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Notre Dame's men's basketball

Photo/Heather Gollatz

Doherty, shown right playing Bookstore Basketball at Notre Dame, helped coach the Jayhawks to the NCAA tournament every season he worked in Lawrence. Kansas made it to the Final Four in 1993 and the Elite Eight in 1996.

At the press conference announcing Doherty's hiring March 30, 1999, Athletic Director Micahel A. Wadsworth said, "We were looking for a coach that is going to be able to bring this program to the point where it will be competing in the Final Four, so we wanted somebody who knows how to win. . . . Matt Doherty's experience demonstrates just that."

Wadsworth said Doherty was on a list of "22 to 25 names, all men very well known in the basketball profession as fine coaches" that he and Associate Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham compiled following the resignation of John MacLeod on March 30. MacLeod was coach for eight seasons. For assistance in paring down the list, Wadsworth said he and Cunningham consulted a number of famous coaches and former coaches, including Dean Smith, Rick Pitino, Mike Krzyzewski and Doherty's boss at Kansas, Roy Williams, who as an assistant to Smith at North Carolina had recruited Doherty to play for the Tar Heels.

Wadsworth said intensive interviews were conducted with about a dozen candidates, and President Malloy and Executive Vice President E. William Beauchamp took part in the questioning of six finalists. Wadsworth did not name any of the other candidates.

Wadsworth said Doherty was consistently highly recommended for his recruiting prowess. He is credited with helping bring nine McDonald's High School All-Americans to Kansas, including current NBA players Jacques Vaughn, Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce.

"He's extremely mature, he's very knowledgeable as far as the game is concerned, and he has a proven track record as a recruiter," Wadsworth commented. "He's tremendously excited about the opportunity ahead of him here at Notre Dame. We talked to a long list of people involved in basketball, and we didn't find anyone who didn't think Matt Doherty possesses all the qualities you look for in a head basketball coach."

Doherty grew up in an Irish-Catholic family on Long Island, where he starred at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville. He was recruited by several universities besides North Carolina, including Notre Dame. But, surprisingly, he said he had never set foot on Notre Dame's campus before the day of the press conference. Doherty was offered the job in a phone call when he was at an airport in Florida heading back to Kansas from the NCAA tournament's Final Four weekend.

Prematurely gray at 37, the new coach was joined at the press conference by his wife, Kelly, his 19-month-old son, Tucker, and his parents, Mary and Walter Doherty. Choked with emotion, his first words to a Monogram Room filled with reporters, athletic department officials and returning members of the basketball team were, "This is a very proud moment in my life. Everything Notre Dame stands for is how I've tried to lead my life."

Doherty said at the press conference that 10 years ago he set his sights on becoming a head coach. He said he had been aware of his name being mentioned in connection with other openings in the past, but he wasn't interested in moving just anywhere.

"[Former North Carolina Coach] Dean Smith said to me about a year and a half ago, 'Take a job where you can see yourself being for the rest of your life.' The other opportunities that I have been offered, I couldn't see that. I couldn't see myself going into a home of a young man and saying 'come play for me' and wondering if I would be there by the time he graduates."

The 6-8 Doherty started at small forward as a sophomore on North Carolina's national championship team, which in addition to Jordan included Sam Perkins, James Worthy and Jimmy Black. After earning a degree in business administration, he worked for three years on Wall Street as a bond salesman then spent a year as an executive search consultant in Charlotte, North Carolina. He worked two seasons as a color commentator on radio broadcasts of Davidson University (near Charlotte) and other teams' basketball games before spending three seasons as an assistant at Davidson -- whose coach had coached him in high school. Then he joined Williams' staff at Kansas.

Asked if he thought Notre Dame's high admissions standards would pose a difficulty in recruiting, he said, "I don't look at Notre Dame's academic prowess as being difficult. I

look at that as being different in a positive way. . . . It is not a negative in my eyes. Look at what Stanford has done in the PAC 10."

He told reporters he didn't want to back himself into a corner by setting a timetable for the program's success but later said, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that this could be one of the top programs in the country on a consistent basis. I am used to that. I am spoiled by it."

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