And of course there's a story behind that headline.  Anybody who was at ND in the fall of 1981 will remember Gerry Faust's first game, a defeat of LSU leading to our only # 1 ranking for a long while.  We didn't know it at the time, but we'd just witnessed the zenith of Gerry Faust's college coaching career.  We were fans then, and young.

Anyway, the day after that game, someone hung a banner outside Alumni Hall, reading, "Hey Gerry!  Does Moeller Have a Basketball Coach?"  Less well known is the fact that it was hung on the side of Alumni facing the Law School, and in particular the side on which Digger's wife had her office; I have it on good authority that she came tearing into the dorm, demanding the banner be removed, and telling all who would hear that that was the kind of thing that broke up families.  The Phelps', I think, was never a model marriage.

But I digress.  The sentiment could well be applied today as the Irish prepare for their first-ever NCAA hockey championship game.  Because, simply, hiring Jeff Jackson was perhaps the smartest thing ND has done in the athletic arena in recent memory.

As I see it, the Holy Grail of coaching hires is to get someone who can bring you to the next level or, if you're at the next level, won't drop you a level.  In football, and things like fencing, that's usually meant, "Someone who will keep you at the top."  In other sports, that's usually meant someone who will take a program that's plateaued and elevate it to a new level of competitiveness.

We've had trouble in that area, as everyone knows.  True, in some of the so-called lesser sports we've met with some success (I think of things like baseball, men's and women's soccer).  But mostly what you hear about are the spectacular missteps - the he's-hired-no-he's-not dance the administration did with Rick Majerus, the game of one-two-three O'Leary after finally dumping Davie, leading to the less-than-happy Willingham regime.

Even when things haven't blown up, they haven't been totally successful.  Basketball is a case in point.  Many of us concluded a long time ago that Digger was on autopilot, that he'd contented himself with winning his 20 games a year and getting his NCAA bid and bowing out somewhere in the mid-rounds.  His one Final Four looked more and more like the fluke it was.  Eventually the University agreed, but just wasn't able to close the deal for that coach who would bring us closer to the brass ring.  John McLeod might have seemed like a good idea at the time, although those pro coach-to-college moves always seem to look better on paper than in real life.  Then there was Matt Doherty, who inspired hope until he decamped for Chapel Hill - and look how well that turned out for him.  Finally, we settled on Mike Brey, for whom the job was definitely a step up after his success at Delaware.

The jury's still out in my mind on Brey.  So far, he hasn't managed to out-Digger Digger as near as I can tell: our men's basketball team can reliably be counted on not to win more than one game in either the Big East Tournament or the NCAA.  But, on the other hand, this isn't Digger's day.  College basketball dynasties are a thing of the past, and Brey (or any coach) can be one or two exceptional players away from fielding a dominant team - and losing those players the following year.  Given the volatile nature of college basketball, I'm not quite willing to say that Mike Brey can't take us to the Final Four.  I'm just saying that so far he hasn't come close, and you wonder just how long we wait before we move on to someone who might get us there.

(Update: Okay, when I said he "hasn't come close," I forgot that we did, in fact, make the Sweet 16 in 2003, which is pretty good. Emphasis on "pretty." But that's as close as we've come to a Final Four in the Brey era that I can remember.)

Football - well, enough pixels have been spilled on that one.  I think everyone wants Charlie Weis to succeed (in a way that, as I've said before, they didn't want Willingham to succeed, not that Ty didn't oblige them in that).  Hell, I want Weis to succeed.  I sure as hell don't want to sit through another 3-9 season, nor do I want to settle for 6-6 or 7-5 and call it "improvement."  But Charlie's on a much shorter leash than Mike Brey - if he doesn't have us in the national championship hunt, and soon, we're going to be looking for yet another head football coach, one who can take us back to that top level, if he exists, if he can work under the constraints of our program, and if he wants to work for this administration.

As it is, though, Jeff Jackson is the Holy Grail Coach.  He's already gotten us a conference championship, and he's gotten us into our first championship game, and all in relatively short order.  Because he knew the way, having won championships at Lake Superior State.  I'm having a little trouble coming up with Jeff Jackson's equivalents in football or basketball - don't laugh, as you age your analogy gland will start failing on you too - but I'm pretty sure we've never interviewed them.

At the risk of jinxing the Irish Icers (Icerish?), though, I'm positively giddy at the thought that on Saturday night, the hockey team can do two things the football team hasn't managed in recent memory:  win a national championship, and beat Boston Effing College.  And if we do win, Jeff Jackson will have cemented his legacy in the pantheon of Irish coaches - the Ara of Irish Hockey if you will.  (Okay, so maybe the analogy gland still works a little bit.)