Former Notre Dame Football Player, Stephen Pope, Wins Emmy

Outstanding stunt coordination for drama programming for “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”

I’m thrilled to share some exciting news! On Sunday, September 8th, former Notre Dame football player Stephen Pope won the Emmy for Outstanding Stunt Coordination for drama programming for Mr. & Mrs. Smith during night two of the Television Academy’s 76th Creative Arts Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

To celebrate this achievement, I’m sharing a portion of Stephen’s chapter from Triumphs From Notre Dame: Echoes of Her Loyal Sons and Daughters. His journey from the football field to the world of television stunts is a testament to his dedication and resilience. Stay tuned for an inspiring look into the life of a Notre Dame graduate whose work continues to shine!

Stephen Pope – The Notre Dame Years

A team is made up of players with not only diverse talent levels, but diverse personalities as well. This can be good, as it helps each player to grow based on their teammates pushing them on; it can be challenging as well. The Notre Dame Value Stream knows exactly what to do to take this diversity and turn it into something incredible.

“Ricky Watters, Tony Brooks, Andre Jones and Todd Lyght were the rock stars of Notre Dame when I came in as a freshman. They were seniors that year, and had just won the national championship the year before. I was lined up across from Ricky my freshman year, and I was pretty uneducated when it came to Notre Dame Football. Yes, they had won the national title the year before, but I didn’t follow Notre Dame Football. They weren’t my squad, I followed west coast teams. As a result of my not knowing who the ‘star players’ were, Ricky thought I had disrespected him. And so as a result of him thinking I had disrespected him, in my mind it was his goal every practice to knock me out. I thought he had this personal vendetta against me.”

As a walk-on, you had to prove yourself every day.

“This one day at practice, we’re having this scout team moment where coach is getting on us. He is screaming at the defense to run the play because he’s trying to get his rock stars to actually practice. Meanwhile, Ricky Watters and Todd Lyght and Andre Jones are telling us, ‘we’re seniors. We won a national championship. We’re not getting hurt, we’re going pro. We are not going to practice hard.’ And they let it be known. And Coach Holtz says to them, ‘yeah, you won in ’88, but guess what? This isn’t ’88, and if you actually practice, you have the chance to win it again.’ So I am lined up across from Ricky. It’s a full speed; nobody goes to the ground practice. I’m playing free safety. When we run the play I wrap Ricky up, and he f-cking throws an elbow to my chin and knocks me down, and runs all the way down the field. I’m thinking to myself, ‘what the f-ck was that? I’m being the dude, and coming in, and helping you out.’ We’re doing repetition drills, and so we line back up to run it again, and what do I do? I don’t just wrap him up or knock him down, but I f-cking rock him, and drive him back six yards, and now he’s hot. He immediately comes after me, ‘who the f-ck are you? How dare you?’ and I just say, ‘dude, whatever,’ and walk away. I knew I was a good athlete, and a smart guy; I also knew I could play at Notre Dame if given the chance. As a walk-on, you had to prove yourself every day.”

“Willie Clark lived in my dorm (Morrissey Hall) and then we were roommates for two years. He was a guy who would sleep through class (and still do well), and was incredibly fast on the field, oozing with physical talent. He could walk into practice in flip flops and then turn around and run a killer 40. He was an exceptionally smart guy, however his goals were different than mine: he wanted to go pro after his junior year. We had quite the football crew in Morrissey: myself, Willie Clark, Greg Davis, and Kevin McDougal. I knew that if I could make it through my freshman, sophomore and junior years as a walk on, that I could get a scholarship for my senior year which would take some of the pressure off. I also knew that one out of five seniors from Division I schools made the pros, and at Notre Dame that number was one out of three seniors. I never had really thought about going pro until Coach Holtz threw out the one in three stat; that made me pause. Going into my junior year, I started to look around. I’m better than that guy, and I’m better than that guy; if nothing else, I can go through the free agent process. I already have the mental capacity to stick it out as a walk on at Notre Dame; surely I can go through the rigors of the NFL. And then I got hurt.”

Being a student-athlete at Notre Dame is a challenge no matter what you are studying. But being a student-athlete at Notre Dame who is playing on the football team, and trying to complete a degree in engineering, is more than just “challenging” to say the least. Fortunately for student-athletes who choose to embark on such a demanding path, both on and off the field, the Notre Dame Value Stream is there to show them how to put in the necessary hard work to succeed at such a high level.

“I have a very skewed look at what it was like to be a student-athlete at Notre Dame because I was trying to make it as a ND football walk-on and study engineering at the same time.” What does that mean you ask? “That meant being in a higher level math class at 8 am, taking advanced science classes, and trying to fit labs into your schedule, which usually met when you were supposed to be at football practice. It definitely was extremely challenging, trying to be a successful student and a successful athlete at a school like Notre Dame. You have to be quite organized, you have to accept the fact that you are going to be tired all of the time, and you have to find a way to motivate yourself to keep moving forward.”

“For me, I talked to my dad a lot. We didn’t necessarily talk about the dynamic of being a student-athlete, instead we talked about being a good student and oh yeah, playing a sport, too. For me, and my dad as well, the focus was never on athletics; the focus was on academics. When I went out on that field, I had something to prove to myself and my teammates, but I didn’t have to perform in order to keep my scholarship as I was a walk-on. The great thing about that was it allowed me to focus on my studies; I didn’t have anything to lose. The coaches were happy to have me on the team. I was the guy who ran the scout defense, because the coaches knew I was smart enough to handle it. I happily accepted that role because I understood its importance. I was helping the team win games by preparing the offense for what they were going to see the next week. And the benefit of being a walk-on was that anything good I did was a bonus. The coaches weren’t necessarily looking to me to fill spots. Everything I did was a bonus for the team, which allowed me to focus on my academics more than the scholarship guys were able to do. I didn’t have to fight through the type of adversity that the scholarship athletes had to go through.”

Yep, that’s Notre Dame; they never close.

“The main thing that helped me get through the rigors of Notre Dame was the bond that I shared with the guys. We still talk about that today. We played an incredibly difficult sport, for a top tier program, and at an incredibly difficult school where ethics were critical. And oh, by the way, the winters were brutal. The only time I missed a class because of the snow was during my senior year. I lived off campus, and we had a week where the average temperature was -30F, and two nights it got down to -50F and they closed everything down. They told the whole town, ‘Don’t go out on the roads.’ No public offices are open, basically everything is closed. I would go outside and turn on my beat-up 1982 Audi twice a day just to make sure it would still start, but that was as far as I got from the house. The professors would come in and put notes on their doors, ‘While the university is still open, we will not be having class today.’ Yep, that’s Notre Dame; they never close.”

You realize that you are who you are, and where you are, because of the trials and tribulations that you went through at Notre Dame.

Stephen Pope’s journey from a walk-on at Notre Dame to an Emmy Award-winning stunt coordinator is nothing short of remarkable. His experiences on and off the field reflect the resilience, dedication, and spirit of a true Notre Dame graduate. Whether it was facing the challenges of balancing a rigorous engineering degree with football or proving his worth as a walk-on, Stephen’s story is one of perseverance and triumph. We’re proud to celebrate his success and his contributions to the entertainment industry. For more of Stephen’s inspiring journey, be sure to check out Triumphs From Notre Dame: Echoes of Her Loyal Sons and Daughters.

Cheers & GO IRISH!