Edward W. “Moose” Krause, who was recruited to play football at Notre Dame by the legendary Knute Rockne, was an assistant coach for another Irish coaching great Frank Leahy and later became the school’s long-time athletic director, had this to say when the school introduced new football coach Ara Parseghian on Dec. 18, 1963.
“We expect Ara to be with us a long time,” Krause said. “After all, he signed twice.”
Krause’s two bosses at Notre Dame — Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, the school’s president, and Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, its executive vice president — had little doubt that the 40-year-old Parseghian, who had produced winning programs at Miami University in Ohio and Northwestern, could wake up the echoes of the once proud football program while the Congregation of Holy Cross priests transformed the school into the world’s preeminent Catholic university.
Gold standard: Notre Dame football adds shiny sleeve patches to 2024 home jerseys
N.D. football: Breaking down top 5 position battles for Notre Dame football ahead of 2024 fall camp
The Notre Dame trio, however, had to ease Parseghian’s own doubts about his worthiness, and author Mark O. Hubbard reveals the true reason (we won’t spoil it) in the authorized biography of “ARA: The Life and Legacy of a Notre Dame Legend” (Notre Dame Press, 2024) due out in August.
With the help of Parseghian’s widow, Katie, who supplied many of the coach’s personal files and correspondences, Hubbard, who attended Notre Dame as a student from 1967 through 1971, put together an authorized biography.
The author reveals Parseghian’s humble beginnings, the son of an immigrant father who fled the Armenian genocide of World War I and settled in Akron, Ohio, with his French immigrant wife. Hubbard details halfback Parseghian’s time playing for the legendary Paul Brown with the Great Lakes Naval Station football team during World War II and later with the Cleveland Browns after two seasons playing under Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
After a hip injury cut short his professional career, Parseghian returned to Miami to coach the freshman team for another Miami legend, Woody Hayes, and he took over as head coach at age 28 in 1951. In five seasons his teams went 39-6-1, and he was hired by Northwestern, where he went 36-35-1 and drew the attention of Notre Dame, which his Wildcats teams beat four straight seasons beginning in 1959.
After Notre Dame and Leahy parted ways in early 1954, the Irish gridiron fortunes tumbled to 51-48 under successors Terry Brennan, Joe Kuharich and Hugh Devore.
“Will you follow the strict guidelines we’ve established at Notre Dame?” Notre Dame Father Hesburgh asked when they met in Chicago after the 1963 season. When Parseghian answered yes, Notre Dame had its next legendary football coach.
There have been several books which have touched on Parseghian’s 95-17-4 tenure at Notre Dame that began with nine straight victories and came within one minute and 43 seconds of an undefeated 1964 season in a season-ending 20-17 loss at USC. Two years later, Notre Dame won the first of its two national titles under Parseghian, finishing off a 9-0-1 campaign with a 51-0 victory at USC a week following the 10-10 tie at No. 2 Michigan State in the “Game of the Century.”
Hubbard became an acquaintance of the Parseghians in 2010 through an introduction by former South Bend Tribune sports editor Joe Doyle, Notre Dame’s unofficial football historian and the coach’s long-time confidante. Hubbard later authored the book, “Undisputed: Notre Dame, National Champions, 1966,” which successfully debunked the long-held myth that Parseghian had played for a tie at Michigan State.
Parseghian retired after the 1974 season at the age of 51 following a 13-11 Orange Bowl victory over Bear Bryant’s top-ranked Alabama team a year following Notre Dame’s 1973 national championship season which ended with a 24-23 Sugar Bowl victory over Bryant’s No. 1 Crimson Tide.
Parseghian transitioned into a sportscaster, businessman and humanitarian in the four decades following his retirement until his death on Aug. 2, 2017. Hubbard details those years when Parseghian became a leader and spokesman to find a cure for multiple sclerosis, which infected and later took the life of his daughter Karan. Then in 1994, at age 71, the Parseghians founded the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation to find a cure for Niemann-Pick disease Type C which took the lives of son Mike and wife Cindy’s three children, Michael, Marcia and Christa Parseghian.
“Ara made the entire difference,” the late Father Hesburgh once said. “He changed everything.”
On the football field and off of it, as author Mark Hubbard’s book attests.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Review of ‘ARA,’ a biography of Ara Parseghian by Mark O. Hubbard
South Bend Tribune
