SOUTH BEND – Someday for former Notre Dame football assistant coach Pete Cordelli recently surfaced.
Finally.
For years, for decades, for seemingly ever, Cordelli corralled countless cardboard boxes filled with who-knows-what in his basement. His wife of 42 years, Lorri, often asked if he planned to do something about those boxes. Go through them. Maybe toss them. Clean out – and clear out – the clutter.
Cordelli figured he’d eventually get to it, and then 10 years passed. Then 20. Then, more than 30. Recently, after undergoing rotator cuff surgery, Cordelli had too much downtime. Time around the house. Time to remember. Time to bust open those boxes and take a trip back in time.
A trip back to Notre Dame.
“I said, ‘I need to go through some of this junk; I don’t even know what it is,’” Cordelli said last week from his home outside Memphis, Tennessee. “All of a sudden, I’m finding this stuff and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God.’”
Those boxes opened back up a former life for the 71-year-old Cordelli. Stacked inside were some spiral notebooks, legal pads, game programs and media guides. And memories of five seasons (1986-90) as an assistant coach at Notre Dame, where he tutored quarterbacks and wide receivers for head coach Lou Holtz.
Holtz had a policy then that he learned while working for Woody Hayes at Ohio State – assign one person, ideally, one assistant coach, to take notes in every staff meeting. That person, that assistant coach, would take the notes to an administrative assistant and have copies made for the entire staff to scan.
Cordelli was the staff meeting stenographer at…
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Publish date : 2025-06-05 17:08:00
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