Bill Moor
Ernie Kovatch: A Hoosier Hero Who Beat the Irish
BY BILL MOOR // POSTED DECEMBER 12, 2024
Scott Kovatch expects to be working his job as a monitor at the Notre Dame Basilica Friday right up until kickoff for the much ballyhooed playoff game between the host Irish and Indiana University. He will not kneel in this holy venue and say a prayer for his favorite team. That would be sacrilegious. He is an IU fan, after all. Scott has good reason for that. He and four of his siblings are Indiana grads and their father, Ernie Kovatch, was the captain of the last Hoosier team to beat Notre Dame. That was in 1950 — 74 years ago — when Ernie, a 1945 South Bend Riley graduate, was a lanky tackle and team leader in that 20-7 victory.
Remembering Gerry Faust
BY BILL MOOR // POSTED NOVEMBER 14, 2024
When Notre Dame football coach Gerry Faust drove the cart away from the Knollwood Golf Course clubhouse, both of our bags tumbled off the back. We both thought the other had secured them. A dozen or so onlookers laughed and so did we — sort of. It was just another awkward moment in our awkward head coach-sports editor relationship. We both stunk at golf, but Faust, who died Nov. 11 at the age of 89, thought we could bury the hatchet while spending much of our four hours together in the course's rough and sand traps.