SOUTH BEND — At the age of 69, Jeff Jackson is looking forward to his 20thand final season as Notre Dame’s head hockey coach in 2024-25 not knowing what the future holds for him and the game he has been around for 50 years.
The winner of two national championships at Lake Superior State and four Final Four appearances at Notre Dame plus 589 total victories in 25 years of coaching including 407 at Notre Dame, Jackson announced Monday he would coach one more season for the Irish and then hand off the reins to former Irish player and current associate head coach Brock Sheahan.
Saying he may not be through either with a position at Notre Dame or in another position somewhere in hockey, Jackson wants to leave Sheahan with a program in better shape than it has been since the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020-21 and would also like to see college hockey make a turnaround as well.
“I don’t want to call this a retirement,” Jackson said of his decision “which has been in the process for couple of seasons” during a Tuesday ZOOM conference call with writers and broadcasters from around the country.
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Jackson indicated the advent of a fifth year of eligibility because of COVID, a transfer portal allowing players to leave one school for another without sitting out a year, the emergence of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) so players can be paid while in school, and finally negative recruiting by programs against others have all contributed to his dissatisfaction with the state of the college hockey game as it now exists.
“It is not what it used to be,” Jackson said. “It’s disappointing – I worry about the future of college hockey in that regard just because we’re different than some of the other sports.
“The transfer portal has become the grass is greener philosophy,” Jackson continued. “We used to have a gentlemen’s agreement about recruiting and everybody honored it. And now it’s more like football and basketball where everything is cut-throat, stealing everybody’s players and recruits. I just feel like I’ve been boxed in a little bit recruiting wise over the last couple of years, and you know, I’ve got to take responsibility for that.We’ve tried a lot of different things to offset all of the commentary out there about how we play and how we develop players. it’s something I couldn’t combat.”
Since going 14-13-2 and missing out of the NCAA tournament because of positive COVID tests in 2020-21, the Irish went 28-12-0 and third in the Big Ten the following year before slipping to 16-16-5 and fourth place in the Big Ten in 2022-23 and 15-19-2 and fifth place in the Big Ten last season.
‘I really don’t want to give up coaching, to be honest with you,” Jackson said. “As a coach, you have to change with the times. But college athletics is a mess right now.Notre Dame doesn’t feel this way, but I read somewhere that they don’t want us using the terminology ‘student-athlete’ anymore, and I find that embarrassing. That’s not what college athletics was meant to be.”
Jackson said he came to his decisions about retiring and having Sheahan as his successor after consulting with, among others, Boston College hockey Hall of Fame coach Jerry York, former Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey and retired Duke Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski, who designated current Blue Devils coach Jon Scheyer as his successor.
Sheahan is currently recruiting but expected to be back this weekend when Notre Dame hosts its annual summer reunion and golf outing for past players. Also to be on hand will be the team’s current and incoming players plus long-time associate head coaches Paul Pooley and Andy Slaggert, strength coach Tony Rolinski and trainer Kevin Ricks who have been with him since it began in 2005-06.
It was Slaggert who recruited the 40-year-old Sheahan as a player prior to Jackson’s arrival. After coaching positions in college, the United States Hockey League and the American Hockey League, Sheahan returned to his alma mater prior to last season as a third associate head coach. Both former athletic director Jack Swarbrick and current athletic director Pete Bevacqua never hesitated as Jackson sought Sheehan to be his successor after he spent one more final season behind the Irish bench.
“My one request when I made this decision a month ago was to keep it quiet because I wanted personally to be the one telling the guys what my plan was moving forward,” said Jackson, who told his players Monday. Jackson said his players reacted with hugs for both him and Sheahan.
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Jackson said he will be at Lake Superior State next weekend for a reunion of his two teams that won NCAA titles in 1992 and 1994. The Irish coach got emotional about two members of the latter team, Sean Tallaire and Blaine Lacher, who both died earlier this year.
Healthwise, Jackson said he is in good shape except for his eyes. He has been blind in one for several years, and he’s now dealing with a cataract issue in his good eye that will eventually need surgery.
“This is not a health decision,” Jackson said. “It was a decision about the program. … We’re determined to focus on the coming year. I want to get our guys back in the right frame of mind and understand it’s business as usual. You know, get back to where we were, in the mix for the NCAA tournament, the top four of the Big Ten, and to just focus on what we can do to make that happen.”
