When looking for a character check on a young man’s legacy that stands strong almost three years after his high school graduation, a quick call to the folks at St. Viator near Chicago provides everything necessary regarding their proud alumnus turned multi-sport Notre Dame athlete Cole Kmet.
Not even the high school’s athletic secretary could keep from weighing in on the inquiry, saying, “We wish we had 20 more Coles moving through here.”
Mike Manno, Kmet’s high school baseball coach, called his former student “a once in a lifetime young man.”
Dick Corbett Head Football Coach Brian Kelly agreed, saying that his junior tight end is a “very unique and mature young man. … You don’t find many like him.”
So, what exactly is it about this engaging student-athlete that so readily impresses everyone around him?
“His drive for excellence, his drive to make people better,” Manno explained. “I can tell you that he’s made me a better baseball coach and a better person just being around him.”
And Kmet is equally thankful and complimentary to the coaches, clergy and teachers back at St. Viator who helped steer him to Notre Dame.
“Going to school there, it taught me how to do the right things off the field,” he said. “Even though being a good athlete has brought me a lot of success, it’s more important what you do off the field and how you support your community.”
Quick Healer
Happy and healthy now, Kmet’s football career at Notre Dame hasn’t always stayed on script.
During the past 14 months, Kmet has rehabbed a high-ankle sprain that cost him two football games in 2018, a wear-and-tear tendon injury in his left elbow that cut short his 2019 baseball season and, most recently, a broken collarbone and subsequent surgery that kept him out of the first two games of this football season.
In kind of a freak injury August 8 — only five practices into this latest training camp — something didn’t feel right after Kmet got tangled up with Irish senior safety Alohi Gillman during a red-zone passing drill at Culver Academies.
“I thought maybe it was dislocated or something,” Kmet recalled of his initial reaction. “So I tried to pop it and I was like, ‘No, that’s not right.’”
Typical recovery time for a broken collarbone is six to eight weeks.
“I was bummed out,” said Kmet, who had a metal plate surgically implanted to keep everything in place. “But you have to look at it in perspective.”
Fewer than five weeks after the injury, Kmet was back at practice and then was at full health and ready to roll in Game 3 against Georgia when he made nine receptions for 108 yards with a touchdown grab, exactly six weeks after his injury.
“I only missed a couple of games,” Kmet said. “This could’ve happened later in camp. I was fortunate I was able to come back for the rest of the season.”
Kmet said that he physically felt fine upon his return. Shaking off some preparation rust was his greatest challenge.
“They told me with the plate I was good, and it was going to hold up, so I just went for it,” Kmet explained. “I had no tentativeness at all.”
Despite missing two games, Kmet has proven to be not only a quick healer but also a steady producer, already chasing down the team lead this season in both receptions and touchdown catches.
“I feel like I am only going to get more comfortable on the field and only get better each week,” Kmet said of his progress. “You just kind of feel the game more and more after being out.”