Since finals weekend in mid-May, athletics has had a summer of headlines on all three campuses. From a legendary lacrosse run to Olympic gold, here’s a timeline of the biggest stories from the past three months.
May 23: Deanna Gumpf retires after 23 seasons
After 23 years at the helm of Notre Dame’s softball team, head coach Deanna Gumpf announced her retirement. Gumpf ended her tenure as the winningest coach of any sport in Notre Dame history, with 882 victories, 21 NCAA Tournament appearances and four conference tournament titles. Only Gumpf and legendary basketball coach Muffet McGraw have won 700 games at Notre Dame. Perhaps most impressively, 14 years have passed since Gumpf became the winningest softball head coach in Notre Dame history.
Four weeks after Gumpf’s resignation, another longtime face of Notre Dame softball took over the head coaching job. Kris Ganeff, a former All-Big East catcher for the program and assistant head coach under Gumpf, will lead the Irish for the foreseeable future. Her experience in South Bend includes appearances in 21 NCAA Regionals and 12 NCAA Regional Finals, as well as 11 conference titles.
Ganeff, along with newly hired assistant coaches Boo De Oliveira, Mike Perniciaro and Mo Wimpee, will try to rebound after the Irish end their 24-year NCAA Tournament winning streak in 2024.
May 27: Notre Dame men’s lacrosse repeats top position
A year and a half ago, Notre Dame’s men’s lacrosse program had never won a national championship. Now it has two.
After surviving postseason defeats in 2023, the Irish were the best men’s college lacrosse team from start to finish in 2024. They dominated Denver and Georgetown at the Final Four in Philadelphia and capped a 16-1 season with another title. The historic 2024 team finished the year with program records for season goals (266), assists (160) and points (426).
But the celebration for Notre Dame men’s lacrosse didn’t end on Memorial Day. Three days later, then-forward Pat Kavanagh became the first winner of the Tewaaraton Award, the most prestigious individual honor in college lacrosse. Kavanagh, the Notre Dame career points and assists record holder, became the first ACC Male Athlete of the Year in school history in July.
June 24: Jeff Jackson announces retirement plans
Another significant coaching change for the Irish came just over a month after Gumpf’s resignation. Jeff Jackson, the historic head coach of the Notre Dame hockey team, declared the 2024-25 season to be his 20th and final at the helm. Jackson’s tenure has brought new meaning to his program, as the Irish have now reached the NCAA Tournament 12 times, having done so only once before his arrival. Last season, he became both the only Notre Dame head coach to reach 400 wins, the winningest active Division I men’s hockey coach in the country and the overseer of 1,000 Division I games.
One of the first defensive linemen Jackson coached at Notre Dame, associate head coach Brock Sheahan will take the reins of the program for the 2025-26 season. Sheahan played four years in South Bend and helped the Irish to their first national championship game appearance as an alternate captain in 2007-08.
Early August: Irish surprise at the Olympic Games
Had Notre Dame student-athletes and alumni joined forces in their own country during the 2024 Paris Olympics, that country would have tied Hungary for the 14th most gold medals in the competition and would have ranked 21st in the overall medal count.
That’s how successful Notre Dame’s most successful Olympics ever was. Six of the ten medals won by current and former Irish students and athletes were gold. Fencer Lee Kiefer, a 2017 graduate, continued her championship career in foil with two gold medals, including one as an individual. Veteran swimmer Chris Guiliano took gold with the relay team and graduate Korbin Albert also took gold with the USWNT, to name a few.
Mid-August: Belles appoints new head coaches for softball and basketball
In the first two weeks of August, the Saint Mary’s athletic department announced two coaching changes. First, former Lake Michigan College assistant coach Jordyn Walter became the Belles’ next softball coach. Just two years into her playing career filled with starts and captaincies at Lake Michigan College and Western Michigan, Walter took over a Saint Mary’s program that reached a 10-22 record in 2024.
Months before Walter makes her head coaching debut, however, Rob Hoffman will do the same with the Saint Mary’s basketball team. Like Walter, Hoffman previously worked at a place he once studied at, serving as an assistant and associate head coach at Trine University. Just last season, Hoffman and the Thunder won a Michigan Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) championship and a berth in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The Belles enter his tenure with a 5-20 record heading into the 2023-2024 season.
August 15: Notre Dame suspends men’s swimming program
No summer news has shocked the three-campus athletics community as much as this one. After an extensive review by the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, the University of Notre Dame found evidence to justify a suspension of its men’s swimming program for at least the 2024-25 academic year.
According to a statement from Pete Bevacqua, Notre Dame’s vice president and athletic director, the review revealed a team culture that did not conform to the university’s standard for student-athletes and found that the student-athletes violated several NCAA rules prohibiting betting on the sport of collegiate swimming.
Despite the interruption, the men’s diving, women’s swimming and women’s diving teams will continue their seasons as planned in Notre Dame.
August 18: Notre Dame Football names its captains
Less than two weeks before a spectacular season opener at Texas A&M, the Notre Dame football team has named five captains for the 2024 season. Linebacker Jack Kiser, quarterback Riley Leonard (senior), defensive lineman Rylie Mills, cornerback Benjamin Morrison (junior) and safety Xavier Watts (graduate) will lead this year’s Irish group.
The five bring a total of over 190 games of college experience to the new season. All are also first-time captains, as each of Notre Dame’s 2023 captains received NFL opportunities in the spring.
