Oct. 11, 1999
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – On March 30, 1999, the Notre Dame men’s basketball program announced the hiring of its 16th head coach, Matt Doherty. Doherty brings with him not only an intense vision of the future but a storied past in the world of college basketball. Today the Irish Insider examines his career as a player in this three-part series.
Doherty is originally from New York where he attended Holy Trinity High School. In the basketball world he hails from two of the top programs in the nation, North Carolina and Kansas.
He fell under the watchful eye of Bob McKillop at Holy Trinity. Coming out of high school, Doherty was pursued by numerous teams. His top four choices were Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Notre Dame.
“I don’t think that there was anything against Notre Dame,” Doherty said. “The biggest thing really was that I had a good relationship with Dean Smith. I felt very comfortable with him. The other thing was that they were affiliated with the league at the time. Notre Dame was an independent. That was something that I wanted to be a part of was a league race, a league tournament and things like that.”
At the time, the assistant coach at Carolina, Roy Williams convinced him to play for the Tar Heels. North Carolina is where Doherty teamed up with the likes of James Worthy, Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins to tear through the college ranks.
“No one knew that Michael was going to be what he is today,” Doherty said. “We knew that he was going to be special but not that special. James Worthy was great and he is one of the top 50 players ever in the NBA. Sam Perkins, who is like the Energizer bunny, he is still going. I have been blessed.”
Doherty started for Dean Smith’s 1982 championship squad. The team defeated Georgetown in the finals at the Louisiana Superdome. In 1981, the Tar Heels lost to the Hoosiers in the NCAA championship game.
“It is a passion,” Doherty said about North Carolina basketball. “It is the passion that people have for basketball. As sick as it may sound, they joke about it being a religion. Fans and students love North Carolina basketball. Is that the way it should be? Is it healthy? I don’t know. It is just a fact. It is just the way it is.”
He also started in his senior campaign with the likes of Jordan, Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith. The 1984 squad finished the season with a perfect record in the ACC, 14-0.
In his senior season, Doherty entered the record books when he became just the second player in ACC history to accumulate 1,000 career points, 400 rebounds and 400 assists.
“Life is a series of decisions and consequences which arise from the decisions that you make,” Doherty said. “I made a great decision to go to North Carolina. The consequences were that I got to play with Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Sam Perkins and win a National Championship and get to develop some great relationships.”