When I make a fist, it's strong, and you can't tear it apart. As long as there's unity, there's strength.
Ara Parseghian
You are going to get knocked down, but you don't lie there. You get up and face the challenge.
The harder you work, the less mistakes you make. The fewer mistakes you make, the better your chances of winning.
I learned long ago not to tear into anyone for a mistake.
To me, going for a tie means kicking the extra point for a tie instead of going for a two-point conversion to win.
You learn early in athletics that you'll have ups and downs.
There is nothing more painful than watching a child with a terminal disease.
That's the unpredictable part, and that's what worries every coach: Protect the football. That's why, when you go into a ballgame, you may be favored, but there's no guarantee you're going to win it.
As you move through life, it's not going to be a bright, sunshiny day every day.
I'd go to clinics and hear coaches say, 'You block with your helmet. You tackle with your helmet.' I'd say, 'No way! You block with your shoulder. It's a lot stronger blow, and you don't risk nearly as much. Why be stupid?'
The most difficult problem about coaching at Notre Dame is losing early.
I don't think I was a miracle man. Neither were Lou Holtz or Frank Leahy. We all found ways to win.
On any play where there's a scramble of 22 men, blindside hits and unprotected hits on knees occur.
One of the reasons I never went into pro football was because I wanted my kids to grow up around an academic environment. And that's exactly what we did.
The game is not won by a pep talk on Saturday. It's won by preparation of your club from Monday until game time. If they're not ready on Saturday, you're not going to get them ready by trying to inspire them with a dog-eat-dog sermon on that day.
I've missed the association with players and coaches but haven't missed the recruiting and the travel.
I don't make hasty, impulsive decisions.
Money talks; there's no question about it.
I became a head football coach when I was 27 years old at Miami of Ohio.
My mother was really courageous.
After Notre Dame, what is there?
Success in football is relative. If you take a job at a school that finished with a 1-9 record the year before, you're considered a good coach if you finish 5-5 in your first season. But what happens if you start with 8-2 or 9-1?
When you set these high expectations and goals, and they are demolished so early in the season, that has an effect on the psyche. It wears you down.
I coached at Northwestern for eight years, where the admission requirements were high.
It's not true that I never left South Bend to recruit a player. It is true that I didn't leave very often.
The 1973 team is real special. I had never coached against Bear Bryant. Alabama had never played Notre Dame. It was North against South; the Catholics against the Baptists; both teams were undefeated, and everything was on the line.
I remember virtually everything about every loss. And the wins are hardly memorable.
I don't give a damn what anybody says. I don't think at 70 and 75 that you can be as productive and efficient as you were when you were 40 or 50.
My kids grew up here. My son and daughter both went to Notre Dame.
The burdens of being a head coach are different from being an assistant. If I had been an assistant coach for awhile, then become a head coach, I probably would have lasted longer.
That's one thing: When I left Notre Dame, when I left every school, what I'm the proudest of is we never compromised the rules, never were on probation, never had any major problems of any kind.
It's a terrific honor. To be associated with the number of people who represent the Cradle of Coaches, it's sort of unreal in a sense.
I say college football began with Rockne.
One thing about Notre Dame, it's like a service academy in a lot of ways. There is a closeness.
I was a 52-year-old coach. But people don't realize I had 25 years as a head coach. Most coaches my age only had a few years as head coach. I had six years at Miami of Ohio, eight years at Northwestern, 11 at Notre Dame.
I remember when I drove into Notre Dame, getting ready for the first day of work. I had an electrical charge go up my back because I realized all of a sudden that I was responsible for the traditions that the Knute Rocknes and the Frank Leahys had set, and what Notre Dame stood for.
You're going to have disappointments. But how you handle those disappointments is the important thing for you and everybody that's around you. That's what I found from being not only a player but also a coach.
Whether you like it or not, you're a national figure after five games at Notre Dame.
In my own opinion, psychology in football is far more important than anyone believes, including the coaches.
I can't think of anything that's hit me harder in my life than when I learned that three of our youngest grandchildren were diagnosed with Niemann-Pick C.
External pressure I never worried about.
I had grown up during a time when Notre Dame football was held in the highest esteem. I listened to all of the games on the radio.
I have been around football all of my life.
I came to Notre Dame to renew the winning tradition.
You get different philosophies in coaching, usually depending on what position the coach himself played.
Getting to the top of the mountain is a heck of a lot easier than staying there.
If you can hang in games by staying close defensively, then good things can happen.
I've been blessed in many ways, but none of the heights from football can ever compare to the depths you go through when you lose a child.
The best way I could describe it at Notre Dame was that I was accepted as a member of the family.
