Digger Phelps Author

Richard “Digger” Phelps compiled a 393-197 record in twenty years at the helm of Notre Dame’s basketball program, becoming the winningest coach in Fighting Irish history. Fourteen of his teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament, including the 1977-78 team, which reached the Final Four. Phelps’s Irish squads beat a record seven teams that were ranked number one in the nation, including the 71-70 victory over UCLA on January 19, 1974, that ended the Bruins’ record eighty-eight-game winning streak. Since his retirement from coaching he has worked in President George H.W. Bush’s White House administration (1992–93) and provided commentary on college basketball for CBS and ESPN, before retiring in April 2014.
Tim Bourret worked in the Notre Dame sports information office from 1975–78 and traveled with Digger Phelps and the Fighting Irish to the 1978 Final Four. He has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Notre Dame and has served as the sports information director at Clemson University for the last twenty-three years. In 1997 Bourret joined forces with Phelps and Sports Illustrated’s John Walters in writing Basketball for Dummies.