TUSCALOOSA, Alabama – A little more than one month after he tearfully had worked his last game as an assistant coach on Paul Bryant's staff, and two or three weeks after the legendary Alabama coach had died, Mal Moore wasn't sure where to go or what to do.

“I didn’t have a job,” he recalled. “I was also looking to get out of coaching. I talked with (former Alabama teammate) Benny Nelson in Huntsville about some possibilities with him. There were a lot of uncertainties in my life.”

Then the home phone rang.

It was Notre Dame coach Gerry Faust.

“I didn’t know him well,” Moore said. “I was shocked when he called. He called on a Sunday morning to see if I would be interested in talking to him and coming up for an interview.”

MOORE WAYS THAN ONE



Mal Moore at Alabama

1958-62 –

Played for coach Paul Bryant, was a backup quarterback on 1961 national championship team

1964-82 –

Coached DBs, then QBs and served eight years as offensive coordinator on Bryant’s staff. Shared in five national championships.

1990-93 –

Offensive coordinator under coach Gene Stallings. Helped Tide win 1992 national championship.

1994-99 –

Associate athletic director.

1999-present –

Athletics director. In 2007, hired Nick Saban, who could win his third national championship at Alabama on Jan. 7. It would be Moore’s 10th ring.

Memory –

The only time Moore was in South Bend, Ind., before he came there for a job interview was for a 1976 Alabama game. Notre Dame won 21-18. Moore remembers Bryant walking on the field before the game and tipping his hat to Notre Dame students as they cheered. Then he took off his top coat and revealed a green sweater. “They went wild,” Moore said. “He kind of worked them.”

Mal Moore at Notre Dame



1983-85 –

Coached running backs – including record-setter Allen Pinkett – on Gerry Faust’s staff. Fighting Irish’s record was 19-16 (7-5 in 1983, 7-5 I ’84 and 5-6 in ’85) before Faust and his assistants were fired. Highlights included a 3-0 record over USC, a 1983 Liberty Bowl victory over Boston College and a 30-22 victory in 1984 at No. 6 LSU. “Coach asked me to talk to the team about what it was like to play in Baton Rouge,” Moore said. “It was a day game. I told them they would enjoy playing there, because people loved football. It was an exciting atmosphere. We went down and won the game. It was a big game for us at the time.”

Memory –

“My first spring, I learned about Bookstore Basketball,” Moore said. “All the dorms had basketball teams, and they played this big tournament. It didn’t matter if you were a football player or whatever, if you were in a dorm, you played. … If we were practicing and one of the running back’s team was playing, we had to let him off from practice. That was a big deal. It was all outdoor courts. It didn’t matter if it was snowing, they played. And they had boxing in the dorms. …”

Moore flew that afternoon from Birmingham to Chicago, then went on to South Bend, Ind., but before he left Tuscaloosa, he had some third thoughts about his second thoughts about continuing a coaching career.

“I told (wife) Charlotte when I left that if they offered a job, I was going to take it,” Moore said.

A few days later in February 1983, three memorable years began as the Fighting Irish’s running backs coach.

Now Moore is Alabama’s athletics director, and perhaps nobody can better understand and appreciate the history and tradition at both of the programs that will meet on Jan. 7 in the BCS Championship Game in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Moore thought his alma mater was special, but he learned it wasn’t unique. He has a soft spot now for Notre Dame because he learned that it had a soft spot then for Bryant and Alabama.

“I had kind of led a sheltered life in the coaching profession,” Moore said. “Very seldom do you stay at one place as long as I did. I played five years and then coached 19 years for Coach Bryant, so I was with him for 24 years. It’s very difficult to leave that way of thinking, that way of doing things, the comfort of that.

“But when this came up, it hit me about the opportunity to coach at Notre Dame. To coach at Alabama and then to coach at Notre Dame would be pretty neat.”

Faust recalls some initial reservations that Moore had.

“I think he was a little dubious at first, because he was from the South, coming north, to a Catholic university,” Faust said. “That might have first caused him to hesitate a little. He came and he fit in perfect. He was a great hire. I couldn’t have asked for a more loyal, hard-working, knowledgeable, good person than Mal Moore.”

It took coaching at Notre Dame to understand and appreciate what Moore had helped Alabama accomplish.

“We had so much great success, we had all kind of taken Coach Bryant for granted,” Moore said.

His first day at Notre Dame made him realize how special the times had been at Alabama. He went to meet Gene Corrigan and was introduced to the athletic director's secretary.

“I looked behind her desk, and there’s a nice picture of Coach Bryant autographed to her and framed,” Moore said.

Corrigan took Moore to Heritage Hall in the Athletic Convocation Center, where trophies are displayed.

"And there's a picture of Coach Bryant, framed, and a letter next to it, framed, that he had written Father (Theodore) Hesburgh after the Sugar Bowl in '73, saying congratulations on the win and what a great game it was and how much Alabama and Notre Dame playing meant to college football," Moore said, referring to Notre Dame's president. "A very impressive letter."

The second day was just as revealing. Assistant coach George Kelly took Moore to Pat's Pub.

“It was a famous Notre Dame hangout,” Moore said. “On one wall, Pat had all the pictures of all the current Notre Dame players, and right in the middle he had a big picture of Coach Bryant. Coach might have been dead, like, a month. They had a light shining on it, and a caption under it that said, ‘Notre Dame fans will miss you, too, Bear.’ And the date of his birth and his death.”

These experiences kept coming through Moore’s third and final year. He recalled a 1985 victory over Southern Cal in South Bend.

"We were all whooping and hollering in the locker room, and in walks Father Hesburgh and Father (Edmund) Joyce in their black suits and white collars," Moore said, referring to the university's chief financial officer. "Father Hesburgh had a black-and-white houndstooth hat, just like Coach Bryant. He was shaking hands with all the players. … He came by me, and I said, 'Father, you look mighty handsome in that hat.' He said, 'Thank you, Mal. Paul gave it to me.' And he pulled it off and it was autographed by Coach Bryant. This was three years after his death."

It took a little time and distance for Moore to recognize what others recognized.

“I didn’t realize what we had here until I saw what other people saw from afar,” he said. “It was kind of an eye-opener. Everybody knew of Coach Bryant and knew about Alabama.

"I didn't know until I went up there that Coach Bryant's coach here was Frank Thomas, and you know how you feel about your coach. Coach Thomas played quarterback for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame. I had lunch with a guy back then in his late 80s that played for Coach Rockne. He told me what Rockne would say in team meetings or games: the same damn things that Coach Bryant said to us, because that's what Frank Thomas said to him. I was simply amazed at the connection."

And he was amazed at the similarities between the two schools.

“The whole time I was there, I still felt like I was working for Alabama,” Moore said. “I loved being there.”

Is it any wonder? Alabama now claims 14 national championships. Notre Dame claims 11. The Irish rank third in the nation in all-time victories (865). Alabama ranks seventh (826).

“There’s no question you felt the power and the name of Notre Dame,” Moore said. “You sensed the history of it.

“There’s a lot of traditions there, as there are here. High expectations, year in, year out. It’s the fast lane. There’s no question it was very comparable to Alabama.”

There are differences, too.

“When I went there, I was shocked at how small the university was,” Moore said. “In your mind, you see it as a huge university because of the great name. When I went there in ’83, there were just over 7,000 students.”

Now the enrollment is 11,816 (8,372 undergraduates). Alabama’s enrollment has surged in recent years and now is 33,602.

“Recruiting for Notre Dame was different,” Moore said. “Because of their academic requirements, if you heard of a great player, you didn’t go see him play. You went straight to the counselor’s office and looked at the transcripts. It didn’t matter how good he was. … So you basically had to recruit the country.”

But the biggest difference is religion.

“The high percentage of people there were Catholics,” Moore said. “I’d never been around a lot of Catholics. They were fun. I’ll say that. They had a good time.

“I’m an old Southern Baptist, but I went to Mass with the team. It was absolutely different. We played Southern Cal in California and took the team on Sunday morning and had Mass at one of the big hotels near Disneyland.”

He recalls 2,000 to 3,000 people gathering in a ballroom.

“Coming out, they sang ‘Amazing Grace,’” Moore said. “I was walking along with Father Joyce, and I said, ‘Well, Father, I was able to help out today.’ I knew that song.”