Former ND athletic director, basketball great Dick Rosenthal passes away

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) - The University of Notre Dame is mourning the loss of an Irish legend, as Richard (Dick) Rosenthal passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91, according to our reporting partners at the South Bend Tribune.

During his time in college, Rosenthal was a great basketball player for Notre Dame and then went on to be the the director of athletics.

Rosenthal played at Notre Dame from 1951-1954, where he was an All-American, a team captain, and the all-time leading scorer of his era (1,227 points). He was selected by the Fort Wayne Pistons with the fourth overall pick in the 1954 NBA Draft and played three seasons before retiring to pursue a successful banking career.

Notre Dame tapped Rosenthal to become its athletic director in 1987. According to FightingIrish.com, he oversaw several key developments during his tenure at the helm of Fighting Irish athletics, including:

• The first exclusive television contract with NBC in 1991
• The move of Irish Olympic sports into the Big East Conference in 1995
• The expansion of Notre Dame Stadium from just over 59,000 seats to 80,000 in 1997
• The addition of six women’s varsity sports (golf, soccer, softball, track and field, lacrosse and rowing)

Rosenthal is also the last athletic director to oversee a national championship in football in 1988.

Former Notre Dame women’s basketball head coach Muffet McGraw, who started at the same time as Rosenthal, spoke with our WNDU 16 Sports team about his impact on Irish athletics.

“The first thing that I remember feeling really good about Dick Rosenthal was that he was a dad with a lot of daughters that played sports,” McGraw said. “He was so interested in women’s basketball but in all women’s sports. He was really dedicated. He took all of our women’s sports to the pinnacle. He came in with kind of a renewed interest of lets get these programs up to championship level. He hired great coaches. He was visibly supportive at all the events around campus. He mentored us as women and tried to get us more fans, more marketing. He was hands on. He met with people about how to get more players and how do we get more recruits. What do we do here, how do we get more marketing, how do we get more people in the stands He really was the one that got us started on the path that we took.”

A Mass of Christian Burial for Rosenthal will be celebrated at The Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus on June 26 at 2:30 p.m. The Mass will be livestreamed here.