Story Poster
Notre Dame Football Recruiting

2020 OL Michael Carmody Hoping To Find Home Of His Own

June 6, 2019
5,597

If the Notre Dame football program ends up landing Michael Carmody‍, the Irish basketball program should probably be credited with an assist.

But the 2020 Pennsylvania lineman is no lock to end up in South Bend, where his brother Robby recently finished his freshman year with the basketball program. Michael is methodically going through the process and the mere presence of his older brother wouldn’t be the reason he chose Notre Dame.

He’s looking at all of his options and taking in all of the information he can get. It’s just that given Robby’s experience so far, there is a lot of information Michael can and has received about Notre Dame that he won’t be able to get anywhere else.

“Mike has obviously seen what Notre Dame has done for Robby,” Carmody’s father, Rob said.

After becoming the first freshman to start a season-opener for the Irish in a decade and a half, Robby’s freshman year was cut short only weeks into it with a torn labrum.

“Through the recovery, through the surgery, through everything, it reinforced why he went to Notre Dame,” Mr. Carmody said. “From the coaching staff to the trainers to the doctors, everyone has been so good to Robby to help him through it. It’s hard as a freshman to deal with an injury.

“You’re starting as a freshman and it’s this big deal and then you’re hurt and all of a sudden you can’t play. That’s tough on any freshman. In a lot of places, you see guys go through this and they end up leaving. They get homesick, they get alienated a little bit, they don’t feel like they’re part of the team. At Notre Dame, it was never that way.”

“I think Notre Dame is a place where the term student-athlete really means student-athlete.”
- Rob Carmody

If anything, Robby feels even more a part of the program now.

“Robby feels more committed to Coach Brey, the staff, the team, the program than even before,” his father said. “All of the things that we thought we were getting in those men, they showed it. They didn’t have to talk about it. They showed it with how they handled Robby’s injury.”

Mr. Carmody, who is the head coach for the Mars Area High School basketball team, said the staff clearly did what was best for his son and not necessarily the program.

“Robby is the kind of kid where if they would have said, ‘Hey, we want you to brace this up and fight through the pain,’ he would have done it,” Mr. Carmody said. “Coach Brey and everybody on the staff put Robby’s interest first. That’s real. You can’t put that on a pamphlet. That’s real.”

The family doesn’t believe the values that have been exhibited during Robby’s first year at Notre Dame are isolated to the basketball program.

“I think it’s the culture and the people at Notre Dame,” Mr. Carmody said. “I think Notre Dame is a place where the term student-athlete really means student-athlete. I think there’s a genuine care and concern for the young people who go there, not just the athletes, but everybody. I know that’s been our experience. I can’t speak to what somebody else might feel.

“As much as anything he went through this first year, that helped him mature and find his own faith. He’s been home now for a few weeks and he’s a different kid. He’s still a kid, but he’s a different kid. He’s got a different way about him, a maturity about him and a peace about him because he knows who he is a little bit more.”

It was vital for Robby to have the right people around him as he fought through that adversity.

“Because Mom and Dad, we couldn’t,” Mr. Carmody said. “We weren’t there every day. We didn’t know what he was feeling. Those guys did and the way they helped him through it, I couldn’t say enough about the kind of men that are on that basketball staff.

“I’d be shocked if that was not what it was with the football staff and baseball staff and everybody else because I think it is part of the culture at Notre Dame. Not that it doesn’t exist at other places, it’s just this is the only experience I have with it.”

And Michael is well aware of that experience.

“I think he understands Notre Dame,” Mr. Carmody said of Michael. “He understands the community that engulfs Notre Dame. He’s seen all of the things that it’s done for Robby. Academically, it’s been wonderful for Robby. Athletically, it’s been wonderful for Robby. Robby has always gone to church, but after being away for a year at Notre Dame, he’s found his own faith.

“As a father, I credit the opportunity of being away and being there. It’s a special place.”

Rick Kimball/ISD
Robby Carmody

But the family is quick to emphasize that’s been Robby’s experience.

“Michael can’t pick a school because of how Robby feels about it,” his father said. “Mike will have to go through his own process and have that same kind of feeling. We want him to experience all of the things that Robby has; the growing up side of it with the right people around.

“You’re going to college, yeah, you want to be an athlete and get your degree and all of that. But it’s also very important to us that they continue to help him grow into being a man so he can be a father and a husband and productive and contributing member of the community he lives in.

“We want Mike to feel that in his heart and pick a placed based on that, not here’s where your brother is.”

Mr. Carmody has seen the speculation that it would be easier for the family to have both boys at the same school.

“Well, we don’t want him to pick a school because it’s best for our family,” he said. “We want him to pick a school because it’s best for him.”

Mr. Carmody has also enjoyed seeing Michael grow into himself.

“It’s been fun to watch him grow and mature from a 5-foot-9/5-foot-10 eighth-grader who was kind of in Robby’s shadow as Robby’s little brother into what he is, which is a 6-foot-6, 295-pound kid,” he said.

“I don’t know many guys who were First Team All-State in football the first time they ever played offensive line and then were Second Team All-State basketball players for a team that went 27-2 and had the best record in school history.”

He acknowledged Michael is “still learning and trying to figure things out” as an offensive lineman, but the athleticism is impossible to deny.

“He played offensive line for 10 games,” he said. “Then you see him move on the basketball court with spin moves, dunks and stepback three-pointers, it’s like ‘Oh my God!’ It’s really neat how athletic he’s become at his size.”

Michael Carmody with his father, Rob

Michael and Robby both understand the approach necessary to succeed in and out of sports from being coached and raised by their parents.

“The coaches know those are guys they can get on and coach them and demand from them because that’s all they’ve grown up with,” Mr. Carmody said.

“My wife is very demanding. They get A’s or they don’t play. And I’m very demanding. You bust your tail, you keep your mouth shut, you play hard, you play smart, you play as a teammate and you play to win. I think that will bode them both well. It’s not strategy or anything fancy. We’re simple blue-collar people who believe you do things a certain way.”

He jokes that the family will be excited to send Michael off to college because the grocery bill will drop by about $500 a month when somebody else is responsible for feeding him. But in reality, the family feels blessed their boys are in the positions they’re in.

“It’s worked out for us,” Mr. Carmody said. “I can’t stress that enough. We feel very, very blessed because we know how difficult it is just to get into college and the cost of college and everything else, to have two sons who have incredible opportunities. Using it the right way sets them up for the rest of their lives. We’re thrilled to see them go through it.

“Mike will go through this process and hopefully we’ve helped him the way we helped Robby and he’ll have that place that grabs his heart and he says, ‘I don’t want to go anywhere else. This is home.’”

 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.