Inside an improbable night for a former Notre Dame men’s basketball captain turned head coach
from Tom Noie South Bend Tribune
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SOUTH BEND — How do you put a time limit on a dream?
On a moment that you wish would never end? A moment that you want to pause so you can take a minute to catch your breath, sit in silence and understand what this one night, this one week, means.
For 40 minutes on the floor of Purcell Pavilion, a floor he called home as a Notre Dame men’s basketball player and a team captain in the 1990s, Billy Taylor coached his you-know-what off as his Elon men’s basketball team beat an Atlantic Coast Conference team on its home court.
It beat an ACC team that paid his team to come to town … and lose.
Elon just didn’t beat Notre Dame. For a long stretch, for key stretches, it was the better team. The better prepared team. The team that believed it would get this to a close game in the closing minutes and figure it out at the end.
“This just means so much,” Taylor said. “It’s going to take a little time to digest it. It’s been an emotional whirlwind the past 48 hours.”
Elon’s 84-77 win sent Notre Dame to its first loss after four wins to start the season. Sent it in many ways back to the basics of being better on the defensive end. How head coach Micah Shrewsberry and a group of wounded Irish felt after this one would have to wait for another time.
This night belonged to the 51-year-old Taylor, who walked away from a career in accounting with one of the then-Big Six firms (Arthur Andersen) decades ago to wear a whistle and diagram plays on a clipboard and maybe win some big games and have some big moments like Friday as a basketball coach.
After 40 minutes, Taylor was numb. Like, that’s it? They won?
“Surreal,” he said. “You’re just looking at the clock like, there’s got to be more time, right? There’s got to be more that we have to do.”
Former Notre Dame forward, team captain and assistant coach Billy Taylor returned to Purcell Pavilion for the second time as a head coach. For the first time, he left with a win over his alma mater.
An emotional week for the former Irish captain
After a celebratory water dousing in the locker room — his second of the week — Taylor changed clothes and slid into a seat in the Hammes Auditorium to meet the media. It was like going back in time. Those glass doors out in the hallway? That’s where the Notre Dame men’s basketball offices were located long before Rolfs Hall became a reality. That seat up there in the last row? The one in the corner? That’s where he sat during his official visit as a 17-year-old high school kid when former Irish head coach Digger Phelps offered the Aurora, Illinois native a scholarship.
Phelps was on hand Friday. He met with the Elon team in pre-game. He also slipped Taylor one of his signature mementos — a black Sharpie marker with “Digger Phelps” in script on the side.
Taylor slid the Sharpie into his back pants pocket. Maybe, he thought, it would bring him some luck of the Irish. Later that night, Taylor took the Sharpie from his pocket and stuffed it in his tan backpack. He was keeping that baby.
On Thursday, Taylor served as part head coach/part campus tour guide. He took his players to the Grotto. He took them to the Golden Dome. He took them to all the spots he remembered as a student-athlete. On Friday, he took them to the gym he once called home before the Phoenix took him on a memorable ride.
“We just knew this was a big deal for him,” said Elon guard Nick Dorn, who led the Phoenix (3-2) with 24 points. “We had to pull it out for him. We knew this meant a lot to him. It’s amazing.”
Friday’s win capped an emotionally draining/personally fulfilling week for Taylor. Prior to the trip to South Bend, Taylor scheduled a game at Northern Illinois. It served a dual purpose — playing at Northern Illinois would give Elon another chance to test itself on the road. It also allowed Taylor, in a way, to pay respects to his late father. Offer him one more way to say thanks, Pops.
Taylor’s father, Dennis, died in September 2023. He was 72. He played basketball at Northern Illinois. That road trip back to DeKalb, and the subsequent bus ride to South Bend on Wednesday, meant something.
So did Friday. It wasn’t just Elon beating Notre Dame. It was Taylor realizing why he wanted to give head coaching one more shot. Why he so loves this game — for these moments.
“I don’t want to break down up here, honestly,” Taylor said post-game. “There’s just so much.”
Elon coach Billy Taylor returned to his alma mater on Friday and left with a victory over Notre Dame.
This was no fluke — Elon earned this one
During shoot-around, Taylor eased into a seat on the Irish bench. All those days and nights as a player from 1991 to 1995 rushed back. Those nights as a glue-guy kind of a player. Those days as a young and hungry and wide-eyed Irish assistant. He thought of all the people that helped him at Notre Dame. Like Phelps. Like the late John MacLeod, the former Irish head coach who gave Taylor his start in the coaching business nearly 30 years ago. Like former Irish assistant coach Fran McCaffery, who remains Taylor’s closest mentor/big brother in this crazy profession.
“He is family to me,” Taylor said.
Sitting at the post-game dais in Hammes was almost too much. Taylor fought off tears as he discussed what had just happened, and what it all meant.
“This is all very weird,” he said. “Just the emotions of this moment are somewhat overwhelming.”
During Taylor’s presser, good friend LaPhonso Ellis, who was in Des Moines, Iowa watching his son, Walter, in an NBA G League game, texted a reporter when the Irish score went final. Were the Irish that bad or was Elon that good, Ellis wondered.
“Our guys were really good,” Taylor said.
After his presser, Taylor returned to the area behind the visitor’s bench, where 50 family members and friends waited. He worked his way between sections 2 and 3 with the final stats sheet still in his left (shooting) hand. He hugged everyone who wanted a hug. He shook hands. He exchanged high-fives and smiles. He laughed.
With each passing minute — five, 10, 15 — none of it still seemed any more real than when the final horn sounded.
Fifteen minutes, someone in the Elon traveling party called out, indicating the bus was about ready to leave for South Bend International Airport where a charter flight waited to take the Elon traveling party back to North Carolina.
Taylor kept talking, kept smiling, kept accepting congratulations and kept thanking people for the support.
Ten minutes, called the same voice.
Ten minutes, and too much still to do. A courtside interview with the team’s radio broadcaster. A walk back to the Elon locker room, where his backpack still sat, untouched. Entering the locker room felt a lot like walking back into 1995 — his senior season. Taylor checked his cell phone.
Ninety-four text messages waited. It was still early. McCaffery and Iowa were still playing (and losing) a couple hundred miles away in Iowa City. When that game went final, he figured to spend some time on the phone with the guy he refers to as Coach Fran.
Finally, nearly an hour after the final horn, the arena was nearly empty. Elon players and administrators were on the bus and ready to get home. The only person that was left with Taylor and retired South Bend police officer Ron Glon, who is the personal body man for every visiting men’s basketball head coach. He stays with them until they leave.
Leave Taylor did, out the arena receiving door and aboard the bus. Next stop, the airport, Then, the plane. It was airborne at 11:28 p.m. and landed in Burlington, North Carolina at 12:46 a.m.
Maybe by then, it would all seem real. The game. The effort. The moment. The night. The week.
Time cannot take them from Taylor. They’re his. Forever.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com