The Boy Who Met Ara Parseghian

It was December 31, 1973 and 10-0 Notre Dame faced 11-0 Alabama faced off in the Sugar Bowl. With a cold rain falling, Notre Dame opened the scoring with a Wayne Bullock 6-yard touchdown run, and after a missed extra point took an early 6–0 lead. In the second quarter, Alabama took the lead on a 6-yard Randy Billingsley touchdown run, only to see the Irish go up 14–7 on the following play. The ensuing kickoff was returned 93-yards for a touchdown by Al Hunter. The Tide cut the lead to 14–10 late in the quarter on a 39-yard Bill Davis field goal.

In the third quarter, the teams traded touchdowns with Alabama scoring first on a 5-yard Wilbur Jackson touchdown run and Notre Dame on a 12-yard Eric Penick touchdown run to make the score 21–17 entering the final period.^[11] After quarterback Richard Todd made a 25-yard touchdown reception from Mike Stock on a trick play, Davis missed the extra point to only put Alabama up 23–21. The Irish responded with a 19-yard field goal by Bob Thomas to take the lead 24–23 with 4:26 remaining in the game.

Late in the fourth quarter, Alabama pinned Notre Dame back deep in Irish territory with a punt, hoping to get the ball back within easy range of a game-winning field goal. During the punt, the Alabama punter was run into and Notre Dame was flagged with a 15-yard roughing the kicker personal foul. In 1973, a personal foul wasn’t an automatic first down in college football, so since it occurred on a 4th and 20, accepting the penalty would have given Alabama a fourth and 5 on their own 45 yard line, only down one with mere minutes remaining. Coach Bear Bryant, knowing even a safety would win the game, decided to decline the penalty and try to stop Notre Dame who had to start on their own 1 yard line. Bryant’s strategy seemed ready to pay off when his defense stymied Notre Dame on two plays and forced 3rd and 10 on their 1-yard line. However, on third and long Irish QB Tom Clements connected with backup TE Robin Weber on a long pass that gave the Irish a first down and allowed them to run out the clock. With their victory, the Associated Press awarded the Irish the national championship in ranking them first in their final poll.

The story doesn’t stop there. This past week, long time friend and fellow Notre Dame lover Chuck Rigali reminded me over dinner that he had been AT THAT GAME. He told me the story of how, the next morning at breakfast, a sportswriter gave him a diagram of the play that Ara himself had drawn out for the Times-Picayune. This was the play that gave the Irish the space and time they needed to win the game by 1 point: a Power I Right, Tackle Trap left…

What happened next is priceless. Mind you, Chuck is 15 in 1973 and here’s how he tells the story: “The diagram was actually handwritten by Ara himself and it was given to a sports writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune that were friends with my parents the day after they won the national championship. We had brunch at their house and that’s when he gave me the paper that Ara had diagramed. That’s when I marched down to the hotel. I called Ara from the house phone and he invited me up to his room and signed it for me.” Baller!