How LeBron James is uniquely tied to Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman
The kid from Akron has spoken. LeBron James needs Notre Dame vs. Ohio State “ASAP.”
News came out Tuesday that the Fighting Irish and Buckeyes will open the 2022 season under the lights at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio, at 7:30 p.m. ET on Sept. 3. ABC’s top broadcast crew will be there. ESPN’s College GameDay will get the day going early Saturday morning.
The stars will be out. And maybe even James will be one of them. GameDay personality and Ohio State alum Kirk Hebstreit already invited the Ohio native and big Buckeyes supporter to be there, after all.
James was GameDay’s celebrity guest picker on Oct. 25, 2008, when No. 9 Ohio State hosted No. 3 Penn State. He was a few months removed from winning a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics and days away from starting his sixth NBA season. He’s won four NBA championships since then and just as many regular season NBA MVP awards.
What was Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman doing when a 23-year-old James showed up on campus in Columbus some 14 years ago? Getting ready to play in the game James was brought on to pick. Freeman, a fifth-year senior linebacker, totaled six tackles in a defensive slugfest won by the Nittany Lions, 13-6.
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Freeman is surely hoping for a similar result on Sept. 3: an Ohio State loss against a highly-ranked opponent. The game is almost assuredly going to be a top-10 tilt, just like the one against Penn State nearly a decade and a half ago. It’s quite surreal to think about all that’s occurred since then.
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James went from Cleveland to Miami back to Cleveland and now Los Angeles. Freeman was selected in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL Draft. A medical condition cut his playing career short. He immediately got into coaching as a graduate assistant at Ohio State in 2010. Stops at Kent State, Purdue and Cincinnati preceded his arrival at Notre Dame. Now he’s the head coach there before James, almost exactly one year his senior, has finished his own playing career.
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Who knows if James knew he’d be one of the best to ever play his sport back in 2008. It was early, but he was well on his way. Freeman didn’t know he’d be coaching 14 years later, let alone two years later. The fact that he’s the head coach at a place like Notre Dame so soon might be as remarkable in the college football coaching field as what James has done the basketball court.
And yet, he still hasn’t really done anything. It’s one thing to be trusted enough to earn the title of head coach at Notre Dame. It’s another to do what only five Irish coaches have done before: win a national championship. James will be the first to tell you he couldn’t really take a breather until he won his first ring in 2012. Nine years of regular season brilliance didn’t mean anything until then.
Similarly, No. 1 designations for Notre Dame in the On3 Consensus Football Team Recruiting Rankings don’t mean a thing for Freeman unless he takes that talent and wins the Irish’s 12th all-time national championship with it. Beating James’ beloved Buckeyes on Sept. 3 would go a long way in kick starting the trek toward that goal.
