University of Notre Dame
The Three Amigos, from left: Frank Stams, Wes Pritchett and Mike Stonebreaker.
A lot of talent, a dash of luck, some leadership and a comedian — every undefeated, top-ranked, on-top-of-the-world Notre Dame team has required one "great clown," Ara Parseghian, the former Fighting Irish coach, said recently.
Then he thought: well, Lou Holtz's 1988 championship team had three.
The Three Amigos they were called: Frank Stams, Wes Pritchett and Mike Stonebreaker. Each was an all-American — Stams at defensive end and the other two at linebacker — and they were self-described "knuckleheads."
In that way, they were the anti-Manti Te'o, this year's star linebacker who leaves the clowning to nose guard Louis Nix III. Te'o, though, would have fit in just fine, the Three Amigos say. They would have made room for a Heisman finalist. They explained their roles: Stams was the sack artist, Pritchett was the hulk in the middle, and Stonebreaker just flew to the ball.
And Te'o, said Stams, "he's all of the Three Amigos combined." Pritchett added a slight caveat, "The Three Amigos were a little bit wilder, I think."
During their first encounter, on Stonebreaker's recruiting visit, Pritchett found him to be cocky. As Pritchett and Stams escorted him around campus to parties, Stonebreaker would sometimes return a joke on cue, and sometimes not respond at all.
"I thought, 'What the heck is this guy's attitude?' Either he was arrogant or just ignoring me," Pritchett said in a recent phone interview. "Then I found out he was deaf in one ear. I felt bad."
Stonebreaker, the smallest of the three at 6 feet, 230 pounds, thought he had been mistakenly paired with an offensive lineman. Pritchett was 6 feet 2 and weighed about 250 pounds. Stams, at about 6-2 and 240, had been a fullback. But in the spring of 1986 he broke his leg in practice and missed the entire season. It proved serendipitous because after Lou Holtz arrived that year, Stams decided he was not fast enough for Holtz's offense.
At a staff meeting the day after the injury, Holtz offered Stams to any position coach willing to have him. Stams was told that Barry Alvarez, the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, raised his hand and said, "I'll take the rum-dum."
Holtz handled the offense and left the defense to Alvarez, who tutored Stams. By 1988, Roger Valdiserri, the longtime sports information director, was calling Stams, Pritchett and Stonebreaker the Three Amigos, after the movie starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short.
"All three of them were happy-go-lucky kids," Valdiserri said.
Said Pritchett: "We were absolutely the most fun guys, yes."
One day at practice in 1988, a play spilled out of bounds near where the news media were standing. Pritchett emerged from the pack and returned to the huddle puffing a cigar, the red glow illuminating his face mask. He had snagged it from a reporter.
Some sort of discretion was necessary, because Holtz was a notorious stickler for discipline, a Brian Kelly type who would yell until he was red in the face. The Three Amigos made it a priority to avoid Holtz at all costs.
"We would smell his pipe coming around the corner and we would all get quiet and sit still," Pritchett said. "Hey, we were scared of him. He was a 145-pound guy who everybody walked around on eggshells."
Their sanctuary was Alvarez's office, where they hung out and talked about life, where Alvarez would sometimes have a sandwich delivered for lunch only to find that Pritchett or Stams had eaten half of it and left a note. It usually read, "Hey, Coach, thanks for the sandwich." They would sign it, Mike Stonebreaker.
Stonebreaker was two years younger, always the straight man of the three, he said. And Alvarez was something of an enabler. Stams called him "a real cool cucumber," for the sunglasses he wore at practice.
Stonebreaker said Alvarez was a coach they could joke with, "but we respected him; there was a fine line there, you know?"
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