A phone call from an old friend changed Jeff Jackson’s coaching career.
The former two-time national championship head coach at Lake Superior State was coaching in the NHL with the New York Islanders when he fielded a call from his former Laker equipment manager, Dave Gilbert. Gilbert, by that time working with the hockey program at Notre Dame, told Jackson the news — Irish head coach Dave Poulin was stepping away.
“David was the first guy to call me when I was with the New York Islanders to tell me that Dave was stepping down,” Jackson said. “I knew it before anybody knew it.”
Fast forward 19 years and 12 NCAA Tournament appearances later, it is Jackson’s turn to walk away from the Irish bench. In a statement Monday, June 24, Jackson announced that this coming season, his 20th, will also be his last. In a joint release, the University named associate head coach Brock Sheahan the head coach-in-waiting.
Jackson has brought nearly unmatched stability to the program since taking over as its fourth head coach during the 2005-2006 season. Prior to his arrival, the Irish had qualified for an NCAA Tournament only once. In his 19-year tenure, Notre Dame has made the big dance more often than not, four times reaching the Frozen Four and twice the national championship game. The two-time Spencer Penrose winner has made the greatest impact on Notre Dame hockey of any person since Lefty Smith, who founded the program in 1968.
Notre Dame has by far been the longest stop on Jackson’s winding hockey journey, which he hopes will continue even after leaving South Bend. A two-time national champion as a young head coach at Lake Superior State, Jackson also helped to found USA Hockey’s transformational National Team Development Program. Along the way, Jackson made stops in Nagano, Japan, as assistant coach for the 1998 Olympic team; Guelph, Ontario, as head coach of the OHL’s Storm; and Nassau County, New York, as assistant coach for the New York Islanders. His 589 college hockey career wins are the 10th-most all-time and most among active coaches. 407 of those wins came as head coach of the Irish.
“My heart’s probably closely attached to Notre Dame, but my time at Lake Superior State was also very special to me. And every time the U. S. National Team wins a medal, I have the pride knowing that I had some impact on that,” Jackson said. “But Notre Dame [is] in my heart, as is Lake [Superior] State.”
The decision process
The road to this moment of change for Jackson and Notre Dame has taken shape through conversations with a handful of coaching legends, the changing landscape of college sports and the arrival of Sheahan to the staff in 2023.
The process culminated last Monday when Jackson met with the team to announce his decision.
“I told them, we all go through that phase where we have to give up the game, whether you’re a player [or] you’re a coach, there’s always that last time that you have to fight through,” Jackson said in a 45-minute press conference with reporters last Tuesday.
He also praised all those involved in the decision-making process for respecting his desire to tell his players face-to-face. Among those few he called first were his most loyal colleagues: associate head coaches Paul Pooley and Andy Slaggert, strength coach Tony Rolinski and athletic trainer Kevin Ricks — all of whom have worked alongside Jackson for the entirety of his tenure.
“All these people have made our program successful, and I’ve been loyal to them and they’ve been extremely loyal to me,” Jackson said. “I have great admiration for all of them.”
Long before making those difficult phone calls, Jackson had already consulted about the future with the likes of Cornell head coach Mike Schafer (who also announced his retirement last week), former Boston College head coach and close confidant Jerry York, former Notre Dame men’s basketball coach Mike Brey and Duke basketball legend Mike Krzyzewski.
Mingled amidst those conversations were Jackson’s concerns about the state of the program and the state of college sports at large. In particular, the Irish program has suffered from a large amount of negative recruiting which they have failed to combat in recent seasons, resulting in the loss of high-profile commitments like former Minnesota Golden Gopher Logan Cooley.
“I really don't want to give up coaching, to be honest with you, but I just feel like I’ve been boxed in a little bit recruiting-wise over the last couple of years, and I have to take responsibility for that,” Jackson said. “It’s caused the program to drop a little bit over the last few years and we’ve had great kids, but we haven’t had the same talent level that we’ve had in previous years. And, you know, we need to get back to that.”
To a certain extent, Notre Dame has always faced an uphill climb when it comes to recruiting. For the first few years of Jackson’s tenure, the Irish played at the Joyce Center, a facility not designed for hockey that made it difficult to attract top talent. When Notre Dame opened Compton Family Ice Arena in 2011, the narrative shifted — but still was not entirely positive.
“Then it became a little bit about academics and [that] it’s too hard here,” Jackson said.
“Like, if you’re a first-round draft pick, why do you want to go to Notre Dame? And then it became about me becoming too old, and how I coach and [that] I’m too old-school.”
“We’ve tried a lot of different things to offset all the commentary out there,” he said. “It’s something that I couldn’t combat, and Andy Slaggert, our recruiting coordinator, has done a tremendous job of bringing the right kids in here, but we just couldn’t land them.”
The winds of change that have swept over college sports in the last five years have certainly played a part in Notre Dame’s challenges. The veteran head coach expressed support for name, image and likeness (NIL) policies but also voiced concern about the future of college hockey in the ever-different landscape in which he’s chosen to retire.
“As a coach, you have to change with the times, but college athletics is a mess right now.”
A “Notre Dame man” takes over
The biggest factor in Jackson’s decision-making, though, was the man standing beside him on the bench last season: Sheahan. After the NCAA approved a third-paid assistant coach for DI hockey last summer, Notre Dame made the move to hire Sheahan away from the professional ranks.
“Brock and I had been in communication over the years and was somebody I wanted here thinking that he could be the heir apparent,” Jackson said. “He knew that. I knew that. And I shared that with [outgoing athletic director] Jack Swarbrick.”
Sheahan, a 2008 Notre Dame alumnus who was on Jackson’s very first Irish team, had previously been coaching for the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. He earned the opportunity to coach the Carolina Hurricane affiliate after building a strong resume with the USHL’s Chicago Steel. Ultimately, he was left without a job when the Wolves ended their affiliation with the Hurricanes.
That made the summer of 2023 a perfect time for Sheahan to return to South Bend. Jackson’s belief in Sheahan only grew over the course of the following season working together.
“Last year, watching him in action, I just felt like he was ready,” Jackson said. “And not just ready, but he's the right fit, you know, because Notre Dame is a little different than a lot of schools.
“And I know everybody says that, but I actually believe that there’s some legitimacy to that: being a Catholic school, being a private school, academics being of such great importance; the values, integrity, all those things matter. And frankly, this program is too important to me to just hand it over to anybody.”
Having found who he believed was the right person, Jackson went about covering his bases. Initially resistant to hiring a “coach-in-waiting,” Jackson reached out to Krzyzewski from Duke and current coach Jon Scheyer, who went through the process in 2021-2022. Assured, Jackson made his recommendation to athletic director Pete Bevacqua.
“This was not my decision,” Jackson said. “This was Pete Bevacqua’s decision, but my recommendation was that Brock be the next head coach here.”
While Sheahan will not take over full-time until the 2025-26 season, Jackson says that he has already earned the admiration of the players. Sheahan was once in their shoes — as a former team captain, Sheahan helped Notre Dame reach its first-ever Frozen Four in his senior season.
“The returning guys, I think, all understand how good Brock is. I think they already know that he is a really good hockey coach, [he’s] passionate and does things the right way. He’s a good family man. He’s a former captain. He’s a Notre Dame man.”
Not done yet
Jackson maintains that this isn’t retirement. Despite stepping away from his job of two decades, he isn’t ready to leave the hockey world quite yet.
“It’s not retirement,” he said flatly. “I’m looking at doing something at the end of next year. So, I don’t want to call it retirement.”
That hope would illuminate his phone call with Brey, who provided a post-Notre Dame blueprint when he stepped down as head coach of the Irish men’s basketball team in 2023. Brey now works with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks as an assistant coach.
“I’d like to consider that as a potential option,” Jackson said. “I want to stay active.
I could either see myself doing something here at Notre Dame, but more likely to try to stay in the sport.”
According to Jackson, his coaching resume totals more than 50 years, dating back to when he started as a junior in college working with youth hockey teams. No doubt, there will be programs looking to add what can only be understated as a wealth of experience.
“I don’t think I'm done. I’ve been saying that over and over, just the cliche of, ‘I’m fulfilled, but I’m not done.’”
A “short-term distraction”
One thing is certain about the impending change: Jackson does not want it to take away from his final season behind the bench.
In typical fashion, Jackson is focused on business and wants his team to be as well. After missing out on the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons for the first time in Jackson’s tenure, 2024-25 will be a pivotal year for Notre Dame to get back on track.
“This week, I figured it’d be a short-term distraction, but I want to get our guys back in the right frame of mind and understand that, Hey, business as usual. In fact, if anything, I’d like to see a little redemption for the last couple of years and see our guys motivated to get back into where we were [and] get back into the mix for the NCAA Tournament.”
After an initial period of digesting the news, the process of resetting the focus on 2025 will begin immediately, playing out over phone calls, in the locker room, and of course, on the ice. Jackson noted that associate head coaches Pooley and Slaggert had calmed a number of Irish recruits via phone just prior to the announcement. The team will also have the opportunity to move forward at summer training camp, which began this week.
Ever the team man, Jackson is insistent that when Notre Dame’s season gets underway in early October, he does not want to be the center of attention.
“It’s not a farewell tour, and I’ve told everybody involved with our staff, I do not want recognition this year because I’ve got a job to do. We can celebrate my career next April.”
Though the celebrations at least will be on hold, it’s hard to believe that the change will have anything but an outsized impact on Notre Dame’s season. For a team seeking any scrap of motivation they can find to help them get back in the national conversation, Jackson’s last season should provide plenty. After nearly two decades, four trips to the Frozen Four and two losses in the final game, the only thing missing from Jackson’s Notre Dame resume is a national championship. This year will be his last shot.
Even Jackson himself admitted that his coaching mindset this season will be impacted by the decision. Long hampered by negative recruiting which has often criticized him personally, expect Jackson to be more genuine without those concerns to worry about.
“I want to embrace this coming year. I want to embrace the kids. I want to embrace my coaching staff, and our support staff, embrace this program, this university. We’re constantly talking about the players playing free, to where they're not overthinking the game when they’re playing the game. I’m going to coach free. I’m not going to worry about what other people think about how we play. I’m not going to worry about anything from the outside. I just want to focus on all the positives that we have going here, try to have a good year and enjoy it and embrace it.”
Doubtlessly, that embrace throughout next season will give way to emotion come season’s end. Until then, it’s business as usual at Compton Family Ice Arena. There’s a Big Ten title to play for when the puck drops and a national tournament to make. The torch will be passed from Jackson to Sheahan, but if Notre Dame has it their way, you’ll only be able to notice the change in subtle ways -- such as the passing of a hug.
“I was a little emotional yesterday, and [the team was] too. They all came up and gave me a hug. But they also gave Brock a hug, which is good for me to see. That’s what you really hope for in a transition.”
