thursday morning.
Opening Statement:
“Thanks everyone for coming here. I didn’t know what kind of turnout we were going to get in late May - cold weather. It’s good to see that this is a basketball school now that we’re able to fill the room here with media.
“First, just a couple of thank yous. No. 1, I just wanted to express my gratitude to Father Bob (Dowd) and to Pete (Bevacqua), for not only creating this position but thinking of me for it. I think people who are casually familiar with college sports think that there’s all this money flying around and coffers are full. I think the reality of most places, if you talk to people who work there, there’s never been more pressure on athletic departments to try to do what they originally set out to do. To create this position, to think of me as someone to come in and to lead, really means a lot.
“To Micah (Shrewsberry) and Niele (Ivey), a big thank you for your openness and welcoming. They weren’t just OK with it, they were embracing me with open arms when the news hit. I played for a lot of coaches in my career, worked with coaches, friends in the coaching profession and it’s always been a hard profession, but I can’t imagine the challenge now.
“Before, when you were a college coach, you had a long time frame. You put the time in to recruit a kid, you develop the relationship with them, you think you have three or four years to be able to develop them and to help your program. That all changes. So your aperture and your time frame is so narrow now, that hopefully I’ll be able to come in and help them think about the long term, when they’re oftentimes having to think about the short term, which is incredibly difficult.
“The last thanks is obviously to my family. My wife, Paula, and my son, Henry. As Pete mentioned, I think Henry was the one we had to get on board the most. Three and a half hours seemed like a pretty good distance from us being to him. He could come home when we wanted to, but we were still away. We didn’t know too much of what’s going on, although, word got back to us. They’ve been nothing but excited about this opportunity for us and it’s really gonna be fun to get together. We told him anyway, wherever he goes in life, we’re not gonna be too far from him anyway, so this is just an early preview of that.
“In closing here, before I take some questions, just wanted to hit on a little bit of why this job was attractive to me and why I’m so excited about it. Obviously, after I retired, spent a little time outside of basketball, came back into the NBA. I really thought my career afterward was going to be in the NBA.
“This was really attractive to me for a few reasons. No. 1 is the place. This place means so much to me. I told Pete this when we started having the conversations. I can’t really think of any place outside of my home that means so much to me as this place here. It’s both because of what it was able to do in terms of my career, how I was able to develop as a student-athlete, but really the relationships that I have. My best friends in the world are still all people that I lived in Sorin Hall with and went to Notre Dame with. No. 1, just to be able to come back and work at a place like that was extremely attractive.
“No. 2 is the impact that you can make. In the NBA, it’s a tremendous lifestyle. It’s a lot of fun. You’re working at the highest level of basketball. You’re making an impact sometimes in players' lives, but it’s just such a big enterprise. Your actions to the impact on the people on your team is a little bit wide. Being able to come back to not only college basketball but a place like Notre Dame, where we can bring in young student-athletes, develop them to the best of their abilities as athletes, set them up for when they stop playing. Being able to have an impact in that way, now that I’m no longer someone that can play basketball.
“I think that looking at my career, this will maybe be the most meaningful thing I’ve done outside of playing basketball. That’s really why this was attractive to me, why we’re making the move out here to South Bend and couldn’t be more excited.”
On how he will manage his time between two basketball programs and being a sports administrator:
”I think the way this job is designed is maybe a little different than some schools have approached it. Some schools approach is solely like a personnel, is the heavy focus of the job. I think obviously, if I were to sequence, getting up to speed on the sports admin side is the most important because that’s a lot of the operational stuff of the men’s program right away.
“Dealing with specifically the commercial aspect of the personnel side - dealing with two teams is a lot, but I don’t think it’s anything too overwhelming. You’re having conversations with agents and parents and figuring out who’s at risk of leaving and where you potentially need to shore up your roster, that kind of thing.
“I think it’s going to be a lot to learn. I think for me, though, really getting up to speed on the sports admin side first. We have two coaches right now who have been running their programs for a long time. I don’t think there’s any real urgency right away to change anything they’re doing.”
On communicating with Micah Shrewsberry and Niele Ivey:
“I think it’s very similar to the way it works in pro sports. I worked for a guy named Jeff Bower in Detroit. He was in Stan’s (Van Gundy) office, who was the head coach, every day after games. That’s how the communication works. You’re just physically there and you’re around. The conversation of dialogue is just ongoing because you’re always with each other.”
On NIL, the Transfer Portal and how Notre Dame basketball will succeed:
”This summer is maybe a bad example to develop any thoughts on it because it was probably the most unregulated that it’ll ever be. You had the ending of the collective era and everyone preparing for the revenue-sharing era.
“The larger perspective that I have on it is there are a lot of student athletes that are making good decisions for them, that they’re rewarded financially, but they’re also gonna get through college connected to a place and being remembered at a place. I think there are a lot of people that are making short-term decisions that maybe financially look good now, but maybe looking back in 10 years, they’re asking, ‘What am I left with, where was really my home, what am I remembered for?’
“I think that’s one of the big things that we gotta focus on here, just in terms of retention, is just selling the point that there’s the money aspect of this thing. It’s just a reality in college sports now, but there’s more to that. Being remembered as an all-time great at a college means something when you hang it up, eventually. I think that we have to be able to demonstrate to our student-athletes that we can get you there and that’s ultimately the important thing. That includes bringing the past all-time greats around to get that message across.”
On what he learned as an executive with the Pistons that can be applied at Notre Dame:
”I think No. 1, when you’re talking about the front office’s work with the coaching staff, when those relationships are at their best, it’s when you’re in constant communication and you’re honest with each other. When those break down, it’s when those communication lines break down. When you run into disagreements, you don’t confront them. I think all the other stuff takes care of itself.
“You’re gonna have disagreements about personnel and players. Those are basketball types. But when you really break down communication, you can really see that happening all the time in pro sports. That’s what you have to avoid.”
On what he needs to do in the short term:
”Short-term to-do list is immediately getting up to speed on everything you need to know about college sports in terms of the compliance piece, right? That’s going to be a new world for me. I think No. 2 is really spending time with the coaches and learning things as, you know, ‘What’s your terminology? How do we think about players, like your style of play?’ Just really getting up to speed and knowledgeable, so we’re all speaking the same language.
“In terms of personnel, both rosters, we’re far enough along and going into next season. The rosters are both set. After all the nuts and bolts, getting familiar with what kind of players we value, how we want to play, what’s our philosophy in terms of that. Then I think it’s, as you go into the season, starting to prepare for the next series of roster turnover.”
On how Notre Dame can use the Transfer Portal despite not having a wide pool of players and how retention can build a strong culture:
”I actually look at it as an advantage in a couple ways. No. 1, if you’re going to a school as a young player that is doing business in the transfer portal and winning with seniors, like every year, you’re coming in and worried about someone coming in and taking my job. When you’re a team and a program like we have here, the word is development.
“We’re bringing in freshmen, we’re developing them physically, on the floor, into roles where they can grow and excel. That doesn’t mean the portal isn’t going to be a part of it, but I think as we’ve seen, it’s gonna be more limited than a lot of other places. I actually look at it as an advantage because when you have a conversation with a young player and their family about your plan to develop them into the player and where you think they can get, they can pretty much take that to the bank if they come and put the work in to get there.”
On his roles in Detroit and how that can help at Notre Dame:
”So, from the salary cap standpoint, if we ever get to a point where there are rules and transparencies that we all understand, I think there could be some crossover. My role the last four years in Detroit was strategy, salary cap and then I oversaw our medical performance group and our analytics groups. I think the one similarity is when you’re looking at your cap sheet, preparing for free agency or trades, you’re running a bunch of different scenarios, none of them turn out and you end up going down a path that you haven’t planned for. I think that’s a little bit of a reality.
“The difference is here, it’s really hard to plan past one year because we don’t have multi-year deals. There’s no restricted free agency. The ability to retain players is totally different than in pro sports.
“Outside of that aspect, one of the parts that I really did enjoy was working with our performance group and medical team and building up an analyst group there. A little bit different in college, how you approach the analytics side, but I think that those are all areas when you talk about building a world-class basketball program, you have to figure out where you’re gonna make those investments and how you wanna do things.”
On his role in recruiting:
”Personnel is gonna be important. It’s probably less important in this particular role than some other places are approaching it. I’ll obviously be involved in knowing who we’re recruiting and weighing in on personnel and what I see, but as far as recruiting, being out on the road, that’s not a part of it. But the personnel, that’s the fun part about it.”
On the difference in what he needs to do between the two programs:
”Obviously, both coaches who are running their programs have differences in the way they want to play, they talk about players. That affects the way that you approach personnel. So I think, No. 1, to my answer earlier, getting up to speed on style of play and terminology. Learning that difference and being able to communicate and contribute by knowing that is the big one.
“I think the programs have historically been at different places. I think having that historical context and knowing that, getting up to speed on the legacy of each program, I think that’s another important part.
“As far as the day-to-day and helping them execute their visions, the most important thing is understanding what those visions are, their priorities and helping them go out there and execute.”
On how invested he has been in Notre Dame basketball since he left South Bend:
”We have been coming back since I left. Under Mike (Brey), who was always very welcoming, and then when Micah got the job and Muffet (McGraw) left and Niele got the job. Niele and I are two years apart here. Just throughout time when I was able to, have always been able to come back. I think it’s a little bit different now, obviously.
“As a fan, someone who wanted to come around, know what was going on versus actually going in there and helping solve problems and carry out the vision is a little bit different. This place has always been a special place to me. It’s probably even more special now, having a son that goes here and then seeing the impact that going here as a student and being a student-athlete and all the stuff that they do with player development off the field has done and impacted them.”
On what it’s like wearing the ND logo again and being able to impact both programs:
”It is a little strange. Coming back, there’s so much that’s new, but I was walking around the back of The Joyce and I’m like, ‘Wait, that door is the same door to the training room.’ It’s nice to know that some of those things haven’t changed.
“To a broader point, I forgot to mention this earlier. I was very lucky to have personal success here, but we didn’t really win in my era here. I think if you go back and look at the record, we were like .500, maybe. Coach (John) MacLeod, with that last class, if he had gotten to stay, that was kind of the class that got him over the hump and got him going a little bit.
“I think more than anything, being able to come here, even though it’s not playing, but being able to contribute to winning would be the capstone for me.”
On how he developed at Notre Dame:
“I don’t think that this is unique to me, but if I look back on the way I developed from the time I was stepping foot on campus to the end. It was never like my goal when I stepped on campus was never to get to the NBA. It was to get in the lineup first and then after that, it was, ‘This is the hole in my game, so I’m gonna add this.’ It’s like taking these short-term steps along the path and not getting distracted with what’s gonna happen three or four years down the road.
“Not unique to here, but I think that’s one thing in talking to players is just focus on the next day, the next time you’re in the weight room or the next time you’re on the floor, what are you trying to get better at? If you put your heart and soul into that, everything takes care of itself down the road. If it doesn’t work out, you don’t have any reason to hang your head because you put your heart and soul into it, and it either worked out or it didn’t.”
On his thoughts on analytics and how it can apply to Notre Dame:
”The difference between the college and the pro game. When you’re projecting out players in the NBA, you’re willing to put investment into that because you’re able to retain and you have them for a long time, right? There’s past data to be able to base those evaluations on.
“It’s a little bit different in college, because how do you project 16 and 17-year-olds based on EYBL game data? It’s really hard. I think that some of the stuff related to coaching analytics, I think there’s stuff that’s directly relatable of how impactful some of the decisions you’re making in terms of coverages and how you’re playing things and attacking things. Those kind of things are directly relatable. I break it up. I still don’t know the answer when it comes to personnel evaluation and the use of analytics. Coaching analytics, I think there’s a lot of crossover.”
On how long it took for him to miss the game after he left the Pistons:
“For the first few years, I tried the media game for a while. Did a weekly show with Shams (Charania) and those guys at Stadium, which was fun. But no, it was really over the last couple years when Henry left, it was like, OK, it’s time to get back to work.
“Looked at a couple opportunities in the NBA, some that weren’t the right fit at the time, some that could’ve materialized. It was pretty much within the last couple years of, like, it’s time to get back to work unless my wife’s gonna kill me.”
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