It was a warm evening as the Notre Dame Football Legends took to the LaBar practice fields for the first of five practices in three days before heading to Tokyo to play in the Notre Dame-Japan Bowl on July 25 at the Tokyo Dome.

The team was dressed in t-shirts and shorts, except for quarterbacks Tony Rice and Gary Godsey, who wore shoulder pads to get used to throwing with gear on again.

Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate, Robby Parris, Kyle McCarthy, Braxston Cave, Mike Golic and younger brother Jake Golic were among the current Irish players who came out to watch the Legends.

Running backs coach Reggie Brooks led the Legends through stretching and it was not surprising that some of the squad’s younger players looked good.

Among those that made it clear through form running that they are ready to play were linebackers Mike Goolsby, Brandon Hoyte, Kurt Belisle and Tyreo Harrison, cornerbacks Jason Beckstrom, Ivory Covington and Ambrose Wooden, safety Deveron Harper, defensive end DC Curry, wide receiver Bobby Brown and offensive lineman Jeremy Akers.

Head coach Lou Holtz did not wait to invoke his trademark humor.

“If a dog is sleeping and a cat goes by, the dog ain’t going to wake up and stretch before chasing that darn cat,” he shouted. “How long do we need to get ready?”

Holtz was only kidding the oldest team that he has ever coached and quickly followed with an “Oh, what a great day.”

Defensive line coach Chris Zorich had a smile on the entire time and yelled, “I’m going to have some fun.”

Former captains Goolsby, Rice, Curry, Brandon Hoyte and Melvin Dansby led the team in stretching. It was interesting to listen to the former teammates catch up and talk about their lives and children while reminiscing about old times.

Covington and Harper talked about their kids while Israel searched for a barber. Cornerback Benny Guilbeaux recalled the time that Brown asked him for a haircut when he was a freshman and Guilbeaux said that he could hook him up.

“A couple of minutes later, Bobby’s afro was gone and he was bald,” Guilbeaux laughed.

After stretching, the team went over its kickoff coverage and it was obvious from the start that Holtz is taking this very serious. Most of kicker Scott Cengia’s kicks sailed close to the end zone and Holtz made sure to explain exactly what he wanted each of the players covering to do.

Holtz had no problem yelling at players who did not do what he asked during the entire practice, but he was much quicker to forgive them than he would have been 15 years ago.

While the offense worked on its field goal and extra-point unit, the defense quickly walked through some things on the other end.

The first defense to line up had Wooden, Beckstrom, Brian Magee and Tim Kenney in the secondary with Hoyte, Harrison and Belisle at linebacker and Dansby, Matt Hasbrook, Dwight Stephenson and Ryan Roberts up front.

When the offense broke up into positions, Holtz stayed with Rice and Godsey and had his son and current East Carolina coach Skip Holtz come out to help the quarterbacks with their fundamentals on running veer plays out of the shotgun.

It is obvious that some of Lou’s humor rubbed off on his son. When his father beckoned him onto the field, Skip joked, “What do you want me to teach Tony how to throw?”

Then when Skip was showing Rice the footwork for a bubble screen, he made sure to be clear saying, “This (play) is going to give you the chance to get some passing yards. This is going to be good for you, OK?”

Neither quarterback looked especially sharp, but both seemed physically fit and Godsey is just a monster.

The wide receivers practiced some short routes while the running backs worked on their footwork and hitting holes. Brown is clearly the Irish’s most dangerous receiver while Dean Lytle appears to be the top fullback with Ray Zellars, Pernell Taylor and Jay Vickers all looking good at tailback.

It started raining pretty steadily in the middle of practice and Holtz shouted to some of the family members on the sideline to borrow an umbrella before an assistant quickly threw a jacket over him.

It is obvious that experience is a reunion of sorts for the family members in attendance as well. They got together to sing the Victory March, 1812 Overture and chanted “Lou Holtz!!! Lou Holtz!!!” and “Hall of Fame!!! Hall of Fame!!!”

The offensive and defensive skills guys got together for pass skeleton and Goolsby shouted to Holtz, “You need to put me at tight end Coach.”

The first defensive group in pass skel differed from the initial first group as Covington and Ajani Sanders started at cornerback with Harper and Israel at safety and Goolsby, Joe Brockington and Bobbie Howard at linebacker.

The defense owned the first half of the drill as Rice and Godsey both struggled to complete passes and Wooden picked off a pass to the excitement of his teammates. Rice finally got going with a completed pass over the middle to Tim O’Neill followed by a deep ball down the sideline to Brown and a completion to Nate Schomas.

Godsey completed a pass to O’Neill over the middle, but Holtz made it clear to O’Neill that he did not run the right route. Godsey was picked off by Howard on the final play of the session.

Holtz had to whistle an end to practice about 20 minutes early because of lightning, but it was obvious that everybody got a good workout.

I got some time with Coach Holtz after the practice so look for a story on that conversation tomorrow.