To Katie and to her family, thank you for having me here. Yes, it was back in '65-‘66, I'm a young coach at Saint Gabriel's High School in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
That October I wrote the letter to Ara, and it stated this: I love Notre Dame. I love the essence of Notre Dame and what you're doing in football some day I want to do in basketball.
Yes, six years later, at the age of 29, I show up. I get the job that May. And in June The Monogram Club had their alumni golf outing weekend.
So I came out from New York to play in that, because we didn't move out here until August. So that night, Roger Valdiserri, the great sports information director of Notre Dame, and Ara and I are talking up there in the Monogram Room before the banquet.
And we talk about that letter. And, yes, Roger asked Ara, "Do you think you still have that letter?"
Ara says, "It might be down in a filing cabinet. Here's the keys, go down and look in my office under the crazy letter file."
Sure enough, Rog and I go down, we look out, pull up--and there's the crazy letter file. We open it up and there's the letter to Ara Parseghian. And we take it back up to him. And it is like we're shaking our heads laughing.
Well, the follow‑up. We all know that on January 1, 1974, the night before, Tommy Clements from Pittsburgh, the quarterback, seals the deal for that one‑point win over Alabama.
And on January 19, 1974, right here, Dwight Clay from Pittsburgh hits the shot to seal the deal so we win by one point.
And that Sunday, January 20, everybody's back in school and there's going to be a big celebration in here for the football team, winning that national title, vintage Ara.
He invites me to be here to be introduced on that stage for what we accomplished the day before. And, yes, January 20, here, we reflect back on January 1 that year. We were number one in football. On January 19 that year, we were number one in basketball. The Ara letter became reality.
And another thing would happen, as I got involved, later that June we go to a golf tournament in Dayton, Ohio called Bogie Busters run by the Laughter Corporation. Everybody from Hollywood Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Les Brown and His Band of Renown, from General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, people like Lee Iacocca. Politicians, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Dan Quayle and a guy named Dean Birch. It was a fundraiser for MS. It became a monster.
Well, Cy Laughter and a bunch of us go play golf in Washington, D.C., and we go in the White House to see Dean Birch, he was a White House aide, and I see that office and I go, oh, my God I gotta have one like that.
So I come back, called Dwayne Elliott of Fletcher’s Furniture. I said, "Dwayne, I want a White House office. Here's what has to be in there. They start with the kelly green carpet. Beautiful desk. Chair matching. A couch, a coffee table, lamps, pictures on the wall, beautiful.
I go home that night with a big smile on my face. I have a White House office. I come in the next morning. My office was trashed. None of the furniture is in there. And I end up looking and there's a toilet seat broken where my desk was, a broken table, a broken lamp.
I go down the hallway and Ara's having a staff meeting in his conference room. And I go in that door and he gives me that look like "What do you want?"
I said, "Where's my furniture?"
"What you are you talking about?"
"You know, where's my furniture?"
And I look down and there's some of the staff, Mike Stock, Greg Blache and Gene Smith all laughing because they were, uh‑huh, the guys that helped rip it up.
Well, I gotta go on a scavenger hunt all over the building, aha, and Dottie, my secretary, Dottie Van Paris, she said to me, "Digger, I found the chair to your desk.
“It is in the ladies' room in a stall behind the door.” (Laughter).
From that moment on, anytime I saw Ara, yes, even here a year ago, July 9, when Linda had a surprise 75th birthday party for me and I see Katie and Ara, Jim Gibbons and his wife, and Rog, as soon as I said hello to everybody, I look at him and I say, "Hey, there's a lamp still missing, where is it?"
(Laughter).
But he became my big brother when I got here at the age of 29. He was also a mentor. I would go down ‑‑ and back then they had eight millimeter film. You had this machine and I would watch him break it down, he would let me in his office to share it with him, show me where the offense broke down or defense broke down.
I'd go to his practices. I'd watch his strategy. I even watched them practice before they went to play Alabama in that championship game over here in the old hockey ring area.
And I said to him, "ARA, can I have a sideline pass? I want you to coach that national championship game."
Between Roger and him, I get the sideline pass and second quarter I'm down on the field with 80,000 fans watching him coach against Bear Bryant.
Well, I will say as a young coach, the success I had as young as I was, that part of my life it was Ara being my big brother and my mentor. He was incredible when it came to being who he was and how he was especially in letting me learn and know and understand how to coach here at Notre Dame, because the first thing I learned from him, he said, "Digger, you have to understand this: Every game you play it's the other team's Super Bowl. So your kids have got to really be ready and above being ready because the other team's coming after you."
I never forgot that one. Yet, there was Katie, his wife. There's a lady on the dome. She's the Blessed Mother. But Katie, she was the heart and soul by his side until he passed. May he rest in peace. Ara, we miss you.
That October I wrote the letter to Ara, and it stated this: I love Notre Dame. I love the essence of Notre Dame and what you're doing in football some day I want to do in basketball.
Yes, six years later, at the age of 29, I show up. I get the job that May. And in June The Monogram Club had their alumni golf outing weekend.
So I came out from New York to play in that, because we didn't move out here until August. So that night, Roger Valdiserri, the great sports information director of Notre Dame, and Ara and I are talking up there in the Monogram Room before the banquet.
And we talk about that letter. And, yes, Roger asked Ara, "Do you think you still have that letter?"
Ara says, "It might be down in a filing cabinet. Here's the keys, go down and look in my office under the crazy letter file."
Sure enough, Rog and I go down, we look out, pull up--and there's the crazy letter file. We open it up and there's the letter to Ara Parseghian. And we take it back up to him. And it is like we're shaking our heads laughing.
Well, the follow‑up. We all know that on January 1, 1974, the night before, Tommy Clements from Pittsburgh, the quarterback, seals the deal for that one‑point win over Alabama.
And on January 19, 1974, right here, Dwight Clay from Pittsburgh hits the shot to seal the deal so we win by one point.
And that Sunday, January 20, everybody's back in school and there's going to be a big celebration in here for the football team, winning that national title, vintage Ara.
He invites me to be here to be introduced on that stage for what we accomplished the day before. And, yes, January 20, here, we reflect back on January 1 that year. We were number one in football. On January 19 that year, we were number one in basketball. The Ara letter became reality.
And another thing would happen, as I got involved, later that June we go to a golf tournament in Dayton, Ohio called Bogie Busters run by the Laughter Corporation. Everybody from Hollywood Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Les Brown and His Band of Renown, from General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, people like Lee Iacocca. Politicians, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Dan Quayle and a guy named Dean Birch. It was a fundraiser for MS. It became a monster.
Well, Cy Laughter and a bunch of us go play golf in Washington, D.C., and we go in the White House to see Dean Birch, he was a White House aide, and I see that office and I go, oh, my God I gotta have one like that.
So I come back, called Dwayne Elliott of Fletcher’s Furniture. I said, "Dwayne, I want a White House office. Here's what has to be in there. They start with the kelly green carpet. Beautiful desk. Chair matching. A couch, a coffee table, lamps, pictures on the wall, beautiful.
I go home that night with a big smile on my face. I have a White House office. I come in the next morning. My office was trashed. None of the furniture is in there. And I end up looking and there's a toilet seat broken where my desk was, a broken table, a broken lamp.
I go down the hallway and Ara's having a staff meeting in his conference room. And I go in that door and he gives me that look like "What do you want?"
I said, "Where's my furniture?"
"What you are you talking about?"
"You know, where's my furniture?"
And I look down and there's some of the staff, Mike Stock, Greg Blache and Gene Smith all laughing because they were, uh‑huh, the guys that helped rip it up.
Well, I gotta go on a scavenger hunt all over the building, aha, and Dottie, my secretary, Dottie Van Paris, she said to me, "Digger, I found the chair to your desk.
“It is in the ladies' room in a stall behind the door.” (Laughter).
From that moment on, anytime I saw Ara, yes, even here a year ago, July 9, when Linda had a surprise 75th birthday party for me and I see Katie and Ara, Jim Gibbons and his wife, and Rog, as soon as I said hello to everybody, I look at him and I say, "Hey, there's a lamp still missing, where is it?"
(Laughter).
But he became my big brother when I got here at the age of 29. He was also a mentor. I would go down ‑‑ and back then they had eight millimeter film. You had this machine and I would watch him break it down, he would let me in his office to share it with him, show me where the offense broke down or defense broke down.
I'd go to his practices. I'd watch his strategy. I even watched them practice before they went to play Alabama in that championship game over here in the old hockey ring area.
And I said to him, "ARA, can I have a sideline pass? I want you to coach that national championship game."
Between Roger and him, I get the sideline pass and second quarter I'm down on the field with 80,000 fans watching him coach against Bear Bryant.
Well, I will say as a young coach, the success I had as young as I was, that part of my life it was Ara being my big brother and my mentor. He was incredible when it came to being who he was and how he was especially in letting me learn and know and understand how to coach here at Notre Dame, because the first thing I learned from him, he said, "Digger, you have to understand this: Every game you play it's the other team's Super Bowl. So your kids have got to really be ready and above being ready because the other team's coming after you."
I never forgot that one. Yet, there was Katie, his wife. There's a lady on the dome. She's the Blessed Mother. But Katie, she was the heart and soul by his side until he passed. May he rest in peace. Ara, we miss you.
