Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football - Hardcover

Delsohn, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380975041 ISBN 13: 9780380975044

Publisher: William Morrow, 1998

Synopsis

A vivid oral history of Fighting Irish football draws on the reminiscences and observations of more than 150 Notre Dame players, coaches, faculty, and sports journalists--including Ara Parseghian, Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack, and Lou Holtz--to chronicle some fifty years of football glory. Reissue.

About this title

Review:

No football program in the collegiate ranks comes close to Notre Dame's for the sheer weight of myth that cloaks it. The smartness of Talking Irish is the way myth both speaks for itself and contradicts itself. Irish is, first and foremost, a solid and anecdotally rich history of Notre Dame football from the 1940s to the present, delivered in a series of first-person voices. These voices, looking back, bring the past into the present with immediacy and intimacy. It's a past that isn't quite as pristinely clean as the Irish myth likes to suggest, particularly in the way coaches and players are pressured not just to win, but to win convincingly. Many of the contributors are legendary--Angelo Bertelli, Johnny Lujack, Johnny Lattner, Ralph Guglielmi, Jim Lynch, Tim Brown, Chris Zorich, Terry Brennan, Ara Parseghian, Lou Holt, even the beleaguered Jerry Faust, who comes off especially whiny. This is a smart book that prefers to tackle a sacred cow rather than accept the usual unwavering reverence. --Jeff Silverman

About the Author:

Steve Delsohn has written several acclaimed books about sports, including the New York Times bestseller Out of Bounds with NFL great Jim Brown. He is the author of two previous oral histories, The Fire Inside: Firefighters Talk About Their Lives and Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football. Delsohn is also a correspondent for ESPN television. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Thousand Oaks, California, with his wife and three daughters.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0380975041
• ISBN 13: 9780380975044
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 364