John Riordan: Fighting Irish knocked down by exit of most successful coach ever

Once the most coveted job in American football, Notre Dame lost Brian Kelly to a higher paying role at Louisiana State University

Brian Kelly was the head coach of the iconic Notre Dame football team until he jumped ship this week after almost 12 seasons with the best record of any Fighting Irish coach, doing so at the worst possible moment for the college.

When you think of what an Irish-American born in the baby boom generation should look and sound like, they don’t fit the mould much better than Brian Kelly.

Cherub-cheeked and God-fearing, he grew up in a Boston suburb, just north of the Charles River where his father was an alderman and his grandfather was a Boston cop. The generation before that was off-the-boat Ireland-born and the adherence to the perceived ways of the old country was a defining characteristic of how he grew up.