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Resurrection: The Miracle Season That Saved Notre Dame

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The Struggling Irish of Notre Dame closed out their disastrous 1963 season with a 2-7 record after losing to Syracuse at Yankee Stadium. Could things get any worse in the post-Leahy era? Fortunately, the Fighting Irish experienced a "Resurrection" in 1964 following the hiring of Ara Parseghian as head football coach.

Jim Dent does a masterful job of setting the scene with his account of the demise of the Notre Dame football program. His character development focuses on a group of lesser known players and follows them through their introduction to Ara and unexpected success in 1964. More familiar players (e.g. Huarte, Snow, Page and Lynch) appear throughout, but the amazing part of this story is in how Ara and his coaches were able to craft a plan and execute it with a group of players that had been totally demoralized by the previous regimes.

The controversial close of the 1964 season (at USC, of course) deepens the bond of friendship and teamwork in the underclassmen that manifests itself in a National Championship two years later. So much has been written about Notre Dame's championship seasons. This book is unique since it digs deep into how a program can be completely turned around (perhaps a blueprint for 2009?).

Dent's writing structure flows smoothly with generous use of direct quotes from team members. His game accounts are intensified by the personal struggles of the main characters. This book is a must-read for any fan of college football. It will also be enjoyed by anyone interested in how purpose-driven leadership can instill excellence in a group of young men.

If you love college football, you'll find this a great read -- and if you love Notre Dame, too, you'll be in heaven. The detailed and well researched story of how Ara developed as a coach and ended up at Notre Dame is terrific football history, as is the full story of the ugly ineptitude that was the ND football program just prior to his arrival. I'm an ND fan, but was only a toddler when all this was happening in the early 60's, so it was quite an eye-opener for me. There was so much I didn't know, including the fact that John Huarte won the Heisman trophy before receiving his first Monogram Award (varsity letter). Amazing! The triumphant comeback story of the '64 Irish is filled with heart-warming human interest stories and inspiration -- not the least of which is the recounting of how Ara came in and restored a sense of fairness and dignity, along with strategic and tactical excellence. I've met a handful of men who played for Ara and have always been awed by their deep love for and steadfast loyalty to him. Now I understand why. The book also touches on his later work fundraising to find a cure for Niemann-Pick disease (which claimed the lives of 3 of his son Michael's 4 children). There's much to be admired in Ara Parseghian, and Jim Dent does a beautiful job of documenting a true gentleman and the hugely successful turnaround he engineered at Notre Dame.

Jim Dent's "Resurrection" will obviously appeal to any and all Notre Dame football fans. But I would recommend this book for all readers, from casual football fans to those who couldn't tell a pigskin from a frying pan. Dent brilliantly weaves the personal stories of Nick Rassas, Tony Carey, John Huarte and others into the fabric of Notre Dame's 1964 season, doing so with an unassuming and personal touch that appeals on a variety of levels.

Dent sets the stage for the 1964 season not only by giving a brief history of Notre Dame football up to that point (no small task indeed), but also by examining the unique stories of the players, coaches, and administrators prior to that fabled season. These stories cause the reader to identify with the players, to feel their frustration during the Kuharich years, and to feel everything slowly begin to turn with the new regime.

Equally as impressive, Dent presents a deeper look into Parseghian, beyond simply the coach's on-field successes. Dent follows Parseghian from Northwestern to Notre Dame, and shows a glimpse of Parseghian's amazement at the players he finds at Notre Dame, and also the priceless interactions between Parseghian and his assistant coaches. Dent is able to truly capture the cultural change that occurred at Notre Dame in 1964, and does so using personal stories and perspectives that engage the reader and create a sense of ownership in the story.

Ultimately, this book is an excellent behind-the-scenes account of a group of players, coaches and people, who truly brought out the best in each other. While this manifested itself on the football field in "Resurrection", I think this story would resonate with anyone, regardless of your football inclinations.

If you are a Notre Dame fan, you must read this book. If you are not a Notre Dame fan, or not even a football fan, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you will find yourself invested in the young men chronicled in this book. You just may find yourself cheering along with and for their success. Kudos to Jim Dent for not only telling a wonderful story, but making his readers a part of "Resurrection" in the process.

Send a volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky!
What though the odds be great or small,
Old Notre Dame will win over all,
While her loyal sons are marching
Onward to victory!

Love them or loathe them, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame represent the game and history of college football unlike any other university. In the 1920s and '30s, the Knute Rockne-coached Irish were the dominant team on the nation's sports pages. The legendary Four Horsemen became household names, and Notre Dame played to packed stadiums from Los Angeles to New York City. Ten years after Rockne's death, Frank Leahy took command of the program, and the football juggernaut remained a national powerhouse.

Success, however, can yield unintended consequences. Rockne and Leahy became more powerful than Notre Dame itself. The school, longing for recognition as an academic institution, was instead viewed as a football factory. In the 1940s Notre Dame President Father John Cavanaugh and athletic chairman Father Theodore Hesburgh commenced a campaign to rein in the football program. Scholarships were reduced, and in 1953, Leahy was relieved of his head coaching duties for health reasons. The next decade would find Notre Dame football on a downward spiral that brought the program to the brink of collapse.

RESURRECTION chronicles the 1964 football season that returned Notre Dame to national prominence. Author Jim Dent, whose college football histories include THE JUNCTION BOYS and THE UNDEFEATED, has written a compelling and fascinating history of coaches and players who wanted nothing more than an opportunity to show the football world that they could rise to the quality long expected of a football powerhouse. The goal was accomplished, honestly and within NCAA rules, through hard work, brilliant coaching and, as might be expected, some pinches of good luck.

While the decision to de-emphasize football perhaps went too far, Notre Dame's football demise also came from a failure to modernize the program. After Leahy's departure, Terry Brennan, Joe Kuharich and Hugh Devore led the team to successively worse seasons. All had played and been connected with the glory days of Notre Dame football, yet none had the coaching ability to continue the winning Notre Dame tradition. But non-members of the Fighting Irish family were not invited to join the University.

Notre Dame's resurgence came about when the coaching mold was smashed. A new coach, Ara Parseghian, was not a Notre Dame graduate and was not even Catholic. He was an Armenian who had built a successful program at Northwestern University. Indeed, his Wildcat teams defeated Notre Dame four consecutive seasons. But Parseghian was only available because Northwestern had not extended his contract. Notre Dame did their homework and found in Parseghian a young, hard-working, honest coach who followed NCAA rules and would run an honest program. At Notre Dame, Parseghian found the things he lacked at Northwestern: a national stage and a football tradition.

Upon his arrival in South Bend, Pareseghian brought on a host of talented players. In the 1950s and '60s college recruiting was far different than it is today. Notre Dame, the Catholic College of America, always had great players who wanted to attend the school simply because of its reputation and because they were Catholic. The players were not the cause of Notre Dame's losing seasons. All those who turned the program around in 1964 had been recruited by Devore and were on campus to greet their new coach. While Devore brought great players to his program, he could not coach his way out of a paper bag.

From spring until fall, Parseghian feverishly prepared his team for the upcoming season. The first game was a resounding victory over Wisconsin. In that contest the passing duo of quarterback John Huarte and receiver Jack Snow emerged. Parseghian disdained a smash-mouth running game and modernized Notre Dame's offense with a strategy of throwing the football downfield. Huarte would win the Heisman Trophy in 1964, but could not even bring a letter jacket to the award ceremony because in previous years at Notre Dame he had mainly occupied a seat on the bench.

RESURRECTION is the story of how football games are won and legends are born. The formula is still the same today as in 1964. Innovative coaching and devoted players lead to victory. Almost every starting player on the 1964 squad was overlooked by prior coaching staffs or played a different position. Running backs became defensive linemen for Parseghian. Players lost on the bench became stars. No detail was overlooked, even uniforms were redesigned to accentuate speed. The Notre Dame Cinderella season ended in defeat in Los Angeles as USC rallied to defeat the Irish and end their hopes of a national championship. It's hard to remember that, in 1964, the administration at Notre Dame would not even send their squad to a bowl game. In future years, as college football became a financial gold mine, that policy would change and Parseghian would lead the Irish to bowl games and national championships.

While recent years once again have not been kind to Notre Dame football fortunes, reminiscences of the 1964 season remind fans that the potential for a turnaround in football is only a few games away. Jim Dent has written a wonderful book that reminds us all how exciting college football was in the era before money, television and the Bowl Championship Series tarnished the game. Football fans, regardless of their feelings toward the Fighting Irish, will enjoy this saga of a glorious era in college football.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

Jim Dent delivers a compelling re-telling of Notre Dame's 1964 turnaround in "Resurrection." Told primarily through the eyes of walk-on Nick Rassas and once-suspended Tony Carey, "Resurrection" places the reader in the minds of disaffected, frustrated players waiting for a winner. That was exactly what they got when Notre Dame finally signed Ara Parseghian to coah the Irish. Dent puts the Parseghian signing in the context of Notre Dame's deliberate de-emphasizing of its football program, which shows just how remarkable the Armenian Protestant coach at a Roman Catholic school was. "Resurrection" is a must-read for sports fans, especially those who want to know how once-dominant teams can return to the elite.

A very well written book about college football and one of the best coaches to ever field a team. Captures the background, the intensity and dedication of players and coaches. Truly enjoyable to a student of the game and even my wife who knows Ara but had no idea of who John Huarte, enjoyed the book. A great read. Captures all of the human spirit and effort as well as the unparalleled integrity and passion of Coach Parseghian.

I do like how Jim Dent writes. He does a great job here of writing a story that tells a history and yet doesn't sacrifice the story he is trying to tell. Dent is a master of combining a variety of sources into a solid story and one worth reading. If you are a college football fan, and especially a Notre Dame fan, you will enjoy this book!

This book is a must-read for any Notre Dame Alum--subway or otherwise. After several losing seasons brought about by a de-emphasis on football and inept coaching, Ara Parseghian was hired and restored the program immediately to National-Championship caliber, using talent already on-hand (and ignored). The timing of the publication couldn't be better as the team is right now trying to return to prominence after several losing seasons.

Jim Dent does a superb job reviewing the history of the program from Rockne and Leahy on through the following doldrums. He accurately describes the situation on campus during those years--as an Alum of 1952, I recognized the scenes and the characters. The 1964 Resurrection season is described in play-by-play detail, as exciting as if it were still going on. The depiction of Ara and his key players and coaches is vibrant. The book belongs on my shelf right next to "Knute Rockne, All-American."

Greg Shinskey

The fallen icon, the struggle for redemption and a climactic ending make Jim Dent's book about the 1964 Notre Dame Football team difficult to put down. The narrative style and the focus on a few main characters all going from being unappreciated and all but tossed out to helping rebuild the iconic football team adds even more to a story that is interesting on its own. Dent adds in a little bit of the changes beginning to take shape in the country and the November 1963 assassination of JFK that will forever be a "where were you when" moment. To a lesser extent but still in the background the book provides the final glimpses of 1950s America before Vietnam and the Civil Rights struggles where hard work, humility, family values and perseverance were thought the keys to making your dreams come true.

But mainly it was about college football, its players and coaches. I was born after the time of the story so my unfamiliarity with it and ensuring I stayed away from the internet searches on the subject allowed me to follow the season Dent describes just he must of followed as an 11 year old boy in Arkansas. My heart was pounding on the final game against USC to see if # 1 Notre Dame completes an unbeaten miracle season after almost a decade of losing seasons. The Irish were leading with 1:37 left and USC had the ball at the Notre Dame 15 with 4th down and 7. USC Quarterback drops back with a ND blitz on and Ken Maglicic just a half second from a sack. Then .......

I highly recommend this book for any Notre Dame or college football follower, it is a well-written and well-researched look at the impact that Ara Parseghian and his almost perfect 1964 season had on Notre Dame football. He begins with a concise history of ND football concentrating on its significant decline under Coach Joe Kuharich and the pathetic 2-7 season in 1963 under interim coach Hugh Devore. Dent conducted extensive interviews with Parseghian and four players: Tony Carey, Nick Rassas, Ken Maglicic, and John Huarte and much of the focus is on these five. The author emphasizes that the organization, knowledge, and dedication of Parseghian and his staff in contrast to the ineptitude displayed by Kuharich/Devore was the key to turning Notre Dame around. In addition to a story of an ND football resurrection it is a story of personal redemption; Rassas, Carey, and Huarte had been thrown in the trash by Devore/Kuharich and every member of the team had been witness to the 2-7 season. What makes this seem even more of a miracle is that it was accomplished using only players recruited by previous regimes(granted Rassas was a walk-on). The genius of Parseghian and his staff was that they recognized talent and knew how to use it.
Now a personal disclaimer, I was a sophomore student manager during that incredible season. (In the photo of Tony Carey and MSU's Gene Washington I was the skinny kid kneeling on the sidelines visible under Washington's knee.) In this regard I feel a great deal of insight could have been learned if the author had interviewed the head football managers of that time: Matt Storin of '63 and Mike Fitzgerald of '64. Other significant seniors on the squad who got barely a mention were Jim Snowden, Paul Costa, and the Captain Jim Carroll. I am also a retired librarian and tend to be somewhat of a nitpicker. I feel the author would have benefited from a more knowledgeable fact checker. I found a number of errors, e.g.: the restaurant was (and is) Rocco's not Rocko's; although Parseghian did bring in lighter uniforms and equipment, the elimination of the shoulder stripes had occurred under Devore; and as to any member of the '64 team walking across the floor of the "Convocation Center" to receive his degree, I should point out that undergrad degrees are conferred while standing en masse (one gets the sheepskin later)and that at that time the ACC (now JACC) did not exist. Although these errors may be deemed trivial they will bother a true ND fanatic of which there are many. Nevertheless this book should find a place in every ND fans' library.