In his book “Resurrection,” Jim Dent makes the case that the 1964 season saved Notre Dame football. The mid-50s and early 60s — the post-Frank Leahy years — had been tough and divisive ones on the South Bend campus; so unsettling that some administrators advocated de-emphasizing the university’s most famous asset.
A 2-7 record in 1963 hardly quieted such talk, and in its aftermath, 40-year-old Ara Parseghian was hired away from Northwestern. The fiery coach with the coal-black eyes oversaw a transformation that’s still regarded as a miracle at a place where belief in them never wavers. Parseghian took the ’64 Fighting Irish on a 9-1 joy ride that ended just seconds short of a national championship. The de-emphasis talk became an inaudible whisper. Notre Dame thrived as a major player in the game it likes to think it invented.
As the final days of the inglorious Charlie Weis era wound down last month, Irish fans with long memories and superior attitudes cast covetous eyes toward Evanston, where 35-year-old Pat Fitzgerald was preparing Northwestern for a second straight bowl game, a reward for collecting 17 wins over two seasons. The next Parseghian, the thinking went, only better — younger, with Irish Catholic, South Side Chicago roots. A natural.
Before such talk could gain traction, Fitzgerald put a stop to it. Thanks, but no thanks. He wasn’t going anywhere. There’s a contract that ties him to Northwestern through 2015. There’s his history as an all-American linebacker for the Wildcats in 1995-96, the two best seasons in school history. And there’s something more.
“Northwestern is home,” Fitzgerald said on Christmas Eve, before departing for Florida and a date with Auburn in Friday’s Outback Bowl. “It’s a privilege to be here. And we’re just getting started.”
Jim Phillips smiled at that pronouncement. Upon succeeding Mark Murphy as Northwestern’s athletic director in 2008, Phillips decided he had the right man in place and offered Fitzgerald a seven-year contract extension at roughly $1 million a year.
“A pre-emptive strike,” Phillips said. “There’s no better fit for Northwestern. The success he’s had makes Pat a role model for what’s possible here, and it’s important for us to recognize that without taking advantage of his loyalty.”
Fitzgerald was thrust into the job at age 31, under the most trying circumstances: Randy Walker, Northwestern’s coach for seven years and a popular, dynamic figure on campus, died of a heart attack one month before training camp in 2006. Murphy, now president of the Green Bay Packers, had almost no time to find a coach who could hold a devastated program together. The “quality of the person” was his No. 1 priority, he said, and Fitzgerald was his choice.
“He’d been our recruiting coordinator for two years, and he espoused all the right values,” Murphy said. “I’d seen his work ethic and his passion for Northwestern, and the kids loved him, but he holds them accountable.”
Fitzgerald is married to his high school sweetheart, Stacy, and they have three sons. He moves with the grace and self-assurance of someone who has excelled at something physical, and could again if the need arose. He has an easy smile, an open, approachable manner, and a sincerity that explains his success as a recruiter.
Northwestern’s academic standards limit the talent pool. Even Big Ten-caliber athletes who qualify have to observe Fitzgerald’s golden rule: Do it well and do it right, on and off the field.
“Kids have to accept the academic challenge of being at an elite university while competing for the Big Ten championship and abiding by the values of our football program,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s not for everybody.”
“We leave no stone unturned looking for the right people,” he said, adding that he has some help at home. “My wife has watched so much film and met so many recruits she can probably identify a Northwestern football player as well as I can.”
Gary Barnett, who coached Fitzgerald at Northwestern and remains a mentor, believes he chose the right career path.
“Pat presents himself in such a way that kids want to succeed for him,” Barnett said. “He is very strong, very confident and very competent. He has a knack for influencing the people around him.”
At Notre Dame, meanwhile, Brian Kelly, a 48-year-old coaching veteran with skins on the wall from Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and Cincinnati, was the choice. Kelly is the fifth coach the Irish have tried — six if you count George O’Leary — since 1995, when Pat Fitzgerald-led Northwestern pulled off a startling upset in the season opener that signified a change in direction for both schools.
The next Ara Parseghian? Notre Dame would be well served by another Pat Fitzgerald.