Matt McGraw came downstairs wearing three shades of green — green coat, green shirt and green scarf wrapped around his neck.
The scarf was what he calls “Muffet green” — for the many times his wife had worn that color while coaching the Notre Dame women’s basketball team.
And the other hues of green? “You don’t match,” Muffet told him.
“Well, I’m color blind,” he retorted.
Then Matt told her what he was really up to. They were getting ready to head to Notre Dame where Muffet’s statue was going to be unveiled and he was going to wrap the scarf around the statue’s neck.
“After I told her, I counted silently to myself, ‘One, two, three, four, five.’ She didn’t say anything. So I figured I was good to go.”
When they arrived on campus, Matt decided he better make sure the sculptor, Ann Hirsch, was also OK with his little plan. She was.
So Matt added some color to the event after Muffet had already supplied the character — 33 seasons of coaching the Irish … 848 victories … nine Final Four appearances … two national championships … and never once a time when she let the university down by her words or actions.
Back to that statue of her: “I think she is both proud and humbled by it,” Matt said. “She feels it stands for all the women, all those who were pioneers — in sports and other endeavors — and who have been fearless in what they do.”
When the McGraws happened to be driving by Muffet’s statue a few days after the Dec. 17 unveiling, they spied former Irish player Rosanne Bohman and her family admiring the sculpture. The McGraws pulled over and joined them. Muffet even playfully held an umbrella over the statue as it sprinkled. She laughed that photo-bombing could be a new and fun thing for her.
Of course, some reverence comes with that revelry. When Matt recently showed Muffet a photo with a statue in the background, she couldn’t make out who it was at first. “That’s Pat Summitt,” he said of the late Tennessee coaching great’s statue on that campus. “People there say, ‘There’s Pat.’”
And that’s the same way it will be at Notre Dame. “There’s Muffet.”
Then there’s Matt. “I’m the chauffeur, the gofer for her,” he said. “Muffet is the smartest person I know. It’s been my honor and pleasure to be right by her side through it all, then and forever.”
Those dynamics have been working for them for 46 years. Matt is now 69 and Muffet is a little younger. “She’s 39,” he said, “and she’s been stuck at that for a while.”
And they live up to the old adage, “Behind every great woman is a great man” — or something like that.
He also answers a lot of questions for her — well, mainly two questions. “The answer is no to both of them. No, she doesn’t miss coaching. No, we’re not moving.”
Muffet has been retired from coaching for more than three years but she is hardly retired. Besides teaching a Sports Management and Organization class in the Mendoza School of Business at ND, she also works as an analyst for the ACC Network, part of ESPN.
That entails traveling to Connecticut for a Thursday studio gig and then commentating from her Granger home on Sundays. Matt drives Muffet to Chicago on Wednesdays so she can catch a flight and then he picks her up on Fridays — staying in the Windy City and often getting a chance to visit with their son Murphy and daughter-in-law Francesca (who are expecting the McGraws’ first grandchild).
When ESPN and Mendoza contacted Muffet, she and Matt were in the process of moving her stuff out of the Joyce Center and into their basement. “But after those calls, she said, ‘By the way, I’m going to need your office,’” Matt recalled with a smile.
She is in that office on Sundays with a camera, a 50-inch TV for one game, her computer on one side of her for another game and Matt’s computer on her other side for a third. Not particularly technologically savvy, they let their son Murph handle that part of the process.
“I pretty much leave her alone while she’s working in there, although the other day, she yelled out, ’What’s for supper? I’m starving,’’’ Matt said. “Muffet has always been a big eater but she burns it off with all her energy.”
Matt is the chef but Muffet is the gardener with plenty of spots in her yard where she can grow flowers and other plants. “When she planted five plants a while ago, she called me over and asked me how they looked. When she left, I whispered to them, ‘Don’t get too comfortable because she may move you around.’”
Just like the basketball tactician she was.
But it’s not all about basketball for Muffet. “I know one coach who made every conversation come back to basketball,” Matt added. “Muffet can talk about anything and is very politically-oriented.”
She continues to be a champion for women’s causes. Matt continues to be her No. 1 fan. She’s the one who was recently honored with a stately statue. He’s the one in the background with the bigger-than-life smile.