character traits. I think every other coach since Faust likely banned the entire track team from Cartier Field when the football team was practicing. (It's no longer an issue, since the new track and field facility was constructed a few years ago.)

When I taught and coached at Mishawaka Marian, Faust would come and bring a couple of players down to the school for our Fall Festival to raise money for the various clubs and sports teams and he always donated signed footballs, jerseys and other things. In the spring he'd arrange to have his graduating players come down and play our faculty in a charity basketball game. One year, Rusty Lisch wasn't very happy when a bunch of us coaches beat him and his buddies. Fun times and Gerry was always a good man. I wish he'd been a better coach at ND.

Did you coach field events for the track team, and did you have a bust on your desk?

Bad hire

and we often saw those guys out there. We rarely used the one field within the track, as there were four other fields to use (three grass and one Astroturf) and the portable lift could be better positioned between those to capture multiple fields at once. After the initial periods of special teams, the kickers would go off on their own and use the field within the track when it was not needed by others.

court in the old fieldhouse. Coming from the basketball locker room one had to step immediately into the track, cross it, to get to the basketball court.

Running runners would yell "track" to warn people who were about to step off the locker room steps and onto the track.

One assistant basketball coach, Larry Staverman, who was 6'8" and pretty well built, would always hold up his forearm, yell "basketball" and walk across the track.

Parker take it to the house on his first carry in a ND uniform in a 48-0 beatdown of Purdue. Art Best did the same thing a couple of years later, as did Josh Adams against Texas in 2015.

Faust would make his way through the line of students waiting for season tickets every year and personally thank every student standing in line.
Further, his time at ND taught me everything I need to know about grace under pressure, although I rarely live up to his standards in that regard. Unfortunately, he was nowhere near as great a football coach as he was a person. If that had been the case, he'd be revered even beyond ND's fanbase.

yes, for sure Faust was a very good guy and very religious guy. But I don't think he handled the pressure that well, and I recall specifically he blamed some losses on players (by name) during post game press conferences (this was starting roughly in year 3 or 4). I don't mean "Player X caused us to lose," I mean like "well, if Player X catches that pass, it's a different ballgame." Just my 2 cents.

Also, really the only other thing I hold against Faust was his inability to see that things were not working out. Human nature for sure, but by years 3-4 it was clear to most of the rest of the world that it wasn't gonna happen.