Resurrection: The Miracle Season That Saved Notre Dame by Jim Dent

From Barnes & Noble

Winning is a tradition at Notre Dame. Entire decades would pass without a single Fighting Irish losing season. And then, in the late 1950s, the bottom fell out. For five straight years, from 1958-63, the team languished without a winning season. In 1964, when Ara Parseghian was hired as head coach, the situation seemed hopeless. Old loyalists grumbled that "outsider" Parseghian didn't even belong to the "Notre Dame family," but attentive visitors to early team workouts noticed the improvements that he was making in every aspect of the game. In his very first "rebuilding" season, the Fighting Irish didn't just rebound; they startled the nation with an awesome 9-1 record, the beginning of Parseghian's astonishing 95-17-4 run at South Bend. Jim Dent's Resurrection recounts this Days of Glory story in sparkling detail.

From the Publisher

Jim Dent, author of the New York Times bestselling The Junction Boys returns with the remarkable and inspiring story of one of the biggest comebacks in college football history.

Back in the 1960s, Notre Dame’s football program was in shambles. For five straight years, from 1958 through 1963, the home of Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy could not produce one winning season. Plagued by a series of bad coaching choices, inept management, and a loss of institutional support, no one could be sure if the Fighting Irish would ever return to glory. When “Touchdown Jesus” was erected in 1964, it presided over a team so hopeless that the entire football program was on the brink of collapse.

Little did anyone know, help was on its way in the form of Ara Parseghian, a controversial choice for head coach---the first one outside of the Notre Dame “family”---who had only set foot on Notre Dame soil when his football teams played (and won) there. It was now his responsibility to rebuild the once-proud program and teach the Fighting Irish how to win again. This was no small task.

The men of Notre Dame football were a bunch of unlikelies and oddballs, but Parseghian transformed them into a team: a senior quarterback who would win the Heisman Trophy two weeks before he picked up his first letter jacket; a five-foot-eight walk-on who would go on to make first team All-American; and an exceptionally rare black player, who would overcome much more than his quiet demeanor to rise to All-American, All-Pro, NFL Hall of Famer, and to justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Parseghian would change everything, from the uniforms and pads to theoffensive strategy. He switched players from position to position like pieces on a chessboard, and just before the season opener, he hung a motto over the locker-room door:

What tho the odds

Be great or small

Notre Dame men

Will win over all

It would be a huge gamble against great obstacles, but Ara Parseghian had that look in his eye. . . .

New York Times bestselling author Jim Dent chronicles one of the greatest comeback seasons in the history of college football---the first season in what is known as the “Era of Ara.” Once again confirming his position as one of the top sportswriters in the country, Dent writes with passion, humor, and incredible insight, bringing the legends of Notre Dame football to life in an unforgettable story of second chances, determination, and unwavering spirit.

Publishers Weekly

Ara Parseghian, Notre Dame's first "outsider" coach-non-Catholic, not a Notre Dame alum-turned around a failing football tradition when he joined the university in 1963. To capture the way it was and communicate the sense of immense anticipation that greeted the young, driven coach, author and journalist Dent (The Junction Boys), an avid fan, researched past programs led by the legendary Knute Rockne and others, a strategy that sets the stage for his nail-biting saga, but makes for a choppy first quarter. Once he settles into the season, Dent does a masterful job recreating games without ever forgetting the human details; for example, Parseghian's fierce integrity drove him to get rid of a remarkably promising player: "I hated to let a player like Dave go...but I could see the players walking a little taller. They knew that we were serious as we could be about turning the team around." Dent's characters take on the dimensions of true and winning people; by the time the where-are-the-now epilogue rolls around, readers will consider them something like old friends. 8 pages color photos.
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Library Journal

Dent (The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell with Bear Bryant Forged a Championship Team) again writes about how a great coach revived a moribund college football program, in this case, Ara Parseghian with Notre Dame's Fighting Irish, who dominated college football from the 1920s through the 1940s. Then school officials decreased football scholarships to place more emphasis on academics. Enter Parseghian, who took his players to a 9-1 record in his first year in 1964. The recollections of several Irish players detail how Parseghian transformed the team and brought the Era of Ara to Notre Dame history. This book will give hope to Notre Dame fans that their struggling Fighting Irish can rise again. Both college football fans and Notre Dame aficionados will want to read it.—J.M.

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