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Bryce is Right: Santa Rita grad’s decision to get into coaching lands him at Notre Dame



Bryce Dempsey went from playing at Santa Rita to Valparaiso before embarking on a coaching career that has taken him to Valparaiso as a defensive backs coach, Mercyhurst as a defensive coordinator and now Notre Dame as an analyst (Santa Rita and Valparaiso photos/Dempsey)

From a manager at a Safeway grocery store near Sabino Canyon seven years ago to serving as a defensive analyst at Notre Dame heading into a national title game, Bryce Dempsey’s journey may seem hard to fathom, but he does not see it that way because of the effort involved.

“Coaching for me is second nature,” Dempsey said in a phone interview from South Bend, Ind., earlier this week. “It’s something your passionate about. You’re trying to help those around you achieve their goals.

“You’re just trying to teach and help those guys achieve the small goals, because the big ones are going to come as they go on. That’s how I view opportunities like this at Notre Dame.”

Dempsey, a junior tight end on Santa Rita High School’s team that made it to the state championship game in 2009, will be part of the national championship game with the Fighting Irish on Monday night against Ohio State and Salpointe graduate Lathan Ransom at Atlanta (5:30 p.m., Tucson time, ESPN).

When his college career concluded at Valparaiso in 2014, Dempsey wanted to coach but was uncertain of which path to immediately take after earning a degree in education with a focus on special education.

“When I was in high school, probably my sophomore year, I knew I wanted to get into coaching,” Dempsey said. “At that point, I thought of doing high school coaching, and kind of throughout my time at Valparaiso, I ended up thinking I want to do college coaching.

“I like the recruiting aspect and just being around football all day. I know a lot of teachers in Tucson, a lot of coaches in Tucson who ended up being teachers. Not that I didn’t like teaching, because that’s what I ended up getting my degree in, but I just kind of fell in love with the whole 24/7 coaching life.”

Bryce Dempsey at his Santa Rita graduation in 2011 (Dempsey photo)

The transition from Valparaiso after earning his degree in 2015 to his first college coaching position in 2018 at Mercyhurst University (an NCAA Division II program at the time in Erie, Pa.) included a three-year gap of returning to Tucson to live and sort out his plans. That’s when he became a manager at Safeway.

His good friend Daniel Sainz, an offensive lineman in the same Class of 2011 at Santa Rita, was the offensive line coach at Sahuaro High School under head coach Scott McKee at the time.

Sainz’s football history with Dempsey dates to their days in Tucson Youth Football.

“Bryce was just about the team and would do anything he had to to help his teammates get better,” stated Sainz, who is returning to his head coaching role at Catalina Foothills High School this fall. “Great guy to be around. Very big personality.

“Knowing him as a coach, he is very detailed and organized. He has worked extremely hard to get where he is and deserves all the successes he earns in his career going forward.”

Dempsey’s brother Cole Sterns was a safety and two-time captain for McKee with the Cougars who graduated in 2014 and played at Northern Arizona and SMU.

His sister Brielle Sterns is a Class of 2017 standout at Sahuaro who played volleyball and went on to play at New Mexico State before ending her collegiate career at Texas Tech as a track and field athlete.

“Occasionally, I would go out to Sahuaro with Coach McKee and Danny and help out as a volunteer coach,” Dempsey said about his time back in Tucson after his Valparaiso days. “I helped whenever I was around. During 7-on-7’s, McKee would be like, ‘Hey, can you get the young guys together and kind of warm them up before we’re finishing this game? Just get them warmed up and kind of get going, if, we’re still running late.’

“So I just was more around. Once you’re an athlete and you fall in love with the sport, you just want to be around it and do whatever you can.”

Bryce Dempsey with his siblings Brielle and Cole Sterns, two former standout athletes from Sahuaro (Dempsey photo)

During the summer of 2018, Dempsey received the first break of his coaching career.

He received a call from Valparaiso defensive coordinator Ernest Moore, who asked him if he wanted to return to coach the safeties.

“At the beginning of August that year, I moved up to Valpo and was there for the 2018 season, just coaching the safeties and doing various other things — laundry, whatever miscellaneous kind of things need to get done, just so I could be around and make little extra money,” he said.

A contact alerted him to a job opening at Mercyhurst in 2019. He first worked as the outside linebackers coach that season and later became the defensive line and special teams coordinator before taking on the defensive coordinator role in the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

His opportunity to join Notre Dame as a defensive analyst was generated by a text message from Mercyhurst offensive coordinator Eric Acciani.

“It is a very funny, unusual story that happens in the coaching world,” Dempsey said. “I was in a meeting with the defense. (Acciani) had been coaching at several different places and knew a lot of people. He texted I think 20 minutes into the meeting, ‘Hey, send me a resume.’ I texted back, ‘In a meeting.’ He goes, ‘It’s important.’

“I had the resume in my phone. I had it saved but it hadn’t really been updated. It had that I coordinated in 2022 and it had enough information that if you looked at it, you know I’d been coaching for a while. I sent it to him.”

He forgot he communicated with Acciani until his fiancée (now wife) asked him how his day went when they were at home later that night.

“I called (Acciani) and he told me he sent my resume to Notre Dame because they had an opening,” he said. “I was like, ‘Holy cow! I didn’t even proofread it.’ That’s what opened the door.”

The resume and his interview with Notre Dame and its coaches closed the door.

Dempsey mentioned his first impression of Marcus Freeman is what people see of Notre Dame’s young coach on television — personable, congenial, approachable and accommodating.

“All of our coaches are like that,” Dempsey said. “If you’ve seen any interviews or anything they’ve done on Twitter or any social media, who they are in those interviews is who they are as a person. They’re all fun-loving people.

“They care about the individual, not so much the brand of Notre Dame, if that makes sense. They really want to get to know you as a person. They want to get to know who you are. That’s one thing coach Coach Free did with me. He sat down with me and got to know me as a person. He wants to know, ‘Who’s this guy that I have here, and what is he aspiring to do? And how can I help him?'”

Only 31, Dempsey is at the outset of a special career having already been a defensive coordinator at a Division II program (that is now Division I) and as one of four football analysts at the most storied program in the nation.

“Eventually, I want to get back into a role of being a position coach,” Dempsey said. “I’m in no rush to get back to being a coordinator or a level like that. I’d love to stay here as long as possible. If something else came up that could fit my life and my wife — and now we have a little boy that’s one and a half — if it fits the family aspect as well, I could see myself moving.

“But right now, I’m really just enjoying the ride and the process of what we’re aspiring for on Monday, and then kind of evaluating what comes up after that.”

Dempsey’s work with the defense includes reporting to defensive coordinator Al Golden and the position coaches. He has integrated the system with the incoming freshmen. He has engaged in small group meetings with the young players and veterans. He works every day with the scout team.

“And all the scouting is through us and our scouting department,” Dempsey said. “We make sure our coaches, by the time they come in on Sunday, everything’s broken down for them with a full scouting report.

“They can come in and just get right to work on what they need to and have any questions they have answered.”

On game day, Dempsey communicates with Golden and defensive backs coach Mike Mickens about plays via the tablets on the field of what was scouted that week.

The impetus of his desire to coach occurred when he was a junior on that Santa Rita team that reached the state championship game under legendary Jeff Scurran.

That team in 2009 that finished 11-3 included 18 players — nearly all the starters — who were selected to the all-region first and second teams, including Dempsey as a tight end. Future NFL linebacker Blake Martinez was a sophomore on that team before transferring to CDO to conclude his high school career. Cam Gaddis was a senior defensive back who went on to play with Pima College and later with the Tucson Sugar Skulls.

Santa Rita also advanced to the state title game a year earlier under Scurran, whose top assistants were his former standouts at Sabino — Kevin Amidan (offensive/defensive line) and Santos Olague (running backs).

Scurran and Amidan, now the principal at Sabino, had a lasting impact on Dempsey.

“I really learned a lot about football playing for Santa Rita at that time,” Dempsey said. “Now that I’m a coach, I respect a lot of the coaches we had, Coach Scurran especially. I’d say what got me into wanting to be a high school coach at first, and then I’ve kind of changed my trajectory, would be Kevin Amidan.

“He was the offensive line and defensive line coach, and he was just a passionate person. He cared about everybody. I think just being around him meant a lot. He was a special ed teacher, and that’s why I ended up getting my degree in special ed is because of him. He cared and that was the coolest thing ever.”

All the experiences before him, and the people who inspired him along the way, have put Dempsey in a position to earn a national championship with the Fighting Irish on Monday.

“I’d be lying if I say it’s just another game,” Dempsey said. “But we’ve done our best to approach every game like that. Not being in a conference and having that early loss to Northern Illinois (in the second week of the season), we knew as a coaching staff, any loss now means we’re done.

“That’s what really got us kind of geared up and ready for the postseason, because the same thing is the case — if you lose to Indiana, it’s over, and if you lose to Penn State, or any of these games, it’s done. We’ve just approached it as let’s go through the same process and we should stay consistent in who we are. I feel confident in that and feel good about Monday.”

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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.

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