Was History Unfair To Joe Kuharich?

Joe Kuharich was the head coach for the Chicago Cardinals and Washington Redskins before he returned to his alma mater in 1959. It was the realization of a dream in which he could coach the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. He was supposed to coach three years earlier, after one of the worst seasons in Fighting Irish history, but his predecessor, Terry Brennan, was allowed to coach on. 

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Kuharich brought a sense of professionalism to Notre Dame football, adding shamrocks on helmets and shoulder stripes on jerseys. However, this was where the positive discussions end. He would go on to coach Notre Dame for four seasons and not have a single winning record in any of the seasons. Overall, Kuharich gathered a 17-23 record, the only coach to ever have a losing record in the school’s long history. The Fighting Irish’s eight-game losing streak in 1960 was one of the team’s darkest periods. 

But what was it really that contributed to such a collapse of an otherwise magnificent football program? Some sports analysts had mentioned that Kuharich took the reins a team that suffered from the de-emphasis of football in Notre Dame when the school focused on things they deemed more relevant. Other football experts noted that Kuharich never acclimated completely to college football from his professional career. There were rules and methods in pro football that just didn’t work in the college setting. 

Kuharich resigned in 1963 due to the mounting pressure. 

Image source: si.com

Hello, I’m Tom Colton, a student at the University of Notre Dame and a huge fan of the Fighting Irish. For more on my hobbies and interests, check out this blog.

A Look At The Insane Success Of Pro And College Football

Since we’ve been discussing a lot the Fighting Irish and Notre Dame football in general, let’s broaden our scope and take a look at American football. It’s no secret that American football has been the most popular sport in the country for quite some time now. Here are three jaw-dropping facts on America’s favorite sport.

Image source: fanindex.usatoday.com

• A survey of 2,000 American adults showed that 35% preferred watching pro football over any other sport, while at little under 12% chose college football. That’s almost half of the sample group.

• Pro football’s biggest spectacle, the Super Bowl has averaged over 110 million viewers for the past eight years. That’s more than any other show on network TV.

• More than 50 million rabid followers attend college football games, while 210 million watch the games at home. NCAA bowl games attract 120 million viewers across the nation.

Image source: theodysseyonline.com

With those numbers, it’s easy to assume that football is a great part of American pop culture, what with films and TV shows being based on it. Many Americans are in it for the thrill and the brutality mixed in with sportsmanship, physical talent, and amazing, innovative strategies. Football is a game of men at their peak trying to penetrate and defend with coaches marshaling all of them in a spectacle for the ages.

Hello, I’m Tom Colton, and I’m currently a student at the University of Notre Dame. I absolutely love the Fighting Irish and college football in general. For more on the stuff I love, follow me on Twitter.