Book Log 2010 #44: Resurrection by Jim Dent

Notre Dame defined college football success in the 1940s, producing four national titles under coach Frank Leahy. The only problem, from the school's point of view, is that the team became bigger than the school. The players - and their head coach - were national celebrities, and consorted with the types of people not generally approved of by stern clerics trying to mold young Catholic men in deepest Indiana. Thus, when a new president was named in 1952 he led the charge to de-emphasize football. This opened a bleak decade of football, when incompetent coaches led ill-prepared teams to few wins.

While this was going on, a young coach named Ara Parseghian was leading a football revival at Northwestern, then as now not considered a powerhouse. He led the team to 36 wins in his eight seasons, including four straight wins over Notre Dame. Even with his success, Parseghian was squeezed out in 1963, and Notre Dame saw an opportunity to get back to winning with a coach used to working at a school with a strong academic focus.

This is the set-up for this book, which takes us through the down period of the '50s and into Parseghian's inaugural season in 1964. We get a great deal of recollections from Parseghian, his assistants, Notre Dame staff and alumni, and from players who were reborn when Parseghian took the helm. We then go through the '64 season game by game. You can guess based on the title how things went.

There's a lot to like about this book (unless you're a Notre Dame hater, in which case you'd never pick this up, would you?), especially in seeing how Parseghian ticked. There was much to his personality that feels similar to what we get from current coaches, from round the clock work during the season to tightly planned practices to his handling of the media. It's also interesting to see how Parseghian dealt with two prejudices that seem quaint by today's standards - his not being of the Notre Dame family and not being Catholic.

It's not all wonderful - the writing gets a little hokey for me at times - but Dent's familiarity with college football, especially of the period, comes through clearly (he also wrote The Junction Boys about one particularly hellish summer training camp that Bear Bryant held when he was coaching Texas A&M).

Clearly one to read for college football fans who aren't ND haters. Though I suppose the haters could read the early parts about the team's down years and then stop once Parseghian is hired.