Business finished: Pat Coogan completes improbable journey with a national title
The charismatic Indiana center goes 1-on-1 with The Inside Zone after winning it all
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Pat Coogan was struggling to pump out breaths. Arm-in-arm with his head coach on the field, Coogan exhaled as best as he could — in and out, in and out through swollen cheeks — the words to the alma mater never really making their way through his lips.
His team had just lost in the national championship game. In the locker room, this hit even harder. His head was down, no defense in the world strong enough to keep the tears from flowing.
He knew that he had probably just played his last game in the uniform of the team that he had adored since childhood. To come up just short on the final night of the season — and to come to grips with it — burned in the way that only a football player can ever really feel.
Now he had carried all of that with him to the final night of this season. Now it was five past midnight, which meant that it was one year to the day of that lowest of lows.
Now he was a national champion. In an Indiana jersey, not a Notre Dame one.
And he knew that he would not be standing here and would not be able to say just that without all of the lessons he had learned from the four previous years with the Irish.
“Immediately what comes to mind is what Freeman always said: ‘It’s gotta be that way,’ ” Coogan told The Inside Zone, referring to how Irish coach Marcus Freeman often preaches that everything his players want to accomplish is “on the other side of hard.”
