Gerry Fausts Coaching Career-A life long dream
We all have dreams of what we want to do with our lives when we grow up. Not often do we get to act out our life's dreams quite like Gerry Fausts coaching career allowed Gerry to do. Gerry Faust was a football coach at the University of Notre Dame from 1981 to 1985. This is not, however, where the Gerry Fausts Coaching Career got its beginning.
Gerry attended the University of Dayton, where he played football and was a very successful quarterback for the team. He played under the leadership skills of Notre Dame coach Hugh Devore. Although, Gerry received a partial scholarship to Notre Dame and originally really wanted to attend Notre Dame, he ended up attending the University of Dayton.
The Gerry Fausts coaching career began with Gerry's tenure as coach at Moeller High School in Cincinnati. He was very successful with a football program that he built from scratch. His accomplishments included seven unbeaten seasons, four national prep titles, five Ohio state titles and an overall record of 174-17-2.
Faust had made quite a name for himself at this point, so he was hired at Notre Dame. Gerry had always had a lifelong dream to be at Notre Dame and came there along with some of his players from Moeller. Things did not go as hoped for Faust, and he soon realized that Gerry Fausts coaching career would never bee the same again. After the first year in 1981, Notre Dame was voted #1, but this did not last for long and things began going downhill for Fausts.
It is unknown why exactly his coaching and success rate changed, but the team began losing. Although the first year coaching brought success and a winning season, every year after that was almost worse than the year before. His former rapport with his players seemed almost nonexistent. He never managed to win more than seven games in one season, and was never even close to contending for a national title. The fans wanted Gerry Fausts coaching career to end at Notre Dame, with the famous slogan being "Oust Faust". Despite this, he did finish out his five-year contract at Notre Dame.
It was later said that Faust had poor collegiate coaching experience, did not like taking advice and was too hard on the players. He would start the season trying to be best friends with the players and end the season with nothing but drills, drills and more drills and constant criticism. His career highlight there was his appearance in the 1984 Aloha Bowl. When he left Notre Dame, he took a coaching position at the University of Akron, where his record was not much better than at Notre Dame. The Gerry Fausts coaching career ended when he was relieved of his duties and became a fundraiser for the school. Today, he still has a love for Notre Dame, despite his failures as a coach. Gerry was a guest speaker at the 2006 football awards banquet.