Welcome to burn it all down. I'm

the sports and feminist podcast you need.

I'm Brenda Elsie, and what follows is an interview that I conducted with co-host Amira Rose Davis with Jack Swarbrick, the athletic director for Notre Dame.

We were there to record a live show, and Jack was nice enough to give us a little time.

He's been instrumental as befits the importance of Notre Dame in the college athletics landscape in responding to the

challenges and navigating the challenges of the NCAA as it changes with NIL, with other factors in

college athletics. So here you go. Yeah, we really just wanted to talk to about how you came

into this position and what it looks like to run a modern day athletic department. And we have a few

other questions. Yeah, that's our starting point. You know, how do you, how do you get to be here,

your interest? Your, your...

Mine was a very non-traditional path.

Out of law school, I chose to move to Indianapolis because I wanted to get involved in the community.

And I thought I could get involved there more quickly than in the West Coast cities I had interviewed it.

I was at Stanford Law, so I interviewed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle.

When I moved to Indianapolis, they had just launched a major economic development strategy around amateur sports. A brilliant strategy, I'd say that because I didn't help create it, that really

reacted to the fact that Congress was in the process of passing the Amateur Sports Act.

The Amateur Sports Act took the national, created the national governing bodies in the United States, sort of broke

up the AAU, gave the sports their autonomy.

The city had a strategy for attracting as many of these new businesses as they could.

So they did.

And then building facilities that supported those national governing bodies and hosting

major events.

...