Jac Collinsworth is quickly racking up accomplishments. From working the sidelines during Notre Dame games to Olympics coverage to working his way up the ranks at ESPN to eventually becoming NBC’s voice of Notre Dame football. However, there’s one thing that the younger Collinsworth would really love to accomplish eventually, calling a game alongside his dad, Cris.
“I think it would be a very cool experience,” Collinsworth told Peter Schwartz of Barrett Sports Media. “We would have so much chemistry that it would be a crazy experience. I would love to do it. I’d be getting out of his way and let him make points and I wouldn’t be afraid to take a couple of shots at him. I think it would be damn entertaining.”
Jac did add that there might be one issue with two Collinsworths in one booth.
“Would anybody be able to tell who is talking?”
While that assignment remains a dream, for now, the younger Collinsworth says that he’s learned a lot from watching his dad in the booth.
“Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned from him is, he is a worker, man,” said Collinsworth, who used an example from his school days to explain just how much effort Cris puts into planning and researching.
“I’m like ‘Dad, this is calculus, I can’t figure out how to do this equation,” said Jac. “He would put that clicker down and come up and he would be deep in the math book going through the chapters learning all this calculus that he hasn’t done in 40 years. I’d come down at six in the morning and he’d still be flipping through the math book while I’m eating breakfast and he’s teaching me the lesson to make sure I got it for the quiz. That’s how he was…just the work element is the biggest thing that I still use every day and I definitely got it from him.”
While Collinsworth has certainly caught a lot of flak for rising so quickly in the same business as his father, he says he’s well aware of the help he’s received throughout his career.
“I feel like I’m living out a dream and I feel like I’m standing on a lot of people’s shoulders that helped me get there,” said Collinsworth. “I think about a lot of people who didn’t need to but chose to help me when I was a kid. I feel like I have a great responsibility to take that advice and take it as far as I can and that’s what I’m trying to do.”