SOUTH BEND — As season-ending injuries have piled up and the stakes have risen for Notre Dame football, still alive in the College Football Playoff and set to face No. 2 Georgia on New Year’s Day, thoughts will drift back to late July and guest speaker Brian Johnson.
As fall training camp was set to open, coach Marcus Freeman and his third-edition Irish roster, the most talented in his brief tenure, sat in rapt attention as the group heard inspirational messages from the author of “Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential.”
“They gave us the book, plus they gave us the app and T-shirts and everything,” sophomore cornerback Christian Gray recalled earlier this season. “Blew my mind. I’m like, ‘Wow, Bo knows what he’s talking about.’ “
Gray’s most heroic moment in a 12-1 season came on Thanksgiving weekend in Los Angeles. USC targeted Gray all afternoon until he finally rose up, made a goal-line interception and returned it 99 yards for a game-clinching touchdown.
That’s “Areté,” the life-skills concept adapted from the Stoic philosophers and loosely translated, according to Johnson’s website, as “virtue” or “excellence.”
With doorstop-level heft at a brisk 1,060 pages, the bestselling book includes some 451 motivational ideas distilled and updated for the modern world.
“Just thinking about that, I’m like, ‘Wow,’ “ Gray said. “If I have this, plus I have the faith and my relationship with God and Jesus, the sky is the limit.”
Wide receiver Beaux Collins, the Clemson graduate transfer who leads the Irish in receptions and receiving yardage, remembers Johnson’s visit well.
“He was kind of teaching us how to think the correct way, really,” Collins said. “It all starts with your mind and positivity. What I’ve gained from that is just go into every situation with an open, clear mind. Don’t have any pre-judgments.”
Having previously discovered the work of James Allen, a British philosopher and author of “As a Man Thinketh,” the 1902 book that launched the modern self-help movement, Collins took added strength from Johnson’s high-energy presentation.
“That was a little while ago,” Collins said. “But just small things like that, little nuggets. Now and then, I’ll remember.”
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An unabashed seeker of higher truths and motivational techniques, Freeman introduced his flock to Marcus Aurelius and the stoics before the 2023 season. Seniors were each given a chapter to read from “Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control,” by bestselling author Ryan Holiday.
That reading assignment was then incorporated into each’s senior speech to the team during fall camp.
A conversation with General Bryan P. Fenton, a Notre Dame graduate and commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, sparked Freeman’s interest in the “Areté” series.
“I was introduced to Brian through General Fenton,” Freeman said this week. “I don’t bring in many speakers to speak to our team, but (Johnson) was a guy that we did bring in. He came and spent some time with our players. He gave them his ‘heroic’ book. We’re always looking for ways to improve as an individual.”
Freeman doesn’t just incorporate suggestions without reading through the material. As the Irish navigated the psychological challenges of a three-loss disappointment, Freeman openly used the term “antifragile” in explaining the desired mindset he was emphasizing to Notre Dame’s players.
Sure enough, one of the foundational mantras in “Areté” is “Discipline: I forge antifragile confidence with every action I take.”
Others that might have resonance in a college football context include:
∎ “Courage: I am willing to act in the presence of fear;”
∎ “Hope: I have inspiring goals, agency and pathways;”
∎ “Curiosity: I play attention to what’s working and what needs work;”
∎ “Zest: I dominate my fundamentals, so I have heroic energy.”
Reflecting on Johnson’s message and its influence on an Irish program trying to scale a national championship peak that hasn’t been reached in 36 years, Freeman paraphrased some of the highlights.
“Basically, it was, ‘How do you become the best version of you?’ and different things that help you, as an individual, have the right mindset for each day,” Freeman said. “The only thing I can control first is being the best version of me. I can’t worry about being the best head coach right now. I’ve got to be the best version of me, which is going to make me the best head coach I can be.
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“It’s the same thing with our players and our coaches. Don’t worry about being the best at your position right now. You’ve got to be the best version of you, which is going to make you the best at your position.”
Words matter to Freeman. So does repetition.
That’s why “Reload” has become a favorite refrain this fall, right up there with “Choose Hard” and “Challenge Everything” and “Win the 170.”
In August, Gray noted a subtle adjustment to another well-worn sports reminder. “Refuse to Lose,” the cornerback noted, had been changed to “Find a way to win” around the Irish football facility.
The latter carried more positivity, it seemed.
“What I’m now taking in is the wisdom,” Gray said then. “The wisdom, really, I’m just like, ‘Wow.’ Even though I’m growing right now— still a sophomore, I’m 19 years old — I want to have more wisdom so I can help the young ones and better myself and the future of what I can choose and what I need to do.”
Backup quarterback Steve Angeli, forced to exhibit uncommon patience as he waits for a chance to win the starting job in 2025, took heed of Johnson’s message as well. He noted Loren Landow, hired last December as Notre Dame’s director of football performance, was an advocate of “Areté” as well.
“That book was given to all of us,” Angeli said during fall camp. “People in the program like Coach Landow, Coach Free and then other coaches, mostly on the strength staff, have known about ‘Areté’ and that type of training, that type of mindset.”
Amid the year-round grind of college football in the transfer portal era, players are constantly in search of something new to stoke their inner fire. At Notre Dame, that typically means more reading material from the “heroic” realm.
“We’re reading ‘Areté’ right now; it’s an interesting book,” fourth-year offensive guard Rocco Spindler said during fall camp. “Some chapters might mean a lot more to some guys and some not to others. It’s really just taking it in. I’ve been using the calm app and having a diffuser in my room.”
Nearly five months after Johnson’s visit, the No. 7 seed in the CFP could draw upon ancient lessons in hopes of knocking out the SEC champions in the Big Easy.
As Angeli said in the preseason: “Whenever guys are going through stuff or if they hear something, (coaches) will sometimes recommend a chapter or a page to go look at, which is pretty cool.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
