Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football [Hardcover]

Steve Delsohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 1998

This candid and revealing oral history -- the first one ever written on Fighting Irish football -- is told in the words of more than 150 Notre Dame players, coaches, leading sports journalists and school faculty. The book begins in the 1940s, a decade after the death of the fabled Knute Rockne, as the brilliant coach Frank Leahy reestablishes Notre Dame as a national powerhouse. The rousing narrative concludes five decades later, with the formidable exploits of Notre Dame football today. From the famous rivalries with Army, Michigan, USC, and Miami to the inside stories from locker rooms and team meetings, "Talking Irish" illuminates the glory and pressure that go with Notre Dame football. And yet it also serves as an enlightening social chronicle of twentieth century America, as seen through the eyes of blunt and well-spoken Notre Dame players and coaches, including Ara Parseghian, Johnny Lujack, Lou Holtz, Joe Theisman, and many more. Having experienced World War II and Vietnam, race relations and antiwar demonstrations, these men bring to life a fascinating part of our nation's history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

No football program in the collegiate ranks comes close to Notre Dame's for the sheer weight of myth that cloaks it. The smartness of Talking Irish is the way myth both speaks for itself and contradicts itself. Irish is, first and foremost, a solid and anecdotally rich history of Notre Dame football from the 1940s to the present, delivered in a series of first-person voices. These voices, looking back, bring the past into the present with immediacy and intimacy. It's a past that isn't quite as pristinely clean as the Irish myth likes to suggest, particularly in the way coaches and players are pressured not just to win, but to win convincingly. Many of the contributors are legendary--Angelo Bertelli, Johnny Lujack, Johnny Lattner, Ralph Guglielmi, Jim Lynch, Tim Brown, Chris Zorich, Terry Brennan, Ara Parseghian, Lou Holt, even the beleaguered Jerry Faust, who comes off especially whiny. This is a smart book that prefers to tackle a sacred cow rather than accept the usual unwavering reverence. --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly

There is no end of books about football at Notre Dame, but this contribution is exceptional because so many quarters have added their voices. The result is a largely honest, well-rounded history that gives readers the benefit of the view from the administration building, the coach's office and the players' locker room. It concentrates primarily on the coaching from 1934 through 1996, emphasizing the regimes of Frank Leahy, Terry Brenna, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine, Gerry Faust, and Lou Holtz, all of whom felt constant pressure, not just to win but to win by huge margins, and who were eventually flattened by the pressure. The iron-handed, velvet-gloved maneuvers of Fathers Hesburgh and Joyce, who ran the sports program for most of the decades covered, also give the lie to any pretense of democracy in the programs, especially when a coach decided to "retire." The input from players like Angelo Bertelli and Joe Montana, most of whom appear to have been very forthright with Delsohn (co-author with Jim Brown of Out of Bounds), rounds out the pictures of the hard-driving, soft-spoken Leahy and the quiet but efficient Holtz. The coach who comes off worst is Faust, who had triumphed as a high school coach but flopped at the college level and is depicted here as a priggish backstabber who blamed all his troubles on subordinates. In short, there are interesting revelations on every page in this evenhanded study. 16 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. Editor, Patricia Grader; agent, David Black. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 364 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (September 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380975041
• ISBN-13: 978-0380975044
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,682,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read, May 31, 2001

By 

"drubens770" (Highland Park, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author finds and reports the unfiltered truth as told by the people who lived it. Page after page of fascinating (and previously unreported) stories about Ara, Devine, Montana, etc. A great gift for anyone who loves ND football.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, September 8, 2005

By 

J. Augeri - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football (Paperback)

I played at ND in the early 90's as a walk on so I know a bit about the ins and outs of ND football. This book added enormously to my knowledge. It was honest and apparently unfiltered. Huge credit to the author for eliciting and assembling such frank and insightful comment from a range of ND players through the years. Seeing ND football "warts and all" has made me even more passionate about the team. I strongly recommend this book to any college football fan, and it is essential for any ND supporter. Go Irish!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Talking Irish, December 15, 2003

By 

stephen forsha (Wash. C.h. , Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football (Paperback)

This was a wel written book. This is Notre Dame football at its best. What a read, From the 40's to the 90's told by the people that lived and were Notre Dame football. GREAT JOB!!!!