Since Commencement Weekend came and went in mid-May, it’s been a summer full of headlines across tri-campus athletics. From a legendary lacrosse run to Olympic gold, here’s a timeline of the past three months’ biggest stories.
May 23: Deanna Gumpf retires after 23 seasons
After 23 years at the helm of Notre Dame softball, head coach Deanna Gumpf announced her retirement. Gumpf finished her tenure as the winningest coach of any sport in the history of Notre Dame athletics, having achieved 882 victories with 21 NCAA Tournament appearances and four conference tournament crowns. Only Gumpf and legendary women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw exist as 700-game winners at Notre Dame. Perhaps most impressively, 14 years have passed since Gumpf became the winningest head softball coach in Notre Dame’s history.
Four weeks after Gumpf’s retirement, another longtime face of Notre Dame softball assumed the head coaching position. Kris Ganeff, a former All-Big East catcher with the program and associate head coach under Gumpf, will lead the Irish into 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 look to rebound after the Irish snapped their 24-year NCAA Tournament streak in 2024.
May 27: Notre Dame men’s lacrosse repeats on top
A year and a half ago, the Notre Dame men’s lacrosse program had never claimed a national championship. Now, it owns two.
After marching through postseason adversity in 2023, the Irish ran wire-to-wire as 2024’s premier college men’s lacrosse team. Dominating Denver and Georgetown at the Final Four in Philadelphia, they finished off a 16-1 season with another title. The historic 2024 team ended the year with program records for single-season goals (266), assists (160) and points (426).
But the celebration of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse didn’t end on Memorial Day. Three days later, then-graduate forward Pat Kavanagh became the program’s first winner of the Tewaaraton Award, the most prestigious individual honor in college lacrosse. Notre Dame’s career points and assists record-holder, Kavanagh would become the first ACC Male Athlete of the Year in school history in July.
June 24: Jeff Jackson announces plans to step down
Another significant Irish coaching change followed Gumpf’s retirement by just over a month. Jeff Jackson, the historic head coach of Notre Dame hockey, proclaimed the 2024-25 season his 20th and last at the helm. Jackson’s tenure has bestowed a new prominence on his program, as the Irish have reached the NCAA Tournament 12 times after doing so only once before his arrival. This past season, he became both the only head hockey coach to reach 400 wins at Notre Dame, 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 defensemen Jackson guided at Notre Dame, associate head coach Brock Sheahan will take the program’s reins for the 2025-26 season. A four-year player in South Bend, Sheahan helped the Irish to their first national championship game appearance in 2007-08, serving as an alternate captain.
Early August: Irish amaze in Olympic games
Had Notre Dame student-athletes and alumni banded into their own country during the 2024 Paris Olympics, that country would have tied Hungary for the 14th-most gold medals in the competition. It would have slotted into 21st in the overall medal count.
That’s just how successful Notre Dame’s most successful Olympics on record really was. Six of the 10 medals won by current and former Irish student-athletes shined in gold. Fencer Lee Kiefer, a 2017 alumna, continued her masterful women’s foil career with two gold medals, including one as an individual. Senior swimmer Chris Guiliano captured a relay gold and alumni Korbin Albert also saw gold with the USWNT, just to name a few.
Mid-August: Belles name new softball, basketball head coaches
During the first two weeks of August, the Saint Mary’s athletics department announced two coaching changes. First, former Lake Michigan College assistant coach Jordyn Walter became the next Belles softball coach. Only two years removed from a playing career full of starts and captaincies at Lake Michigan College and Western Michigan, Walter inherited a Saint Mary’s program that went 10-22 in 2024.
However, months before Walter makes her head coaching debut, Rob Hoffman will do the same with Saint Mary’s basketball. Like Walter, Hoffman previously worked at a place where he once studied, serving as an assistant and associate head coach at Trine University. Just last season, Hoffman and the Thunder captured a Michigan Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) championship and a second-round NCAA Tournament berth. The Belles enter his tenure having gone 5-20 in the 2023-2024 campaign.
August 15: Notre Dame suspends men’s swimming program
No summer news sent shockwaves through the tri-campus athletics community like this one. Through a deep review with the law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP, the University of Notre Dame found evidence worthy of suspending its men’s swimming program for, at minimum, the 2024-25 academic year.
The review, according to a statement from Notre Dame’s vice president and athletic director Pete Bevacqua, unearthed a team culture not aligned with the university’s student-athlete standard. It also found the student-athletes in violation of multiple NCAA rules prohibiting gambling on intercollegiate swimming.
Despite the suspension, the men’s dive, women’s swim and women’s dive teams will continue their seasons as planned at Notre Dame.
August 18: Notre Dame football names its captains
Less than two weeks out from a marquee season opener at Texas A&M, the Notre Dame football team assigned five captains for the 2024 season. Graduate linebacker Jack Kiser, senior quarterback Riley Leonard, graduate defensive lineman Rylie Mills, junior cornerback Benjamin Morrison and graduate safety Xavier Watts will lead this year’s Irish group.
The five bring over 190 combined games worth of college experience and into the new season. All are also first-time captains, as each of Notre Dame’s 2023 captains received NFL opportunities in the spring.
