Who is Fred Hale? What we know about Notre Dame's interim strength coach
After the sudden resignation of director of sports performances Matt Balis, Notre Dame tabbed associate director of football strength and conditioning Fred Hale as replacement, at least for now.
“For the time being, Fred Hale will lead our strength and conditioning program,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said in a press release. “We have an innovative sports performance team who collaborated with Coach Balis and me in designing our program and Fred will continue to implement that plan.”
That begs the question: who is Fred Hale? Here’s what we know about a now-vital member of Notre Dame’s coaching staff.
Hale worked at Eastern Michigan for seven years
Hale joined the strength and conditioning staff at Eastern Michigan in January 2014, and he worked there until taking a job with Notre Dame in February 2021. He started as an assistant strength and conditioning coach before becoming a co-director of sports performance in 2016.
At Eastern Michigan, Hale did an interview with the Eastern Michigan newsletter The Ypsilanti 11 in May 2020, primarily about leading the Eagles through workouts during COVID-19 lockdown. He also talked about the relationship between a strength coach and their players as a whole.
“I think those relationships get overlooked too because when people think sports, people think game days,” Hale said. “When you think of coaches, especially from a sports performance side, we’re used to seeing them every single day whether they have to lift or not. It’s all those days in between that lead up to those games that you don’t think about, and that’s where we kind of live.”
Before that, Hale worked for Tennessee and the Buffalo Bills
At Tennessee, where Hale was a strength and conditioning assistant, he worked under current Washington football strength and conditioning coach Ron McKeefery. In 2019, he went on McKeefery’s podcast, Iron Game Chalk Talk.
“It’s so cool to see the journey,” McKeefery said at the time. “[I feel] like a proud older brother.”
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On the podcast, Hale discussed, among other things, the lessons he learned from “putting together a new facility” at Eastern Michigan that took place when he was there. The timetable is to be determined, but Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick told Blue & Gold’s Tyler Horka in July that fundraising for a remodeled Guglielmino Athletics Complex will begin soon.
“Have a list of everything you saw, you liked, the prices, if you can find them,” Hale said. “Get to know these vendors, because they can be your friend. A long way down the road, they can help you out.”
He also said having a good relationship with the athletics director is valuable, because then the strength coach will have more of a say on the process.
In between Tennessee and Eastern Michigan, Hale was a performance coach at the Power Train Sports Institute from April 2013 to January 2014. He interned with the Bills from May 2012 to September 2012, before taking the job with Tennessee.
Hale was a Division II All-American football player
Hale played football and wrestled at Mercyhurst University, where he was an all-conference and All-American athlete in both sports.
As a graduate student at Mercyhurst, Hale worked with the rowing team. That rowing team won the Dad Vail Regatta, which Eastern Michigan’s website describes as “the largest collegiate regatta in the United States,” while he was there. While that was going on, Hale earned his master’s in exercise science in 2012.
Hale went to high school at Mentor (Ohio), where he was an all-state football player and wrestler.
