"Obviously it means I've been around a long time."
Notre Dame head coach, Lewis Cook, has been in the trenches nearly four decades.
Some of his fondest memories, dating back to the good old days of the 80's, where building chemistry was key.
"Back then when I first started it was 8mm rolls of film and we had to take it to a lab in Lafayette after the game and you could either drop it off or pick it up at the bus station on Saturday morning or wait for it until 2 in the morning and carry it home", Cook recalls. "I miss a little bit of that sometimes because iPhones have taken away communication and person to person communication away. And you go sit down with the coaches, sometimes we'd meet somewhere to even have breakfast together."
But now in the new age of the game, Cook has learned to adjust.
"Nothing has really changed as far as how we practice and what we expect from the players and the training."
It's the perfect blend of adjustment and his old school coaching that's kept Notre Dame as a state powerhouse. But on a more personal level, Cook continues to raise the bar of success as he reached yet another major milestone.
"I wanted to be a head high school coach obviously. I wanted to coach a team to a championship game and win a championship but never considered as a goal to win a certain number of wins."
After round one of this year's playoffs, Cook is now 400 wins wiser. He's one of only three head football coaches in Louisiana with this honor.
"I had 100 wins when I got here, between Rayne and Crowley. I was a head coach 4 years at Rayne and 8 at Crowley", says Cook. "The next 300 came here at Notre Dame and ironically 200 came in the first round of the playoffs and 400 came first round of the playoffs."
Cook has tackled many obstacles through his 39 years as head coach. 3 programs, numerous championship appearances and 5 rings. He says wins are always worth it, but the real reward is coaching boys into young men.
"One of the words we use the least around here is winning. We talk about doing it right. Do right and work hard. If you do those two things, a lot of times it's going to be a win for us."
And Cook's passion for coaching is the same now, as it was on the very first down.
"It is something special and like I said, it wasn't anything that I ever planned. I just enjoy still coaching. That's the beauty of it... that I can still do this and happy to have the opportunity to do it."
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