2021 OL Parker Bates Enjoys "Amazing" Experience At Notre Dame Camp

Parker Bates‍ remembers Hunter Bivin well from his playing days…not Bivin’s playing days at Notre Dame, but as a high-schooler at Apollo High School in Owensboro, Ky.

“I’ve known him all of my life,” said Bates. “I grew up watching him and his brother Harris play football at Apollo. I’ve known them for as long as I can remember.”

Bates’ father served as Bivin’s offensive line coach in high school and still serves as an assistant at Apollo, where Parker is now an offensive line prospect in the Class of 2021.

The Bates family had a chance to reconnect with Bivin this weekend before, during and after the Irish’s Sunday Night Lights Camp in South Bend.

“It was amazing,” Bates said of seeing Bivin, who is now Notre Dame’s Director of Player Development. “I hadn’t seen him since he went to Notre Dame. Seeing him again was really cool. Him seeing me, I think he was more amazed to see how much I’ve grown since he last saw me. It was amazing seeing him and where he’s at now. He’s got his career going now. It’s great.”

Bates (pictured above #11 with teammates Logan Weedman and John Lynn) had a chance to show Bivin and the rest of the staff what he can do on the field.

“I walked in, got all of the height/weight/reach normal measurement stuff,” said Bates. “I saw the stadium, got a really good picture…Then I went out on the field and got to business.”

The 6-foot-5, 310-pounder enjoyed the opportunity to learn from Irish offensive line coach Jeff Quinn.

“Coach Quinn taught us his acronym EAT,” Bates explained. “It’s effort, assignment, technique. That really stuck with me.

“I really like him as a coach. He seemed like a really good guy and he really knows what he’s talking about. I would be honored if I was able to play under him.”

Meanwhile, Bivin was also able to offer some pointers.

“He said I did a lot of things well, but just some tweaks here and there to make,” Bates recalled. “Overall, he said I did pretty well.”

Bates called the entire trip “great.”

“I thought the facilities looked really nice,” he said. “I saw they’re building a new facility next to the practice field. I thought that looks like a nice area. I heard that’s going to be the new indoor facility. It looked great for how it was coming. From everything I saw, it looked amazing. The field was absolutely breathtaking.”

He's hoping to stay in touch with Notre Dame and come back in the future.

“Just keep getting better, keep improving and hopefully come back next year better than I was,” he said of the next steps for him and the Irish.

Bates picked up his first offer, from Kentucky, around this time last year.

“I think it’s really cool,” he said. “I don’t let it get to my head though because I know there are a lot of people with offers out there who are better than me. I just strive to keep getting better to hopefully get more.”

He’ll make camp stops at Ohio State and Alabama this month along with in-state stops at Kentucky, Louisville and Western Kentucky.

He knows what he’s looking for in a college.

“What I look for in a school is their campus, if they have a really nice campus and what careers they have there. I’m looking more into physical therapy as a career. I’ll be looking at their medical side of stuff and their classes. I’ll also look at their facilities and all of that stuff. Notre Dame has a really nice facility. I really liked it there.”